A Smaller Hell (6 page)

In the quieter hours during the afternoons, the sounds of the wind, the waves and the crackling of the open fire would usually keep me company.  My head was now fizzing with the Captain's ale and his stories, particularly the one about Pearl, his lost love.  I had no idea how strong the ale had been, but then eight tankards is probably enough of any ale.  As I walked towards town, the wind tasted sweet in my mouth and my blood fizzed with the sea air to make my whole body lighter.  I felt as if I had an army behind me as I made my way down the long hill into the centre.  The concrete slabs of the pavement disappeared and reappeared under my feet at an amazing rate.  I had arms like cannons and the momentum of a war galleon; the wind at my back and blue sky up ahead. 

‘Watch where you’re walking, you prick.’

My vision suddenly became a blur of logos, gold and smoke and my sense of smell a riot of knock-off aftershave, cheap tobacco and pungent ganja.  A thick brown stump of an animal with bared teeth and a stud collar strained against his lead in an attempt to designate my leg as dinner. 

‘Sorry, mate,’ I said, backing away from both dolehound and hellhound.

‘Nobhead.’

He turned his back on me and continued on his way up the hill.  I resumed my charge into town, my breath now fogging in the cold night and I began to relish the prospect of Rachel's warm car.  I made my way to the rear of the store and waited, arms tucked under each other, my reefer jacket buttoned up to the neck. 

Rachel appeared, standing in front of me, wrapped up in her scarf and woolly hat.  Her smile sparkled against her rosy cheeks and pink nose.  She closed her gloved hands on both my cheeks and wrapped her arms around me.

‘You have a pink nose,’ she spoke softly in my ear.

‘So do you.  Do I stink of booze?  Sorry about that.’

‘No, you don't smell at all.  I wouldn’t care if you did,’ she said, kissing me with cold lips.

We three sat round the dining table with wine, beef stew that Rachel’s mum had made and fresh baguettes to mop up the gravy.  The frost had been all but banished from my bones, but it returned somewhat when the conversation turned to Rachel’s father.  Two years ago, he had vanished without any kind of explanation.  Liz related most of the story to me, Rachel only interjecting to agree with her mother's sentiments which ranged from missing him terribly, to hating him, to wanting to be able to move on.  Apparently, no-one knew why he’d gone or what had happened.

‘Anyway, enough of all that.  Let's not put a damper on your success, you two.  You must be looking forward to your induction on Monday?’ Liz said as she topped up my wine glass.

‘Did you get the job, Rachel?’ I asked.

Rachel smiled at me and held my hand under the table.
 
‘They only gave it me out of sympathy,’ she shrugged.

‘She never gives herself any credit.  She thinks just because her father worked there …’  Liz shook her head and resumed eating her dinner.

I thought about what Graziano had said in Ms. Doyle’s office about killing a man.  ‘Your father worked for Tanner’s?’

‘When I mentioned that I'd been looking for my father, she launched into some big speech about how I needed something to occupy my mind, so she appointed me sales assistant in Cosmetics on the spot.  As if
that's
going to fill the void.’

‘Perfume or make-up?’ I asked, trying to change the subject from the void.

‘I
know
she had something to do with Dad going missing,’ Rachel said.  ‘I just know it.’

Liz took a long drink from her wine glass.  ‘Rachel, please.’

‘I can’t just forget about him, Mum.’

‘No-one’s asking you to
forget
, just … Get on with your life.’

‘Have another glass of wine, Mum.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Liz said to me.

Despite the warmth of the cottage’s dining room, I could still hear the void tinking on the windows and knocking at the door.

I said goodbye and thanked Liz for dinner.  Rachel's offer to drive me home set my mind in motion, trying to work out how to keep her from seeing the truth of my circumstances.  Fumbling about in my jacket for the phone Rachel had lent me, I found my shopping list
and
my excuse for being dropped somewhere other than the squat of doom.  24-hour supermarket.  I handed the phone to Rachel as she was driving, but she insisted it was spare and that I keep it.

‘Would you mind dropping me off at the supermarket?’

‘You're going shopping
now?
’

‘I didn't make it today.’

‘Because you were boozing in some dockers' pub all day, maybe?’ 

‘Well, you know …’

‘You're a very strange boy.  My mother is convinced that you're in some kind of trouble.’

‘Why?’

‘You never talk about home or your family.  I think she finds that suspicious,’ she said.  ‘Good job she likes you.’

‘You mean good job
you
like me.’

‘I'm just trying to keep my mother happy.  I suppose you're not all that bad, though.’ 

The next morning, I approached Tanner’s from the shopping precinct entrance, making it look more imposing and cathedralesque than before.  The other outlets surrounding the store in the square seemed to be kneeling and looking up at the behemoth in their midst, pleading to be spared.  A collection of bust-like sculptures crowning the top of the building lent an air of menace to the square, casting disapproving grimaces on the bustling crowds below and frowning at the incontinent pigeons perched yet higher above them. 

‘You're not going to your induction dressed like
that
, surely?’

Miss Allister stood behind me, shielding herself from the rain with a black brolly clutched in her bony fingers. 

‘I was hoping that I might just get through today wearing this shirt and black jeans,’ I said.

‘Come with me,’ she replied, leading me to a side entrance with a keypad lock.  She tapped in a code and hurried me through the door, looking round to see if we were being watched.

‘I'm amazed that you got the job in the first place.  She must be running low on newborn babes.’

‘What?’

‘Just don't make any noise.’

We trod as quietly as we could down the dark corridor in our smart shoes.  The tiny square of light grew larger as we moved forward.  Miss Allister pushed open the door and hurried me inside.

We were in some kind of store room, but nothing was packaged and there were all sorts of goods strewn about the place, and upon them sticky labels fluttering in the air-conditioned breeze. 

‘Lay Away.  This is where we keep the stock for customers or members of staff who want to pick it up or pay for it at a later date.  Over here we have Damaged Goods,’ she said waving her umbrella.  ‘Where you belong.’

‘Charming.’

‘Less of the lip,’ she said poking me in the chest with the steel tip of her brolly.  ‘Now, help me with this.’ 

She removed the steel tip from my chest and tapped it on a heavy-looking set of dusty old wooden shelves.

‘I'm actually recovering from a broken set of ribs, Miss Allister.’

‘You'll be recovering from a broken set of something else in a minute.’

I shouldered the heavy oak of the shelving in an attempt to gauge the weight.  It did not move.  Clamping my hands on one of the shelves, I heaved upwards and pulled outwards and it moved all of an inch.  Miss Allister stood with her hands crossed over the ivory handle of her brolly, shaking her head.  After a few more attempts, there was just enough room for me to see a hatch, rather than a door, hidden behind the shelves.  I pulled them out far enough for me to get to the handle, which was padlocked.  Miss Allister unscrewed the handle of her umbrella and out fell a key, which I used to unlock it.  There was only blackness within, so I took the lighter from my pocket and ignited it.

‘Be quick.  You haven't much time,’ she said.

I crawled into the space and, after a few shuffles forward, was able to stand up again in another room, the air in this one older than the last.  I searched for a light switch to no avail, but found a few large candles on a table.  When I lit them, it became apparent that the room was a lay away
within
lay away.  Dusty unopened boxes of ancient toys were stacked on shelves much like the one that had been concealing the hatch.  I searched through the clothes rail for something that might fit, pushing aside an old wedding dress.  I took a suit and shirt, blew out the candles and ducked to return through the hatch, when I heard a forced whisper from the other side.

‘Don't forget the shoes!’

I relit my lighter and fumbled about for them.  I found a pair hiding underneath the rack of clothes and shoved them, the shirt and the suit ahead of me before I crawled through.

‘What
are
you doing, boy?  Just get changed in there.’

I retreated back into the Lay Away museum and got undressed.  As I put on my new clothes, the material of the suit felt heavy and smooth on my skin.  Although it was a bit old-fashioned, I liked it.  It was a dark navy colour and was unlike any I had ever worn before: it didn’t itch, strangle or boil me.  It was actually
comfortable
.  I blew out the candles and slipped back through the crawlspace.  Once I was back in the Lay Away room with Miss Allister, I stood up and brushed myself off.  She stared at me in silence.

‘Something the matter?’ I asked.

‘You remind me of someone,’ she said and set to work immediately, straightening me up and brushing me down.  ‘Come on, you haven't much time.’

‘What's all that stuff in there?’

‘Off you go, then.  Registration starts in three minutes.’ 

Miss Allister unlocked the keypad door and nudged me back out into the world, slamming the door shut behind me.  As I walked back round to the main entrance, I didn’t recognise my reflection in the glass of the revolving door.

The department store was quiet, having just opened for the day. All those decorations and no-one to enjoy them made the store look somewhat melancholy.  I wandered through, nodding at the people I had already met; feeling like it was my first day at school.  As I headed towards the lift, I saw myself in a mirror by Haberdashery.  An air of antiquated grandeur had been lent to my appearance by the suit, like a gangster or stockbroker from the 1920s.  It occurred to me that a lot of those characters ended up on a barber shop floor, razored by their colleagues, or outside on the pavement, slung from high office windows by their own ambition. 

I strode to the lift and made my way to the meeting room on the top floor.

Meeting Room
turned out to be something of an understatement.  I expected something like the curious poverty of the waiting room, but it was quite the opposite.  The faces surrounding the large oak table in the middle of the room looked apprehensive as I entered.  I wondered if they were willing me to leave before it was too late.  They knew it was too late for them, but if I ran, I might still escape the clutches of Graziano, who sat with his legs folded in the corner, once again positioned so as to be shrouded by the darkness.  Only the white porcelain of his espresso cup was noticeable, occasionally rising to and falling from his mouth.  There were two remaining chairs, so I sat in one and searched the faces around the table. 

I couldn’t see Rachel anywhere. 

Ms. Doyle entered, clutching a tan leather file.  She sat in the plush, freshly oiled Winchester clearly set aside for her at the head of the table near Graziano and threw down the file. 

‘Good morning, everyone.  Welcome to your induction.  Today, we will be covering the basics of customer service and a few items of health and safety.  Now, can anyone tell me …’

Her eyes locked on to the empty space where Rachel should have been.

‘Are we … missing someone?’ 

Doyle's eyes fired up as there was a knock at the door. 

‘Come in!’

Rachel entered sheepishly.  ‘I'm so sorry I'm late.  I was …’

‘Ah, I see you've decided to join us, Miss Mackenzie.’

‘I know it's …’

Doyle's voice was calm.  ‘Is there something that makes your time more valuable than ours?’

Rachel looked at the floor.  ‘If I could just …’

‘Sit down.  You can just do that.  And shut up, if that’s not asking too much,’ Doyle said, pointing at the empty chair with her manicured digit.  Rachel sat down next to me in the empty seat, head bowed.  I reached for her hand beneath the table, resting mine on top of hers.  Doyle's brow furrowed and she cast sideways glances in our direction as she delivered her speech.

‘No doubt some of you came here today thinking that you are to begin working for Tanner's department store.’ 

‘Since my husband died, I could have sold up all of this and retired to the Caribbean.  It was Albert's great-great-grandfather Commander Clarence who built this store for the people of this town to keep them in work,’ she said, gesturing wearily to a bronze bust resting atop a bookcase.
 
‘He was never able to conceive after being injured in the war and so his workforce became his family.  Legend has it that the next owner, Albert's great-grandfather, was found in one of the tunnels one Christmas, wrapped only in Bible pages and lard, but Clarence raised him as his own son …’

Doyle noticed a hand raised in the air. 

‘Yes?’

‘Which tunnels, Ms. Doyle?’ the inductee asked.

‘No-one’s been able to find a way into the tunnels since the Commander died.  All the entrances are bricked up, caved in or built over, so don’t concern yourselves with it.’ 

‘But …’

‘For nearly 200 years, this store has been held to high standards and I expect you to uphold them: the consequences for any divergence from our store rules will be severe.  Thank you for your time.  Your assignments for today are on the table outside; please take the one with your name on it and report to the department written on it.’

No-one wanted to be the first to stand up and leave.  Graziano and Doyle remained in their positions, like coiled cobras waiting for their prey to pass them by.
 

‘We haven’t got all day: off you go, all of you, except Miss Mackenzie.  I need a word,’ she said.
 
‘You may take your assignment and wait outside, Mr. Black.’

I tried to see into Graziano's deep and dark corner, but his face remained obscured by shadows.  Once the fresh meat had dispersed into the myriad corridors, lifts, stairwells and doorways surrounding us, I looked at my assignment. A single word was printed at the top next to my details:
Mobile
. 

I had no idea what this meant, as there was no department of that name. 

Beneath this,
Report to: Ms. Doyle
.