Damned If You Do (3 page)

‘Look it up.'

The teenager scowled but returned to his work. Exhausted, I removed a couple of sheets of paper from the chair by the door, then sat down and made myself comfortable. The office was hot, and I began to sweat beneath Death's coat. The sweat mingled with the smeared earth on my skin to produce a sharp but pleasant graveyard odour. I wondered when I would be shown the promised shower and suit.

Death looked around the room. ‘Where's War?'

The answer came from the only member of the group who hadn't yet spoken. ‘Busy.'

‘Ah.'

‘He
said
he'd be back on Wednesday.'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘For the meeting.'

‘Right.'

I stared at the final stranger. He was dressed entirely in white: jeans, tennis socks, trainers, and a T-shirt featuring a small, golden crown stitched into the breast pocket. His arms were etched with scars: a geometric nightmare of ragged white lines and neat pink circles. His face was even more alarming: a mass of pustules and papulae, boils and blackheads. Buried under a mound of paper on his desk were several cosmetic items – foundation, face powder, acne gel. On the wall above his head was a framed statement:
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE MAD TO WORK HERE, BUT I AM
.

‘What are
you
looking at?'

He caught me off guard. ‘I—'

‘If you think my
face
is shocking you should see the bruise on my
body.
'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘Do you want to?'

‘No, really. That's OK.'

‘It's no problem. It's just here.' He pointed to his left breast, below the crown.

‘I've seen bruises before.'

‘Not like this one.'

And it was true. He lifted his shirt to reveal the largest and most disturbing contusion I'd ever seen. It stretched from his scrawny neck to the withered wall of his stomach, and from his left underarm to his right nipple – a giant sunflower of ruptured skin. Its colours shimmered as he breathed, cold and fiery like an eclipse, purple and blue-black at the dark heart, green and yellow at its border.

‘I'm experimenting with a new disease. It has no apparent symptoms until the client wakes up one morning – and then BOOM!' He slapped his chest and laughed. ‘Massive subcutaneous bleeding, swollen limbs, maybe some internal damage – I haven't made up my mind – and
maximal pain.
' He laughed again. ‘I've got some other ideas, too—'

‘I'm sorry,' Death interrupted quickly, turning to me. ‘I should introduce you to everyone. This is Pestilence.' He gestured towards the bruised disease-monger. ‘We call him Pes, for short.' Pestilence smiled sarcastically. ‘This is Skirmish.' He indicated the pimpled teenager, who forced a sheepish grin and offered a tentative handshake. ‘And this is Famine.'

‘I prefer Slim,' Famine quipped, bowing his bald head.

No-one laughed.

‘OK,' Death announced cheerily. ‘Any mail?'

‘The usual,' Pestilence answered, handing over a raft of envelopes. ‘Your schedule for the next three days, as discussed on Saturday. The Chief's assessment of your reports from last week – it doesn't look good, I can tell you. And
precise
instructions for today's client: a rather easy number down at
quadri furcus
 … Not even
you
can mess it up.'

Death gave him a sarcastic smile. ‘Any postal chess?'

‘Seven games.'

‘Excellent!' His face brightened, and he brushed several sheets of paper from the desk in front of me to reveal a chess board in black and gold. Impatiently, he tore open one of the envelopes, read what it contained, then stared at the empty squares. For a few seconds he was utterly absorbed, recreating complex moves in his mind, tracing the paths of invisible pieces with his fingers. Finally, as if struck by the solution to a problem which had momentarily perplexed him, he nodded slowly to himself, dismissed the imaginary battlefield, and smiled kindly. Then, with an air of business-like efficiency, he tossed the remaining mail onto the board, removed my contract from his polo shirt and offered it to Skirmish. ‘Stick this on the pile in the Chief's office, will you?'

Skirmish tutted, stood up slowly, and stuffed the contract grudgingly in his pocket. ‘I suppose you want me to put it in a folder?'

‘Of course … And after that, put the spade in the hall back in the Stock Room … And make sure you wash it first.' At last, Death turned towards me. ‘Now. How about that shower?'

Terminations for special occasions

Death directed me back along the entrance hall to the first opening on the right. It was a flight of stairs leading upwards.

‘As I said, it's mostly administration now. It used to be more of a challenge. We had stimulating conversations with the clients, several terminations a day, everything seemed fresh and varied. It was exciting back then. But now, the only thing I find interesting is the preparation.' We reached the top of the stairs: a long, narrow corridor, with a floral burgundy carpet. ‘OK. A quick run-through. On your left, the Meeting Room; on the right, at the end, is the Lab. Behind us is the Stock Room…' He waited for me to turn around. ‘… and down there, straight ahead, is the bathroom. Come back down to the office when you've finished.'

‘What about clothes?'

He barked a short, loud laugh. ‘There should be a suit hanging on the back of the door.'

*   *   *

The suit was electric blue, heavily spangled, and at least two sizes too small. I also found a pair of dark green, floral boxer shorts, a tight, lime-green T-shirt bearing the words
RESURRECTION – IT'S A WAY OF LIFE
, a pair of light green knee-high socks decorated with smiling flatfish, and a pair of white, slip-on shoes. The shoes fitted perfectly, and were easily the most comfortable footwear I had ever worn, alive or dead.

The shower washed the corpse smell from me. I hadn't realized how accustomed I'd become to the sweet odour of dirt and decay until I stepped from the cubicle and dried myself. My new smell was alien, unwelcome. No cemetery in the land would have taken me in.

One more thing: as I dressed, I inspected my body more closely. I was missing three fingers (including one thumb), two toes, and one penis.

*   *   *

On the way back to the office I noticed a fifth door on the landing, just before the stairs. It was white, and shiny, and identified with a name on a small brass plate. I didn't stop to examine it though. I was too busy thinking about the other remarkable feature of my body: my legs, arms and torso were criss-crossed with thick, black, surgical stitches.

*   *   *

The office was empty, except for Skirmish. He was sitting at Famine's desk beneath the far window, alternately picking his nose and playing a hand-held computer game.

‘Nice suit,' he said, without looking up. He grinned faintly, his fingers quivering over the controls. ‘It's one of my old ones.'

‘Really?'

‘Yep. The one I was buried in.'

I changed the subject. ‘Where is everyone?'

‘Jobs.'

‘What about Death?'

‘Back soon.'

I sank into the chair by the door. I badly wanted to return to the coffin. I was surrounded by strangers. I didn't know the rules. I felt
exposed.
I gazed at the chess board on the desk again, and noticed that several pieces now occupied the previously blank squares. In an effort to distract myself, I studied the position carefully. I had been a keen player when I was alive, and it only took me a couple of minutes to realize that with a queen sacrifice black could probably achieve mate in three moves.

I was examining white's alternatives when I felt a presence at my shoulder. Startled, I turned around and saw Death looming over me. I hadn't even heard him enter. He was gazing at the crown of my head with alarm, and before I had time to wonder why, he pulled a comb from his shirt pocket and ran it quickly through my hair.

‘You could use some of Pes' make-up too,' he observed. His gaze moved down to my jacket, registering an expression somewhere between mockery and sympathy. ‘Then again, I don't expect anyone will be looking at your
face.
'

‘Where are we going?' I asked.

‘To meet our first client of the week.'

*   *   *

I followed Death down the corridor to another white panelled door on the left, opposite the stairs. ‘I need a couple of files from Archives before we leave,' he said, checking his watch. ‘Can you give me a hand?'

I nodded, wanting to be elsewhere.

The room behind the door was narrower and more sparsely decorated than the office. Apart from a naked light bulb and a wide bow window with a view over the street, it consisted entirely of ceiling-high filing cabinets, lining the walls and clustered in the centre of the room.

‘Look in the A–Z index,' Death said. ‘Under
Falling.
I'll get the Life File.'

He showed me a large filing cabinet to the right of the door. Five drawers, all unlocked. With difficulty I opened the second, marked D–G. It was choked with paper, each sheet so thin and fragile it was almost transparent. I carefully removed a document at random. The page contained around a hundred lines of minuscule type, beginning with:

DEATH:

Terminations for special occasions

Choking on a goat hair in a bowl of milk

(
CLIENT
:
Fabius,
66275901748)

Drowning in a butt of malmsey

(
CLIENT
:
George, Duke of Clarence,
4009441326)

Falling into a fireplace while attacking a friend with a poker

(
CLIENT
:
Count Eric Stenbock,
28213124580)

due to an
Incredible sequence of unfortunate accidents

(
CLIENT
:
numerous
)

Laughter at seeing an ass eat one's figs

(
CLIENT
:
Philomenes,
0504567722)

as a result of
Stuffing a hen with snow

(
CLIENT
:
Francis Bacon,
6176160339)

by
Tortoise falling on head

(
CLIENT
:
Aeschylus,
79113751126)

‘Have you found it yet?' Death was standing on a stepladder holding a pale blue document wallet.

‘Almost.'

I flicked quickly through the other sheets until I located the document I was looking for. I removed it and read a random selection of headlines:
FALLING DOWN A WELL, FALLING INTO AN UNENDING ABYSS, FALLING INTO A VAT OF BOILING OIL, FALLING OVER
(
GENERAL
),
FALLING OFF A CLIFF
(
VARIOUS
).

‘Which reference do you want?'

‘Can you see
Falling from a Great Height?
'

I ran my finger down the page:

FALLING

from a great height

x-ref
1
: Diving, Dropping, Leaping (into, from), Plunging, Slipping, Tumbling

x-ref
2
: Aeroplanes, Buildings, Cliffs, Towers, Trees, Parachutes (Failure to Open), etc.

x-ref
3
: Accident, Murder, Suicide.

‘Is this it?'

Death took the sheet and nodded. ‘Just as I suspected. Completely useless.' He tossed it away. ‘We'll have to improvise.'

He showed me the thick folder he was holding. It contained around a hundred sheets of biographical information about the woman he described as our ‘client'. I scanned it briefly: age, favourite foods, changes in hair colour, sexual partners, medical records, likes and dislikes of all kinds.

‘This is the Life File,' Death explained. ‘Read as much as you can as we go along.' He smiled pleasantly and patted me on the back. ‘It's a routine start to the week. A rather formulaic termination. But we can make it more interesting.'

I had no idea what he was talking about.

*   *   *

One of the cars parked outside the office belonged to Death: a rusty, beige Mini Metro. We climbed in and he pulled rapidly away, tyres screeching, burning rubber. As he raced up the slope towards a T-junction, he explained that most Agents now used inexpensive vehicles, that like everyone else he had to move with the times, and that a horse was no longer a suitable mode of transport.

I was too distracted to concentrate fully on what he was saying. Disappointed, too:
The four car drivers of the Apocalypse
just didn't carry the same weight.

If they only knew, back in the cemetery.

*   *   *

We drove towards the city centre along streets that were increasingly familiar. And this is where
my
story – the story of how I died – really begins.

We passed a large square which, for the first fifteen years of my life, had been the site of the old bus station. It was redeveloped in the 1980s: the bus station remained, but it was surrounded on all sides by new offices, restaurants and flats. Anyway, as we passed the entrance, I looked up from the file and caught a glimpse of one of the new residential blocks on the far side of the square.

And I remembered.

*   *   *

Sliding.

Sliding rapidly towards the edge of a grey slate roof, the steep, slippery slope accelerating the slide, the wind and rain whipping into my face; slapping my hands and feet against the wet tiles, trying to gain a hold, hoping to slow the descent; releasing a long, loud cry of terror.

Suicide and sherbet lemons