The Snakes

by Sadie Jones

  A short ladder was nailed to the wall, by the corner from the older part of the hotel to the extension. From there on the corridor was undecorated. Bare bulbs hung from the ceiling, and through an open door they saw the leavings of a previous occupant. Beer cans. A sleeping bag.

  ‘Don’t look in there,’ he said, shutting it.

  ‘Did someone sleep there?’ asked Bea.

  ‘Me. When I first moved in. I need to finish those rooms, but I’m getting on with the main hotel first. Up we go. Come on, Dan, you know you want to smash snakes’ heads in. Give in to the urge.’

  ‘You do know snakes are protected?’ said Bea. ‘Nobody’s smashing anything.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, Bea. Chill.’

  He started up the ladder. Encumbered by the boxes and sticks, his hand swiped at the trapdoor to the ceiling and his body swung wide, like he was on a rope ladder.

  ‘Why don’t we do this tomorrow?’ said Bea.

  Righting himself, he ignored her. ‘OK, it’s not nice up there. Hold your nose.’

  The traps, slung over Alex’s skinny shoulder, swung in front of Bea’s face. They had printed diagrams and white writing on the sides that could have been Portuguese.

  ‘Are these legal?’ asked Bea.

  ‘Pass me up the rest of the gear when I’m in,’ said Alex.

  He banged the trapdoor with his fist. Dust fell as it popped up, releasing the faint smell of rotting flesh. Dan and Bea exchanged helpless glances and climbed up after him.

  Once inside it was impossible to imagine the rooms below. The smell was liquid and familiar, as if the smell of corpses was not new, and had only to be recognised. Bea breathed lightly through her mouth. The roof beams came up steeply, so that it was too low to stand upright, except in the middle of the joists. Alex put down his shovel and the red traps, pulling a bandana from his pocket and tying it round his mouth and nose.

  ‘I put my foot through over there,’ he said, like a bandit.

  Light came up through the hole, and dust, swirling.

  ‘SHH!’ he whispered. ‘They’re very shy, but they’ll protect their young, so look out.’

  Dan tried to find the teenager inside himself who would think this was cool and fun but he couldn’t identify with Alex whose risks were all in his head. There was nothing in the real world to threaten him, so he had to create things. Going up into a loft with a rotting floor looking for snakes wasn’t adventurous, it was dumb. And it was almost completely dark. Outside, night had fallen.

  ‘Torch?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t have one,’ said Alex.

  ‘You don’t have one?’

  ‘Shit, and I should have brought a bin bag up.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Dan. ‘And I’ll get my phone. We can use the torch on that.’ He went back down quickly, leaving Alex and Bea alone.

  ‘There are three or four traps up here already,’ whispered Alex.

  ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘Dead mouse.’

  She was aware of the gap between her parted legs as she balanced on the joists, the air moving her skirt slightly. She could hardly make him out in the gloom.

  ‘If you get rid of the rats,’ said Alex, ‘then the snakes don’t bother coming up.’

  ‘You said mice.’

  ‘It’s a fucking zoo, Bea.’

  ‘How do they get in?’

  ‘The snakes? They come up through the vines. They can get through tiny, tiny holes, anywhere.’

  She thought of her open windows, and the vines growing thickly around the frame.

  ‘What do we need the bin bags for?’

  ‘Dead things. Other shit. Whatever.’

  Something was poking up from behind one of the joists, shining faintly, wavy edged, like a fin.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked. ‘There.’

  ‘Wait for Dan with the torch.’

  Bea took a step closer, balancing carefully. Her brother’s hand reached out. It was bony, and her own was strong and steady. She felt as if she were holding him, not the other way round.

  ‘Stick?’ she said.

  He handed her one of the bamboos and she leaned out and poked the thing sticking up behind the joist. She got the tip underneath it and flicked it. It flew up and settled.

  ‘Oh, it’s a skin,’ said Alex.

  She lifted it again. The snakeskin was rigid, like parchment, and crispy. It wavered on the end of the stick, weighing less than a glove, split and dried out. She imagined the small princely snake leaving it behind to make his legless journey, and wondered if he felt the splinters on his tender body, like the green wood of a peeled stick.

  ‘I wonder if it hurts them to shed their skins,’ she said. She didn’t feel afraid, standing there in the darkness, imagining snakes, even with the smell of death in the air.

  They heard Dan in the corridor then he came cautiously up the ladder, shining his phone beam around. Details popped into the light then disappeared.

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ he said, ‘and shine the torch.’ His voice was tight. ‘That smell is horrible. You should do this in daylight.’

  Alex and Bea went about with sticks and bags while Dan watched, wincing in disgust as he pointed the beam into the corners. Tucked away, where the smell was strongest, they found a dead rat. It was big and soft, and fell apart when Alex picked it up.

  ‘The guests wouldn’t like this,’ he said and Bea laughed, but Dan didn’t.

  When they had gone away from Paligny, perhaps she’d tell him everything. She pictured them on the bridge at Avignon, saying unsayable things in the safety of a postcard view.

  They laid new traps which Alex had honeyed earlier and took the old ones away, except one, tucked right into the join where the roof met the walls.

  ‘We can leave it. It’s probably empty anyway,’ said Alex.

  ‘You will let them go, won’t you?’ she asked. ‘You do release them?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I’ve never caught one.’

  Bea picked up the snakeskin to show Dan.

  ‘Christ!’ he shouted, recoiling. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Alex. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘Here,’ Dan held the bin bag open. He didn’t believe Alex thought the thing was beautiful, he was just being pretentious.

  ‘No, I want to keep it,’ said Alex. ‘I collect them.’

  Bea took the skin, like a fish from a hook, and gave it to her brother.

  ‘Thanks. I can oil them and make a jacket. Is snake oil a real thing?’

  ‘No, Alex,’ said Dan, ‘snake oil is not a real thing.’

  They went back downstairs, relieved, but Alex’s night was only just beginning. He ran back and forth, fetching whisky and trays of food, putting on music, asking them what they wanted then ignoring them, lost in his hyperactivity and seeking oblivion. He found his phone and a speaker and fumblingly set it up. The speaker was small and distorted the music as he forced the volume up. It blared Pink Floyd from the small mesh oval hugged beneath his arm as he ushered them out into the garden again. Pink Floyd changed to the Flaming Lips.

  ‘I love shuffle!’ he shouted.

  The terrace lights shone harshly onto the remnants in the garden; the puddle of paint on the grass, the various projects begun and abandoned, lying around like some kind of installation. Bea began collecting things and putting them in piles on the garden tables and dining-room sideboard.

  ‘What a night,’ Alex shouted over the music. ‘So mild!’

  He put the speaker down, and stood shoving ham into his mouth.

  ‘It’s too fucking ugly out here,’ he said. ‘Fucking wall lights. Wait.’ He drained his whisky and disappeared inside.

  ‘Bea?’ said Dan. Feeling miles and miles apart, they smiled at one another. ‘It’s all right, babe.’

  Alex came back, triumphantly holding up a storm lamp with paraffin sloshing in the base.

  ‘Ahoy,’ he said.

  He flicked the
switch inside the dining room and plunged them into darkness. They saw him silhouetted as the music jumped – and dropped – suddenly, to slow and simple; an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, as clear as a funeral bell on a silent day.

  ‘See?’ said Alex. ‘See how it changes?’

  He put the lamp down.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Bea.

  She opened it up and found the wick, and adjusted it, and Alex lit it with his Zippo through the tiny gap, burning his thumb. The flame leapt hugely, showing spiderwebs on the dusty glass. He turned it down and the glow was a comfort. The music went on, Johnny Cash and Jeff Buckley; the pain of the cracked old voice, then the pain of the young one. Alex lit a cigarette with shaking hands, spilling them from the box onto the grass. He bent and offered one to Dan.

  ‘What a fucking mess. I know I’m being an arsehole. I’m really, really sorry.’

  Dan took the cigarette. Alex poured another whisky, and held it against his chest.

  ‘What am I doing?’ he said.

  Bea leaned into the lantern’s glow. ‘I think you’re doing OK.’

  Alex yelped, like an animal. ‘I’m doing brilliantly.’

  With Alex quieter, Bea and Dan took their chance to eat, feeling for ham and bread, digging into the butter, cutting the cheese, fuelling themselves. Alex turned to Dan, struggling to focus.

  ‘You wouldn’t take money from a man like my father, would you?’ He was ghoulish, pale, glistening with a sheen of sweat.

  Dan stopped chewing.

  ‘You’re not a total cunt,’ said Alex. ‘I take a salary. Money. To suck on the giant tit. You wouldn’t do that, would you?’

  Dan shrugged, at a loss, but Alex had forgotten him. He put his arms around Bea, restricting her.

  ‘See? Dan?’ he said. ‘This girl …’

  Bea took his hands off her and held them, steadying him. ‘It’s all right,’ she said.

  ‘She looks into my soul,’ said Alex. ‘Does she look into yours? She’s a guiding light. Port in a storm. All that.’

  He let go of Bea’s hands, drained his glass and weaving, staggered off. His cigarette fell and rolled onto the ground. Dan stamped it out.

  ‘What are we going to do with him?’ he said.

  ‘Oh!’ Alex cried theatrically, turning round and dashing his forehead with his hand. ‘I forgot the wood!’

  ‘Wood?’ said Dan.

  ‘We need to chop some wood. Don’t look like that! We need a fire, the guests like it.’

  He lurched towards them, picked up the whisky bottle and the oil lamp and went off up the garden, leaving them in darkness.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Dan. ‘He’s off again.’

  They tracked his pale shirt in the gloom.

  ‘Loads of snakes at this end!’ they heard him shout. ‘Fuckers!’

  His blurry shape hovered. They heard him trip. A bright half-moon, small and silver, revealed monochrome grass, and grey leaves. Alex, distant in the earthly pool of lamplight, stumbled towards the wood store.

  ‘Hey!’ called Dan. ‘We don’t need logs!’

  Alex set down the lantern. They saw his white arms, and the glint of metal; he was holding an axe.

  ‘Oh, fucking hell,’ said Dan.

  ‘Come on,’ said Bea, and got up.

  Alex swung the axe experimentally as they approached, holding the whisky bottle in his other hand.

  ‘There’s already a load of logs,’ said Dan diplomatically. ‘You’ve got a stack, and it’s almost summer.’

  Alex changed his grip on the axe handle like a ninja. ‘But we can chop them! It’s fun.’

  ‘No, mate,’ said Dan, ‘it’s stupid.’

  ‘Fun,’ said Alex. ‘Look. See?’ He stumbled on the way to the log pile. ‘This one – could be smaller.’ He put the bottle down near his legs and hauled one from the stack.

  On the terrace the music stopped mid-song and left a sudden quiet. The log toppled. Alex set it on its end again and raised the axe with both hands.

  ‘Al –’ said Bea. ‘Dan?’

  Dan shrugged. He wasn’t going to argue with a drunk man swinging an axe.

  ‘Good,’ said Alex, and brought the axe down fast.

  The blade struck the ground with a slice and a clink.

  ‘SHIT, my arm. My arm. Shit. Shit. Shit.’ He began to laugh, yapping and gasping. ‘You know in cartoons?’ he laughed. ‘With the juddering – it hit a stone –’

  ‘Alex –’ said Dan, ‘mate. Seriously –’

  ‘Just let me do this one,’ said Alex. ‘Please? Please-please-please – hold the lantern.’

  ‘No,’ said Dan.

  ‘OK, OK, OK –’ said Alex, readying himself. He raised the axe again, high above his head, and put his foot on the top of the log. It went in and out of the shadow of his body as he tried to get a fix on it.

  And then all at once, he gave in and dropped the axe, heavy and harmless on the ground. He stood weaving, and staring.

  ‘Take some in,’ he started to pull logs from the stack, making small murmuring sounds.

  ‘At least it will distract him,’ said Bea, ‘and we can get him back.’

  They went to help. Loose moss and woodlice dropped from the logs which were dry on top but damp in places.

  ‘Watch out!’ He kicked the stack and made some shouting noises and staggered, dropping logs with a clatter, thudding on the grass. ‘For the snakes are not content with my hotel – oh no – little fuckers love to hide in a woodpile they do.’ He turned to Dan, squinting. ‘I used to chase your wife with worms,’ he said. ‘When she was little.’

  ‘What?’ said Dan.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bea, ‘he used to chase me round the garden at Holford Road, shaking them at me. It was really funny.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’ Alex was affronted, his white face stretching out at her. ‘You hated it. Didn’t you?’

  ‘You liked it when I screamed.’

  ‘You were pretending to be scared?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘To make me happy?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I was thirteen,’ he said, ‘you were six –’

  ‘It was a good game.’

  ‘Fuck,’ said Alex. He gaped. ‘There’s me, feeling guilty all this time.’

  His knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground and sat there. He groped for the bottle, then a cigarette. Bea and Dan sat down with him, making a group around the storm lantern as if it were a campfire, not a single flame.

  ‘Shit, Bea, I don’t know what to do,’ said Alex. ‘I don’t know what to fucking do.’

  Bea spoke carefully. ‘What’s the main thing you don’t know what to do about?’

  ‘You’re so sweet,’ he said. ‘Our girl’s an angel.’

  ‘I know,’ said Dan.

  ‘But I don’t think she’d understand. I don’t think even you would understand.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ said Bea. ‘Maybe I do.’

  Alex closed his eyes. ‘It’s fine. It’s always fine.’

  ‘We’ll be here,’ she said. ‘Me and Dan.’

  He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

  Nearby, a bird started to sing, suddenly, and it sounded strange in the night-time.

  ‘What is that?’ said Bea.

  ‘That?’ said Alex. ‘Is a nightingale, is what that is.’

  ‘I’ve never heard one. That’s not what I imagined.’

  Alex flopped down onto the ground. They listened to the short, harsh chirrups. There was silence. Then, like a percussion instrument changing into a flute, the bird sang a short arpeggio. Silence again. Then the short, quick melody. It was wakeful and young. It would not have been beautiful if the bird hadn’t been singing in the dark.

  ‘It sounds like morning,’ said Bea.

  ‘That’s what’s so good,’ said Alex.

  Dan held out his hand and Bea took it. She leaned against him as they sat on the cool, damp grass.

  ‘“And, for many a time I have been half in love
with easeful Death,”’ said Alex, flat-out on his back beside them.

  Because the words were not his own they came out clearly, like he wasn’t drunk, as if they were all somewhere else.

  ‘“And, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death,”’ he said again.

  ‘“Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

  To take into the air my quiet breath;

  Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

  To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

  While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad,

  In such an ecstasy.”’

  The nightingale sang on.

  ‘Pouring forth thy soul in ecstasy,’ he said. ‘Anyway. There’s more. Whatever.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Bea.

  ‘No, that’s enough,’ he said. ‘That. Is. Enough. Of. Tonight.’ He roused himself, and got up, onto his knees.

  ‘Only half,’ said Bea.

  ‘What?’ said Alex.

  ‘Only half in love with death,’ said Bea, hating even to say the word.

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ said Alex. He stood up. ‘That Keats, he couldn’t commit to anything.’

  Bea and Dan lay in bed with the windows open and the curtains hooked back against the wall.

  ‘Alex used to learn poems by heart when he was a child,’ she whispered.

  ‘He’s still a child,’ said Dan.

  ‘He can’t help it.’

  Above them the snakes or mice or rats slid about the roof space, more active than before. Dan had wanted to keep the window closed. Bea didn’t think snakes really would come in, despite what Alex said.

  ‘Do you think they’re playing?’

  ‘Playing?’ said Dan. ‘You’re weird.’

  ‘They’re only animals,’ she said. ‘They’re not evil.’

  They listened to the sounds.

  ‘You’ll probably like my parents when you spend time with them,’ she said. ‘They can be very charming.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Dan.

  ‘They’ve got a lot of money,’ said Bea. ‘You know that?’

  ‘I guess,’ said Dan. ‘So?’

  He kissed her. They made love, being careful with one another, and kind. Afterwards, as they drifted towards sleep, they heard Alex stumbling through the building, knocking into things, talking.