The Stairway
Like his father and grandfather before him, Lee Radford was a stonemason by trade. It was not that he particularly liked working with stone and mortar or enjoyed building things; he didn't. In fact, he liked little in life besides girls, drinking at the pub and watching football and cricket on the telly—hardly activities he could put on a resume. He chose his occupation because it represented the path of least resistance. His father taught him the trade and took him on as an assistant.
Twenty-five-year-old Lee was in the process of building a stone wall for a homeowner in Lambeth one afternoon, his mind on the attractive blonde who worked at Marks & Spencer near Marble Arch, when his mobile phone rang.
"Hello, Dad."
"I've just landed a big job for us, Lee," Niles Radford told his son, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. "How soon will you be done with that wall you're working on?"
"I ought to complete it tomorrow, if the weather permits."
"Good. Once you're done, I'll need you to pack your bags and head up to Baron's Woods for a few weeks."
"What's the job?"
"Part of an ongoing restoration of St. Cuthbert's Monastery. We've been hired to repair one of the stairways."
Lee rolled his eyes. Unlike his father, he was not enamored of old buildings. He did not give a damn about their historical or religious significance. To him, they were nothing but so much stone, mortar and timber.
"Well, if it's just a matter of patching up the cracks in a staircase, I ought to be able to finish the job and be back in London by the end of the week," the young man said optimistically.
"I doubt that," his father laughed. "This is the staircase up to the church tower. It's so tall, the monks used to refer to it as the stairway to heaven."
"Why me?" his son complained beneath his breath.
"Listen, son, St. Cuthbert's is part of the National Heritage Collection. So, take your time and do it right."
"Sure thing, Dad. I'll leave the day after tomorrow."
"Good. Ring me up periodically to let me know what progress you're making. If you think you're going to need help, I can rearrange my schedule and join you."
The last thing Lee wanted was to have his father breathing down his neck as he worked. No, he would rather do the job himself. After all, regardless of what a bunch of medieval monks thought, it was just a staircase.
* * *
Lee Radford pulled his Mini hatchback into the car park and cut the engine. He got out of the vehicle and stared up in awe at the imposing structure of St. Cuthbert's—what was left of it, that is. Thanks to Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries back in the sixteenth century, most of the buildings were in ruins except for the church.
Maybe my father was right, he thought, as his eyes rose to the top of the tower. This job may take longer than I hoped.
He grabbed his toolbox out of the back of the car and, following the sounds of construction, found his way to the job site.
"You the new guy come here to fix the stairs?" the foreman asked.
"That's right. Lee Radford's the name," he introduced himself.
"Come with me. I'll show you where you'll be working."
"Was this place built by the Normans?" Lee asked, more for the sake of small talk than to satisfy his curiosity.
"Parts of it were. Some of the foundations date back to the Celts. It's believed that there's been a house of worship on these grounds since the second century, about the same time Christianity popped up in Roman Britain. Over the centuries, the Saxons and Normans built and rebuilt the place. Most of what you see now is the fourteenth century incarnation."
"And the tower stairs?"
"The tower was added in 1320, so that would make them just about seven hundred years old."
The foreman came to a stop and, pointing to an arched doorway, announced, "There they are."
Through the doorway, Lee could see the lowest steps of a newel style circular staircase.
"I feel like I walked on to a set from Game of Thrones. I sure wasn't expecting a circular staircase."
"They were quite common in medieval castles and churches."
The young mason walked through the arch and looked up, expecting to see to the top of the tower. The view, however, was obscured by the soffit of the stair treads above him.
"This is certainly no place for someone with claustrophobia," he declared.
"You've got your work cut out for you, lad—no doubt about it."
"What about supplies?"
"Just down that hall we've got a selection of stone, mortars, grouts, cements—anything you need. Well, I'll let you get to work. We usually break for lunch around noon. There's a picnic table out near the car park, if you want to join us."
"Thanks."
No sooner did the echo of the foreman's footsteps fade away than Lee immediately began to assess the damage to the staircase.
"Bloody hell! It's worse than I thought."
* * *
To save the expense of a hotel, Lee was staying with his father's sister. Aunt Polly, a widow, lived in a small house near St. Cuthbert's, along with her son and her elderly father. That evening, when he went to his aunt's house after work, all three of them were sitting at the dining room table, waiting for him.
"You're just in time," Polly said. "I've made shepherd's pie."
"A home-cooked meal. That's music to my ears!" Lee exclaimed. "And to think I was going to stop at a fast-food place on the way home and pick up a hamburger or fish and chips."
"You father tells me you're working at St. Cuthbert's," his aunt said since in her household conversation was an important part of a family meal.
"Yes. I'm repairing the tower staircase."
"It must be a time-consuming job," his grandfather opined. "That's one of the tallest—if not the tallest—church towers in England."
"That it is. Did you know the monks once referred to it as the stairway to heaven?"
"You mean like in that old Led Zeppelin song?" Cameron, his teenage cousin, asked.
"That's right," Lee replied. "'Stairway to Heaven'—I haven't thought about ...."
"What's all this about Led Zeppelin?" the grandfather interrupted him. "That song was by an American chap. Neil Somebody-or-other."
"No," Cameron insisted. "It was Led Zeppelin. It goes, 'There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.'"
"I may be getting old, but my memory is quite clear," the old man declared and then sang the catchy chorus. "'I'll build a stairway to heaven. I'll climb to the highest star. I'll build a stairway to heaven 'cause heaven is where you are.'"
"There are obviously two different songs with the same name," Polly said, eager to put an end to the argument.
Her son took out his mobile phone and googled the song title.
"You're right, Mum. There are two songs. Led Zeppelin did one in 1971, and Neil Sedaka did one in 1960."
"Sedaka—that's his name!" the grandfather exclaimed in triumph.
"Now that we've got that subject out of the way, why don't you tell us about how your first day on the job went?" Polly suggested.
"I'm afraid there's not much to tell. I spent the better part of my time examining the stairs for damage. I won't start doing any actual repair work until tomorrow."
There was a brief lull in the conversation, during which time Aunt Polly offered her nephew another helping of shepherd's pie. For the remainder of the meal, Lee entertained his relatives with anecdotes about life in London. Once everyone was done eating, the two youngest members of the family went into the parlor where they played video games on Cameron's Sony PlayStation.
For the next two weeks, the routine was much the same. Lee worked on St. Cuthbert's stairway during the day and went home to his aunt's house when he was finished. After a family dinner, he and his cousin spent the remainder of the evening playing games, watching sports or listening to music. Like Cameron, Lee was an only child, and he enjoyed the close camaraderie that quickly developed between them.
I was sure I was going to be homesick for London, he thought, but surprisingly I'm not. Spending time with Cameron is like having a kid brother.
Aunt Polly was a welcome addition in his life, as well. He had never known his own mother. She left his father when her son was only two years old and was now living somewhere in Ireland with her second husband.
Maybe that's why Dad sent me here instead of doing the job at St. Cuthbert's himself. Perhaps he wanted me to know what it was like to be part of a real family.
* * *
It was during the third week on the job that Lee, feeling in need of a break, decided to explore one of the oldest sections of St. Cuthbert's.
"What's this?" he asked himself when he saw an ancient-looking archway nearly hidden from view by a faded tapestry that suffered from the ravages of time.
Passing beneath the arch, Lee entered a small, windowless chamber that contained another old staircase—this one heading down, not up. He cautiously took one step and then several more. In the dim light, he saw that the curved wall of the circular staircase was covered by an immense floor-to-ceiling fresco that resembled the religious illustrations in medieval texts.
Where does this staircase lead to? he wondered after taking his phone out of his pocket and snapping a few photos.
Lee took several more steps and noticed the darkness grew the further he descended. Given the age of the stairway, it could pose a serious danger.
I'd better come back some other time when I have a torch with me.
After dinner that evening, while Cameron was surfing through the channels of the telly, Lee told him about his discovery.
"Look at the painting I found on the wall," he said, holding his phone in front of his cousin's face.
"Limbus," the teenager said, reading the word printed in old-fashioned, ornate letters on the fresco.
"That must be the name of one of the men shown in the painting," Lee hypothesized. "Sounds like a Roman name to me."
"It's not a person's name," Cameron explained. "It's a place. It's Latin for limbo."
"I never heard of it. Is that where they came up with the dance where you have to bend over backward and walk under a pole?"
The teenager laughed at his cousin's question.
"What's so funny?"
"Didn't you ever read Dante's Inferno when you were in school?"
"No. Literature was not my best subject. I barely got through Shakespeare."
"In The Inferno, the ancient poet Virgil guides Dante through nine circles of hell. The first of them is limbo. It's where the souls of infants who were never baptized and righteous pagans such as Homer, Socrates, Saladin, Aristotle, Cicero, Hippocrates, Julius Caesar and Virgil himself were sent after death."
"If they were righteous, why were they sent to hell?"
"Unlike the souls in the next eight circles, those in limbo were not tortured. Their only punishment was that they were denied entrance to heaven." Cameron picked up his own phone and, after consulting Google, added, "According to a translation of Dante, 'Here suffer those who did not sin, yet did not have the required portal of our faith. Their punishment is the denial of Paradise.'"
"And when was Dante's Inferno written?" Lee asked.
"Wikipedia gives the year as 1320."
"I have the distinct feeling the stairway is much older than that."
"It doesn't necessarily mean the painting wasn't added at a later date."
"That's true."
"Is this the entire fresco or was there more to it?"
"I don't know. The stairs continued down, but I didn't have a torch. I might go back tomorrow during my lunch break."
"If there is more to the painting, I'd like to see it, so don't forget to take pictures with your phone."
* * *
At noon the next day, rather than join his coworkers at the picnic table near the car park, Lee took his sandwich and his Maglite LED torch and headed back toward the second stairway. Before beginning his descent, he stopped in the chamber and examined the tapestry. Hoping his young cousin might shed some light on the wall-hanging's subject matter, he held it taut with one hand and photographed it with the other.
After quickly eating his sandwich, he turned on his torch and started down the stairs. His progress was slow since he alternated shining the beam on the stone steps and on the wall. Every ninety degrees of the circular path, he stopped and took a picture. A full three hundred and sixty degrees after the painting of limbo, he saw what he assumed was the second circle of hell. The souls in this portion of the fresco—two of whom resembled the lovers Paris and Helen of Troy—were being tossed about in a violent storm.
"Maybe the artist got tired of painting Dante's Inferno and decided to switch to Homer's Iliad."
At the conclusion of another full circle, the subject matter changed again. The most riveting image in this portion of the fresco was a large, three-headed canine. Surrounding the animal were hundreds of souls (most of them grossly overweight) wallowing in a putrefying, freezing slush. He grimaced with disgust, took a single photograph for his nephew and continued his downward climb.
The next fresco confused Lee, as several of the men shown were clearly men of the cloth, ranging from simple monks and priests to cardinals and popes. Along with lay persons, they were all pushing great weights up a steep incline.
"If this painting is supposed to represent the circles of hell, this section seems to be out of order. This punishment is much lighter than the previous one. I know I'd rather push a weight up a hill than wallow in a sea of freezing sludge."
Since his phone was already in his hand, he tried to go online to see what Dante's other circles of hell entailed, but he was unable to get any reception in the stairway.
"I'll wait until tonight to find out. Cameron's better at looking up these things than I am anyway."
After walking another three hundred and sixty degrees, Lee encountered the next circle. The setting was a dark, fetid, swamp-like body of water. Snarling, angry souls fought with each other both on the slimy surface and beneath.
"Dante had some imagination!" he exclaimed. "He must have been the fourteenth century's Stephen King."
He took a few more steps and noticed that the Maglite's beam was growing dimmer. Its batteries were wearing down. Not wanting to find his way back to the chamber in the dark should the torch go out altogether, Lee turned around and headed back up the stairs.
"I'll get new batteries over the weekend and hopefully make my way to the bottom of the stairway on Monday."
* * *
"Did you find the bottom of the stairwell?" Cameron asked when his cousin returned from work that evening.
"No. I forgot to put new batteries in my torch. I'll have to do it on Monday."
A look of disappointment appeared on the teenager's face.
"I did manage to see quite a bit more of the painting, though," Lee added.
"Let me see," his cousin said, reaching for the mobile phone. "What's this?"
"That's the tapestry that I believe at one time covered the entrance to the stairway. It's old and beat-up now, but you can clearly see that there are angels on it."
"Yes. To me, it looks like a scene out of Milton's Paradise Lost. The central figure, the one with the sword, is the Archangel Michael. He's battling Satan here."
"Paradise Lost, not The Inferno? That makes sense since the next fresco looks like it came from The Iliad. See, that's clearly Helen of Troy and Paris."
"Yes, but it's still Dante. It's the second circle of hell."
Cameron picked up a paperback copy of The Inferno that he brought home from school, turned to a dog-eared page and read from a highlighted section: "But to that second circle of sad hell, where 'mid the gust, the whirlwind and the flaw of rain and hailstones, lovers need not tell their sorrows."
"Since when is it a mortal sin to fall in love?" Lee asked.
"Not love, lust. These souls are condemned for allowing their carnal appetites to sway their reason."
The teenager put the book down and continued viewing his cousin's photographs.
"Here's the third circle, reserved for those souls guilty of gluttony, which includes not only overindulgence in food and drink, but also other kinds of addiction."
"Damn! People couldn't do anything in Dante's day. Could they?"
"Wait. It gets better!"
Lee, who was looking at the pictures over his cousin's shoulder, pointed to the next photo.
"I don't get this one," he said. "Why are there priests and cardinals in hell?"
"The fourth circle punishes greedy souls, be it the miserly who hoarded their possessions or the prodigal who squandered them."
"Ah, the Gordon Gekkos of the Middle Ages."
"What?" Cameron asked, confused by his cousin's reference.
"Gordon Gekko. Michael Douglas in Wall Street. You know, 'Greed is good.'"
"I never saw it."
"Well, if Dante's interpretation of hell is correct, Gordon Gekko will have a reserved seat on the fourth circle."
Since there were no more photographs, Cameron handed the phone back to Lee, and the two settled into an evening of playing video games.
* * *
Monday morning, while he worked on repairing the tower staircase, Lee had his earbuds plugged into his iPhone and listened to both versions of "Stairway to Heaven"—the older rock 'n' roll tune by Neil Sedaka and the more modern song by Led Zeppelin. He frequently glanced at his watch, eager for the noon hour to come. Finally, at twelve, without even bothering to eat lunch, he grabbed his torch and returned to the lower staircase. With one goal in mind, he quickly passed through the archway, ducked under the ragged tapestry and headed down the circular stairs. He did not bother stopping to further examine the illustrations of the first four circles of hell; he wanted only to see the next five.
With the Maglite pointed at the stairs in front of him, Lee circled round and round, singing along with Neil Sedaka as he descended.
"Well-a, well-a, well-a, heavenly angel, I want you for my girl. When I kissed your sweet, sweet lips, I knew that you were out of this world."
As he viewed the wrathful souls of the fifth circle, he slowed his pace, stopped the music and removed his earbuds. His iPhone ceased to be a music player and became a camera.
"The sixth circle is next," he said to himself after photographing the fifth. "According to Cameron, this is where the souls of heretics are punished."
He snapped three photographs of the tortured souls trapped in flaming tombs before continuing on to the next circle. The seventh was divided into three rings. In the first were those who had committed violence against their neighbors. Murderers, tyrants and those who made war were immersed in a river of boiling blood and fire. Condemned to the second ring were those who had committed violence against themselves. Suicides had been turned into gnarled trees and were fed upon by harpies. The third and final ring had souls who committed acts against God and nature. Blasphemers, sodomites and usurers suffered on a bed of burning sand.
"Two more circles to go," he said after taking his photographs. "I can't imagine what punishments await the worst sinners."
The eighth circle, which consisted of a stone tunnel built around ten deep, concentric ditches, was populated with panderers, seducers, flatterers, liars, thieves, corrupt politicians, sorcerers and false prophets. With so much going on, Lee took the most photographs of this circle.
Finally, he turned the bend in the staircase and came to the ninth and final circle. The most recognizable figure in the frozen lake was that of Satan, who was surrounded by Judas, Brutus, Cassius and other famed traitors.
"Funny, I always imagined hell was made up of fire and brimstone, not ice."
Although the painting finally came to an end, the staircase did not.
"How far down does this go?" Lee wondered.
Curious, he took two more steps and then three more. When he put his foot down again, he reached the ground. He shined his torch ahead, but the beam did not penetrate the murky darkness that surrounded him.
"Unfortunately, I haven't got time to do any exploring. I've got to get back to work."
As he turned toward the stairs, a robed figure emerged from the shadows. The sudden and unexpected appearance startled him.
"Christ!" he exclaimed. "You scared the hell out of me!"
The mysterious stranger stepped forward and lowered the hood of his robe. The face beneath the cowl was that of the Satan that dominated the fresco of the ninth circle of hell.
"Who are you?" Lee asked, trembling with fear.
"Is a formal introduction really necessary?"
"What is this place?"
"Welcome to the pit. It is where I was banished after being defeated by Michael and his legions, and where so-called holy men, including the monks of St. Cuthbert's, have held me prisoner ever since."
"There are no monks here anymore. The church was abandoned back in the days of Henry VIII. You've had almost five hundred years to escape. Why didn't you?"
"I can't mount the stairs, not with that damned painting on the wall."
"How is that ...?"
Satan raised his hand and placed it on Lee's forehead. After a moment of severe dizziness, the young man found himself wearing the monk's robe and standing face to face with his own body.
"Sorry," the devil apologized, "but I can't waste time answering any more of your questions. I've waited far too long to be free."
"What are you going to do now that you're out?"
"Get my revenge. I have an old score to settle with Michael."
As the King of Hell—in the guise of a simple London stonemason—began his ascent, Lee attempted to follow; but he was unable to lift his leg to mount the steps.
"Wait!" he cried. "Come back!"
Ignoring the young man's request, Satan continued up the stairs. What was most bizarre was that he was singing along with Neil Sedaka as he climbed: "I'll build a stairway to heaven 'cause heaven is where you are."
When Satan turned the curve in the staircase, he vanished from Lee's line of sight. For several minutes, the stonemason's own voice echoed down the stairs. Eventually, however, along with the beam from the Maglite torch, it faded away, dooming Lee Radford to the dark and soundless pit of hell.
"Stairway to Heaven" performed by Led Zeppelin. Written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.
"Stairway to Heaven" performed by Neil Sedaka. Written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield.
If there were a stairway to heaven, Salem would look for an elevator.
