The Long Fall (19 page)

19

15 August 1980, not dawn yet. Ikaria. The cave.

This is terrible. Terrible.

The waves slap the rocks. Somewhere up the mountain a rooster is calling too early. A dog’s howling too.

Beattie is finally sleeping next to me, like a poor, drowned rat. Even now I can feel the pain and the hurt coming off her in hot waves. I’ve had to prise myself away from her arms.

I wonder if perhaps she has caught my fever.

But it’s not that. It’s what Jake’s done to her, of course.

I’m awake because I’m too stunned to sleep. Also, I’m keeping guard.

I have no idea where he is. Up on the mountain somewhere. I don’t care. I just don’t want him to come down here.

Can I excuse his behaviour? Put it down to drink or pills?

No.

I really liked him. I
really
liked him. I thought I loved him.

But there’s no excuse.

Are all men such bastards? Will they only ever think of one thing? Do they all feel they have the right to use us like this?

After Beattie came back down to the cave and told me what Jake had done, I couldn’t believe it at first. It seemed impossible, so out of character, so not like the boy who had kissed me just hours earlier.

I thought he was different.

But he has this wild side . . .

And then there’s the issue of the Australian’s passport . . .

I never really knew him, did I? Hardly surprising, with all the drinking and the pills and the sun and now the fever. How can you get to know someone when you and they are out of it most of the time?

Jake.

What he’s done.

She’s showed me the bruises, the red scrapes on her back and buttocks, where he dragged her over the rocks. The mess he’s made of her forcing himself on her, before she got away and ran down here to me.

To me. For me to protect her.

They could be my own injuries after Marseille. They are almost identical.

‘Where is he?’ I ask her.

We’re not fit to stand up to him physically – even combined, we don’t measure up to him.

Beattie points in the direction of the mountain. ‘He’s probably passed out up there. He was so out of it. It was like he was a different person.’

We know he can get like that, but we never thought . . .

I wonder what might have happened to me if she hadn’t interrupted him with me earlier. I might have got it all wrong. Might I have been the one beaten and bloodied instead of her?

As she tells me what happened, I wash her cuts and grazes in our drinking water and rub aftersun – the only ointment I have – on her bruises. I also give her a couple of the Tylenol I stole from Jake’s rucksack.

As I do this, I tell her about the Australian’s passport. Her eyes widen and her hand creeps over her mouth. Seeing Beattie so scared, so on the back foot, is frightening.

‘Do you think . . . ?’ she whispers.

I nod, gravely. I ask her to tell me what happened.

They’d eaten supper at the village taverna and polished off two litres of wine between them. It was a busy night – they’re working up to some sort of big festival tomorrow, so there was lots of noise and dancing. Elpiniki got some local firewater out and Bea and Jake (the monster Jake) matched the locals shot for shot – helped by a couple of slimming pills they took to keep them going.

In the end, Beattie felt sick and dizzy, so Jake suggested they come back down to the beach. But when they got out of earshot of the village, he pulled her off the road into the forest. Laughing, she had followed him, but as soon as they were in the trees, he jumped her. She managed to struggle free, and ran, yelling as Beattie would, back towards the road, but he caught her, put his hand over her mouth, tore at her skirt and dragged her to the ground, where he forced himself into her.

He was blind drunk, she said. Like another man, as if a demon possessed him.

When he’d done that, he tried to turn her over to do God knows what to her. But as he twisted her she got hold of a rock, which she brought down on his head. That was how she got away. She had no idea where he was, but she just ran downhill, praying that she’d be able to find her way back to the cave to warn me, in case he was thinking of coming and doling out the same treatment to me.

Just as she’s telling me this, almost on cue, I hear footsteps crunching along the beach towards us.

Beattie stops talking and makes me put out the candle. I peer outside. It’s unmistakably Jake: tall, curly-haired, staggering slightly, his tread heavier than usual.

Beattie’s face is close against mine, stone pale in the moonlight, all the suntan drained from it. She shakes her head and grasps my arm.

‘Tell him you’re trying to sleep,’ she mouths.

I can smell her fear.

‘Bea!’ Jake calls from outside. ‘We need to talk.’

My heart pumping like it’s about to break my chest, I look quickly at Beattie. She shakes her head again.

‘Beattie?’ Jake asks again, louder, closer, this time. His shadow falls across the cave entrance. Beattie scoots behind me.

‘Jake?’ I make my voice sound groggy.

‘Emma! Are you OK in there?’

‘I was just nearly asleep,’ I say.

‘Have you seen Beattie?’

Beattie shakes her head violently, mouthing ‘No’.

‘No,’ I say.

‘Good. OK. You sure you’re OK?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You get to sleep, then. I’m just going back up the cliff,’ he says. ‘To keep an eye out for her.’

‘I hope she’s OK.’

‘She went on ahead of me. She was pretty wasted. I’ll check the path. You try to get to sleep.’

‘OK. Good night, Jake.’

‘Night, then. If I can’t find her, I’ll wait up on the top in case she’s lost and calls out. See you in the morning.’

We hold our breath as his footsteps crunch back across the beach, until we can hear him no more.

‘That’s weird,’ I say.

Then Beattie loses it, shaking and crying, running her hands through her hair.

I hold her.

‘I hate him,’ she says, sobbing on my shoulder.

I hate him too.

While I’ve been sitting guard here, waiting for sunrise, I’ve looked back over what I’ve written these past few weeks. Somehow, despite all that Jake put her through, Beattie managed to keep my bag – which the taverna boy Giorgios had handed over to her – over her shoulder. She held onto it through everything. She knew it had my life in it; she couldn’t let Jake get his hands on it.

That’s the kind of friend she is.

That Emma of the early parts of the first journal was a different person. She was just a little girl, so stupid. So blind to anything that could go wrong.

So entitled. That’s the word.

I realise now that women aren’t entitled to anything. It’s a long fight, all the way.

I realise that now because of what happened in Marseille. What happened to Hardy’s Tess, and Mira and Chris in
The Women’s Room
. And what’s happened to my Beattie, now.

These moments will never be forgotten.

20

15 August 1980, about 8 a.m. Ikaria. The cave.

Still no Jake, thank God.

We’ve made our plan.

It was beautiful to see how putting it together gave Beattie strength.

We’re going to play the worst ever Dangerous Game. It’ll teach Jake a lesson; let him know how awful we know he is.

Then we’re going to take all his gear and leave him stranded on the island with no money, no ID, no stuff.

Make him pay.

And that’ll be the end of him in our lives.

Better that, as Beattie says, than go to the police and all that, and have him tied to us for months more. Cut and run. It’s the best way.

I’m not going to mourn what could have been between me and him. I just feel like I’ve had a lucky escape.

Beattie’s gone on ahead now and I’m waiting for him to come back. He will at some point, she said, because he has no food or money.

I’ve got the map to the island. Beattie has shown me where she’ll be waiting, up on the cliff, a headland about a mile along the coast. She found it when she and Jake went off when I was first sick.

I’m to lead Jake to her.

‘Tell him you want him or something,’ she said, smiling grimly. ‘Seduce him up there. Act like nothing has happened. He’ll probably give you some bullshit, but don’t listen to him. He’s fucked up.’

My fever’s still knocking me about.

I’ve taken a couple of slimming pills to give me strength.

I’m so fucking scared.

21

15 August 1980, 9 p.m. Ikarian Sea. Ferry.

Everything is over.

I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I’ve thrown everything overboard, into the sea. My rucksack, all my gear,
The Women’s Room
,
The Greek Myths
, everything’s gone except the clothes I’m wearing, my passport, my money and these journals.

I’m done with it all.

I can’t get my head round everything that’s happened, so I’m going to try to write it out in order. Perhaps then I can make sense of some of it. I’m on my third Amstel and it’s pretty choppy out here tonight, so I hope I’ll be able to read this when I’m able to face it all again.

I’m not even sure how reliable I am, if I’ve got a grasp on things. I’m still pretty ill, spaced out, not sure what’s real and what’s not.

Am I trying to defend myself?

Jake. Beattie.

Did we ever really know each other? Or were we just three strangers thrown together until our ugly parts showed?

My ugly parts showed.

And some.

So Beattie was right. She left me in the cave this morning and went up to the cliff. Sure enough, an hour later, I hear Jake’s footsteps on the beach, coming my way.

‘Hi,’ he says, from outside.

I crawl out of the cave to greet him. He looks bleary. And he has an egg-sized lump on his forehead. That would be where Beattie hit him with the stone.

I want to run away as fast as I can. But I hold my ground.

‘What happened to you?’ I ask him, trying to show concern.

‘Oh this . . .’ he says, touching the lump with his fingers as if he has only just noticed it was there. ‘I fell over last night on the way down the hill. Beattie didn’t come back, did she?’

I shake my head. ‘Do you think she’s OK?’

Jake frowns.

As Beattie and I have planned, I suggest we go and look for her.

‘Are you strong enough?’ He places a hand on my shoulder and I try not to flinch at his touch.

I nod.

‘It’s better you stick with me, anyhow,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to leave you on your own down here if I’m not nearby.’

I don’t really know what he was playing at, pretending to be so caring. Perhaps he was a real psychopath, or schizophrenic or whatever it is. A split personality. The thought makes me shudder when I think of the times I spent alone with him.

But that doesn’t really matter now, does it?

Nothing matters any more.

I duck inside the cave to grab a bottle of water. I also open my Swiss Army penknife and stash it in my pocket, just in case he’s planning something like the attack he launched on Beattie. As a final thought I grab my evil eye, to protect me.

Ha.

‘I need to talk to you, Em,’ Jake says, as we climb up to the road.

‘Not now,’ I say, thinking he might be wanting to make a confession.

I couldn’t deal with that. I really would rather be dead.

‘Let’s find Beattie first,’ I say.

He looks wretched, but he nods. ‘Probably better we do.’

We continue up the hill.

The village is surreally quiet. The taverna’s still shut, the streets empty, and Beattie, of course, is nowhere to be found.

‘So where is she, then?’ Jake asks.

I repeat what Beattie and I prepared. ‘Perhaps she took the wrong turning on the way down the hill? You know, where the paths fork?’

‘Possibly.’ Jake doesn’t look at all convinced.

I’m trying not to sound as jumpy as I feel. If he thinks about it, he’ll wonder what I know about forking paths on the way down. I only made the journey back from the village once, and it’d been dark and I’d been drunk.

But he doesn’t think about it.

‘It’s worth a try,’ he says. He touches me, his knuckle grazing my cheek, his eyes searching out mine, which can’t quite meet them.

The blue in his eyes isn’t beautiful any more. It looks dangerous now, evil, like cold stone.

‘Are you OK?’ he asks me.

I bristle. It’s as if he’s decided that he’s my boyfriend and he’s going to look after me.

Well, of course he would, Emma, after you’d been so stupid with him, for fuck’s sake.

I’m trying to act how I would, had I not known what he’s done to Beattie. So, with difficulty, I don’t pull away from his touch. Instead, I just smile gratefully at him and nod.

‘Just a little spaced. And worried about Bea.’

But what did he think he was up to? What did he imagine he might do to Beattie – and me, possibly – when we found her?

Well, whatever he had planned, we had decided that he wasn’t going to get away with it.

Oh, God.

We follow the path back down the hill, away from the village.

‘Here’s the fork,’ I say. ‘It’d be easy to make the mistake at night, take the wrong turning.’

Jake halts suddenly and grabs my hand. I just manage to stop myself from shrieking.

‘Look, Em. I need to tell you—’ he starts, but I put my finger to his lips and, trying so hard that I almost burst a blood vessel, look love into his eyes.

‘Not yet. Let’s find Beattie first.’

‘But it’s to do with her.’ He looks frantic.

‘Shh,’ I say. ‘Let’s find her first. Perhaps she’s hurt herself.’

I lead on, hurrying down to the next headland, where the bluff juts out a hundred feet above the sea, before dropping straight down to the rocks below. We cross an olive grove, avoiding the nets spread out beneath to catch the fruit. Luckily, the path is difficult and narrow and we have to walk in single file, so he can’t hold my hand. The wind roars in my ears, so any attempt by him to say anything to me is pointless.

It’s hard going. Lightheaded with hunger and fever, I hear my heart working overtime to pump enough blood round my body to keep climbing. I touch the blue glass evil eye in my pocket, but it doesn’t make me feel any stronger.

We reach the foot of the scrubby path up to the towering bluff. As we crest the hill, the wind blasts hot dust into my face, taking my breath away.

And Beattie is nowhere to be seen.