You Then, Me Now

by Nick Alexander

  It was then I realised that, for now, I’d escaped; he couldn’t rape me, not tonight. He was too drunk for that.

  He let himself flop backwards so he was looking at the ceiling and I slid silently down the door until I was out of his line of sight. Too scared to make a sound in case he remembered I was there, I sat on the cold, tiled floor and waited.

  In less than a minute he started to snore.

  I waited much longer, though. I waited until I felt certain he wasn’t going to wake up, then I stood silently and pulled my jeans up before going in search of the room key. As I pulled it from his trouser pocket, Conor twitched his left foot and murmured, ‘I’m sorry, sir. I’m sorry. I’ll do it better next time.’ I didn’t know and didn’t care what he might be dreaming about.

  I wiped my face on a T-shirt from the floor, quietly opened the door and made my way up to the lobby where I rang the bell on the counter. A night porter appeared from a room behind the desk and smiled at me. I could hear the sounds of Greek television drifting through the open doorway – a shouting woman, a dog barking, canned laughter . . .

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ he replied, yawning. ‘That’s my job.’

  ‘I need another room,’ I explained, a pained expression on my face. ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘You don’t like your room?’

  ‘No, that’s not it. I’ve had some problems with my . . . with the person I’m sharing my room with. He’s . . . well . . . he’s very drunk. And I need somewhere else to sleep. I know that’s . . .’

  ‘Room 43?’ the man asked. His smile had already vanished.

  I nodded and felt inexplicably ashamed.

  ‘Your husband is very rude man,’ he told me.

  I nodded and bit my lip. ‘I know,’ I told him. ‘But he’s not my husband.’ I could only imagine what kind of hell Conor had given the poor guy.

  ‘I think is better if you leave the hotel,’ the man said. ‘Both of you. Tomorrow I talk to the boss man.’

  ‘I understand, but really it’s not my fault. He’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘He paid for your room. You are together.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I know he’s awful,’ I said, fighting back tears. ‘That’s why I need another room.’

  ‘It’s impossible,’ the man said. ‘All rooms are busy. We are August, you know?’

  I glanced around the lobby, wondering if there was anyone else who could help me. But the only people present were a young couple kissing on a sofa in the corner.

  ‘Please,’ I said again.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Can I stay here?’ I asked. I glanced at an empty sofa on the far side.

  ‘No,’ the man said. ‘You cannot sleep in the lobby.’

  ‘Can you lend me a blanket or something, then? I can probably sleep outside somewhere if I have a blanket.’ Tears were now rolling down my cheeks.

  ‘It’s too cold. You should go back to your room,’ the man said, his tone softening.

  ‘I can’t,’ I snuffled. ‘I’m scared.’

  I often think that if men realised how much time you spend as a woman pleading with men – pleading with them to stop doing what they’re doing, or pleading with them to let you do whatever needs to be done – they’d understand a lot more about what our lives are like.

  The man chewed his top lip. ‘I have one room,’ he said, ‘but it’s dirty. The cleaning is tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s fine!’ I told him, straightening my posture and swiping away the tears. ‘I don’t care. Please. That’s absolutely fine.’

  ‘I can give you some sheets. But it’s all I can do.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said again. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

  He vanished into the back room and returned with a pile of sheets and a folded towel. Then he lifted a key from a hook and slipped out from behind his counter. ‘Come,’ he said simply.

  To get to the room, we wove back down the staircase, past the tall man’s room and on past our own.

  The new room, number 73, was exactly three rows down from where Conor was sleeping, which was just far enough that my terrace was out of his line of sight. I was thankful it was further down as it seemed unlikely he’d pass by.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said again, as the man unlocked the door and handed me the pile of fresh laundry. ‘Thank you; you’re wonderful.’ I was fighting back a fresh round of tears prompted by his kindness. ‘And please, please don’t tell him which room I’m in, OK?’

  ‘Your husband?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s not my husband.’

  ‘No. Sorry. And no. I don’t tell him anything. I don’t like him so much, you know?’

  ‘Thank you!’ I said again as I turned to enter the room.

  ‘He needs to stop drinking,’ the man said, sounding severe, as if he was giving me a final telling-off, just in case I hadn’t got the message.

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘Yes, I know that. Thank you.’

  The room was visibly unmade. There was rubbish in the bin and toothpaste around the washbasin. The sheets were a tangled mess.

  But my adrenalin was fading and it was as much as I could do to pull the dirty sheets from the bed and throw a clean one over the mattress.

  I checked one last time that the door was locked. After a moment’s reflection I returned and gave the key a half-turn in the lock, thinking that this way I’d be safer. Then I kicked off my jeans and crawled onto the bed. I was asleep within seconds.

  I was awoken at half seven by someone noisily attempting (but failing) to unlock the door.

  ‘Who is it?’ I called out, when the noise showed no sign of abating.

  ‘Cleaner!’ a woman’s voice said, so I steeled myself, opened the door and peered out.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, a mop and bucket in one hand. ‘No body, this room.’

  ‘It was an emergency,’ I told her. ‘The night porter let me stay here.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, turning to leave. I could see she had no understanding of what I had said.

  Worrying I was about to be kicked out, I showered and dressed quickly, putting back on yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt. Then I sat in the doorway and looked out at the almost identical view to the one we had from our room and tried to decide what to do.

  There was a cool sea breeze that morning, and the parasols were all aflutter. I was glad I hadn’t had to sleep outside.

  Taking stock of my body, I realised I was really quite hungry but I was too scared of bumping into Conor to dare eat breakfast in the restaurant. In fact, I was too scared to even pass by our room.

  I was just trying to calculate the probability of Conor being up at eight when a voice said, ‘You changed rooms?’ I looked up to see the tall man smiling at me from the staircase. ‘I snore too loud?’ he asked, grinning at his own joke.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I said.

  ‘Good morning. New room,’ he said again, indicating the room with his chin.

  ‘Yes . . . I . . . we had some problems,’ I told him. ‘I had to change rooms.’

  He nodded and smiled as if what I’d said enabled him to understand exactly what had happened. ‘I go swimming,’ he said, wiggling his eyebrows and tugging at the towel he had draped around his neck.

  ‘Down there?’ I asked, pointing.

  He nodded. ‘You should come,’ he said. ‘It is good for you.’

  I wrinkled my nose and shook my head. ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘It’s a bit cold for me this morning. And I need breakfast first.’

  ‘Yes, cooler,’ the man said. ‘September comes, huh?’

  ‘But enjoy your swim,’ I told him.

  ‘Thank you. Enjoy your breakfast,’ he said. He gave me a shy little wave, and turned to continue his way, but I jumped up from my seat and called him back. I’d had an idea.

  ‘Do they do breakfast down there?’ I asked.

  He frowned at me in confusion.

  �
�Sorry,’ I said. ‘The restaurant you mentioned. At the bottom of the stairs. Do they do breakfast?’

  He shook his head. ‘Only coffee,’ he said. ‘And maybe some bread.’

  ‘Can you wait for me?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I just need to get a towel.’

  It was only when I re-entered the room that I remembered I didn’t have my swimming things with me. ‘Actually, I’ll just have some breakfast, I think,’ I told him as I locked the door behind me. ‘It really is too cold for swimming this morning.’

  I followed him down the steep staircase, past another five rows of hotel rooms, on and on winding down the naked rock face. We crossed paths with a couple coming up and, as they paused for breath, the man shook the fingers of one hand back and forth in a gesture that I assumed was meant to convey the extreme effort of the return journey.

  ‘C’est dur, huh?’ the tall man said.

  The man laughed and nodded.

  ‘What language was that?’ I asked, once we’d resumed our winding descent.

  ‘French,’ the tall man told me. ‘They are very nice. They swim here every morning.’

  The staircase eventually joined a wider zigzagging path down the hillside and we passed another couple riding on some long-suffering-looking donkeys.

  ‘They chose the easy way,’ I told him.

  ‘Yes. But you have to really not like the animals to do that, huh?’ he said.

  The port at the bottom was beautiful: three closed restaurants right on the edge of the quayside and a tiny beach, just twenty or thirty feet wide. The coastline either side was grey, inaccessible rock, tumbling down into the sea. At the end of the quay was a small concrete jetty with a single, faded-green fishing boat tied up. And at the land end of the jetty was a tatty wooden shack with four plastic tables, each sprouting a sun-bleached Magnum parasol. This place, at least, appeared to be open.

  ‘You’re sure you don’t swim?’ the tall man asked. He was already kicking off his trainers and pulling his T-shirt over his head to reveal a long, pale, wiry body that seemed in some way to be the exact opposite of Conor’s compact muscles.

  I shook my head. ‘I really do need coffee,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll see you there, then,’ he replied, nodding towards the shack.

  I scrambled across the rocks and sat on the first chair I came to, and by the time I looked back out to sea he was already swimming badly and splashing around, yelping like a child.

  The coffee, when it arrived, was so strong I could barely drink it. But I added plenty of sugar and did my best to strain it through my teeth.

  The woman who served me, a woman in her late fifties or sixties, asked me something complicated in Greek but I had no idea what she was saying. It was only when she reappeared with a slice of sponge cake that I understood what she’d been trying to ask me.

  I nodded gratefully. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Parakalo,’ she replied with a gentle smile and a nod.

  I sat for ten minutes watching the tall man duck-dive. I saw fish nibbling at algae on the jetty just below me. A small plane dragging an advert flew overhead. I tried to concentrate on the details of here and now. I was trying not to think about what to do next because thinking about my options made me feel panicky.

  And then, the water droplets still pearling on his pale, hairless body, the tall man appeared at my side. He waved to the woman who ran the shack and pointed at my coffee cup before giving her a thumbs-up sign. ‘Good coffee, huh?’ he said, as he dried himself and sat down.

  ‘It’s strong,’ I said. ‘I’ll give it that. But a bit gritty.’

  ‘You have to leave it for a while. You have to let it . . .’

  ‘Stand?’ I offered. ‘Let it settle?’

  ‘Settle,’ the man said. ‘Yes. So, I am Leif.’ He held out his hand.

  I smiled at the awkwardness of the gesture. It seemed a little late for introductions. ‘I’m Laura,’ I said, taking his hand, still cold and damp from his swim. ‘Is that Leaf, did you say? Like the leaf on a tree?’

  ‘Something like that,’ he said.

  I broke off a chunk of the cake and fed it to my lips. ‘It’s a nice name,’ I said. ‘I like trees.’

  Leif nodded. His face flushed red and I worried he thought I was trying to chat him up when I’d just said the first thing I could think of to fill the silence. ‘So, you’re here with a friend?’ I blundered on. ‘I think I saw you together the other day.’

  ‘We are eight,’ Leif said. ‘Hillwalking party. From Norway.’

  I nodded. The accent, the blond hair, the blue eyes; Norway made sense. ‘I thought you were French at first. Because you spoke to those people . . .’

  Leif shook his head and laughed. ‘I know about one hundred words in French,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Your English is good, though,’ I offered.

  ‘It’s not so bad as my French,’ Leif said. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘So, hillwalking,’ I commented, desperately trying to keep the conversation going, even though I didn’t know why that seemed important. ‘That must be lovely. Especially here.’

  ‘It is,’ Leif told me. ‘But sometimes too hot. Not so many trees here.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s true.’

  The woman brought Leif his coffee. ‘Efharisto,’ Leif said.

  ‘Parakalo,’ the woman replied.

  ‘Efharisto,’ I repeated, once she’d left. ‘Is that, like, “thank you”?’

  ‘You got it,’ Leif told me. ‘And parakalo is kind of . . . “for nothing”.’

  ‘For nothing?’

  ‘You know . . . um . . . “you’re welcome”. “It’s nothing”, maybe.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I said. ‘Parakalo. You’re very good with languages.’

  ‘It’s rude not to try,’ Leif said. ‘This is their country, you know? We are the tourists.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I said, thinking about the contrast with Conor’s “Garçon!” ‘It is.’

  ‘So . . .’ Leif said, sipping at his coffee.

  ‘So . . .’ I replied. I had run out of things to say.

  ‘I saw your friend, as well,’ Leif said. ‘Last night.’

  I studied his face but he wasn’t giving anything away. ‘Was it late?’ I asked. ‘Or early?’

  ‘Late,’ Leif said. ‘About one.’ Was that a brief tremor I’d seen in his eyebrow?

  ‘Was he being horrible?’ I asked.

  ‘He was very drunk.’

  ‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘Yes, I know. He argued with the people in the hotel.’

  Leif nodded thoughtfully. ‘I saw. I was there.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Was it awful?’

  ‘Awful, yes,’ Leif told me. ‘But not your fault.’

  ‘No. He argued with me as well.’

  Leif sighed. ‘I just tell you this to be honest,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to make you feel bad, but I don’t want to pretend I don’t see this either, you know?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘That way, if you want to talk, that’s fine. And if you don’t, well, that’s fine too.’

  I swallowed with difficulty. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘But thanks.’

  Leif shrugged and smiled again. ‘Take your time,’ he said. ‘And try, you know, to breathe.’

  ‘I am breathing!’ I laughed. But once he’d said it, I noticed that I barely was. I tried now to take some deep, smooth breaths, but they came out all jagged.

  Leif glanced at the big diver’s watch he had strapped to his skinny wrist.

  ‘Do you have to be somewhere?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Leif said. ‘It depends.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Well, the meet for today is at nine,’ he explained, glancing back up the path. ‘Up there. So if I’m going, I need to be going.’

  I nodded. I surprised myself with the realisation that I didn’t want him to lea
ve.

  ‘But if you want me to stay, I can stay,’ he continued, as if he’d been reading my thoughts.

  I smiled sadly. ‘I don’t think so.’ I said. ‘I think I’m OK.’

  ‘You think you’re OK?’ Leif repeated.

  I frowned at him.

  Leif scratched his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Just a feeling, maybe. I have a feeling that maybe you are needing to talk?’

  I nodded and licked my lips. I was unexpectedly trying to hold back tears again. It felt like my head was swelling with the pressure. If I didn’t let at least a couple out something was going to burst.

  ‘Do you?’ Leif asked.

  ‘Do I what?’

  ‘Do you need to talk? You look like you do.’

  I bit my bottom lip to stop it trembling and nodded rapidly. ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘Yes, I think I do.’

  ‘OK,’ Leif said, matter-of-factly. ‘Then today, I am staying. And we will talk.’

  It took me a while to get going, but once I’d started to tell Leif what had happened I found I couldn’t stop. Later on, he would tell me that people often told him their problems, so perhaps he just had one of those faces. Actually, it wasn’t his face, I don’t think. It was his soul. He had one of those souls that makes you want to bare your own.

  I jumped back and forth in my storytelling, filling in details of how Conor and I had met in an attempt at justifying my poor choices, then jumping back to my present lack of options in an attempt to explain why I was still here.

  Leif smiled concernedly and nodded the whole way through. He didn’t interrupt me and he didn’t ask difficult questions. When I occasionally lost track of my own story or wondered which bit to tell next, he just sat placidly, with one hand placed upon the other, and waited for me to continue.

  ‘And now here I am, telling you,’ I said, when I finally reached the end.

  ‘Wow,’ Leif said.

  ‘I’m so stupid.’

  ‘You are strong,’ Leif told me.

  I laughed at that.

  ‘No, really,’ he insisted. ‘I mean, some of these choices – they’re not so good. But you’re still here. You’re still standing. I think you’re doing OK.’