You Then, Me Now

by Nick Alexander

  ‘No,’ Mum said, interrupting him. ‘No, we need to go further back. Otherwise it doesn’t make any sense. It’ll sound terrible.’

  ‘OK,’ Leif said. ‘Start where you want.’

  Mum began telling me her story. She told me, again, about the rave where she’d met Conor. She told me how he had come to London to meet her and had decided, despite her protests, to buy the tickets to Santorini. She said that he’d been drunk at the airport when she’d arrived, and that she’d almost changed her mind.

  Bits of the story were apparently new to Leif, too, because he seemed surprised at times. At others he asked questions like, ‘But why did you get on the plane? Why didn’t you just go home?’

  Mum did her best to answer all of our questions, though sometimes she struggled to make us understand.

  She told me about Conor forcing himself upon her in Mykonos, and it was my turn to ask her why she hadn’t gone to the police. Again, she struggled to explain.

  From the point in the story where she met Leif, they started to tell me together, sometimes speaking simultaneously, at others alternating. From time to time they good-naturedly contradicted each other, which was cute to see because, I suppose, it made them seem like a real couple struggling to agree on the past.

  Mum explained how Conor had hit her and how she’d met Leif on the stairs again; Leif about Mum’s passport and how they had hunted for Conor everywhere because they’d desperately needed to get it back.

  Mum’s birthday sounded crazily romantic and tears came to my eyes as I realised that, against all odds, they’d come together to tell me, to remember, on her birthday all over again. And then their tale took a darker turn, and the hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle.

  It was like one of those moments in a horror film when the music changes and you just know something bad’s going to happen. The protagonists park up at the side of the road and head down a dark track to the cliff’s edge, and you want to scream, ‘Don’t! Don’t go down that track!’

  As I had guessed, Conor had rolled up and a fight had ensued.

  ‘He was a boxer,’ Mum reminded me. ‘And as fit and solid as a bull. He was invincible, really.’

  ‘And drunk,’ Leif added. ‘He was worse when he was drunk.’

  ‘Yes, he had that drunken madness, you know? The strength of twenty men.’

  ‘He tried to take your mother,’ Leif explained. ‘He tried to force her into the car. So I told him that it was over. I told him we were in love.’

  ‘I could have killed you for saying that,’ Mum said. She turned to me. ‘Can you imagine? It was like a red flag to a bull. It was like lighting a very short fuse, and on the end of the fuse was Conor.’

  ‘I thought he might be reasonable,’ Leif said. ‘I thought he needed to know.’

  ‘Reasonable . . .’ Mum said sarcastically.

  ‘He went crazy, then?’ I asked.

  ‘More than,’ Leif said.

  ‘Yes, it was much worse than crazy,’ Mum agreed. ‘He was like a killer in a film or something. Cold, like Dexter, you know? He grabbed Leif—’

  ‘By the collar,’ Leif said, taking a fist of T-shirt in one hand to demonstrate.

  ‘And then he punched him,’ Mum continued. ‘Over and over again. He wouldn’t stop.’

  ‘He broke it,’ Leif said, indicating his wonky nose. ‘And two teeth here, too.’

  ‘You lost two teeth?’ Mum asked.

  Leif nodded. ‘They were like this,’ he said, gesturing to indicate that they’d been wobbly. ‘They came out when I got home. These four are joined together.’ He pointed at his front four teeth.

  ‘You had to have a bridge,’ Mum said.

  ‘Yes, a bridge.’

  ‘So what did you do? How did you stop him?’ I asked. ‘You didn’t push him, did you? You didn’t push him off the cliff?’

  ‘I’m really not sure you want to hear this, sweetheart,’ Mum said, glancing concernedly at Leif.

  ‘You’re joking,’ I said. ‘If you think you’re stopping there, you’re crazy!’

  ‘It’s just . . . it’s a bit dark,’ Mum said. ‘I don’t want it to haunt you.’

  ‘It won’t,’ I told her. ‘Tell me. I need to know.’

  Mum glanced at Leif again, and he shrugged and said, ‘I think we have to finish the story, Laura. I can tell her if you want.’

  ‘No,’ Mum said. ‘No, it’s fine.’ She took a deep breath. ‘So, I really tried everything I could think of to stop him. I tried hanging around his neck. I tried hammering my fists on his back. But nothing made any difference. It was like he didn’t even notice I was there.’

  ‘I gave in,’ Leif admitted. ‘I knew I couldn’t beat him. I wasn’t brave or anything. I was crying, begging him to stop.’

  ‘You were so brave,’ Mum told him. Then to me, tearfully, ‘Don’t listen to him. He was so brave. I was convinced Conor was going to kill him. He just kept punching him, over and over. Like a punching ball. Then when Leif was on the floor, he started kicking him. It was horrific.’

  ‘I think that I am dying,’ Leif said. ‘I really did. I am starting to pray to God. I mean, I don’t believe, you know? But just in case, I am starting to pray.’

  Leif, who had raised his arms to protect his head, nodded feebly. ‘You have win,’ he said again. ‘It’s over.’

  Conor snorted. ‘I’ve barely got started, fella,’ he said. Then, reaching between Leif’s arms to grip his T-shirt, he pulled him to his feet again.

  ‘You’re going to kill him, Conor,’ Laura cried.

  ‘That,’ Conor said, smiling at her, ‘is the general idea.’

  In that moment she realised it was true. They had just been words up until then, but in that instant she understood that Conor really was going to kill Leif. Right there. Right then. Right before her eyes. And neither fighting, nor pleading, nor letting him win was going to change it. If she didn’t do something, Leif would be gone. The only man she had ever truly been in love with would quite simply no longer exist.

  A jolt of adrenalin flowed through her and her tears ceased. Her brain seemed to shift into an unfamiliar mode of ultra-precise, triple-speed clarity, scanning the landscape once again for any kind of weapon and tugging her attention towards the car.

  To the rhythm of Conor’s metronomic punches, she quickly checked the interior, but there was nothing there she could use. She thought of driving at him but he had taken the keys. She tremblingly tried to check the boot, hoping to find a wheel brace or a jack, but it was locked.

  Laura stood and looked analytically at the scene. She didn’t have strength on her side. She didn’t have a weapon, either. But she could, if she was clever, have the advantage of momentum and speed, and surprise.

  As Conor jerked Leif upright again, positioning him in order to maximise the pleasure of hitting him squarely, she ran in a wide circle and sprinted towards him as fast as she could. She quite literally flew through the air for the last few yards, before landing her shoulder in the exact centre of Conor’s muscular back.

  The result was more impressive than she could have dared hope for. She sent him flying past Leif, through the air, and into the distance, sprawling headlong onto the ground. Even then he almost managed to end up on his feet, only to trip at the last minute and fall back again.

  Released, Leif sank to the ground and curled up again, desperate to protect his face from the next wave of blows, and as Laura folded to her knees and reached out, he cowered from her touch, making her cry all over again.

  She enveloped him in her arms. She would protect him with her own body and, if need be, they’d die there together. Leif hadn’t asked for any of this and it was enough, she thought. If Conor was going to kill him then he’d have to kill her first.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Leif,’ she said, sobbing at the thought that they were about to die. ‘I love you. And I’m so, so sorry.’

  A few seconds went by, maybe a minute, before she dared to look back towards the car.
It was throwing a moonlight shadow where Conor had fallen, so it was difficult to see him precisely, but she could just about make out the soles of his brogues pointing sideways.

  Leif, who was whimpering with fear, eventually peered through his fingers as well. ‘Where is he?’ he asked, his voice trembling. ‘Why has he stopped?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, craning her head and looking back towards the car.

  She hugged Leif more tightly for a moment, then, realising that Conor might be only stunned momentarily, said, ‘I’d better look. Stay there.’

  Leif tried to grab her hand to stop her leaving, but she gently peeled back his trembling fingers and crept over to where Conor was lying.

  He looked peaceful. That was her first thought. He looked peaceful, as if he was asleep and having a rather pleasant dream. It was then that she saw the rock.

  ‘He hit his head, I think, when he fell,’ she called out, glancing back at Leif who was crouching, attempting, with difficulty, to stand. ‘Should we tie him up or something?’

  ‘Tie him up?’ Leif repeated, as he slowly limped towards her. His face was so covered with blood, and he advanced with such difficulty, that he looked like an extra from a zombie movie.

  ‘For when he comes around,’ she said, her voice wobbling madly. ‘What if he starts all over again?’

  Leif sank to his knees beside her and peered at Conor. Blood dripped from his nose onto Conor’s shirt. ‘Is he breathing?’ Leif asked.

  ‘Of course he’s breathing,’ she said. ‘He’s not dead.’ But as they knelt there in the cool night air, a chill came over her. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  In a strangely gentle gesture, Leif had taken Conor’s hand. ‘I’m checking for his heart,’ he said, pressing a bloody finger to Conor’s wrist. Laura braced herself. She was certain he was going to wake up and start all over again.

  Conor moved then, and both Leif and Laura jumped back from his body. His legs had jerked suddenly as if he’d had an electric shock.

  She looked nervously around for a weapon, but once again could see nothing of use.

  But Conor did not stir, and after a minute or so the couple returned to his side. Leif took Conor’s wrist once again, and leaned in to listen to his heart.

  ‘He is dead,’ Leif announced, his Norwegian intonation making this sound like an everyday announcement rather than the life-changing news that it surely was.

  ‘What?’ Laura asked. That information didn’t seem to make any sense to her.

  A trickle of blood oozed from the corner of Conor’s mouth as Leif said again, ‘He is dead. His heart has stopped.’

  ‘I got hysterical,’ Mum said. ‘I went totally off the rails for a bit.’

  ‘She really did,’ Leif confirmed. ‘I was wondering if I should slap her, you know?’

  ‘It’s hardly surprising,’ I said. ‘I mean, that’s horrific. And was he dead? Was he actually dead?’

  ‘Yes, he was gone,’ Mum said. ‘It was hitting his head on the rock, I think, that got him. It took me a while to believe it, but once I did, I got the shakes. My teeth were chattering and my hands were shaking. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even think.

  ‘We held each other for a while. Leif was worried I was cold, but I think it was just the shock. Leif was in a far worse state than me physically. He looked like he’d been in a car crash. But he was really calm and collected. It was me that was crying and shaking. Eventually, we started to walk back towards the bike, but halfway there I had this terrible idea.’

  Leif hadn’t wanted to do it at first. He’d wanted to go to the police.

  But Laura was scared. She was really scared. They were in Greece, she reminded him, and who knew what Greek police were like?

  Physically, they were in a terrible state, too. Any policeman would take one look at them and know they’d been in a fight.

  ‘What if they think we murdered him?’ she wept. ‘What if they throw us in prison?’

  Gradually Laura convinced him. And eventually Leif caved in.

  But where Laura was hysterical, a strange calm of responsibility descended on Leif. If they were going to do this, they needed to do it perfectly, he thought. He’d read a lot of Swedish thrillers, and creating a convincing scene came surprisingly naturally to him.

  While Laura sat shaking and weeping, Leif loped back down the track for the bike so they could use the headlights and his torch to see what they were doing.

  Together, they dragged Conor to the car. He was so heavy that Leif momentarily doubted Laura’s plan was even possible, but together, eventually, they managed to get him into the driver’s seat.

  Leif wiped their prints from the car with a rag he found in the boot and put the keys in the ignition and started the engine.

  There were bloodstains on the ground, and so, on their hands and knees, they grovelled in the dust to brush them away, Laura’s tears mixing with the blood and the dry earth as they worked. They had to dig up the bloody rock Conor had fallen on, too, and roll it over the edge.

  Finally, they released the brake, shut the door and pushed the car to the very edge. It was only at the last possible moment that Leif remembered Laura’s passport. And so they performed a gruesome final search of Conor’s pockets, and then the car, before finally finding Laura’s bumbag in the boot.

  Leif tried, for a while, to get the car to drive itself off the cliff. It would look more convincing that way, he reckoned. But without Conor’s foot on the accelerator pedal, it stalled every time, and so eventually they put their backs against the boot and pushed with all their might.

  Once the front wheels had gone off, the bottom of the car grounded on the rocks, and for a few panicky moments, they believed, once again, that they had failed. But then Leif had an idea to lift the rear end of the car rather than pushing it, and like a see-saw, the car tipped and slid eerily, almost silently, into the darkness.

  Bracing themselves for the explosion, they ran to the bike. Laura feared that the whole town would turn up in seconds. But other than a vague crunching sound from below, nothing happened. It seemed that only in films did cars explode.

  As they rode towards town, they argued about what to do next. Leif wanted to stay, but Laura argued over and over again he must leave. He looked like a wreck, she reminded him. He represented the most damning piece of evidence there was that Conor’s accident wasn’t quite as it seemed. Laura herself had only a few bruises, and they were nothing she couldn’t cover up with make-up, but Leif, she insisted from the back of the scooter, had to vanish to save them both.

  ‘So you left the next day?’ I asked Leif.

  ‘No. I left right then. I sneak to the room. Olav, my friend is there. He is so angry, he wants to kill Conor. So I had to tell him the truth. The only person I ever told this thing. I take a quick shower. And then he takes me to the port. We didn’t want people to see me in the morning so Olav did checkout and everything and met me on the boat. He took the bike back, too.’

  ‘Where did you sleep?’ Mum asked.

  ‘In the bushes, behind the port. I was very tired. When I got to Oslo, I went to the hospital. It hurt quite a lot. I have two broken ribs, and the nose of course. And the next day, the teeth. But the worst was my heart.’ He reached out for Mum’s hand at that point. ‘She broke my heart,’ he said. ‘The call that never comes, you know?’

  ‘Because you lost his address?’

  Mum nodded. ‘Well, Aegean did. Or BA.’

  ‘And what happened then, Mum?’ I asked. ‘What happened with the police and everything?’

  ‘Yes, please tell,’ Leif said. ‘I don’t know this either.’

  To avoid being seen together, he’d dropped her at the edge of town. But as soon as she stepped into the pool of light provided by a streetlamp, she realised this was a mistake. Her T-shirt was bloodstained, and the paranoid terror that someone would notice and remember her made her legs go wobbly as she walked.

  Once the first group of
tourists had passed, she ducked into an alleyway and turned the T-shirt inside out, but it was only a slight improvement. The stains had soaked right through. In the end, turning left and right to avoid oncoming tourists, it took her almost half an hour to get back to the room.

  Once inside, she locked the door and moved to the bathroom. Her shorts were muddy, but it was the T-shirt that looked the worst. She was going to have to handwash everything, and quickly. Because if the police arrived, her clothes would be a dead giveaway.

  It was only as she started to undress that she remembered her things in Leif’s room. So she pulled her dirty clothes back on and strode to the door, actually relieved she would have an excuse to see Leif’s face one last time before he left. But when she pulled the door open, she was startled. Because there, on the doorstep, his fist raised ready to knock, was Olav.

  ‘Your case,’ he said.

  ‘Olav! Is he OK?’

  ‘Yes. He’s OK. I am taking him to the port right now,’ Olav said, speaking quietly, urgently. ‘But he asked me to give you this.’ In his hand was a folded sheet of paper.

  She dragged her case indoors, took the sheet of paper from Olav’s grasp, thanked him, wished him goodbye, and relocked the door.

  She fingered the sheet of paper for a moment, but then reminded herself that washing her clothes was urgent. So she set it down on her suitcase, and returned to the bathroom to undress.

  Her shorts came up clean enough, but the stains wouldn’t come out of the T-shirt, no matter how much she washed it. So after having stuffed it at the bottom of the rubbish bin, then, changing her mind, hiding it between the mattress and the bed, only to retrieve it again, she finally cut it to strips with a knife and, bit by bit, she flushed it down the toilet. The process seemed to take forever.

  She tidied Conor’s clothes into the wardrobe where they couldn’t be seen – their presence was just too upsetting. Then, feeling numb and febrile, she sat cross-legged on the bed and unfolded the sheet of paper. It contained only four lines of Leif’s spidery handwriting. Name, address, phone number, and six words, three in Norwegian and three in English. She guessed that they meant the same thing. Jeg elsker deg. I love you.