The Sexopaths

  ‘Daddy, is that lady a gypsy?’

  ‘Which lady?

  ‘There, that fat one.’ She points extravagantly at an apparently (and thankfully) slumbering female of uncertain origins, beached disconcertingly close by, swimsuit stretched seal-like, still gorged on a breakfast shoal of oily sprats, pale skin slick with suncream.

  ‘Camille. Shh!’

  ‘But you and mummy said there were gypsies!’

  ‘Not here at the hotel – that was at the boats.’

  ‘That lady’s hair looks like a gypsy’s.’

  He flinches again, and puts a silencing finger to his lips. Inwardly he curses Monique. To add spice to their trip, she had arranged the final leg of their journey by hydrofoil from Piraeus. On being discharged from their taxi in the busy street outside the port, Adam had been concerned to keep Camille clear of Athens’ perilously swerving traffic. Then seeing that she’d spotted a swaying quartet of swarthy alcoholics arrayed upon a kerbside bench, he’d barked:

  ‘Camille – quick! They’re gypsies. Stay close to me!’

  There were three men, leering at Monique, enlivened by such a titillating highlight, and a gap-toothed woman who’d fixed Camille’s small blonde form with a vacant stare. Terror-struck, she’d leapt like a grasshopper to his side, and might have been conjoined as they trundled their smart cabin-bags past the unwelcome welcoming committee. One of the men remarked in Greek and the others cackled lewdly. Camille, determined never to take her eyes off them, entered the gates of the port with her head facing almost backwards. At first Adam had congratulated himself on the success of their ploy – prior to the trip, concerned over Camille’s propensity to explore, Monique had recounted the true story of the British toddler who’d vanished on a holiday in Greece, and that some said he’d been ‘adopted’ by gypsies. What with other even higher profile disappearances since, they shared the collective paranoia of most parents of their generation; indeed Monique would spend what seemed like hours on news and gossip websites, and appeared perpetually pained by the prospect of becoming similar prey. Camille, in her own way, had become gripped by the notion of gypsies, and over and again had insisted they repeat the tale, and tell her what the gypsies did with stolen children. Now she sidles up to him and asks in a more circumspect tone:

  ‘They were real gypsies at the boats, weren’t they?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Daddy – do gypsies steal children?’

  ‘Bad ones might.’

  ‘Why do they steal them?’

  ‘To sell them.’

  ‘Why do they want to sell them?’

  ‘To get money.’

  ‘Who do they sell them to?’

  ‘To other bad people.’

  ‘What do the bad people do to the children?’

  ‘Make them do nasty work.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Keep them prisoner.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Give them scraps to eat.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Shout at them.’

  ‘Why don’t the gypsies sell their own children?’

  ‘They want to keep them.’

  ‘What else do gypsies do?’

  ‘They have fierce dogs.’

  ‘Why do they have fierce dogs?’

  ‘To scare people away from their caravans.’

  ‘Is that where they hide the children?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘What else do gypsies do?’

  ‘I think that’s about it.’

  ‘What about hedgehogs?’

  ‘Oh yeah, they cook hedgehogs in clay and eat them.’

  ‘And the prickles all come off first?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Is that fat lady a gypsy?’

  ‘Camille, shall we go in the pool?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Reluctantly he rises and leads her back to the shallow-end, encouraging her to take a jump into his arms. To his relief she is soon distracted by the other kids, who are drowning what appears to be a locust. Small friends reunited, Adam paddles surreptitiously back to his berth, to haul himself out beside his lounger. Hastily he dries his hands, rearranges his towel and squats on the sunbed. He opens Xara’s message. True to form, she’s provided few lines for him to read between: ‘Client mtg Tue 10pm. X.’ Nevertheless, it conjures a surge of excitement, a warm wave that ripples through the centre line of his body, quickening his vital signs.

  He sinks back on the bed and closes his eyes against the overhead glare. A brief lysergic flashback flickers across the inadequate screen of his eyelids. He fumbles blindly for his sunglasses and sends them clattering across the tiles and under the adjoining sunbed. The female occupier – Camille’s putative, amply proportioned gypsy – stirs and fishes them with a grunt from between a pair of sandals. As, carefully, she hands over the glasses he notices the gaze beneath her own dark but not quite impenetrable lenses sweep across the swollen skin-tight Lycra of his black trunks. He wrestles his instincts to turn over (and so acknowledge his complicity), but instead says thanks, and settles back, his thoughts jumping like a jam-jar of grasshoppers from his childhood. Ten p.m. Now she wants it at night. What does that mean? A single woman, perhaps. Not an easy time to explain an absence from home. Or her partner’s away for the night. Or she could be the one in town on business. Isn’t that when most males would indulge?

  But ten p.m. Tuesday? How shall he explain his own absence? (He notes he’s not questioning his attendance.) They travel home on Tuesday – he should be there in good time, but typically they’d stay in after a trip away, fatigued by queues and queasy from serial snacking, maybe get a takeaway, open a bottle of wine, have an early night, a ‘nice night’. He could say he’d arranged beforehand to meet a colleague for a quick catch-up at the pub – the timings would make sense – but Monique would expect him to put her first, as invariably he would. And sod’s law, if he went to ‘meet’ someone – the nominated person would no doubt phone their house that very same night. It had even happened once before, and he’d surely played his joker at that particular game. What a fool he’d have looked if he’d begun to relay some non-existent sending of regards. He shudders a little at the memory – if Monique had had any inkling of suspicion, and had wanted to trap him, he would have walked right into it.

  ***

  ‘So I gather your beautiful daughter thinks I’m a gypsy lady.’

  Adam cringes, ducking for cover into his wine, as if to buy a moment to gather his wits. So she was awake all along. If she heard gypsy she heard fat. But he takes comfort in her untroubled tone and generous description of Camille.

  ‘Sorry about that – she’s a bit obsessed with gypsies right now.’

  She gives a little self-deprecating laugh. ‘Oh, don’t worry I took it as a compliment, being Irish.’

  But probably not being overweight, thinks Adam. He looks around, as if to check if anybody is listening-in, as though he’s going to make a point he doesn’t want overheard. It’s the delegates-and-partners dinner, a noisy, lively affair being held in the alfresco section of the hotel restaurant, near the pool. The seating plan, to his irritation designed by someone with a mind selectively to divide and mix couples, has placed him between the sister of the Irish representative (his erstwhile poolside neighbour), and the somewhat taciturn French-speaking wife of the Belgian representative. Apart from distancing him from Monique, these are hardly the ‘useful international contacts’ he has in mind boasting about when he gets back to work. Across from him are two surly chain-smoking Germans, apparently a married couple who seem to have somehow bucked the system (maybe the smoking?) and – just about within conversing range – some relief in the form of the ever-chirpy Andalucian, Ignacio. Monique is away at the far end of the long trestle table, on the same side as Adam, opposite the quietly regal French President of the organisation, beside whom is Secretary Simone, glistening, and opposite her and beside Monique the Vice-President, an immacul
ately dressed, tall, urbane and slightly effeminate Dutchman. These characters, and others whose names, roles and nationalities he’s already largely forgotten, Monique had variously pointed out and introduced to him during the extended pre-dinner drinks session, when – on top of a bottle they’d had delivered to their room – they both imbibed more champagne than was probably wise. Now, he at least, washed up it seems between several of the less engaging characters in the party, wishes again for the clock to spin and their family mini-break in Mykonos proper to commence, the pair of them free of interference and he unburdened of his growing unease about having to share Monique with what he senses is a growing band of male admirers. Still, he figures there’s no alternative but to make the best of it. He empties his wine glass and delivers his statement to the Irishwoman.

  ‘We told her that gypsies had stolen a child in Greece – you know, that little boy, going back a bit now? Trouble is, she can’t get it out of her head – the gypsies more than the incident. It was to keep her from wandering… but I’m beginning to regret it.’

  ‘Oh – you did the right thing. Can’t be too careful these days. She’s so cute – quite a little lady. Spirited, I think is the word. Independently minded.’

  ‘You know, for an awful moment I actually thought I’d lost her this afternoon.’ Surprised by his unforeseen candour, Adam enjoys a surge of relief; he hasn’t related this story to Monique; clearly it’s been leaning guiltily upon the door of his subconscious, like a schoolboy reluctant to face the Head. ‘I took her down into the town to see the pelicans and get some lunch – I thought we were trying to choose a pair of sandals for her in one of those little boutiques – next thing she’d disappeared into thin air.’

  Adam’s thoughts drift back to events earlier in the day…

  ***

  Poolside, time drags, with only the discomfiting prospect of the communal buffet lunch: he – comic in beach fatigues, inconsequential chaperone to Camille, conveniently invisible as marital partner to Monique; they – coolly attired peacocks strutting about her. So he opts out, offers an expedition to Camille; defection the better part of valour; the bittersweet taste of rebellion on his lips. They flip-flop down the sun-dried concrete hill to Mykonos town. Camille likes it; she helps to occupy his mind with her cannonade of questions. They head roughly seawards between untidily fenced private properties and emerge on a quiet walkway branching onto a little abandoned jetty; below languishes a rusting moped, long-marooned, half buried in a narrow strand of stony sand, fused to the boulders, steel reverting to ore. Camille is in heaven: she spends the best part of an hour diligently carrying rocks from the tiny beach and dropping them one by one with a satisfying kerplunk into the clear deep waters beneath, dancing and dodging each time a rogue wave slaps the pier-end and explodes into a zillion droplets, suspended at their zenith for a split second in freeze-frame, before falling with deceptive velocity to shower her gleefully shrieking form. Eventually, the beach substantially depleted, he manages to coax her away with the promise of a treat; they pick their way past the iconic distempered windmills, ocean-facing giants sporting badly coiffeured thatched Beatle-cuts; they navigate the slippery wave-splashed walkways of Little Venice; they round the point into the harbour and settle at a taverna for a snack, drinks and ices. Avidly observant, Camille inquires if each passer-by is a gypsy; until to Adam’s relief her attention is diverted by the ponderously plodding arrival of a pair of Great White pelicans, immense yellow-gulleted latter-day dodos armed with bills that simply demand your lunch, and no argument. Camille, is only too happy to oblige, overjoyed as unfinished meze disappears into the two avian dustbins.

  As supplies dwindle to naught, the pelicans eye her implacably through cold reptilian eyes, as if wondering whether they could eat her, before moving on to bully better-endowed diners. So he and Camille set about returning to the hotel via the town’s paved maze of narrow crowded streets, worn smooth by generations of visitors, a constant tide lapping against whitewashed walls showcasing banisters and balconies gaily painted in primary colours, picture postcards printed large. Adam soon feels he’s losing his bearings; whichever way they turn the flow seems to push against them; Camille however is bewitched by the bright wares of the bazaar, her monologue a stream of wants as each new stimulus presents itself for purchase. Adam wishes Monique were with them, she’d love showing Camille around the bijou boutiques. The thought of her momentarily disconcerts him, but also highlights the success of this little excursion: being with Camille has taken his mind off his wife.

  He tries to rationalise. She must find herself at the magnetic centre of male gravity many days of the year. It’s just that he’s not usually there to notice. He should shrug it off – but he knows deep inside he’s not looking forward to getting back to the hotel. He pictures Monique’s group having drinks at the poolside bar, an in-crowd from which he’s excluded, protected by an invisible bubble of decorum that he can’t puncture unless invited. But Camille acknowledges no such protocol – she’ll just go flying in, a mini Exocet homing upon her mother’s womb. At least he can follow in her slipstream.

  ‘Camille – let’s buy mummy a present.’

  They choose some earrings, and of course a necklace for Camille – immediately she’s desperate to take home these trophies, but Adam has the further Monique-pleasing idea of obtaining a pair of sandals for Camille (he recalls overhearing mother explaining to daughter that she’d grown out of this summer’s edition when they packed). He senses it’s a gesture that will reinforce their fragile family corral. He visualises Monique leaning across to hug him while the others look on, benevolent smiles sweetly icing envy. So they enter a likely looking store – he’s been keeping a firm grip on Camille as they’ve squeezed through the crowds of fellow window-shoppers, but now inside he relaxes ands let her browse around while he focuses on the task in hand. Quite quickly, he settles upon an intricately decorated leather sandal that he locates on a low shelf. He stands upright and turns to query the size with the assistant, only to discover no trace of Camille. The tiny shop is empty. Surely there had been a couple of other customers… but can he remember? He turns, sandal in hand, and strides out into the street, expecting to see Camille looking at the window display. But… no. There are people, still – a blur of people – strolling, meandering, engrossed in their own little worlds, slow motion compared to the swell of thoughts that surge into his brain on a flood tide of panic. In neither direction is there sight of a little girl being led away, nor any commotion that might distract these contented consumers. Surely Camille would have cried out – like they’d trained her to do – if someone had tried to take her?

  ‘Camille!’ He tries to shout but her precious name comes out choked with emotion, as if already his subconscious is telling him he’s said it to her for the last time. He feels blind and helpless, rooted to the spot, yet knowing he must charge through the crowds calling out like Monique would already be doing. But which way? He imagines the chilling news story later – “If only her father had gone right instead of left he would have caught up with her before her abductor got her onto the afternoon ferry.” But he always chooses left. Compressed vignettes queue to play across his mind: of the disinterest of the Greek-speaking police looking on doubtfully as he pleads for them to close the port, to search the barnacle cluster of houses with their dank wartime bomb-cellars; of jubilant tourists bringing a ‘lost’ child to him – but it’s the wrong girl; of himself soaked with sweat, hauling open the smoked glass sliding door and bursting panting into the meeting room back at the hotel… his dread of bearing such news to Monique:

  ‘Monique… c’est Camille. Elle est perdue!’

  Bizarrely his fantasy finds him speaking in French, as if to demonstrate to the shocked onlookers he’s not just some nobody she happens to be married to. He sees Monique’s face, the anguish – no trace of anger – just absolute despair as unseen horrors overrun her unready defences and give life to the ghosts that lie in wait.


  ‘What do you mean? What do you mean!’ she cries.

  ‘She’s lost in town. The police are looking for her. We need to get back down now.’

  ‘Oh my God… Camille…’ Monique becomes hysterical. He wraps his arm round her and helps her out of the room, the bemused delegates watching in silence – Ignacio, the parent, leaping to his feet, knocking over his chair and striding after them.

  ‘It is okay – sir, she is here.’

  ‘What?’

  The cool fingers that lightly grip his forearm invade his nightmarish daydream with the detached post-operative touch of a nurse detailed to bring him round.

  ‘She is inside. She stroke cat.’

  ‘My daughter?’

  ‘There – she love cat.’ The young woman indicates through the open door in the direction of the counter. Adam can just see, poking out on the left-hand side, a tiny pair of bare heels – Camille’s heels. He darts in, and rounds the counter. The cat starts and jumps away from Camille.

  ‘Daddy – you’ll scare her!’

  Adam can’t speak. He coughs to cover the welling relief, dizzy, heart pounding, head throbbing, kneels to place a healing hand on Camille’s crown, calls to coax the cat back to her…

  ***

  ‘Well – it seems a pretty secure place, does Mykonos, being an island for one thing – and the Greeks are so good with kids, aren’t they?’

  The Irishwoman’s question jolts him out of his roller coaster of reverie.

  ‘Oh… yes… on the face of it… it’s just – you know – with some of these things that have happened it’s easy to imagine the worst… a person with a speedboat at the ready, or an isolated cottage in the hills.’

  ‘It must be tough being a parent – there’s enough bad in the world to worry about without having to watch over your little ones.’