The Long Fall

by Crouch, Julia

  ‘There,’ he says, pointing to an island not far off the coast of Turkey.

  ‘Is it anything to do with Icarus?’ I ask, and all three of them look at me, frowning. ‘You know, Icarus, who didn’t do what his dad said, flew too close to the sun, melted the wax on his wings and fell into the sea and drowned.’

  Tom shrugs. ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m a chemist.’

  And Laura just giggles.

  ‘It’s got great surf,’ Tom says.

  ‘But you have to be careful,’ Laura adds. ‘The currents are awful dangerous around the north coast.’

  I’m surprised by this. I’ve always thought the sea around Greece was calm and blue, but then I guess those stories of storms in the Odyssey must have some grounding in fact.

  ‘And are there cliffs and sandy beaches?’ Beattie asks.

  ‘Loads,’ Tom says. ‘It’s a bit windy, but apart from that, it’s paradise on earth.’

  ‘Perhaps we’ve found our place,’ I say to Beattie.

  ‘Talking about which, we’ve not got anywhere to stay tonight. Any ideas?’ Tom says.

  I’m just about to recommend the Peta Inn when Beattie jumps in.

  ‘There’s a really good place up Mitropoleos called Funny Trumpet Guest House,’ she says. ‘It’s meant to be the best in Athens. If they’re full, you can keep heading up that way.’ She gestures with her hand towards Mitropoleos, which is in the complete opposite direction to Nikis, where we’re staying. ‘There’s loads of cheap places up there. But don’t take your backpacks while you look – it’s way too hot for that. Just leave them here and we’ll mind them for you till you find somewhere.’

  ‘Would you?’ Laura asks, her little white teeth showing through her pretty smile.

  She actually looks fit to drop. A lot of travellers arriving in Athens do – especially the smaller girls, for whom lugging round twenty-five-pound rucksacks in the midday heat is a serious challenge. Even if it weren’t for being attacked so regularly, my neck and shoulders would still hurt from carrying my rucksack.

  ‘Sure,’ Beattie says. ‘I know what it’s like. It feels like running free when you can leave the baggage for a while.’

  ‘Cheers,’ Tom says. ‘Let me buy you a couple of beers to say ta.’

  ‘Listen to Mr Moneybags,’ Laura says, giggling.

  He signals again to the waitress for two more, and she brings them to our table to line up against our unfinished drinks.

  ‘Leave that, too.’ Beattie points at the day pack Laura is still wearing clamped to her front. Laura looks at Tom, who nods.

  “Thanks,’ she says, taking it off and handing it to Beattie, circling her freed shoulders.

  ‘Weighs a ton,’ Beattie says, putting it down at her feet.

  ‘It does pull on my neck a bit.’

  Tom places a pile of coins on the table for our beers while Laura fishes out a map and gets Beattie to point out where Funny Trumpet is.

  But I knew that Beattie was sending them off on a wild goose chase. Funny Trumpet is indeed supposed to be the best hostel, but everyone knows you have to book up in advance well before you turn up. There was no way they were going to find a bed there.

  We watched them drift off along the street like sunburned children, freed of all their luggage except the pouch, which Tom kept around his neck. The shops were all closing for their long afternoon breaks and, apart from our poor, hardworking girl waitress and an old man dozing on a chair in the shade of a closed greengrocer’s awning, there was not a Greek to be seen. The muzz of morning beer mixed with midday sun descended on me. It’s a great feeling. The trick is to keep it topped up with just enough alcohol to stop it turning into a headache, but not so much that you start slurring, become incoherent or fall asleep.

  ‘What was all that about?’ I ask Beattie as soon as Tom and Laura are out of earshot.

  She sits back and taps the side of her nose.

  ‘But why did you make up names for us?’

  ‘So they won’t be able to find us,’ she says. Then she hauls the day pack up onto her lap, unzips it and rummages around. ‘Stupid girl, leaving her bag with me.’

  ‘What are you going to take?’ I say. ‘Not her passport and stuff?’

  ‘Nah. We need her to be able to go home on the Magic Bus tomorrow. Just stuff like . . . Ah.’

  She pulls out an envelope that had been tucked away at the bottom of the bag.

  ‘“Almost all the money we brought with us, we’re taking back home”,’ she says, patting the day bag and copying exactly Laura’s thick Yorkshire accent and simpering tones. ‘Oh no you ain’t, honey.’

  And I just sit there, my mouth hanging open, as she counts out two hundred pounds in twenty-pound notes and slips the remaining forty back into the envelope, which she places back right at the bottom of the day pack.

  ‘What?’ she says, catching my shocked expression. ‘It’s not like they’d budgeted to have this much. I’m doing them a favour. Life should never be too easy.’ She stands up. ‘Now we’d better clear outta here before they get back.’

  ‘What about their stuff?’ I ask her. ‘Someone could just steal the rest of it.’

  Beattie sighs and goes over to have a word with the waitress. As we leave, carrying the bottles Tom bought us, I look back and see the poor girl lugging the big rucksacks into the safety of The Milk Bar kitchen.

  That’s almost the worst part of it. If anything is discovered to be missing before Laura and Tom leave for home tomorrow, we – as in ‘Trudy and Joanie’ – are not going to be the first suspects.

  We went back to Peta Inn, woke Jake, who was, amazingly, still asleep, snoring and sweating on his bunk, and we brought him here to the Gardens for the afternoon, stopping to buy some more beers on the way.

  ‘So we can celebrate,’ Beattie says.

  I don’t feel much like celebrating.

  10

  7 August 1980, 10 a.m. Athens. Peta Inn roof.

  Last night was great! Sore head again, but well worth it.

  We found this rooftop bar up above a thundering main road. It was high enough to catch a slight breeze and had a lovely view of the Acropolis rising above the city streets. Beattie was on top form and I almost felt able to forgive her for what she did earlier. I began to get that feeling again that the three of us are special; spiritual, almost.

  OK, I was pretty pissed, but whatever.

  We talked on and on about Ikaria, making our plans, weaving a picture of the idyllic, clean life we would lead away from the city, which, lovely view or not, is filthy and stinking. We’ve decided to go the day after tomorrow. We’ll just head down to Piraeus, jump on a boat and set off.

  We shared a couple of flasks of Metaxa with an off-duty bouzouki player at the next table. As the night wore on, he started playing and we sang along, making up lyrics to his traditional tunes until our voices were hoarse.

  We didn’t leave until gone four in the morning, when the light had begun to creep into the night, silhouetting the Parthenon and making us realise that we were ready for sleeping. We stumbled back towards Nikis Street, still with the song in us, muffled by a pleasing blanket of booze and Valium.

  Jake started singing, ‘I’ve Bin Stone Before’, and we all joined in. Gong. Camembert Electrique. Pretty esoteric but we all know it. You see? Magic. Like our threesome was meant to happen.

  And now I remember something that until now has completely escaped me. Am I having blackouts? Jesus, I thought that only happened to serious old alcoholics, not young girls who like to have fun.

  After we’ve been going for a while, I stop and take a piss behind a tree.

  As I stand and straighten my black dress, I catch sight of a poster someone’s tacked to the trunk of my makeshift toilet.

  DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN? it says in English. And underneath is a drawing of a youngish male face.

  ‘Hey,’ I say to Jake and Beattie, who have moved on to an awful rendition of Pink Floyd’s ‘Great Gig in the Sky’. ‘Com
e here.’

  They both stagger over.

  ‘Don’t we recognise this guy?’ I say, pointing at the picture on the poster. ‘Isn’t that The Australian Shit who punched me?’

  Beattie pushes in front of me to peer at it, leaning against the tree to steady herself. ‘Nah,’ she says. ‘Face is all wrong, see?’

  Perhaps the face was the wrong shape. It was hard to tell in the dim street light. And to be honest, my memory of that night in Manos’s bar was also a bit blurred by drink – not to mention the whack in the face.

  We carried on back, taking the direction we thought was right for Nikis. It wasn’t, however, and we ended up in some dodgy area on the wrong side of the Plaka. We retraced our steps and it must have taken us at least two hours to find Peta Inn, even though the bar had only been a fifteen-minute walk away when we set out.

  As we go into Peta Inn, I see another copy of the DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN? poster, pinned up among the TRAVEL PARTNER NEEDED and SLEEPING BAG FOR SALE notices on the board at the hostel entrance. The rest of the poster, which I hadn’t read out in the street, says that the drawing is taken from a body found in a clump of bushes near the Agora. Apart from a tourist map in English, there was nothing to identify him.

  Jake takes a look, and shakes his head.

  ‘Nah, Ems, Beattie’s right. Not that Australian cunt at all. It’s not his eyes, or his nose.’

  I’m just relieved that I was wrong. I don’t want to have to start bothering with going to the police and all that shit.

  But it was the same guy. The longer I think about it, the more certain I am.

  OK. I’ve just been down to take another look, just to put my mind at rest. But, this morning, the poster isn’t there any more. Perhaps they’ve found out who he was, then.

  11

  8 August 1980, Midday. Athens. OTE office, Patission Street.

  Shit. I woke up this morning and remembered I said I’d phone my parents like five days ago. The old dears’ll be worrying, and we’re off to Ikaria tomorrow, and God knows if they’ve even got phones out there.

  So I came down here to place my reversed-charge call.

  But I’ve been waiting here in this stinking hot hall for TWO HOURS.

  I’ve got no idea why it takes so fucking long just to place a call.

  I’m supposed to be meeting Jake and Bea right now in that new bar we found last night. They’ll be there now, and I’ll be missing out on all the fun. And I don’t want Beattie spending too much time alone with him.

  It’s not that I don’t trust him. Or her.

  But.

  Oh hell. Nothing’s happening here at all.

  Fuck it. I’m out of here.

  12

  9 August 1980, 10 p.m. Athens (still). Peta Inn roof (again).

  Today was going to be the moment we made our move to Ikaria. We meant to get up early and leave town before the sun got too high. But by the time we’d prised ourselves from our beds, waited for Dimitri to haul our rucksacks out of the store and packed our stuff up, it was nearly midday, and we were still here on the roof.

  On our way down the stairs with all our gear, Beattie says that if Dimitri isn’t at his perch behind the reception desk we’ll play the Dangerous Game and do a runner. I’m not too keen on this because we’ve been staying here for a week or something and he knows who we are. Also, he has the air – unusual for a Greek – of being a man who won’t let being ripped off rest too easily. And, as I tell her, at some point we’re going to have to pass back through Athens when we return.

  ‘If we return,’ Jake says, and we laugh.

  But, thank fuck, there’s little chance of Beattie having her way. I haven’t ever passed the front desk, day or night, without Dimitri being there. And, sure enough, there he was, perched behind the scarred wooden counter, smoking and poring over another porny mag, the creep.

  We paid and stumbled out into the street, talking a little too loudly and a little too fast, thanks to the pills we’d taken to help us on our way.

  We stopped in at our new favourite bar – I never did find out the name – for a farewell drink. Of course, the one beer turned into three, and then we wandered around for about half an hour looking for Monastiraki station. So it wasn’t until about three that we managed to catch the train out to Piraeus.

  The carriage was rammed and stifling. We had to stand, pressed in against people who were even stinkier than us. Of course we hadn’t thought to bring any water, and, as the beer/speed dehydration kicked in I felt as if the last drops of fluid in my body were soaking into my rucksack (which I had to keep on, because there was no room to take it off).

  So when I step off the train at Piraeus, the world disintegrates into black dots and I fall to my knees.

  The next thing I know, Beattie’s cradling my head in her lap, pouring some water into my mouth.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask.

  ‘Crap, Emma. You just blacked right out,’ she says. ‘The guard said he wanted to call you an ambulance, but I managed to talk him out of it. Said you do this a lot.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I croak.

  Despite the water, my lips feel numb and crisp, as if they belong to someone else.

  ‘Girl, you haven’t eaten anything since those fries last night,’ Jake says from somewhere to my right.

  In fact, I only ate two of the fries he’s talking about. He and Beattie wolfed down the rest.

  ‘We’re going to get some food in you if it’s the last thing we do,’ Beattie says.

  So they lead me out to a bar near the Piraeus Metro station, on the busy main road that runs in front of the port. Despite the heavy traffic and a reeking blue cloud of diesel from a ferry engine running in the water about a hundred yards away from where we’re sitting, the air is lighter and fresher than it is in Athens.

  Beattie orders a Greek salad, three portions of fries and some souvlaki. The meat looks burned and tough, but I manage to force down a couple of the chips and a few pieces of tomato and feta. Jake has asked the waiter to bring a litre of house red wine, too, which costs just fifty drachma.

  ‘It’s very restorative, red wine,’ he says, pouring me a large glass. ‘More of a medicine than a drink.’

  Although my digestion is working hard to take the solid food on board, my head’s mostly landed back on my shoulders, and I’m able to organise my thoughts a little.

  ‘Do we know what time the boat leaves?’ I ask, accepting another slug of wine from Jake.

  Beattie shrugs. ‘I guess we have to go ask somewhere.’

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’ Jake says, turning to her.

  ‘Not exactly. But this is like where the boats go from?’

  ‘Jeeze,’ Jake says. ‘Blind leading the blind.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Beattie says, frowning, her back suddenly more erect.

  ‘I just thought you were on it,’ Jake says.

  Beattie rolls her eyes and spears a chunk of grilled lamb with her fork. ‘Is it me has to arrange everything, then?’ she says.

  I nearly laugh. They’re bickering like an old married couple, like my parents, even.

  We finish our meal, pay – despite Beattie’s unsurprising suggestion that we do a runner – and, lugging our rucksacks, we skirt around the port until we find a kiosk with TICKETS and LEFT LUGGAGE and BEST DEALS! written above it in English.

  The blonde, immaculately made-up woman in the booth tuts and jerks her head back when we ask her about boats to Ikaria. ‘Boats to Agios Kirikos only Friday and Tuesday,’ she says, returning to what she had been doing – filing her nails.

  Today is Saturday.

  ‘No, we want to go to Ikaria, though,’ Jake says.

  ‘Agios Kirikos is the port in Ikaria,’ she says, tutting again.

  ‘How was I supposed to know that?’ Jake says, spreading his hands wide.

  The woman shrugs and slips her emery board back and forth over her index fingernail.

  The sound makes my teeth fee
l fizzy.

  ‘Cow,’ Jake mutters, just loud enough for her to hear as he turns away.

  Shockingly, the woman hisses at him.

  Sighing, Beattie muscles past him and buys three tickets, deck class, for the Tuesday ferry to Agios Kirikos. I pull Jake aside while she does the deal. He has offended the woman enough and needs keeping in check.

  ‘Great,’ Beattie says, coming over to join us and looking gloomily at the indecipherable Greek on the three pieces of card the woman eventually handed to her. ‘We’ve got to wait out three more fucking days.’

  ‘Shall we go back to Athens?’ I say.

  ‘I’m not staying in this asswipe of a place.’ Jake gestures around the ugly port. ‘It’s a total heap of shit.’

  ‘Seems like we’ve got no choice, then.’ Beattie sticks out her lip.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, putting my arms round both of them, feeling the electricity from where my bare forearm touches Jake’s shoulder. ‘Don’t be so down. We have fun in Athens, right? It’s not so bad.’

  ‘Yeah, but I want to be on a boat on the ocean,’ Beattie says. ‘I want to go to the island right now.’

  ‘Me too,’ Jake says.

  ‘There, there, children,’ I go, smiling. ‘We can go on Tuesday. It’s only three days away.’

  I suggest that, since we’re in Piraeus, we might as well have a look around. It looks more authentically Greek than the parts of Athens we’ve been hanging out in. And there probably won’t be that many foreigners, if we move away from the port area.

  So we go back to the woman who’s sold us the tickets and, for a hundred drachs each – which is a total rip-off, but Beattie and I stave off Jake as he starts to tell her that (after all, it’s not like we don’t have enough cash now) – we dump our stuff with her. Then we set off to explore the dusty, monochrome grid of streets behind the port.

  ‘What now?’ Jake says, as we stop at the edge of an unremarkable square.

  ‘Look!’ Beattie says, her face lighting up for the first time since the disappointment of not being able to get on a boat. She points to a small shop next to a bar at the other side of the square with a sign saying TATTOOS above its door. ‘That’s more like it.’