Last Seen Alive

by Claire Douglas

  It was a few hours and a few cans of lager into the journey when she told me that both her parents were dead.

  ‘Same here,’ I said, thinking of my mum and dad, although I didn’t reveal the details. ‘I’m an only child. They were older parents, religious.’ She nodded knowingly, her eyes sad, and I got the feeling there was something she wasn’t telling me. ‘What made you decide to come away?’ I asked.

  ‘I hated my life,’ she replied, surprising me with her intensity, and I noted a hardness, a bitterness to her expression. ‘It was going nowhere. No qualifications. No prospects.’

  ‘You didn’t go to uni?’

  She shook her head. ‘Family circumstances,’ she said non-committally. ‘I had to get away otherwise I’d go mad.’

  I took a swig of lager. ‘Same here. I finished my degree just before coming here. Sheffield uni. But I was stuck in an abusive relationship with this guy.’ I swirled my finger near my head to indicate how much of a psycho he was. ‘I met him when I was vulnerable. Isn’t that always the way?’ The alcohol had made me loose-lipped. I didn’t want to say too much. ‘What about you?’

  She shook her head, her fine hair falling about her face. ‘No. Nobody special.’ I could tell she wasn’t about to be drawn so I dropped the subject. Instead I asked her where she planned to travel and we talked about our journeys so far. I found out that she’d only been in Bangkok for two days. We discussed our desire to island hop for a few months. By now the sky had darkened, the strip lighting buzzed overhead, and the carriage was a hive of activity as seats were converted into beds.

  ‘Shall we make our beds?’ she said, her eyes lighting up, which made me laugh. It was like a giant sleepover; there was something strangely exciting about it. I realised that the overhead compartment converted into a bed and the seats we’d been sitting on could be laid flat so that they joined up. ‘It’s like bunk beds,’ she laughed. ‘Do you want the top or bottom?’

  ‘Bottom, if that’s OK?’

  She nodded, appearing pleased. An orange nylon curtain concealed the two of us from the rest of the carriage. ‘This is cosy,’ she said, the overhead bunk creaking as she manoeuvred herself into her nightwear. I pulled a long T-shirt from my backpack. It was creased and smelt damp but I put it on anyway, having to contort my body in the cramped space. I unwrapped the sheet provided from its cellophane bag. It was crisp and white and felt cool against my skin. I lay there, the sheet pulled up to my chin, trying not to be afraid of the rattling train. In the darkness it felt like it was going too fast; I started to worry that we would go hurtling off the tracks. How safe were trains in Thailand?

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked a disembodied voice from above. Then Karen leaned over so that her upside-down face was showing, her hair splaying out in front of her. ‘I don’t think I’m going to get any sleep. Do you?’

  ‘I’m worried we’re going to derail,’ I admitted.

  ‘Derail? Seriously?’ Her face had turned red where all the blood was rushing to it. ‘I didn’t think you were afraid of anything, Beth Elliot. You with your tough-cookie image.’

  I laughed. ‘Tough cookie. Is that what you think?’

  ‘I saw the way you handled those blokes earlier.’ Her eyes flashed with admiration. ‘You’re someone not to be messed with.’

  She was right about that.

  24

  When we disembarked from the train the next morning, blurry-eyed and hungry, we stuck together, an unspoken agreement between us, both of us relieved to have found a companion.

  It’s funny how quickly relationships are forged when you are travelling; people you might not have met, or been interested in getting to know, in your everyday life suddenly become indispensable. You sleep together, eat together, wash together, spend all day sunbathing or swimming together, and it forms a kind of intimacy that I’d never had with a woman before. I didn’t have many mates back home; most girls at school had given me a wide berth thinking I was too mouthy, too weird. University was different, but having a possessive, abusive husband put paid to forming any close friendships. Most people I met couldn’t believe I’d got married so young and I was immediately elevated into the ‘old before her time’ category and never invited to go out drinking or clubbing with them. Not that I would have done anyway, it wasn’t worth the grief when I got home.

  But I’d escaped Sean and my past. In Thailand I was fun Beth, exciting Beth. I could see it in Karen’s face as I downed pint after pint in the beach bar, or went skinny-dipping in the sea at night: admiration. We were the same age but I could tell that she looked up to me. Maybe her upbringing had been more sheltered than mine.

  We were like snowballs, Karen and I, collecting people as we went, so that by the time we’d passed through Trang, Krabi and Nopparat Thara beach and arrived on Koh Phi Phi a few weeks later, there was a small group of us hanging out together: Emma, a statuesque redhead from Ireland with the palest skin I’d ever seen, sullen Lars from Finland whose eyes were too close together, and Harry and Dylan from New Jersey. Dylan and Emma were both on a gap year before starting university, Lars was a few years older than me and had jacked in his dead-end job to go travelling, and Harry had recently finished a medical degree and was taking six months off before looking for work.

  We partied hard, often falling into bed at 4 a.m. During the day we swam in the clear jade waters, or sunbathed on the pure white beaches. I had a bit of a crush on Harry, with his foppish blond hair and dimpled smile. He towered over me and Karen and out of the three lads he was the most charismatic. Lars was too moody, although Emma seemed to like him, and Dylan was constantly going on about the size of women’s chests in their bikinis. Karen and I agreed that we thought he was handsome – dark curly hair, brown eyes and a buff, tanned body – but ultimately, we said regretfully, he was a sleaze. Dylan’s tongue practically hung out every time Emma was in his eye-line, but she showed no interest in him, much to his disappointment.

  I felt safe in a crowd. Despite knowing that Sean had no clue as to my whereabouts, that he would never have guessed I’d taken a plane to Thailand of all places – he knew I hated flying – it still sent shock waves through me when I saw someone who resembled him; a tall, stocky frame, or striking blue eyes which could be as warm and inviting as the Indian ocean one minute and as icy as the Antarctic the next.

  Karen was the quietest of our group. She would often sit and watch us, her eyes dark by the light of the camp fire as the rest of us drank and swore and sometimes snogged. I wondered what went on behind Karen’s large hazel eyes. Was she nursing a broken heart? She didn’t seem interested in men; if anything she seemed to want to disappear, getting irritated if anyone tried to chat her up. I attempted to find out a bit about her, but apart from revealing that her parents had died when she was young, she was closed about her life back in England. I didn’t ask too many questions and neither did she, which suited me fine. Yet, because we had spent the first week together before being joined by the others, I felt a connection to her.

  ‘What will you do after this?’ I asked her one night. It was late and we had joined a party on the beach. She sat away from the others, clutching a can of lager, her slim legs crossed. There was a slight breeze coming off the sea and I could smell coconut oil and sand.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t want to go home. I’d quite like to go to Australia after this. Maybe work in a bar. Earn some money so that I can keep travelling.’ She seemed sad as she talked. ‘What about you? Do you fancy Australia?’

  I was touched that she might want us to travel there together. ‘I’ve got a place at teacher-training college for this September,’ I said. ‘Middlesex. But I’m going to defer it.’ I’d made up my mind earlier that day while lying on the beach, the sun on my skin, the sand in my hair. It was paradise. I didn’t want it to end.

  She giggled. ‘I don’t blame you. Who wants to go back to depressing, grey England when we have all this?’ She widened her arms as though encompassing the beach, the sea, the
palm trees swaying. Lars and Emma were running along the shoreline with a group of people I hadn’t met, shrieking and darting in and out of the sea.

  ‘Exactly,’ I replied. ‘I’m not planning on going home. Ever.’ Karen was the first person I’d told about my place at college. Sean didn’t even know. Middlesex was to be my escape, except things escalated sooner than planned so I’d fled to Thailand instead.

  Karen laughed, her teeth glowing white in her tanned face. ‘Still running away?’

  She knew I had escaped an abusive relationship but I hadn’t revealed anything else. To talk of it all would make it real, and here I could be somebody else. I wondered if she felt that way too. In Thailand we were living in the moment, we were who we decided to be that day. I suspected we were both shedding the skins of our past, like the snakes we sometimes spotted in the long grass by our hotel.

  ‘Did he hit you? Your ex?’ she asked, concern flashing in those big eyes.

  I was suddenly ashamed I’d been that person, that woman. That I’d put up with it for so long. That I’d married the bastard. He’d been charming. Older, richer – although I later found out the money came from dodgy dealings and ripping people off. But I hadn’t known that at first. I’d been flattered that he’d shown an interest in me, an unhappy fifteen-year-old girl living alone with her father. He’d been twenty then and dapper, driving around in his Jag, with his chunky Rolex watch (which I later found out was fake) and his well-cut suits. He thought he was a gangster but I’d been impressed. It soon wore off.

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted in a small voice. ‘He hit me.’

  She shook her head sadly, fiddling with the top of the lager can. ‘I know I’ve only known you a few weeks. But shit, Beth, you’re the last person I’d imagine would fall for a man like that.’

  ‘There isn’t a type who ends up with abusive men,’ I snapped, the familiar white flame of fury flickering inside me. I was shocked at her naivety. My first impression of her had been right. Prissy little bitch. ‘It can happen to anyone.’

  Even in the dark I could sense her embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean … I just think that you’re so feisty. I’ve seen the way you unleash that tongue of yours on people.’

  Unleash? She made me sound like a monster. I wondered, then, if she was a little scared of me. Maybe not scared, exactly, but wary. I hoped so.

  ‘I got my own back on him, don’t worry about that,’ I said, pulling my legs up to my chest. I watched the party unfold around me, Emma dancing suggestively with Lars, Dylan’s eyes roaming over the gyrating bodies of the women, Harry, who kept stealing glances at us. I hoped he’d come over.

  ‘Really? How?’

  I tried to sound nonchalant. ‘At first I gave as good as I got until I realised that to fight back would make it worse. He put me in hospital once …’

  She flinched.

  ‘… so I hit him where it hurt the most. I emptied our joint bank account and ran away.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Bloody hell, Beth.’

  I was angry with myself. I’d said more than I should have. I’d learnt the hard way that to reveal too much was to leave yourself open. If Sean ever found me I had no doubt he would kill me.

  I changed the subject. ‘I know!’ I exclaimed suddenly, making her jump so that she spilt lager down her legs. ‘Why don’t we get a tattoo?’

  It was only a ten-minute walk to the other end of Ton Sai village, where I was sure I’d seen a sign advertising tattoos, yet it took us much longer as Karen kept pausing at the stalls, rifling through purses and sarongs. She seemed unable to say no to the traders who shook jewellery or towels in her face. It began to irritate me, so every time she stopped I huffed and sighed loudly. She threw me an apologetic smile from behind her hair, putting down whatever she’d picked up to trail after me. She was so eager to please. The stifling heat was making me bad-tempered and by the time we’d reached the tattoo parlour I wanted to punch somebody in the face, preferably Karen.

  The parlour, if you could call it that, was actually a one-room shack on the edge of the village. A slim Thai man with a scarf tied around his neck stood over a young lad with a very hairy back, etching a heart onto the skin of his shoulder blade.

  Karen paled. ‘Do you think it’s safe?’ she whispered in my ear, taking in the scraggy-looking dog with one leg missing that had flopped to the floor in the heat; the man’s dirty grey T-shirt with a sweat patch in the shape of a moth down his back. She shot a fearful glance at the images of various tattoos slapped onto the makeshift walls.

  ‘It will be fine,’ I assured her, although I had misgivings.

  When the hairy-backed man vacated his chair, Karen stepped forward, brushing the hair from her face. I noticed a sheen of sweat above her top lip. ‘Um … tattoo, please …’ she said, her voice raspy between her dry lips. After a bit of haggling we agreed a very cheap price.

  The man gestured to the pictures on the wall and asked us to choose a design. Karen stared at them, her brow furrowed. ‘I don’t know … I can’t decide …’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ I said irritably. ‘I’ll go first.’

  Karen stared at me with round eyes. ‘Oh, OK … sure …’ She fumbled in her bag for her water bottle and took a large swig.

  I side-stepped her. I’d made up my mind before we’d even arrived. I knew exactly what I wanted: a winged bird in flight. Freedom. I made myself as comfortable as I could on the hard stool and pointed to my arm. ‘Right here, please.’

  An hour later, my new tattoo scabbing over and throbbing, I was leaning on Karen as we ambled back to the hotel, our flip-flops smacking against the dusty ground. By the time we reached our resort, we were both sweating in our shorts and T-shirts. One of the scabs had opened up and little globules of blood had collected around its edges. I sat on the bed in the room we shared and dabbed at it half-heartedly with a wet wad of tissue.

  ‘I feel such a wuss,’ said Karen, slumping onto the bed opposite. She had bailed at the last minute as I knew she would. Every time the needle touched my skin she blanched. At one point I thought she might pass out.

  ‘And so you should,’ I chided. ‘I thought you were tougher than that, Karen Fisher. And a Yorkshire lass too. I’m disappointed.’

  I was half joking but she looked stricken. In that moment I could tell that she thought she’d failed me, that she was a lesser person in my eyes. A coward. For once in my shitty little life I was the one in a relationship where I held all the power and the feeling was intoxicating.

  The next day Karen disappeared. It was unusual for her to go off without telling me where she was heading. I wandered down to the beach with the others, hoping to catch her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Where’s Karen?’ asked Harry. He was hunched over his snorkel, adjusting the straps, his legs stretched out, long and tanned beneath his shorts. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

  I shrugged, slapping sun cream onto my arms. I’d hoped Harry would offer to do my back but he seemed distracted. ‘I have no idea. She’d left before I woke up this morning.’

  ‘Do you think she’s moved on? Without us?’ He sounded worried and I wanted to ask why he cared so much.

  ‘I don’t think so. Her stuff is still in our room.’

  ‘That’s good. I like Karen,’ he said matter-of-factly, slipping the snorkel over his head. Then he jumped up and sprinted into the sea. I watched as his lithe body dived in between the waves, my stomach curdling with jealousy.

  An hour later Karen was back. She walked across the beach gracefully, a new red sarong tied around her waist, a beach bag slung over her shoulder. She waved at me. She was beaming. It was only as she got closer that I noticed the tattoo.

  25

  It pleased me, that tattoo, what it signified. I’d reached the ripe old age of twenty-one and never experienced what it felt like to have a best friend. Getting married young to a possessive man will do that to you. Sean always said he was my best friend. He hadn’t wanted
me to go to university and tried to make me give it up; he was terrified I’d meet someone else on my course, but I refused to leave. He couldn’t make too much of a fuss, what with the lecturers and that university counsellor hanging around. He was a coward underneath it all, as bullies usually are.

  Harry was the first man I’d fancied since Sean. He was everything Sean wasn’t: self-effacing, clever, softly spoken, his New Jersey accent warm and friendly, his body graceful, like a ballet dancer. Sean was so cocky, a Jack the Lad, a working-class man made good (a phrase he rattled out often). Brash, with his gold jewellery and handmade suits.

  As the weeks had turned into months our little group – Emma, Lars, Dylan, Harry, Karen and me – had become like a family. I could have told Karen how I felt about Harry, of course, but that wasn’t the type of friendship we had. We didn’t open up to each other about our feelings. She was like me in that way, closed and practical. We might have felt deeply about things but we didn’t like to show it, as if admitting our emotions made us weak. We were both used – in different ways – to hiding our feelings from the ones closest to us.

  After the conversation on the beach, I watched to see if anything was developing between Harry and Karen. I began to notice little things, like how they would always end up sunbathing next to each other on the beach, or perched at the bar together. If he wanted to go into the village, he always asked her to walk with him. He laughed a lot at her – quite honestly crap – jokes and seemed to find her witty. He told her once, while I was in earshot, that she had a dry sense of humour which he ‘loved’. That comment pissed me off for days. Her behaviour changed too: sitting that little bit too close while sipping their cocktails so their knees touched; flicking back her hair, raking her fingers through it and curling it demurely behind her ears as she talked to him, head on one side.