The Long Fall

by Crouch, Julia

  I’m holding out great hopes for Ena. I told her about how I was searching for authenticity – for a world unspoiled by tourism and travellers and pollution. She says it’s out there, that I should go out to the islands, that I just have to keep on travelling till I find it.

  I could have kissed her, you know? As she talked, I kept looking at her mouth, which is beautiful – lopsided and funny, a little loose around the words. I wondered if perhaps I could ever fancy a girl. Boys might be out of the question now. If I think of a penis, it’s that one particular penis, the penis of horror.

  No. A boy would freak me out.

  But no one has touched me, even casually, since The French Shit. Perhaps if I got a tender touch from someone – Ena, say – then might that cancel out some of the hurt?

  I’m going to see if she’ll travel with me for a bit. I’d feel safe with her. She must be ten inches taller than me, she’s quite muscular and she doesn’t take any shit. Again, when some creep hissed at us when we were walking (or rather, staggering) back to Peta Inn, she just launched into him with a load of Australian swearing. She hasn’t got any of the qualms I have about offending people. And she lives so happily in her skin. I wish I were more like her.

  So yes, the Valium and beer has made me feel really good. Oddly, though – because I thought Valium was some sort of tranquilliser – I’m finding it difficult to sleep. So I’m making the most of it by writing this by torchlight. Ena’s out cold, though. I can hear her snoring underneath me. It’s a sweet sound, like a little snuffling pig.

  I wonder if I’m in love with her?

  She says I have to try the speed too – you just go into the chemist and ask for slimming pills (‘though you may have to tell them they’re for a friend,’ she said, laughing and flicking my bony shoulder). I’m going to give it a go tomorrow.

  We’ll get really wasted!!!

  KATE

  2013

  Kate had nine days before Tilly’s departure.

  She sat in the kitchen trying to eat blueberries for breakfast and thinking about what it meant to her. She still had deep-rooted, ridiculous misgivings. Despite an hour of yoga on the mezzanine above the bedroom she shared with Mark, she hadn’t been able to breathe away the tightening in her belly. All she had managed were five berries, individually chewed, washed down with a cup of peppermint tea.

  About four calories.

  She glanced up at the photograph she and Mark had commissioned years ago from Steve Mitchell – the photographer who had more recently made her the Face of Kindness. It hung, huge on the wall, equal to any of the other contemporary artworks that filled their home.

  She rarely looked at it. There was no need: she knew it off by heart. It was the shape of her family, set against a white studio background. She was wearing the long swirling Pucci dress she had practically lived in that summer; Mark stood at her side, handsome as ever, his hair only slightly threaded with the silver that had since taken over. Holding her hand was Tilly – a chubby little seven-year-old girl in a Liberty lawn dress. Scampering beside her, a little apart, her knees bent and slightly blurred as if she were about to jump, was Martha – a piece of thistledown, ready to blow away.

  The tumour must have already been growing in her brain, but no one knew it at the time.

  They were so happy then.

  It was because of this that she had never listened to Mark’s oft-voiced suggestion that it might be helpful for her to have it taken down. In fact, she would fight to the death to defend her right to keep it up there.

  She drained her cup of the last drop of tea.

  When Tilly was born – conceived after a determined and difficult couple of years’ work with an expensive private nutritional therapist – Kate had secretly called her Tilly Purpose. Her arrival shooed away all her existential doubts. Well, nearly all. She could hardly believe that she had been permitted such joy. Then, when Martha came along, she felt, for the first time ever, that she was complete. She even forgot to feel undeserving for a short while.

  The short while that Martha lived.

  Now Tilly was growing and going. Kate knew it was inevitable – healthy even – but she would soon be rattling around the house with no one to clear up after, no one to chat to late at night over a cup of tea or a glass of wine.

  No more purpose? She shook away the thought.

  As places to feel like a loose ball bearing went, this house wasn’t too bad, with its tall ceilings, clean, white surfaces and – apart from the girls’ floor – minimal furnishing. Mark and Kate had bought the place – the lion’s share of a converted primary school – off-plan just after Tilly was born, when, even so close to the river, Battersea was still a relatively daring choice for people like them.

  Kate had worked closely with the developers to upgrade the finish to her exact specification, and it was glorious. She loved the views from its vast, tall windows. The light and space and familiarity of her home were great correctives for the dark cloud that sometimes hung over her.

  She put the uneaten blueberries in the fridge, placed her cup in the dishwasher, wiped down all the kitchen surfaces with bleach and performed her ritual daily wash of the kitchen and living-area floor.

  After that, she washed and dried her hands and applied the rich, unperfumed hand cream that went a small way to counteracting the effect of her daily use of harsh cleaning products. It had never seemed right, somehow, to seek to protect her skin with rubber gloves.

  Then it was on to the rest of her tasks. It was Monday and therefore Martha’s Wish blog day. Writing her weekly missive would help her anchor her loose ends.

  On her way up the wide stone steps to her turret office, she hesitated at the girls’ level, her fingers itching as they had since she had first seen Tilly’s stuff in Martha’s room. But she held herself back from venturing down the corridor, because, had she done so, she might not have been able to resist pulling it all out and dumping it on Tilly’s bed, and that would look like she was going mad. So she turned away, continuing up, up, past the floor where she and Mark had their view and their glass atrium and their sauna and her yoga mezzanine and their twin walk-in dressing rooms. On the landing outside their bedroom door was the piece of wall where she had marked two sets of ascending heights – red for Tilly and blue for Martha. When she’d had the hallways and main living areas repainted three years ago, she made the decorators leave this strip of wall. She always touched the highest blue mark – which only reached her hip – as she passed.

  And so the stairs continued to spiral more narrowly upstairs to her eyrie office, which, like a lighthouse, had the best view from the entire house. Standing sentinel on the window sills were fifty or so cacti, which she had collected over the years since Mark had bought her one to celebrate her first pregnancy – because, he said, she had turned prickly. Cut flowers made her sad as they died, but her cacti would keep going for decades – some might even outlive her. Mark’s gift had started a family tradition that saw the girls ‘buying’ new additions for her every birthday and Christmas. Tilly still continued to do so.

  Kate had no idea if she even liked cacti, but she would never have the heart to get rid of them. Besides, she thought, as she gave each one its weekly drop of water, they would give her something to look after when Tilly was gone. And, like her own personal guards, they made her feel safer as she sat at her desk with the whole of London laid out in front of her.

  She switched on her computer. Her plan was to write about progress on the new school the charity had just opened in Mali. She hadn’t actually gone there, because, the fact of flying aside, the political situation was far too dangerous – the Foreign Office were advising against all travel to the whole country. But the charity employed local field-workers who reported back with photographs, film, and work by the students. It was then up to Kate to collate everything and put her report together in first person plural.

  While she made no specific assertions, this, combined with her picture at the top o
f the blog – which was called Kate Reports – implied that she was much more frequently out visiting the schools and pupils than the one time she had actually done so.

  It was essential, Sophie PR insisted, that Kate was seen to be actively engaged on the ground. And, so long as it got results, Kate thought, why the hell not? And she enjoyed the work. She really did. In a way, she had finally realised her childhood ambition of becoming a writer, blending facts into a kind of fiction far more purposeful than the novels that had been her original ambition.

  While she was waiting for her email to roll in, she Googled ‘Face of Kindness’ and clicked on the images tab. She shook her head in wonderment as she scrolled down the wall of pictures. Apart from two shots of Mother Teresa and one of a kitten patting a yellow fluffy duckling’s head, every single result was her, Mariam and Bintu. The source websites ranged from blogs in Australia, Japan and the US to CNN and other worldwide mainstream media.

  Sophie was a genius. The image had truly captured the zeitgeist.

  When she was sixteen, Kate had believed she was going to amount to something one day. She always thought she had somewhat blown that dream, but perhaps, finally, it was coming true. Having spent her adult life trying to keep her head down, now here she was, her face on every server on the entire world wide web.

  Perhaps, then, thirty-three years was long enough to hide away.

  She switched back to her email. The messages were still arriving on her public address – the one on the website that anyone could use to contact her. Her usual routine was to scan them personally, before forwarding the lot to Patience at the office, who answered them pretending to be Kate. From the number rolling in that morning – well into the hundreds – poor Patience was going to have to live up to her name today.

  Kate dealt first with her private, work email address. There were a couple of last-minute photos from a field worker called Charles in Mali, and an excited note from Patience reporting on a considerable upswing in donations, thanks to the Face of Kindness picture.

  This was all good.

  Feeling quite chipper about it all, she wrote a happy note back to Patience, suggesting a team meal to celebrate – at her own expense, of course – then she downloaded the new photos from Charles to the blog folder on her computer.

  The public emails had finally stopped coming in, so she started scanning through them. Generally, she received an interesting mixture at that address. Most were appreciative and enthusiastic, but there was a small proportion that were critical, accusing her perhaps of being an agent of Western cultural oppression, or asking whether she had fully assuaged her rich bitch conscience yet, and why didn’t she just give away all of her filthy money to the poor of the world instead of flaunting herself for sinful pride and glory.

  Some of these came from members of the radical Muslim factions fighting in several of the countries the charity worked in, who didn’t want girls to receive education. These she could dismiss as medieval. Others were from naively political white boys and girls who, in addition to hating their parents, also despised the police and the banks and the rich. And, of course, there were the nutters, whose recent messages ranged from harmless but lengthy elucidations of personal problems they thought the Face of Kindness might possibly solve, to downright creepy details of exactly where they’d like to put, or what they’d like to put in, that Kind Face. This last sort made Kate feel sick, sullied, and she binned and deleted each one she came across. She didn’t want poor Patience – who was only a few years older than Tilly – to have to witness the filth lurking in some people’s minds. Also, a tiny part of her felt somehow responsible – dirty, even – for being the fuel for such fantasies.

  Old habits die hard.

  But there were few such emails today. It was mostly encouraging stuff, including one extremely useful story from a woman from one of the target countries. Thanks to an education supplied by another charity years ago, she had managed to haul herself out of poverty and go on to become a doctor. She now worked to ensure that fewer women met the same premature end as her own mother had by dying in childbirth.

  Kate flagged this for Patience, then carried on scrolling through the two hundred or so remaining messages.

  But at the hundred-and-fifty-second, she stopped. Her fingers lifted from the mouse and her heart felt as if it had displaced itself into her larynx.

  The title of the email that stalled her was Message for Emma.

  Emma.

  But surely it must be a mistake? A mis-addressed email? Some sort of spam? She certainly didn’t recognise the sender’s name, a Mrs C. McCormack. Almost involuntarily, her trembling index finger tapped the mouse and the message popped up, filling her screen.

  I need to speak to you urgently,

  it said.

  I’ll be upstairs in the New Oxford Street Starbucks opposite Tottenham Court Road subway at midday on Thursday. I have news. I am desperate. You have to be there. Something terrible has happened.

  And there, at the bottom, the sender had signed off using her real name.

  A name Kate knew only too well. A name she had thought she would never hear again.

  It was impossible. She had been so careful.

  Her wobbling legs carried her down the winding stairs, right into the kitchen where she pulled a bottle of vodka from the freezer and poured herself a large shot. She had worked hard at appearing clean and good. Really hard. But the sight of that name made her feel as if someone had injected her with filth.

  Tasting the berries she had managed to eat for breakfast, she knocked back the vodka to keep them inside, then poured herself another. And another. Fortified by alcohol, she climbed shakily back up to her office and approached her computer as if there was a dangerous animal crouching behind its screen.

  Perhaps she had misread the email?

  Perhaps it said something entirely different?

  But no.

  It said what it said, and it was from whom it was from.

  She moved the email to the trash, then instantly pulled it back into her inbox. Every part of her wanted to ignore it and get on with the life she had built precisely to exclude its sender and everything she represented.

  But she couldn’t.

  Beattie had news.

  Kate placed her forehead on her desk.

  That blog post would not get written today.

  EMMA

  1 August 1980, 2 p.m. Athens. The Milk Bar.

  This is the shittest thing.

  So Ena was still fast asleep when I woke sweating in the sun with a hangover from hell. I left her a note and went out to try to call Mum and Dad again. I knew they’d be waiting for my call – it’s been twelve days since I’ve been gone. I also felt, fool that I am, that at last I had some good things to tell them – about finding a friend and all that.

  After a three-hour wait, I finally got through to them. It was soooo good to hear their voices. They don’t understand what I’m doing – I’m not sure if I do myself, actually – but they’re just so excited to hear from me. They weren’t expecting me to be in Greece yet. What happened to Italy? Dad asked. I couldn’t tell him the truth, of course. I made up something about a train strike. He seemed to swallow it.

  I sounded like I was having fun, they said.

  I did. I really believed I was when I called them. I really thought my luck had changed.

  Now, trying to take it in as I sit here in The Milk Bar, I realise I just want to go back to our cosy little house and have Mum’s shepherd’s pie and feel a bit chilly and cuddle up with them in front of the fire, and go out on the hills with Patch and Dad, and go fishing and feel the mist on my face.

  I said I’d call them in two days’ time, but perhaps I’ll go back early instead.

  Perhaps I’ll just head home tomorrow.

  I stopped on the way back from the phone place to buy some pills. The first chemist’s shop refused to serve me. He said he couldn’t understand me, but that was bullshit. But the second didn�
�t seem to give a toss, and sold me Valium and ‘slimming pills’ while gawping at my breasts.

  The final part of the day’s budget went on a litre-bottle of really rough-looking red wine – grand total about fifty pence.

  I took my shopping back to the Peta Inn to find Ena, excited about the day and night we were going to have. Climbing the four flights of stone steps to get to the roof nearly made me pass out. My heart was thumping in my chest, and my vision was swimmy. No food for, what, six days? Apart from beer, I suppose. That’s a sort of food, isn’t it? Enough calories, anyway.

  I wove through the sea of heat-shimmery metal bunk beds to where Ena and I slept. I thought she might be there on the lower bunk, shading herself from the sun. I thought she would be waiting for me.

  But there was no Ena. Her bed was stripped of her sleeping bag. Her book – she was reading The Women’s Room, which she said she’d lend me when she’d finished – wasn’t there, nor was the jumble of clothes and flip-flops and scarves she had stashed under her bed.

  Had someone stolen all her stuff? And, if so, where was she?

  Even though the place is full of strung-out travellers and druggies, Dimitri the owner says that thefts are very rare so long as everyone carries their valuables with them and stashes their rucksacks and camping gear in the baggage store, which only he’s got the key for. It’s also his way of making sure no one does a runner – he’s supposed to keep our passports, but he doesn’t have everyone’s because he’s overcrowded and the tourist police sometimes do checks. Ena said most of the hostel owners do that. ‘It’s why,’ she told me, ‘it’s so easy to just disappear here. Athens just swallows people up.’

  Remembering this, I started to get worried for her.

  I checked my own bed – everything was just how I’d left it when I got up.