The Long Fall

by Crouch, Julia

  ‘What?’ I say.

  ‘Let’s get inked,’ she says. ‘It’ll be our Dangerous Game for the day.’

  ‘We have to do a Dangerous Game every day?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure. We paid the hotel, we paid the restaurant. We’re running the risk of being too safe today.’

  ‘Isn’t that danger enough?’

  ‘I need a drink,’ Jake says.

  ‘Well, let’s go in that bar, have a couple beers and decide what we’re going to have done. We can all have the same thing, so we’re bound together forever, till death do us part.’

  Jake and I look at Beattie. Then, one by one, we smile. It’s a good plan. A great plan.

  We set ourselves up at a little table outside the bar. You can tell it’s not a tourist place because, instead of the Police, Blondie, Queen and Hot Chocolate tracks that blare out of the bars in Athens, the sound coming from inside is that of a TV football match. Two sullen elderly men slump in the smoky interior nursing Greek coffees and neat ouzos, their eyes glued to the screen. We sit outside, in the sunshine. When our beers arrive, they come with a plate of mezes – slices of sweaty, rubbery cheese and mystery salami with a sprinkling of wrinkled olives. Unappetising as it looks, Jake finishes the lot off before I’ve even managed two sips of my beer.

  ‘It’s got to have something to do with three,’ Beattie says of the tattoo. ‘For the three of us.’

  ‘Triangle?’ I say.

  ‘Too boring.’

  ‘Tricycle?’ Jake suggests.

  ‘Jeeze.’

  ‘Triad? Trident?’ I say.

  ‘Triple A?’ Jake says.

  ‘The Automobile Association of America?’ Beattie says. ‘Give me strength.’

  ‘Triskelion?’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Triskelion. It’s like this.’ I pull a napkin from the plastic beer-branded holder on our table and sketch it out – three spirals, arranged in a triangle shape and connecting in the middle. ‘The mark of Hecate.’

  ‘You know all this totally weird stuff,’ Beattie says.

  ‘I had to do this costume design for the three witches for some homework on Macbeth. Hecate lived in the Greek Underworld and was like the goddess of witches. And she always appeared as three: a lion, a dog and a mare, or three beautiful women – always looking in three different directions, over the earth, sea and sky, or the past, present and future. It’s her symbol.’

  The others gaze at it for a minute. Then Beattie looks up, smiling. ‘That’s it!’ she says. ‘Perfect! And we’ll have it here.’ She holds out her right forearm and points to the inner part.

  ‘Ow,’ Jake says, pinching his own arm in the same place, leaving a couple of nail impressions that make me feel strangely hungry. ‘The hurty bit.’

  ‘Let’s not do this,’ I say as Beattie leads the way into the tattoo parlour and we see how filthy the place is. The white on the chequerboard lino floor is almost indistinguishable from the black, and there are hundreds of flies buzzing around a crackled, plastic-coated display of mostly nautical tattoo motifs that’s pinned up on the wall. Opposite is a shelf bearing an assortment of grubby figurines and dolls covered in tattoo designs – some sort of weird, cack-handed promotional tool, I suppose.

  ‘I love this guy,’ Beattie says, pointing out a large green Scottie dog with an intricately patterned heart on his backside. Behind us, four mismatched vinyl chairs make a sort of waiting room, facing a curtain of multi-coloured metal chains that clatter in the breeze, partly concealing a doorway.

  The door to the street swings shut behind us, setting off an old brass bell on a spring. We stand there, stewing in the sweaty little room, looking around. I’ve almost got used to the sewage smell of the streets of Athens and Piraeus, but in the tattoo parlour it’s almost unbearably concentrated, and mixed with a nasty sweaty body odour.

  We sit on the vinyl chairs, me trying not to gag.

  ‘Here,’ Jake says, handing round a blister pack of Valium. ‘This’ll help.’

  ‘Are we crazy?’ I say, swallowing the pill without water. ‘We’ll pick up a nasty disease or something.’

  ‘It does look kinda grimy,’ Jake says, scuffing his foot on the floor to shift a used tissue under his chair.

  ‘Jeeze. You two,’ Beattie says.

  Jake tuts, gets up and goes over to examine the wall of designs.

  ‘Hello?’ Beattie calls out. ‘Yassoo?’

  Somewhere in the building a dog starts to bark. Then something stirs behind the chain curtain. A few minutes pass, then a greasy-skinned man in a stained vest staggers through from the back room, a cigarette stuck to his lip.

  ‘Yassoo,’ Beattie says again. ‘Do you speak English?’

  The man purses his lips and gives a little nod. ‘Whaddaya want?’ His accent is a lot like Beattie’s.

  ‘Tattoos?’ Jake says.

  ‘For all of us,’ Beattie says. ‘All three?’

  ‘She sixteen?’ he says, nodding at me, licking his too-pink lips.

  ‘I’m eighteen,’ I say.

  ‘Seriously?’ Beattie says. ‘I thought you were the same age as me.’

  ‘How old are you, then?’

  ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘Hey, same as me,’ Jake says to her.

  I had no idea she was that old. Or him. I feel kind of proud that my two best friends in the world are in their twenties.

  ‘You wanna tattoo or you wanna stand and talk?’ the man says.

  ‘How much for this?’ I show him the Triskelion I had drawn on the napkin. ‘To have here.’ I point to the inside of my forearm.

  ‘What size?’ The man picks his nose and examines his findings.

  ‘About this big?’ Beattie says, making a circle with her thumb and forefinger a bit bigger than a ten-pence piece.

  The man shrugs. ‘Two thousand.’

  ‘Each?’ Jake says. ‘You gotta be kidding, man.’

  In the end we bargain him down to two thousand drachma for all three, which he insists on us paying upfront.

  ‘What if we don’t like it?’ Beattie says.

  She was annoyed about having to part with the money: she’d probably been hatching a running-away plan. But the man just shrugged again and said that we would like it, that he was the best tattooist in all of Piraeus.

  Jake goes first, on the basis that he claims already to have one tattoo, in a place that neither of us has seen, but – as he puts it – we might if we got lucky. Beattie and I push him towards the back room, and we sit making faces at each other as we listen to the whirr and buzz of the needle and the occasional curse from Jake. When he comes out, he looks strained and pale – but excited.

  ‘Look!’ he says, holding out his arm for us to see. ‘This guy is some kind of artist. He’s got it perfect. Perfectly symmetrical.’

  He’s right. Underneath its bloom of blood and swelling, the design is indeed flawless.

  ‘Next!’ the tattooist calls from behind his chain curtain. Beattie and I look at each other.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she says and strides into the back room. Jake takes her seat, which is next to mine.

  ‘Did it hurt?’ I ask, tracing the design on Jake’s arm with my fingertips, enjoying the contact.

  ‘A little,’ he says. Then he brings his other hand up to my cheek. ‘Don’t do it, Emma,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t have to get it done if you don’t want to,’ he says. ‘Don’t let her force you into it.’

  ‘She’s not forcing me into anything.’ I pull away from him.

  To be honest, I’m getting a bit fed up with his attitude towards Beattie. She’s a natural leader, and he has some sort of issue with that. But it’s unfair on her and I find this idea he’s got that I can’t stand up for myself a bit insulting, too.

  ‘I’m doing this of my own accord,’ I say. ‘I’ve always thought about getting a tattoo and this is completely the right time and place. I don’t want to forget these days and you guys,
not as long as I live.’

  Jake sighs and lights a cigarette.

  I was lying, of course. I’ve never considered a tattoo before, and, even before I had it, I was playing the scene in my head of when my parents see it. They’ll hate it. They think tattoos are for rough sorts. My mother once pointed out a woman on the bus with a little black bow inked on her ankle.

  ‘She’s only good for one thing,’ she whispered to me.

  Beattie comes out proudly displaying the bloodied design on her arm. It matches Jake’s completely.

  ‘Be careful,’ she says to me, as I stand to meet my fate. ‘He’s a bit of a creep.’

  I waver for a moment. Can I refuse to go in? Clearly not. Not to go ahead will set me apart, spoil the balance we have.

  ‘Fuck him,’ I say, under my breath, not loud enough for the tattooist to hear in his little backstage booth.

  ‘Good girl,’ Beattie says.

  She hoots with laughter when I pull my mataki evil eye out of my bag and hold it out in front of me as if it were a cross and the tattooist a vampire.

  I part the metal curtains and go inside. He’s sitting by what looks like a repurposed dentist’s chair, smoking another cigarette, knocking back a glass of what could be water, but which is more likely, from the alcoholic fumes in the room, some sort of spirit.

  And he really does smell awful. An oniony, turdish stench of unwashed hot-climate armpits. The fan spinning behind him just circulates the stink.

  ‘Sit down,’ he says, motioning to the chair. I do as I am told and he presses a button to recline me.

  ‘Do I need to be lying back?’ I say.

  ‘Easier for me,’ he says. ‘Bad back.’

  I watch out of the corner of my eyes as he dabbles his needle in the ink, his concentration mostly on the TV positioned over my chair, which is showing the same football match the old boys were watching in the bar.

  Then he turns and smiles at me, treating me to a gust of heavy breath and the sight of the black gaps where most of his teeth should have been. He bares the underside of my forearm and lies it on the armrest of the chair.

  ‘You nervous, little girl?’

  I smile politely and nod. All I want to do is run away. It’s all coming back to me, horribly. I can feel the rasp and scrape of the stones of the wall as I was pressed into it. I can feel the panic rising.

  ‘Drink,’ he says, offering me a bottle from beneath his chair. ‘Go on.’

  It feels impossible to refuse, so I tip the bottle to my lips. It isn’t disgusting ouzo, for which I’m thankful –– instead, it’s something far rougher, far fierier.

  ‘Ha!’ The tattooist laughs as I choke on the stuff. ‘Is Raki, spirit of my home island, Kriti.’

  I grip the evil eye in my hand as he puts his needle to my skin and it starts buzzing. The pain is like sunburn being stung by a wasp. I can’t stop myself crying out.

  ‘Stay still, or I fuck up,’ the tattooist says. He leans against my arm, but he is at such an angle that his shoulder presses into my breast. I try to tell myself that this is entirely different to Marseille – I have volunteered for this. But the feeling of being constricted, of painful things being done to my body, is too much. I’m scared I’ll hit him.

  ‘Stop!’ I say.

  He lifts his needle and looks at me.

  ‘What’s the matter now?’ he says.

  ‘I want Jake to be in here with me,’ I say. The only way I can see it through is with him in here.

  The tattooist shrugs.

  ‘Jake!’ I call, and he is there in an instant, the chain curtains clattering behind him.

  ‘Will you hold my hand?’ I ask, my voice small, my eyes motioning to the tattooist’s shoulder, which still presses against me.

  Jake gives the man one of his looks, which makes him move a little away from me. Then my lovely boy sits at my side, holding the hand of my free arm, and I suddenly feel safe. That’s how he makes me feel. It’s how I can cope with Beattie and all the trouble she nearly gets us into. Because Jake is there.

  He’s got my back, as he’d say.

  The session seems to go on for ever, far longer than it’s taken either Jake or Beattie to get theirs done. But in the end, when I’m near to passing out with the smell, the pain, the endless buzzing of the sharp needle, the tattooist lifts his instrument and stands.

  ‘All done,’ he says, standing up and turning his back to us to put his tools and inks away. I hold my arm up against Jake’s.

  ‘Awesome,’ Jake says.

  I nod.

  We are identical.

  By the time we get out onto the street, it’s dusk.

  As we make our way to pick up our rucksacks, I notice Beattie has a carrier bag dangling from her hand.

  ‘What have you got there?’ I ask her.

  ‘Here? Oh, it’s just my new pet,’ she says, lifting out the tattooed green Scottie dog. ‘He was too good for that creepy little old man. I’ve liberated him.’

  We both stop and look at her.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ she says, looking at us. ‘It’s good news for you chickens. We’ve done two Dangerous Games today, so we can have a day off tomorrow.’

  Riding back on the subway, each jolt of the train set off the pain of the tattoo, which stings like someone’s pressed a hot iron against it. But it feels oddly great! I’ve read that people who self-harm say they do it to make themselves aware that they exist. Where the hurt inflicted by The French Shit and The Australian Shit made me feel ill and defeated, this pain – pain I have bought for myself, my own choice – works for me. I feel more alive than ever before.

  Perhaps Beattie’s right. Like the pain of the tattoo, playing the Dangerous Game also wakes me up. It’s a good thing. No one’s really been hurt, have they? I promise myself I’m going to be less judgemental, less responsible, less goody goody, less concerned about what everyone else thinks.

  I’m going to burn in the light of the flames, like Beattie!

  The tattoo is my blood bond on that.

  We got back to Peta Inn and, luckily, our beds were still free up here on the roof. It’s like we never left.

  We’re tired, sticky, and our arms are sore. So we’ve turned in early.

  In Athens, and in bed by ten. Who’d have thought it?

  13

  10 August 1980, midnight. Athens. Peta Inn roof.

  It’s still a little muggy now, but last night was the most airless I have known it here. If I didn’t know better – Let’s Go said that it hasn’t rained in Athens in August for over a thousand years – I would have suspected a brewing storm.

  So, yet again, I had a sleepless night, sweating and smoking to keep the FUCKING MOSQUITOS off me.

  Something lovely happened today!

  Low because we should have been arriving in Ikaria this morning, we crawled out of our tangled beds when the sun got too hot and slumped on our two top bunks, me and Beattie on one, Jake on the other, sharing a bottle of wine that Beattie had somehow got hold of. Wine for breakfast. Nice.

  They’d slept better than me, but were still pretty groggy. And we’d all been bitten to shreds. Some of Beattie’s bites have got infected, too, so they’re like pus-filled blisters. I want to pop them, but she won’t let me near them.

  ‘I stink,’ Beattie says, putting her nose to her armpit.

  ‘Me too,’ I say.

  ‘I didn’t like to mention it,’ Jake says.

  ‘Asshole.’ Beattie spills some of the wine from her bottle over her head, then she flops back, wine flicking from her hair all over her already-stained mattress. ‘I need a shower.’

  ‘Me too,’ I say. ‘But I don’t know if I can face it.’

  The one Peta Inn shower is filthy and gross. It also has no lock on the door and only a horrible, mildewed curtain between the cubicle and the rest of the bathroom. I tried it once when I first arrived, but, too scared of someone stumbling in on me Psycho-style, couldn’t even bring myself to switch it on, which was
annoying, because Dimitri charges fifty drachma for ten minutes of hot water, which he controls from somewhere behind his desk.

  Jake’s offered to stand guard outside the door, but I don’t want to impose on him like that – the corridor outside is dark and stifling, and anyway, if someone did try to get in, I wouldn’t want to be the cause of another fight like the one with The Australian Shit.

  ‘Hey, we could have one together,’ Beattie says to me. ‘We can watch out for each other, save money and give Dimitri a thrill at the thought.’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ I hug my knees. I’m not too keen on people seeing me naked. I’ve got what you might call hang-ups about my body. But I really do need a wash and, anyway, we’ll soon be on a beach on our paradise island, our bodies exposed to the sun. At some point Beattie and Jake are going to see the rack of ribs on me, the hipbones that I know protrude at my back. They can’t have failed to notice – my arms and legs are a pretty good indication of what’s going on underneath my black dress.

  ‘Aw, come on, Em,’ Beattie says, sliding off her bunk and pulling her washbag out from where she stashes it underneath the bottom bed. ‘This is going to be fun.’

  Knowing she won’t take no for an answer, I grab my own stuff and follow her down the stairs to Dimitri’s desk.

  ‘Hey, Dimitri,’ Beattie says, sidling up to him, her arm around me. ‘Em and me here want to have a shower.’

  ‘One hundred,’ he says, glancing up from a magazine spread of naked women doing things to each other. Charm is not one of his strong points.

  ‘You don’t understand.’ Beattie leans on his desk so that her breasts squash together into a cleavage at the neck of her vest top. She beckons at him with one finger so that he has to move in closer. ‘We want to shower together,’ she whispers.

  Dimitri gulps, blushes and raises his eyebrows. Beattie moves her hand up to my hair, which she strokes as if I were some sort of cat. He looks at her breasts, then at her hand.

  ‘Seventy-five,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, come on, Dimitri.’ She rubs herself up against his desk. ‘We won’t use any more water than one person. In fact’ – again she leans in towards him, her finger tracing the body of a naked young woman in his horrible magazine – ‘we won’t be using water all the time we’re in there.’