The Long Fall

by Crouch, Julia

  ‘What were you doing in the West End, though, Mum?’ Tilly said. ‘You never go there.’

  ‘Oh, I was on my way to Heals, to find some new cushions.’

  ‘We should get you to A & E, Claire,’ Mark said, shutting the dishwasher.

  ‘Can I get my iPad before we go, please, Dad?’ Tilly said. ‘I want Claire to show me something.’

  ‘I don’t think—’ Kate said.

  ‘Of course,’ Mark said.

  ‘No rush.’ Beattie beamed at Tilly.

  Tilly ran upstairs while Kate sat tight-lipped at the table.

  ‘I don’t think you should come with us, Kate,’ Mark said. ‘You look awfully worn out. You need to go to bed.’

  ‘You did very well at supper, though,’ Beattie said, leaning over the table and putting her hand on Kate’s. Kate knew this was rubbish. Beattie had either not been watching her cut her food into tiny pieces and hide it around her plate, or she was just being kind.

  ‘Can you show me the island you were talking about?’ Tilly said, bounding back into the kitchen, her iPad in her hands. ‘Ikaria?’

  Beattie took the screen from Kate’s daughter’s hands and moved her finger around it. ‘Just there,’ she said, pointing. ‘Tucked down to the left of Samos.’

  Kate watched as Tilly zoomed in on the island. Her eyes shone with an excitement that she remembered only too well in herself at that age.

  ‘There are so few buildings,’ Tilly said.

  ‘A lot of the island is mountainous and uninhabitable,’ Beattie said, ‘but look along the south coast – see those beaches? Some of them you can only get to by scrabbling down a mountainside. Completely deserted.’

  Kate could barely mask her exasperation. Didn’t this woman know when to stop?

  ‘Wow,’ Tilly said.

  ‘But what about food and water?’ Kate said. ‘You couldn’t stay somewhere like that for long.’

  ‘Oh, but you find ways around that sort of thing,’ Beattie said. ‘You have to be a little together, but nothing’s impossible.’

  ‘Where did you stay?’ Tilly said, and again Kate found the word NO circling her brain as Beattie scrolled along the screen. She was sitting opposite the two of them, so she couldn’t see exactly where Beattie was pointing, but she had a pretty good idea.

  ‘Just there. See?’ Beattie said. ‘There’s a great cave to sleep in on the beach. And, if I remember rightly, there’s a village about a half-hour walk up the mountain. Look.’

  ‘I’m so going there!’ Tilly said, taking the iPad and bookmarking the map. ‘Thank you so much, Claire!’

  ‘No problem, sweetie.’ But as Tilly gazed at the screen, Beattie glanced apologetically at Kate.

  ‘Time to go,’ Mark said.

  ‘Can I come?’ Tilly said.

  ‘Best not,’ Kate said. ‘It could take hours and you need to be fresh for tomorrow.’

  ‘Have a great time in Greece, honey,’ Beattie said, kissing Tilly on the cheeks.

  Kate walked Mark and Beattie to the front door and stood and watched as he helped her to his car. Despite her bulk, Beattie looked tiny as she limped along beside him.

  Beaten down Beattie.

  She had to be careful that the same thing didn’t happen to her.

  As she cleared away the last things from the dinner table, she noticed that on top of the champagne, two and a half bottles of red wine had been drunk. Tilly and Mark had taken only one glass each. So she and Beattie must have shared the rest. So high were her nerves, though, that, even taking the high tolerance she had built up over the years into account, she didn’t really feel as drunk as she deserved.

  She called in on Tilly’s room on her way upstairs to propose a special goodbye breakfast the following morning, just the two of them.

  ‘That’d be great, Mum.’ Tilly was sitting at her dressing table and brushing her hair. ‘But I’m going into work early to say goodbye to the morning shift.’

  Kate forced a smile and restrained herself from asking why the morning shift was more important to Tilly than her mother. She knew, of course: it was all part of the process of withdrawal that a child had to go through. Soon she would only see her every few weeks, and later, perhaps, when Tilly had her own family, she would come home for one or two days once or twice a year.

  She knew she should be grateful even for that. It was more, after all, than she had permitted her own parents.

  ‘I love you, Tills.’

  ‘Love you too, Mum.’

  Kate leaned forward and kissed her on the head. Her daughter’s hair smelled of argan oil and apples. She filed this sense-memory away, to be retrieved should she need it.

  Just in case . . .

  Just if . . .

  Blocking the horrors from her mind, she climbed the stairs to her own floor, where she crept into her bathroom, bent over the toilet and made herself throw up the small amount of food she had eaten that night.

  At least that was one thing she could keep a grip on.

  Six

  After cleaning her teeth to get rid of the taste of vomit, Kate took a long, hot shower to soothe away the evening. It didn’t work. Her fingertips still itched; the guilt at what she had caused to happen to Beattie still ate away at her concave stomach.

  At least, she thought, as she towelled herself dry, Tilly was going away in the morning. At least she wouldn’t be walking down Bridge Lane at night for another six months, when all this would hopefully be in the past, where it belonged.

  She went down to the kitchen, filled a large glass with the remainder of the third bottle of red and took it up to her office, where she found an email from Jake.

  Skype me, it said. Just that.

  Like a finger click from her past.

  As she stared at the screen wondering what she was going to say to the man she was beginning to think of as The American Shit, she thought about Beattie’s split lip, about the look on her face as she stood in the doorway earlier that evening, her knees tattered, her palms ripped.

  The whole thing was monstrous. It was thirty-three years after the deed he was demanding that they pay for. She had to stand up to him or they would be lost.

  Firing up Skype, she found that Jake_1959 had asked to be her contact and was there, online, waiting for her call. She supposed – possibly cruelly – that with his disability he had little else to do in his life other than hound her and Beattie. He could make it his full-time job, if he wanted.

  She called him and waited. She was just about to give up when he answered, his image looming full into view on her large monitor.

  She sat back a little, keeping her distance. Then, emboldened by the wine, and before he had a chance to get a word in, she launched herself at him.

  ‘How could you do that to Beattie? I can’t believe you. You send me completely unreasonable demands and then you expect me to jump when you whistle and do what you want straightaway without question? Don’t you think I’ve got a right to know that you’re going to use my money well? I know you and your appetites. I – I –’

  She stopped, her legs trembling. Jake, too, was shaking. His whole body was in spasm, as if he were having some sort of fit.

  She leaned forward and squinted at the screen. Was he all right? Was something happening to him? Might he be suffocating? Was his breathing machine letting him down? She watched carefully, willing it to happen.

  Waiting to watch him die in front of her eyes. Again.

  But, with the terrible rattle and whoosh of the breathing apparatus, she realised that, far from dying, he was laughing.

  Laughing at her.

  This could have – should have, perhaps – fuelled her anger, but instead she felt as if she were crumpling, shrinking. She saw her image in the corner of the screen getting even tinier in her big, expensive back-friendly work chair. Tears pricked at her eyes.

  ‘Oh my dear. Oh little Em,’ Jake said, after he had regained his composure. ‘My, can’t you just stamp your little foot until it h
urts? Where did you learn to speak like that? From your wealthy, powerful, perfect husband? Or is there some rich-bitch wife/entitled mom school?’

  ‘You set some thugs on Beattie,’ she said, hearing her voice squeak over the vowels. ‘Again.’

  ‘Did I? Oh, oh, I’m sorry. Did they get carried away? Oh, I do hope she’s OK.’

  ‘She’s at the hospital now.’

  ‘Hospital? What? In case she can get some compensation? That greedy little fuck.’

  ‘Don’t talk about her like that, and no. The police need to have a doctor’s report on her injuries.’

  ‘Police? Oh, please don’t tell me you’re doing something stupid. I know you’re careless. Evil, possibly. But I didn’t have you down as stupid.’

  Evil. Kate looked down at her hands, which hung over the keyboard like sparrow’s claws. ‘She told Mark she was mugged, so he called the police.’

  Jake tilted himself forward so that his face was very close to the camera. She could see right up his nostrils, where a lump of something clung to a hair. How could she once have desired this flesh?

  It wasn’t because of his disability, she told herself. If it were Mark in that position, she would take care of him and feel exactly the same about him as she did now he was strong and active. Even – though she didn’t manage to wholly convince herself on this point – if he were to balloon in weight and lose himself under a forest of facial hair. Not that, if she were caring for him, that sort of thing would happen.

  So then there she was again, tied up in knots because, if she had loved Jake and if the terrible things hadn’t happened, then perhaps, even if he had ended up disabled for some reason or another, at least he would be slimmer, with better hair.

  She almost laughed out loud at the depths of her shallowness.

  ‘Jake.’ She put her hands flat on the desk and positioned her face right up against the monitor. If it weren’t for the world wide web spanning the distance between them, they would be as close as lovers. ‘You brought all of this on yourself. If you hadn’t attacked Beattie, then none of the rest would have happened. Perhaps,’ she said, looking straight into his startling eyes, ‘we would be together now.’

  ‘Oh Emma,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘You’re killing me.’

  She threw herself back in her chair. Was he taking the piss? Was he being serious? She didn’t know. She had no idea how to approach him.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘who did Beattie say mugged her?’

  ‘Some kids.’

  ‘Some black kids?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Again Jake started shaking. ‘Oh, good ol’ Bee. We can rely on her for some Down South casual racism, heh?’

  ‘She comes from New York, remember.’

  ‘What?’ Jake stopped shaking. His chin fell into his neck. ‘Oh OK. Yeah, New York. I always think of her as Southern, with all that la-di-dah genteel middle-aged shtick she seems to have built up around herself. She’s a total drag now, ain’t she, Emma? An energy drain. A vortex. Don’t you think? Not like you, I bet you’ve still got it when it counts, eh? Still a little firecracker.’

  ‘Don’t try to turn me against her,’ Kate said, rubbing the back of her neck. ‘It won’t work.’

  ‘Oh, you’re so faithful. Such a good friend after all these years.’

  ‘You are so full of hate, aren’t you?’

  ‘WOULDN’T YOU BE?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this any more. It just goes round and round in circles.’

  ‘Well,’ Jake said, levering himself slightly away from the camera, ‘let’s get down to business. You think, Emma, that you can make demands of me.’

  ‘I just asked for—’

  ‘Well, you listen here. You forfeited your rights to ask anything of me thirty-three years ago on a cliff in Greece. OK?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You really lucked out, didn’t you? Good health, the impossibly good-looking, kind and loving husband. The clever, pretty daughter. All that money. The lovely place in Battersea, the beautiful house with the far-reaching blue sea and sand views in Cornwall. Strange name, Gwel an Mor.’

  ‘How did you—?’

  ‘They tell me it looks lovely.’

  ‘WHO tells you?’

  ‘My homies. My peeps. Surely Beattie told you? It wouldn’t be like her to miss out on a bit of melodramatic gossip. These people I exercise my arcane computing skills for are not the nicest of guys. But they bear immense gratitude to me, and they help me out in whatever ways they can. And you should be grateful too, at what I’m offering you.’

  ‘What do you mean, “offering” me?’

  ‘You don’t believe you deserve any of all that luck you’ve landed, do you? And rightly so. That silly little charity of yours is just your small way of feeling better about it all, isn’t it? Because even little Martha’s tragic death didn’t help, not really, did it?’

  He had to stop talking to take another in-breath. Then he continued:

  ‘Emma, my LOVE. Remember: my offer is to help you out here. With your reparation. You pay me what I need, without asking too many questions, and, hey, you feel better. Who knows, you might actually start to enjoy yourself a little more. Remember what happened on Ikaria? The day before you tried to kill me?’

  ‘I didn’t try to kill you.’

  ‘Semantics. Remember when we kissed?’

  Kate closed her eyes.

  ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’

  She nodded. The tears, which had threatened to engulf her since she realised he was laughing at her, finally appeared.

  ‘But I don’t think you’ve been able to enjoy yourself, since, have you? Whatever’s eating Emma James? Eh?’

  Kate said nothing.

  ‘Not talkative? Oh well. We can get round to that some other time. I’m pretty pooped now, and I should imagine that you are too, after the evening you’ve had.’

  ‘How do you know so much about me?’

  ‘Takes one to know one, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I’m nothing like you.’

  ‘Really? I would have said we were both of a piece.’ He paused again, while the machine gave him breath. ‘This is what happens next. I want that money in my account in three days. What happened to Beattie was just a hint at what this old crip can do. I am serious. Believe me. If you do not let me have my money, you will really, really regret it.’

  He did something with his good hand and a message popped up on the screen.

  ‘I’ve just sent you a link to a YouTube video. It’s private at the moment, but I’ve made sure you can use it, my Face of Kindness. Or should I say Kate62.’

  ‘You know my YouTube account.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? There’s a load of stuff I know about you, Ems. Like I say, the video is private at the moment, just between you and me. But I can easily, easily make it more widely available should I deem it necessary. In the meantime, I wish you well, my lovely Emma.’

  He moved to disconnect himself, but then he paused, frowning, as if struck by a new thought. ‘Oh yes. Do you know that your daughter walks home at night with her headphones on? You really should discourage that, Emma. It’s not at all safe. Not for a pretty girl like that.’

  Anger cut through Kate’s tears, sizzling them like a hot knife.

  ‘ALL RIGHT!’ she said. ‘All right. I’ll get the money to you. But it’ll take five days.’

  ‘It will take three days.’

  Kate rubbed her stinging eyes.

  ‘All right. Three. But I want your word that when you’ve got it, you’ll not bother us any more. Not me. Not Beattie.’

  Jake’s eyes twinkled as he looked at her. ‘You have my word, Ems, then, if that’s what you want. Three days, mind. And don’t forget to look at that little YouTube clip, will you?’

  ‘Why are you so—’ Kate started to say, but the familiar Skype parting sigh evaporated him from her screen.

  With both hands, she scratched her scalp until it nearly ble
d. Her stitches throbbed, her skin felt as if it might crackle right off her.

  Dreading what she might see, she clicked the link Jake had messaged her.

  Looming up into the YouTube window was her own, thin, worried face, sitting exactly where she was at that moment – it was almost as if she were looking at herself in a mirror. The background noise was different, though. Instead of the traffic that rumbled ceaselessly up and down Battersea Bridge Road, there was the sound of Jake’s breathing machine, and a shuffling sound that could or could not have been a dog somewhere near the microphone.

  ‘No, no. That’s not what I mean,’ her mirror-self said.

  ‘So which part of it are you sorry for?’ Jake’s voice rumbled close to the microphone. ‘Pushing me off a cliff and killing me? Or not realising that you hadn’t actually succeeded, and leaving me for dead?’

  Kate watched herself. The lump in her throat – was it an Adam’s apple or a swollen thyroid gland? She had never really noticed it before – bobbed up and down as she swallowed.

  ‘I’m sorry for all of it.’

  ‘SAY IT PROPERLY. Sorry for WHAT?’

  Her reply – her confession – was distant, crackled, out of synch with her lips. But there it was. Filmed. Posted. Ready to show the world unless she paid up.

  The bastard.

  Her heart thumped against her ribs. She wanted to get on a plane, track him down and really kill him, properly this time.

  But what good would come of it?

  She didn’t believe in evil. But if she did, what Jake was doing was exactly that.

  She put her forehead on her keyboard and, once more, she wept.

  Seven

  Despite the weariness that came with feeling that her entire being had been wrung out, Kate had to take three pills to knock herself out.

  So she didn’t wake when Mark came in from looking after Beattie. Nor, once again, did she even stir when he got himself up and disappeared to the office.

  She had the consolation of knowing that he had been home, though. As was his nightly habit, he had thrown two of his three pillows onto the floor when he went to sleep. Following her own morning routine, she replaced them when she made the bed in her classic five-star hotel turndown style.