Alice Taes a Cruise

Yes, it was anger.

Lashing out with her feet, the girl attempted to kick her captors as they dragged her back to their spot on the deserted beach. But they merely laughed and held her more tightly, moving easily out of range. She even tried biting the hands gripping her wrists, but the older man simply grabbed her shoulder-length brown hair and pulled her head back.

'Fucking pricks! Let me go!'

Forty yards away, still hidden behind my little protective barrier of rocks, I hurriedly pulled my bikini bottom back on. If I was to be discovered, I wanted to be decently dressed.

I could hear her angry words, but found it difficult to place her accent. She didn't sound English like me, and I was fairly sure she wasn't American. Perhaps she was one of the Australian backpackers I had shared the bus with five days ago, though her skin looked a little pink and burnt for a sun-worshipper. For the sake of placing her somewhere – an infuriating habit of we English, I know – I decided she was Swedish. That would explain the good – though ripe – language. An explanation of her dark hair – unusual for a Scandinavian – would have to wait.

But how important was all that? Annoyed with myself for thinking such irrelevant thoughts, I watched in growing agitation as the two men forced her to kneel on the sand by their gear. How quickly the mood of the day had changed. The sky was still an uninterrupted blue, the hot sun beat down, the cicadas rattled – yet it was as if a violent storm had been unleashed. An hour ago I had been lying alone on this beach without a care in the world. A few minutes ago I had even been about to enjoy my second orgasm of the day.

Perhaps that is why this awful thing had happened. It was punishment for my gaining pleasure from watching two men perform unnatural acts.

Almost as soon as the thought entered my head, I dismissed it. I, after all, wasn't the person being punished. It was that poor Swedish girl, she – who had almost certainly witnessed – and enjoyed – the same sight – who was now being made to suffer for her voyeurism.

Though she wasn't giving up without a struggle. The men may have forced her to her knees, but she still lashed out at them as best she could, not only with her limbs, but with her tongue as well.

'Let me go, you fucking pricks! I'll fucking kill you!'

The blond one laughed at his friend. 'Hey, this one's wild.'

'Yeah,' agreed the other. 'The wild ones are best.'

My eyes widened at his words. But before I could dwell on their alarming implication, the girl's foot suddenly leaped into the air between his legs and caught the tenderest part of his naked body a fierce blow.

The air shot from his lungs. 'Jesus!' His face contorted with agony, he collapsed, bent double on the sand.

For a brief moment, the blond's attention was distracted as he looked with concern at his friend. The girl seized her chance. In an instant she was up and running.

Straight towards me.

Immediately the blond set off after her, but in growing horror I realised she had too much of a head start. She would reach my hiding place before he reached her.

I was about to be discovered.

My options raced before my mind's eye. I could stand up and announce my presence, thereby saving the girl from whatever fate the two men had in store for her. On the other hand, how would I then explain what I'd been doing for the last hour or so? And who's to say I wouldn't become another of their captives? They were in their twenties and looked strong enough to handle both me and the Swedish girl. Worse still, perhaps they would let her go and take me instead.

Alternatively, I could stand up and run for all I was worth. I was still the nearest to the path that led from the beach. If I got up now I might make it to safety before they caught me. It was perhaps the best option. But in truth my legs felt like jelly. I was terrified. What if I could barely stand, let alone run?

In the space of a split second I made up my mind. I would simply close my eyes, put my head in the sand and pretend I wasn't there.

I did so. With my eyes tight shut, I could feel the gritty earth against my cheek. My heart pounded beneath my breast. At any moment I expected the footsteps of the girl and her pursuer to be on me.

But they never came.

After a few seconds – long enough for them to have reached me twice over – I ventured an open eye. The girl had been caught under the first of the olive trees, barely twenty yards from my hiding place. It was easy to guess what had happened. She had tripped and fallen and the blond had pounced.

Now he held her, face down on the ground, her arm twisted viciously up behind her back so that she was helpless. Winded by her fall and crushed by his weight, she could no longer even vent her anger in words. But her eyes were open and staring straight at me.

'Help me,' I saw her lips form the silent words. 'Help me, please.'

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After they had gone – the Swedish girl and her two captors – those words returned to haunt me.

What a coward I was. She had asked for my help and I had failed her. Even as her lips had desperately implored me, she had still had fight in her eyes. But it had faded as soon as she'd realised I was going to do nothing.

No doubt she'd seen the fear in my own eyes.

Hardly bothering to give me even a glance of contempt, she'd gone limp and allowed the blond man to frogmarch her back to where the dark-haired man had been recovering from the kick she'd given him. Without a word he'd hit her hard round the face with the back of his hand. A few minutes later they'd bundled her unceremoniously into their inflatable, sped off round the headland and out of sight.

Yes, I was a coward. I was pathetic. A few days ago, full of courage and optimism, I had decided to start a new life for myself.

I had fallen at the first fence.

In a mood of utter self-loathing I stood and collected my things. Even now, knowing they were gone, I still looked around me nervously, half-expecting someone else to appear. But I was alone. The beach, the olive grove, the sea were all unchanged.

I walked over to the spot where the men had stopped to put on and take off their snorkelling gear, but other than a few trampled footprints there was no sign that anyone had ever been there. In a childish fit of petulance I kicked furiously at the sand. The empty beach no longer seemed idyllic, it felt threatening. The sea no longer felt inviting, its dull flatness merely seemed boring. The sun? Well, I'm English. The sun was just too bloody hot.

Back at my hotel overlooking the little fishing harbour I almost started to pack. In fact, I did get my bag from the bottom of the wardrobe and open it on the bed. But then I decided to sleep on it. I wasn't one for impulsive decisions. Hadn't the last few hours taught me that?

I briefly considered going to the police, but quickly rejected that idea too. What would I say? That I had spied on two gay men making love then watched them kidnap a girl? I couldn't even make it sound believable to myself, let alone justify my part in it. And the thought of trying to explain everything to a couple of sniggering Greek policemen – never mind the language barrier – made me shiver with disgust.

If I had known other English speakers there, I suppose I could have gone to them. But again, what could I say? How could I identify the kidnappers and their victim? I didn't know who the girl was. I didn't know who the men were. There were no doubt hundreds of similar inflatables all over Greece.

I had to face it. I could do nothing.

That evening, in a self-pitying mood, I had more than my usual pre-dinner glass of wine on my balcony. I drank half a whole bottle before weaving my lightheaded way to my usual restaurant, where the ageing moustached owner made a great show of welcoming me.

'Ah, Miss Alice! You are so beautiful this evening.' He clasped my elbows with both hands (being too short to comfortably clasp my shoulders) and stage-whispered, 'I leave my wife tonight. We fly to England, yes? We have lots of children.'

I smiled thinly. I wasn't in the mood for this. 'Not tonight, Stephan. I feel a bit tired.'

Immediately he became solicitous. 'I bring you nice glass of ouzo, Miss Alice. It make you feel whole lot better. Then I cook you number one fish.' He put his grouped fingertips to his lips. 'He very good today. Only caught this morning. You want to see?'

I put up my hand. 'No, thank you.' The thought of looking into an icebox full of raw fish didn't appeal right now. 'I'll take your word for it.'

When the ouzo arrived I drank it almost immediately, hardly waiting for the water to turn milky. It reminded me too much of what I had witnessed on the beach that afternoon. Momentarily I shut my eyes to blot out the sight of the dark-haired man's semen spurting onto his abdomen. It seemed ridiculous – even revolting – to think that only a few hours ago the sight had raised me to a hitherto unknown level of passion. Right now, all I wanted to do was wipe it from my memory.

Stephan's fish helped. He'd been right. It was very good. Cooked simply over a charcoal fire in the corner of the patch of ground where he set out his tables and chairs it was flavoured with nothing more than a little olive oil and lemon juice. Yet it tasted divine.

And the wine I had with it helped more. By the time I had finished my meal I had forgotten all about my ghastly experience. I had almost forgotten what country I was in.

Inadvertently banging my knee against the table leg and knocking over my empty wine glass I got unsteadily to my feet. Stephan hovered. 'You OK, Miss Alice?' I smiled reassuringly. I must have been very drunk. Even he – all five feet of him – was beginning to look attractive.

Back in my room I flopped on the bed. Even with the balcony doors wide open the night air was stifling. There wasn't a breath of wind. With a view of nothing but the sea, I watched the lights of the fishing boats as they left the harbour to get the night's catch. The sea was so still and flat, they seemed hardly to waver.

I closed my eyes but the act produced an almost instant whirling sensation, as if I were spinning in space. I opened them and the room slowed down. I stood up – with difficulty – and undressed – with even more difficulty. Standing on the cool tiles in the tiny en-suite bathroom I splashed cold water on my face, but it brought only temporary relief. Back on the bed, though now completely naked, I was soon hot again.

With a sinking heart I knew the night was going to be a long one.

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I don't know what it was that made me think of her – but unbidden, suddenly there was Jenny. Maybe it was thinking about that Swedish girl that brought her memory back, the connection between them I'd been trying to deny all evening. Not that they were alike in any way. Jenny would be thirty-three, no thirty-four, by now and the Swedish girl looked maybe ten years younger.

No, outwardly they had nothing in common. The connection lay in me, in what I had done to them both. I had let them down. The cowardice that had prevented me from saving that girl was the same cowardice that had lost me Jenny.

Feebly I tried to shut the memory away again. I was too drunk for this. It wasn't fair. What was the point of raking it all up? I'd managed to stop thinking about her years ago. I knew what would happen. I would end up in tears, just as I had always done.

Ten years ago. Such a long time. Such a short time.

I was twenty-one and I was vulnerable. Boy, was I vulnerable. I had just broken up with Peter – my last ever boyfriend, though I didn't know it at the time – and mother's illness had just been diagnosed.

Actually, that's misleading. It was my mother's illness that caused my breakup with Peter. When I knew I would have to devote the next few years of my life to caring for her I told him I couldn't carry on seeing him. It was only fair. There was no way I could have any kind of serious relationship if I was going to do my best for mother.

I don't know what I expected in response – sympathy, perhaps, understanding, resignation even – certainly not the endless arguments we immediately descended into. He kept telling me that he loved me, that he would stand by me whatever happened, that he would learn to care for mother as much as I did, that we could 'work it out together'.

He was being ridiculous, of course. And I told him so. There was no way I could have balanced his demands with hers. She was my number one priority. She was my responsibility and mine alone. It was my duty.

He protested, of course, but I stuck to my guns. Eventually he gave up. He knew how firm I was when I set my mind on something – though he called it stubborn. His parting shot was to accuse me of being 'afraid of life', and that to disguise it I was 'playing the martyr'.

That was delivered on a rainy autumn night outside the student bar of the college we both attended, and though in the following weeks we occasionally passed each other in the library or on the way to lectures, it was the last time we ever spoke.

Actually, his parting words were that he would wait for me, 'however long it took'. Of course I ignored him. That was the kind of romantic nonsense everybody says at that age.

Jenny came along just after my finals the following spring. I had got over Peter – or so I believed – and was just beginning to realise what a handful mother was going to be. Health workers advised me to attend a support group for carers of people with similar conditions.

Jenny was one of the group.

We didn't exactly hit it off from the word go. In fact, I disliked her almost on sight. Although she was only twenty-four at the time, she affected a superior air, as if she had all the answers. Most of the other members of the group were simply exhausted, thankful to be away from their demanding charges for an hour or two, to be able to sit down with a cup of tea and have a moan with people who knew only too well what they were going through.

Not Jenny. She wanted to give advice. She wanted everyone to listen to her. She wanted to gee everyone up, get them on the right track, sort themselves out. I could tell almost from the first meeting that she was heartily disliked. True, as I learnt later, she had been caring for her older brother for almost six years by then and knew what she was talking about. She had studied his illness at length, something she recommended we all did. 'How else are you going to know whether those bloody doctors are doing the right thing?'

Annoyingly, she was right most of the time. Which of course only made her more disliked. And she made no allowances for anyone's lack of energy – something we all suffered from to a greater or lesser extent. Full of an almost manic determination, she couldn't understand anyone less motivated than herself. Not only did she urge us to study our relatives' conditions, she also expected us to become agitators on their behalf: write letters to the press, lobby our MPs, etc, etc. As if we didn't have enough on our plates!

So it was with a certain relief that we heard her brother had died. An unkind reaction, yes, but one thing we had all grown used to was the inevitability of death. At least it meant she would no longer be pestering us.

Yet to everyone's surprise she continued to attend the meetings. She was no longer quite so vociferous, of course, but still offered advice when she thought we needed it, still urged us on when she saw our spirits flagging. From then on, though, no one took much notice. It was as if with the death of her brother, her moral right to lecture us had vanished. Why should we listen to her? What did she know? As time passed she became more ostracised from the group, less vocal. Until eventually she just used to come and sit quietly by herself, drinking tea and talking to no one. It was as if she were no longer one of us.

It was round about that time I started going through a particularly bad patch with mother. Understandably depressed at her condition, she started to take it out on her daytime carers. Every evening when I came home from work I'd be presented with a long list of trivial complaints. They were too rough with her, her bathwater was too hot, it was too cold, her food was inedible, and so on and so on, until eventually I was so sick of her whining I resigned from my job and told her I would look after her full-time.

At the next support group meeting I told everyone what I'd done. Not to boast, not to be told what a wonderfully devoted daughter I was – simply to get a bit of sympathy. Which, thankfully, is what I got, though not from where I expected it. Of course, they were all very supportive. I received lots of pats on the knee and cups of tea. Then – exhaustion and self-pity taking over – I burst into tears, much to my embarrassment.

Not that people didn't burst into tears on a regular basis, but it wasn't exactly the done thing. We were British, after all; we were all expected to bear our burdens stoically, with irony and humour our social props. When someone admitted their patient had fallen out of bed and it had taken an hour to get them back in, the story was supposed to be accompanied by laughter, not tears.

So I took myself outside into the corridor of the school where we met and tried to pull myself together.

But before I could, I felt an arm around my shoulders. It was Jenny.

I pulled away and started to dab my eyes ineffectually with a tissue. 'I'm OK.'

She looked at me with a softness I had never seen before on her determined face. 'It's all right to cry, you know. It is allowed.'

It was absurd, but it was as if her permission was all I needed. I immediately cried more. I couldn't stop. It was as if all the tiredness and pent-up frustration of the last few months were finally bursting free. Jenny put her arms around me again, and this time I didn't resist. I just put my head on her shoulder and bawled like a baby.

I didn't go back into the meeting. Jenny took me out to her car and drove me home to mother's. I invited her in – or did she invite herself? I can't remember – then went upstairs to check that mother was asleep and to tell the part-time carer she could go.

Downstairs Jenny was looking at mother's photos. I suggested coffee.

'Don't you have any alcohol?'

Had I? I'd no idea. I was so terrified I might do something wrong to mother while under the influence, I'd more or less cut drink completely from my diet. Birthdays and Christmases only. 'There might be some wine somewhere.'

Jenny headed for the kitchen. 'Don't worry, I'll find it.' She smiled conspiratorially. 'I have a nose for it.' After only a minute or two of searching she emerged from a bottom cupboard with a dusty bottle in her hand. 'Eureka!'

I found two wine glasses, automatically going to wash them. They probably hadn't been used for months.

Jenny turned down her mouth. 'Oh don't bother with that. It's not £20 a bottle, is it?'

'Not if I bought it,' I said.

We talked. And talked.

At first about my mother and her brother; what had made me so upset that day; how she felt now her brother was dead. But it was old ground. We already knew only too well that side of our lives. I asked her why she continued to come to the meetings, now she had no reason to.

'Isn't it obvious?'

'No.'

She looked away, as if afraid to admit the truth, but then looked me straight in the eye. 'I come because you're my only friends.'

That night we drank the bottle – the first of many to come – and I probably became very giggly and stupid, though I can't really remember. Jenny stayed until about 11.30, then – no doubt concerned about my inebriated condition – told me to go to bed.