by Jack Dylan
“I know, I know. We’ll sort it all out.”
“Sorting it out is a different matter, but it’s the feeling of stopping hiding something that is such a relief. I was quite clear that I was hiding it so that I could protect you – but in retrospect maybe that wasn’t even very realistic.”
“You make life so hard for yourself sometimes. And you really are useless at hiding what you’re thinking. Let’s eat and then maybe we can think what to do about tonight.”
“Look, don’t imagine there is anything we can do. I’ve just got to get on with it, and the sooner it’s over the better.”
They crunched their way across the stones to the table that Mehmet was pointing them towards.
“Tamam Alex?”
“Tamam Mehmet. Tesekkurler.”
“Bir she deyil Alex. What do you want to eat? Madame first!”
“Thanks Mehmet. What do you have tonight?” asked Maggie, still not really able to adjust to the idea that the list tonight was the same as last night and the same as it had been in May.”
Mehmet ran through the usual list of lamb shish, meatballs, lamb-stew, fish-stew, fresh fish, kalamari, cheese-rolls….
“What fresh fish do you have?”
“Sea-bream and barboun.”
“I’ll have the sea-bream.”
“I could have written the script for that,” laughed Alex. “And I’ll have the cheese-rolls please.”
“To drink?”
“Oh let’s have a bottle of Chankaya tonight.”
“Tamam Alex,“ confirmed Mehmet before striding up the steps to the kitchen to start organising their food. He shouted loudly to his cousin in the bar to bring the wine and some water. No time wasted.
They sat back and watched their fellow-diners as first the drinks, and almost immediately afterwards the plates of mezes, started to arrive. They hadn’t ordered them as they knew they were automatically part of the meal. They leaned forward and looked at the little dish of spicy tomato puree, the delicious yoghurt with watercress and garlic, and the usual salad. Tonight there was also a little plate of fried aubergine complete with the strong garlic dip that took the uninitiated by surprise. Alex poured the water and then two glasses of the chilled white wine. They raised the two glasses of wine, and looked searchingly into one-another’s eyes as they said the ritual “Sherife.”
They looked like two lovers making up after a fight as they continued to hold one another’s gaze, and Alex reached out with his free hand to grip Maggie’s left hand tightly.
“Kissy kissy tonight Alex,“ laughed Mehmet as he delivered the basket of bread to the table.
“Lucky man Alex. Maggie you come to me when you are tired of him. I make you very happy.”
They laughed and had to break the intensity of their exchange to cope with the mischievous Mehmet. Alex tore off a chunk of bread for Maggie and they turned their attention to the food. The bread was almost crumpet-like in consistency, yellowish in internal colour, and with a rich brown crust which still smelled of the pine-scented wood that had burned in the oven that morning. The simple basic honesty and wholesomeness of the bread and mezes was like a soothing hand to their intensity. They sat back more easily in their chairs, munching the bread dipped in yoghurt and scooping up with their forks the green water-cress that had probably been growing in the little vegetable patch that morning.
“It’s hard to believe in the nastiness of the world when you’re sitting here,” breathed Alex. He sighed and tore some more bread. “I’m just going to relax and pretend I’m as carefree as everyone else here – for an hour or so.”
“As if!” challenged Maggie. “Just enjoy the food but don’t try to bluff me. I know you’re not going to relax till about this time next week when we are back in London – but anyway – I do love being here with you.”
They looked up through the overhanging pine branches to the already dark sky. There was still a little light left from the day, and the stars were gradually emerging into the darkness, the brightest first. Each time they looked up more were visible – countless, mysterious specks of light in a dark unimaginable scale of distance. It was a backdrop designed to make human beings register their puny insignificance in the visible universe, and to help put today’s worries into some sort of perspective against the infinite. It wasn’t working as well as usual for Alex.
At 21:45 Alex and Maggie returned to the yacht. They exchanged the usual farewells to Mehmet and the others, still busy serving the tables. As a gesture of trust they always refused to let Alex pay his bill in the evening.
“You pay tomorrow,” was the indication that he was a favoured customer and friend. The visitors on the other tables watched quietly and wondered how this English couple had achieved such favoured status.
Maggie went below so that she could avoid contact with anyone walking along the jetty who might ask or just wonder where Alex was. She filled the kettle with water and lit the gas - after remembering to go up to the gas locker in the cockpit to turn the tap which Alex had safely closed after breakfast that morning. She stood in the galley staring at the neat cupboards but her eyes were unfocused. For several minutes she didn’t move, then her eyes came back to reality and she started ritually setting out the cafetiere and the coffee cups. She shook her head crossly and put the cafetiere away again. Rummaging in the cupboard she found a box of Camomile tea and extracted a tea-bag. They would have enough trouble sleeping tonight without any extra caffeine.
She went to their cabin and shook the duvet. She lifted the discarded t-shirt from earlier in the day and examined it critically before putting it back into the “wearable” pile in the wardrobe. Living on a yacht demands a high degree of neatness and good-housekeeping, otherwise squalor takes over with inconvenient speed. She lifted the novel she had been reading last night and went back to the galley just as the kettle started to whistle. She turned off the gas and promised herself she would turn it off at the cylinder later. She lifted a plastic box of biscuits from the deep trough-like shelf behind the cooker that kept the contents in place when the boat was at sea.
Maggie nibbled one of the crisp little sultana biscuits that were Alex’s favourite. It was dry in her mouth and she put it down. She went to the guest cabins and checked them for tidiness – unoccupied this week - so they were bare except for the folded sheets, duvet and towels that were ready for the next clients. Nothing to tidy away. Nothing needing to be done to keep her fidgeting hands busy. She sat on the comfortable settee at the saloon table, and opened the book. Once again her eyes looked unfocused and she stared pointlessly at the steam still rising from the kettle.
She put the open book down on the table and shuffled over to the chart table. Alex’s neat log-book was open on top of the chart. She read his entry for today and saw that he had remembered to enter the barometer reading every few hours. She smiled wryly at the order and efficiency with which he had written their passage plan for the day, even though it was such a well-travelled route that he didn’t even need to look at the chart. Nonetheless, there were the distances and the course to steer; the departure time; the note about the wind and weather; their arrival time; and finally the barometer reading from just before dinner that evening. She held the log-book and studied the neat handwriting as if admiring a ancient manuscript, or re-reading an old love-letter. She flicked back through the log-book and tried to find the entries for the significant occasions that they had been in Kapi Creek earlier in the year. She found an entry at the end of May – a few days before their flight back to London in the first week of June. Nothing seemed different about the entry. The usual passage plan, weather notes, barometer readings, and record of arrival time. As usual Alex had noted at the start of the week who was on board, so that wasn’t repeated each day. She flicked back a couple of pages and tried to picture the people whose names were neatly listed. There had been two couples that week, but she couldn’t remember anything significant never-mind suspicious about them.
She leafed
forwards through book and found another entry at the end of July – the one just before Alex’s unscheduled flight back to London, which had left her to run the yacht with Alex’s friend Tolga, who sometimes looked after things while they were away. She ignored the almost weekly entries for Kapi Creek, focusing only on those that preceded a trip to London. Again she read the entry looking for some sign of significance. She expected a red asterisk or an unexplained letter in the corner, but could find nothing. She was about to move on to look for the September entry when she realised that the observation “dolphins in the bay” appeared in both entries. She flicked back to the May entry, and there it was. “Dolphins in the Bay.” She didn’t actually remember ever seeing dolphins in Kapi Creek. They were quite frequent outside the busy inlet, and almost reliably seen across at the headland on the other side of Fethiye Bay, but she was sure she hadn’t seen them in the anchorage. She flicked forwards again to the middle of September – the week before their scheduled trip back to London to take care of the usual boring bank and house issues. She let a little laugh of triumph escape her lips. “Dolphins in the Bay” again in September. She had found his little secret code for these clandestine meetings.
Her moment of triumph was interrupted by the sound of the dinghy bumping gently at the bow of the boat. She could picture Alex tying the painter to the pulpit, and then hoisting himself up onto the bow using the lazy-line as an extra foot-hold. She didn’t have the strength in her upper body to emulate him, and always had to take the dinghy to the stern to come on board. She fondly felt a little pride at the strength and agility of her lovely man. She pictured him looking around to ensure all was well before walking silently along the side of the yacht to the cockpit. Her expectation was interrupted by the faint squeak of the hinges of the anchor locker at the bow, and then the solid thud as the lid closed again. She knew his hiding place now as well as his secret code.
Alex stepped gently down the companionway steps into the saloon, looking tired and tense. He spotted the logbook in Maggie’s hands and raised his eyebrows.
“Any dolphins in the bay tonight?” she asked innocently.
Despite himself Alex laughed and pulled her close in a hug that spelt infinite relief to be with her, as well as love, admiration and just plain joy at being able to share the secret at last.
“You are such a clever old thing.”
“Hey not so much of the ‘old’ if you please,” she laughed.
“I don’t know how I’d survive without you. I really don’t.”
Maggie forgot to make the camomile teas. She forgot to turn off the gas tap in the locker. But they slept wrapped on one-another’s arms until the heat made them sleepily roll over to their respective sides of the bunk.
“Don’t worry love, we’ll be OK,” she whispered.
“I hope so. I really hope so.”
Next morning Alex woke at his usual early hour. He stroked the dark hair straying over the pillow beside him and sighed gently with the mixed emotions of the two opposing sides of his life. He ached for the time when he could have the simple joy of being here with Maggie, and could put behind him the ill-fitting, gut-gnawing anxiety of the “little favours” he had to do for Katharos. He prayed that this was the last one but felt helpless as he knew that each favour left him deeper in hock to the unscrupulous Greek. He couldn’t escape the trap. But everything he did snared him more and more securely. God, he hated the mess.
He slid as quietly as he could out of the bunk and relieved himself in the heads, pumping the waste quietly into the holding tank that was obligatory in the Mediterranean, but strangely not normal round the UK. For the thousandth time he puzzled at the stupidity of the authorities who allowed tens of thousands of yachts to discharge their waste in the marinas and harbours round the English coast.
He flipped open the porthole glass and looked out through the narrow slit at the early morning dampness left by the cool of the night. Another clear sunny day in prospect. Alex slipped into the easy morning routine that required little thought and provided a soothing comfort from familiar repetition. The comforting feeling of routine was as insubstantial as the evaporating dew, but like the dampness it was real while it lasted. He slid back the companionway cover and climbed the steep steps into the cockpit. His routine look around the deck confirmed that everything was in order, but the towels and swimming costumes pegged to the guard-rails were still too damp to bring inside. He opened the cockpit locker to reach the gas supply and was surprised to find it was already turned on. He wondered at his slip from the safe routine.
Going back down to the heads, he had his wake-up face wash before reaching quietly into the cabin to find a clean t-shirt and shorts. He dressed quietly in the saloon, then sat at the chart-table for the daily start of the entry. He noted the barometer reading, the same as yesterday morning, but left blank their destination for the day. It should be across to Fethiye to say farewells to friends and contacts before the flight home at the end of the week, but he was reluctant to plan the trip to the noisy and crowded marina. Perhaps there was time for just another night in quiet little anchorages and they could get to Fethiye later to say their farewells and make plans for the winter. He’d see later.
Alex filled the kettle, although it was already almost full, and lit the gas. He set out two glasses, two mugs, two plates and two knives. The breadboard, bread-knife, butter and fruit completed the basic preparation. An orange for him and an apple for Maggie – what could be simpler. Checking the brass clock on the bulkhead, he saw that it was well after 8:00 so he turned the gas low, and climbed back to the cockpit to make his way ashore. He went gently along the planking trying not to disturb the late sleepers in the other boats, before climbing the stone steps to the little shelter where the wood-fired oven produced a batch of the crumpet-like village bread each morning. He was early, and watched as Ishmael slid the metal oven door to one side so that he could reach in with his long hook-tipped pole to rearrange the bread tins.
The fire was re-kindled each morning from the embers of the previous evening. Ishmael scooped out the ash and encouraged the remaining wood into fresh flame with the addition of some dry logs. The fire burned healthily for an hour before he transferred most of the burning material into the second oven, leaving only some large solid smouldering logs in the oven that was going to be used for baking. The thick walls of the old oven maintained the heat very efficiently, and probably never really cooled down completely from start to end of the tourist season. The plate-like dough-filled bread-tins were slid into the hot oven and only required about twenty minutes to cook. The mixture rose quickly in the heat, and the smouldering logs combined with the solid heat of the oven to produce a crisp smokey-flavoured crust over the dense spongy bread.
Alex nodded a greeting to Ishmael, who nodded quietly as he continued to concentrate on the bread. A couple of minutes later, he scooped out the first half-dozen tins and expertly flipped them over so that the crusty bread fell onto the tiled workshelf to cool.
“Kac ekmek, Alex?” he asked Alex.
“Bir, lutfen,” Alex replied – only needing one loaf for himself and Maggie. He was handed the loaf with a bit of cardboard to avoid burning his hand, and he skipped triumphantly back down to the yacht smiling broadly in anticipation of the hot bread.
On board again he made the coffee, carried all the plates and mugs to the cockpit, and on the saloon table sliced the first crusty edge from the still-steaming bread. Maggie emerged from the cabin as he did so and slid an arm around his shoulders – leaning her sleep-rumpled hair on his back.
“Morning,” she murmured, kissing the back of Alex’s neck before stepping into the heads to get herself ready for breakfast. Alex sighed contentedly, and still smiling, carried the bread to the cockpit where he sat back to admire the view once again. The sun was already making its presence felt, and he thought about raising the bimini, but decided it was worth enjoying the heat for another hour or so.
He poured the orange jui
ce and coffee, peeled his orange, and enjoyed the flavours of his habitual breakfast. As he ate he pondered the plan for the day – a lazy sail or a business-like departure for Fethiye? He decided that a swim and an early lunch in Kapi would allow them to sail briskly over to Fethiye in the afternoon. It seemed a good mixture of pleasure and responsibility.
Maggie joined him in the cockpit, and helped herself to juice and coffee, then sat back sweeping her hair from her face. She let her gaze roam over the calm bay and the neighbouring yachts, where few people were yet organised and no other bread had been fetched from the oven. Her eyes came back to Alex.
“I love this place,” she murmured quietly. “Have you a plan for the day yet? I’d love to stay here for a while before we go back to reality.”
“Your wish is my command. I thought we really should be in Fethiye tonight so that tomorrow and the rest of the week isn’t a rush, but we don’t need to leave until after lunch, so you can have a thoroughly lazy morning if you want.”
“Watching the dolphins?”
“Why did you have to mention that? I was enjoying a quiet morning forgetting about harsh realities. Sorry, didn’t mean to snap.”
“Is this really the last time Alex? What’s to stop him making you do it again and again?”
“Let’s not talk about it up here. But you’re right. I hate to admit it but I, sorry we, will have to think of something. Can’t imagine what.”
“OK, let’s leave it for now. But not for ever. I’m not going to let this worry kill you – which it will in the end.”
“We’ll survive. I’ll talk later about it, but for now just enjoy that magic bread and make the most of the last morning in Kapi till May next year. I’m going to read a book, then I’m going to go up the hill to see if I can get the photograph I want for the website you tell me I need to have.”
“I’ll come with you. I’m going to swim later but a walk would be good first. Anyway, if you top up that coffee please, I’ll sit and supervise the coming to life of Kapi Creek for one last time this year.”
