by Hodge, Sibel
Dick Head and Goodbody had deadly straight faces.
‘Do go on. This is thoroughly enlightening,’ Goodbody said in a voice that clearly meant it wasn’t at all.
‘Well, that was when I noticed that someone had drawn a moustache and beard on the picture of the woman on the front of the box.’ I narrowed my eyes at Kalem, who chuckled under his breath, remembering.
‘Anyway, I was really embarrassed and had to pretend that it must have been like that in the shop when I’d bought it.’
‘Is there a point to this?’ Goodbody asked, glancing at his watch.
‘I wanted to get Kalem back, and I knew he was going to the building society a few days later to get some money out, and he needed to take some ID. He can never find his driving licence, so he always takes his passport,’ I paused. ‘Because I’m a photographer, obviously I’ve got loads of old photos lying around, so I thought it would be really funny to pay him back for all the practical jokes he plays on me. I found this photo, cut it out, then stuck it over his passport photo with removable adhesive and put it back in the drawer. Then, of course, I forgot all about it.’ I tried to swallow, but my throat felt like I’d swallowed a Brillo Pad. ‘Until now.’ I tucked my hair behind my ears with shaky hands.
Kalem coughed. ‘Actually, I managed to find my driving licence and took that to the building society instead.’
I cast him a sheepish look. ‘Yes, I realize that now.’
‘You see! This is all perfectly innocent,’ Kalem said to Dick Head and Goodbody. ‘Can we go now?’
‘Not yet. Are you a Muslim too?’ Goodbody asked me.
‘No, I’m not a Muslim,’ I said.
A confused glance passed between Dick Head and Goodbody. ‘Well you certainly look like one. Can you please explain why you’re wearing a burka if you’re not Muslim,’ Goodbody asked me.
I glanced down at the floor length, head-to-toe black burka that I’d almost forgotten I was wearing. Even if the rest of the stuff sounded slightly odd, there was at least a perfectly reasonable explanation for this.
‘Well, there’s an ancient tradition with Turkish Cypriot families. When a new bride-to-be arrives in North Cyprus to get married, it’s good luck for her to be wearing a burka, isn’t it?’ I glanced at Kalem, willing him to explain this peculiar custom further. Instead, he kind of gave me a small shake of his head, and his jaw dropped.
Oh, God. I recognized that look. There was no such custom. This was another one of his wind-Helen-up practical jokes. If they could’ve seen my face, which of course they couldn’t because I only had a two inch rectangular slit for my eyes, they would’ve seen it completely drain of colour. Luckily, they accepted this explanation, and neither of the customs officers seemed to notice that my eyelids had just pinged open in surprise or that Kalem’s face had turned a scorching-hot shade of pink.
Dick Head picked at the adhesive on Kalem’s passport photo and pulled it off, examining the official picture of Kalem underneath. ‘What do you think?’ He handed the passport to Goodbody.
‘Mmm.’ Goodbody scrutinized it. ‘It looks legitimate.’ He sounded disappointed.
‘That’s a shame,’ Dick Head huffed and turned to Officer Goodbody, frowning. ‘Seems like we’ll miss out on our CAT bonus.’
‘What’s that?’ Kalem asked.
‘Catch-a-terrorist bonus,’ Dick Head grumbled at us. It was clear from the look on his face that he’d already worked out what he was going to spend it on.
‘Can we go now?’ I pleaded.
‘OK,’ Goodbody said with much reluctance. ‘But don’t let this happen again.’
‘Thanks, Dick.’ I yanked Kalem’s arm and hurried him away to catch our plane before they changed their minds.
We arrived at the gate with minutes to spare, just as a rather harassed looking baggage handler was about to search for our luggage to offload.
OK, maybe this wasn’t exactly the kind of start to our perfect life together that I had in mind, and one day I was actually going to laugh about this, but I couldn’t allow myself to relax until we were sitting in our allocated seats and the plane was taxiing down the runway. We were on our way to an exciting destination, full of possibilities. Living a life abroad that most people just dreamed about but never got to experience. An amazing adventure that nothing was going to spoil.
Nothing will spoil my wedding. Nothing will spoil my wedding. Nothing will spoil my wedding.
Or so I thought.
Chapter 2
‘Look on the bright side.’ I smiled at Kalem as we boarded the packed plane and pulled out my boarding pass.
‘And what’s that? We’ve just saved hundreds of pounds by not missing our flight?’
‘You started it all,’ I said.
‘I hardly think that defacing a box of hair dye is on a par with defacing a passport.’
‘Actually, I was going to say, at least we managed to get the seats with the extra legroom.’ My eyes darted between the seat number on my boarding pass and the corresponding seat row, realizing that an elderly couple were sitting in our seats.
The couple stared at me in my burka and melted back into the leather upholstery.
‘Suicide bomber,’ the elderly man whispered to his blue-rinsed wife, grabbing her arm in a death-grip.
I seriously hoped she didn’t have osteoporosis. He’d pull it off at this rate.
‘It’s OK, madam. These passengers have been through the same security checks as everyone else. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about,’ the air stewardess whispered to the couple
Bloody cheek! Thinking that I’m a suicide bomber, just because I’m wearing a burka! And anyway, I didn’t think it was politically correct to refer to them as suicide bombers these days. I thought the new terminology was Death Enforcement Technician.
The elderly woman made a sign of the cross.
The stewardess turned to us. ‘I’m afraid we’ve had a little medical emergency. As you were late boarding, we’ve had to move some passengers into your seats at the front.’ She leaned in closer. ‘Nearer to the toilets,’ she whispered.
‘There goes the extra leg room,’ Kalem whispered in my ear.
‘Follow me. There are a couple of seats in the middle.’ She shot off down the aisle as the engines roared to life.
We ignored the suspicious looks from the fellow passengers as we got settled in our seats. I could’ve sworn I heard a little boy in the seat behind me ask his parents why I was dressed as a letter box.
Kalem reached for my hand, gazed into my eyes, and smiled. ‘OK, we’re finally onboard.’ He let out a sigh of relief. ‘We can relax now.’
My heart did a loop-the-loop as I reached over and tried to kiss him, then realized that was probably one of the many things you couldn’t actually do wearing a burka.
‘You can take the burka off now if you want.’
I gave him a playful punch on the arm. ‘I can’t. I haven’t got anything on underneath it.’
He gave me a seductive grin. ‘What, nothing?’
‘It is actually a bit hot under here.’ I wafted the material around. ‘I can’t believe I fell for it. Why didn’t Ayshe or your parents tell me it was a joke that brides-to-be have to wear burkas when they arrive in North Cyprus?’
‘They thought I’d tell you at the last minute that it wasn’t for real.’ The grin got wider.
‘Anyway, you really did start all this. You’ve been playing practical jokes on me since I was a kid. You deserve some payback.’
‘Well, I’ve known you were the girl for me since I was about four years old. I had to get you to notice me in that way somehow. And just think of all the fun we have! Wouldn’t life be boring if we didn’t have a laugh together?’
‘I am so going to get you back for this!’ I chuckled.
‘Well, it looks like the practical jokes paid off in the end. I’ve finally got you now.’ He squeezed my hand. ‘So I don’t want anything to get in the way of the wedding.’ He
slid an arm around my shoulder and the momentum of the plane taking off pushed me towards him.
Ouch! The arm of the seat between us dug into my ribs. Not exactly designed for romance. Oh well, we’d have plenty of time for that when we landed.
I glanced out of the window as the green fields disappeared into tiny little distorted blobs below, and I almost couldn’t believe this was really happening. When Kalem had been offered a new job at a university in North Cyprus, I admit I was a little worried. For a start, I’d miss his mum and dad, Yasmin and Deniz. They’d pretty much been my surrogate parents after my own parents died when I was just a kid, and I’d gone to live with my nan. His sister, Ayshe, was my best friend and someone I saw almost every day. In fact, she was more like my own sister than Kalem’s. And it was her fourteen-day life-changing challenge that had actually got Kalem and me together – but that’s a whole different story! I just didn’t want to think about what was going to happen after the wedding, when she would be going back to the UK with her husband, Atila, and giving birth to her baby girl. No more talking or texting each other several times a day. No more shopping trips. No more girly chats about everything and nothing. No more having someone who was just so close and so much on the same wavelength that it really felt like we had some kind of telepathic link. Sometimes we could just look at each other and know what the other was thinking, and we’d often finish off each other’s sentences. And I wouldn’t be there to see her little bump be born or be a big part of Bump’s life like a doting Aunty should. These were the things I’d desperately miss.
But at the same time, I could feel an excitement burning in my depths. Or maybe it was indigestion – one of the two. Actually, maybe it was neither. Maybe it was dread. Most people told me it was really brave to move to another country and start again. After all, there was a lot to do. After the wedding and honeymoon period, we had to get Yasmin and Deniz’s house habitable for us to live in until we got a place of our own. No doubt Kalem would have ups and downs with his new dream job, and I would have to try and build up my photographic business again from scratch. We had to make new friends. We had to get used to living in a foreign country where everything would be so different. Maybe we’d both die of malnutrition or dysentery or something, because I could only ask for wine, toilets, melons, and cucumbers.
And Kalem liked the simple things in life and getting back to basics. I could picture my new life as sipping foamy ice coffee or strong espresso from those teeny cups in a sun-drenched harbour buzzing with life, while the tall palm trees filtered out the scorching sun on my back. I had visions of white sandy beaches with the calm roll of the glistening waves lulling me gently to sleep, and a modern country with cosmopolitan and designer shops, sophisticated people, and sunshine twenty-four-seven. I mean, he’d said North Cyprus was unspoiled and undiscovered. But I was a tad worried about exactly how unspoiled. If Kalem’s idea of being basic was reaching out of the kitchen window to pull a lemon off our tree for an early evening gin and tonic, then hey, I was all for basics. But somehow I didn’t think that was exactly what he meant. His vision was probably more like me as Felicity Kendall in The Good Life, living off the land, picking olives, mucking out chickens, and herding goats. And how was I supposed to do that in my favourite spikey-heeled boots?
Since Kalem popped the question and told me about his new job offer in North Cyprus six months ago, everything had been a kind of whirlwind of activity and planning. It was only now, on the plane, as I finally stopped to think about it, that it did actually seem a bit scary.
Oh, shut up, Helen. Stop worrying. What’s the worst that can happen? The most important thing is that you and Kalem are together. And you’re getting to do something that most people dream about but never get the chance to do. It will be a fantastic opportunity.
‘Ah, here comes the real surprise.’ Kalem glanced at another stewardess prancing down the aisle with a tray of something and a couple of bottles of red wine.
‘Oh, how sweet of you.’ I grinned at him.
‘Sorry, but there was a mix-up with your pre-ordered bottle of champagne and canapé selection.’ The stewardess waved a bottle of wine at me and glared accusingly.
I could read her mind: The burka-clad woman is going to drink alcohol. Bad burka-clad woman.
‘We’ve only got bottles of red wine left,’ she said. Translation: May she rot in hypocritical burka hell! ‘And we have no canapés.’ Translation: She will have to starve the temptation of alcohol from within. ‘The only spare meal available onboard is the Ramadan menu from last September.’ Translation: Let me remind you, burka-clad woman, of your religious roots. You will be cast out as an infidel. No alcohol for you, ha-ha!
‘That sounds exciting.’ I smiled at her, thinking that I might as well start getting into the Turkish Cypriot culture as soon as possible. ‘What’s on the Ramadan menu?’ It sounded quite interesting, whatever it was.
‘This.’ She thrust a packet containing two shrink-wrapped olives and one date in my direction. Translation: Don’t you know that burka-clad women fast during Ramadan? You are a disgrace!
It was a good job she didn’t know what I’d just been thinking about the chocolate body paint. I’d really be in trouble then.
‘Miss,’ the little boy behind us asked the stewardess as she was about to walk away. ‘Can I see the Captain’s cockpit?’
Her lips pursed with annoyance. ‘Sorry, his cockpit is currently out of bounds, due to all the suicide bomber alerts lately.’ She glared at me when she said this.
‘What about his armpit, then?’ The boy sniggered behind me and promptly got told off by his parents.
She ignored him and stomped back down the aisle.
‘Well, we won’t exactly get full up on that lot.’ I pulled a face at the minuscule offering. ‘But I made some sandwiches, so at least we won’t starve. Or I’ve got a packet of custard creams in here if you want some.’
‘No, a sandwich will be fine.’
I delved into my bag and grabbed a now squashed and sweaty packet of cheese sandwiches and a packet of bacon, lettuce, and tomato ones as Kalem poured two glasses of wine.
‘Oh, no!’ I gasped as I tried to close the zipper on my bag again, and it broke. I peered at the now gaping open bag with disgust.
Kalem handed me a plastic glass of wine. ‘Here you go. To a perfect wedding and a fantastic new life together.’ He kept his gaze firmly locked on mine and brought the glass slowly to his scrumptiously kissable lips.
‘To us.’ I had the glass midway to my lips when I realized that there are some things you just can’t do in a burka:
1) Drink – Grumpy Stewardess would be pleased with this.
2) Eat – Damn, I was pretty peckish by now.
3) Snog – Well, it was our pre-honeymoon.
But, ah ha! I had a cunning plan. Nothing was going to get in the way of me and my wine. I’d just ask Grumpy Stewardess for a straw.
****
A bottle of wine later – I’d worked out how to manoeuvre the straw through the eye hole in the burka to my mouth without giving myself an eye-ectomy; difficult, but not impossible – I was feeling slightly tipsy.
Kalem was flicking lazily through the in-flight magazine when he suddenly sucked in a breath.
‘What?’ I asked, gazing over his shoulder.
He pointed to an article. It showed a big, posh hotel with lots of flamboyant purple and silver furnishings. Next to it was a picture of a middle-aged, dark-skinned man about fifty years old, wearing a friendly grin, and a picture of what looked like an old Egyptian sculpture of a queen’s head and shoulders. The Queen had oval eyes, a beaky nose, and a double chin. It looked like she had a bit of a moustache, as well. Maybe they weren’t into waxing in those days. On the side of the bust, a small picture of a regal looking cat had been carved.
‘That’s an Ancient Egyptian sculpture of Cleopatra made of solid gold.’ Kalem’s voice rose with excitement. ‘It’s the only one that was ever discovered
in Cyprus. Wow, I can’t believe it. Listen to this: “The plush, seven-star Plaza Hotel will be hosting its extravaganza opening night on Friday.”’
‘Hey, that’s two days before our wedding day!’ I butted in.
He carried on reading aloud. ‘“The multi-million pound, five-hundred roomed hotel includes a luxurious spa, a casino, and even a port for hotel guests to moor their yachts. The hotel will host a special opening concert, featuring international award-winning superstar singer Jayde, and the famous Queen Cleopatra sculpture will form part of an exclusive art exhibition on display for the occasion. The priceless sculpture is thought to be the only one in existence that was commissioned to celebrate Cleopatra’s wedding to Mark Antony in 37 BC.”’
‘Ooh, maybe it’s a sign that we’re going to have a fabtastic wedding day.’ I leaned forward to examine the picture of the sculpture more closely.
Kalem carried on. ‘“Turkish Cypriot entrepreneur, Ibrahim Kaya, is the brains behind the Plaza Hotel. Kaya, best known for his international chain of twenty successful hotels and his property development businesses, also has international export companies that specialize in meat, fruit, and clothing. His rags-to-riches lifestyle has prompted many accusations of ruthless business practices and allegations of underworld connections, but Kaya maintains that he is a professional entrepreneur. Kaya is a self-confessed fitness fanatic who follows a strict diet and daily exercise regime. He credits his healthy mind and body with his business success and believes the disciplines of physical training prepared him for the business world. Known for his love of art, Kaya has one of the biggest private collections in the world. The Cleopatra statue was originally discovered by Kaya’s father, a renowned archaeologist, during an excavation at the ancient Greek city of Salamis, Cyprus, in 1952. The statue will be revealed in public for the first time to an audience of carefully selected politicians, stars, and high-rollers before the concerts begins.”’
