Head Over Heels

by Felicity Price

  Eventually, I stopped and looked around. I needed noise. I needed company. I turned on the television — ever the best friend of the lonely — and found CNN. There the horror of the day unfolded before my eyes. The charred, mangled, twisted ruins of the tourist bus sat alongside the still-smoking chassis of an unidentifiable vehicle. There were police and emergency crews everywhere and the CNN reporter was saying what I already knew: that Kurds claimed to have blown up the bus to draw attention to their cause and that the town had been put on alert in the likely event that there would be more terrorist action.

  The sight of the bomb scene made my fears increase. I switched it off and decided to make a cup of tea. But there was no jug, no cups, no tea bags, only the tiny fridge in the corner. With the vodka long gone, I picked out a brandy and opened a small bottle of ginger ale. I was just sitting down at the desk to resume staring aimlessly out the window again when I heard a card being slotted into the lock.

  I jumped up and ran to the door. Could this be Simon? Please, please, please let it be Simon.

  His face popped round the door as it opened and a big grin spread across it.

  ‘I see you’re drinking your way through the minibar already,’ he said laconically as I threw myself into his arms.

  ‘Not now you’re here,’ I replied. ‘Thank God you’re all right.’

  It was only when we finally tore ourselves apart that I noticed the bandage around his arm and the dried blood on his neck.

  Chapter 17

  He was covered in a fine white dust and his jeans were torn and grimy. There was a jagged hole in his left shoe, with blood caked around it. His T-shirt was ripped at the back and the white bandage on his arm was the only clean thing about him. His arms were covered in dirt and his neck was bloody from a gash at the base of his cheek. His hair was matted with blood and thick, chalky dust.

  ‘Oh my God, Simon, you’re hurt! What happened?’

  ‘First let me look at you,’ he said, standing back and examining me, then hugging me again. ‘You’ve no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this moment, hoping and praying you’d be here.’

  ‘Where have you been? I’ve been so worried.’

  ‘It’s a long story. And boy do I need a drink. Can I have one of those?’ He pointed at my drink.

  ‘Brandy and dry?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter what it is. Anything will do.’

  I went to the minibar and pulled out a whisky, his favourite tipple, and added a dash of water.

  ‘Don’t worry about ice,’ he said as I started to fiddle with the ice tray. ‘Just let me have it.’

  I handed him the drink and he downed it in one gulp.

  ‘Ah! Alcohol — the answer to make you forget the question.’ He held out his glass. ‘Any more where that came from?’

  ‘That’s not like you,’ I said, finding another miniature of whisky and pouring it into the glass.

  ‘I don’t feel like me right now,’ he said, taking the glass and sipping it this time. He walked to the armchair by the window and collapsed into it, wincing as his arm touched the side. I waited for him to settle and tell me in his own time. He took another swig, turned to look out the window for a moment, and began.

  ‘The boat docked in the marina this morning and most of the research team stayed on board to finish off the stats they were working on. But Ray and I — you’ll meet him later, he’s from the UK and is part of the project — Ray and I went ashore to have a look around. Neither of us had been to Marmaris before. We both got on the boat in Bodrum, which is miles away, and we hit it off right away.

  ‘I checked in here and dropped my gear off, then met Ray for a coffee at one of the places along the waterfront. And just as we were coming out — kaboom! — this bloody great bomb went off just along the road. It was such a big blast it blew in a lot of the restaurant and shop windows around us. Glass was flying everywhere and all this concrete, wood, plaster and stuff.’ He indicated the white powder on his T-shirt and jeans.

  ‘I got hit in the arm by a flying shard of glass, which went in quite deep. And Ray got knocked over when the side of a building jumped out at him. He’s okay but he’s broken his leg, so he’s in hospital still waiting for them to set it. But they let me out after they’d given me a shot of antibiotics and bandaged up my arm.’ He examined his arm for a moment and touched the bandage, as if confirming it was real.

  ‘I seemed to be in that hospital forever. It was like a war zone, all these people injured and bleeding and crying out for help. I was way down the list for being attended to because I wasn’t badly hurt at all, by comparison. You should have seen some of them. A lot of them had burns. Bad burns.’ He shook his head as if trying to eradicate the memory.

  ‘Anyway, after they bandaged me up, I was discharged and I headed back here. But it wasn’t as easy as that. The streets were blockaded everywhere I went and it took ages to get through. So that’s the guts of it really and now, here I am.’

  ‘Oh Simon, I’m so relieved you’re all right! I’ve been so worried about you.’

  ‘I knew you’d be trying to find me. I tried to call you but I’d lost my mobile. It must be somewhere under all that rubble.’

  ‘No wonder you couldn’t answer it! I left messages for you.’

  ‘Well, I’m here now, all in one piece. And I’m so glad you’re here too. Come here, Penny, I need another one of your hugs.’

  I knelt in front of him and embraced him tightly, but the dust in his hair made me sneeze.

  ‘Oh dear, I’m covered in filth from all the debris flying around. I’d better have a shower.’

  He soon realised a shower was out of the question — he’d promised not to take off his bandage until after he’d visited a local doctor for a check-up some time tomorrow — but luckily the hotel room had a tub so I ran him a deep bubble bath.

  While I was in the bathroom I heard him on the phone in the bedroom. It sounded as if he was calling the research boat, letting them know he was okay. I heard him ask after other researchers and crew members and it sounded as if, apart from Ray, they were all fine.

  I went back into the bedroom and waited till he’d put the phone down.

  ‘We were the only mugs fool enough to go to a popular tourist haunt,’ he said ruefully. ‘Thank God no one else on the team was anywhere near it.’

  He retreated to the bathroom and soon I heard him splashing around in the tub.

  ‘I need you to come and rub my back, Penny,’ he called after a while. ‘But first,’ he added when I came in, ‘would you mind doing my hair. I’m having a devil of a job with just one arm.’

  I rinsed his hair using the flannel then started to rub shampoo into it, but my progress was halted by dozens of tiny splinters of wood and even a few minuscule shards of glass.

  ‘Hey, your head’s a safety hazard,’ I exclaimed as a small piece of glass pierced my thumb. ‘I’ll have to hold the shower nozzle over your hair and rinse all this out.’

  ‘Leave it for now then,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait until I’m about to get out. I’ll need to kneel over the plughole and get you to hold the shower head while I shake all that stuff out. I didn’t even know it was there.’

  ‘I suppose it was the least of your worries.’

  I soaped his back, washing the dried blood away from all the scratches and cuts. ‘You have been in the wars,’ I said, massaging him gently around the shoulders, trying to obliterate the pain and trauma of the day.

  ‘Can’t feel a thing now,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘You’re sounding a lot more like you now,’ I said.

  ‘I’m feeling a lot more like me now I’m here.’ He smiled a wry sort of smile. ‘But I wish I could get it out of my mind — the noise of the blast, so loud, and the screams and cries, and the smell of burning, the burnt flesh and petrol and the sight of everything flying through the air, the flames everywhere. And the impact. I could feel it right through me, Penny, as if someone had whacked me in the gut with a h
owitzer.’ He put his face in his hands, soap suds covering his eyes. I wiped them away.

  ‘It must have been awful. I’m just so glad you weren’t badly hurt. I was terrified you’d …’ I couldn’t go on.

  ‘A few minutes later, Penny, and it might have been just that. Ray and I were just finishing our coffees and paying the bill. If we’d left a minute or two earlier we’d have been walking across that road.’ He looked at me with fear in his eyes. ‘We could have been right there.’

  I could feel him shaking, but he was dry eyed.

  ‘God I hope Ray’s okay. First thing in the morning I’m going down to that hospital to make sure they let him go.’

  I put my arms around his wet shoulders. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No, Penny. You stay here, it’s safer.’

  ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight again.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see.’ He sank back in the bath and put his head under, leaving his bandaged arm above water. When he came up again, his eyes popped open and he looked renewed.

  I helped him rinse the shards of glass and wood out of his hair until he was finally cleansed of all the debris and dried blood. He beamed up at me, water still streaming down his face.

  ‘Come on, Penny, help me out of here. You and I have to make up for lost time.’

  We made love on the bathroom floor, slipping and sliding on the wet tiles. Then we made love on the bed coverlet, messing up its pristine smoothness. He was voracious, rapacious, like he’d found a new lease on life. I responded, as hungry as he was for a connection, for sexual renewal. I could feel his fingernails bite into my back as he came, scratching my winter-white flesh. (I’d never got around to having that spray tan.) I suspected I’d be sore tomorrow. The brief pain spurred me to my own climax; I couldn’t stop myself crying out.

  ‘For a moment there, I thought I’d never see you again,’ he said as he stroked my hair afterwards. ‘I thought I was a goner.’

  ‘I was worried too,’ I admitted. ‘When you didn’t answer your mobile for such a long time, I started to panic.’

  ‘I’m sorry I brought you to this place, Penny. It never occurred to me something like this could happen.’

  ‘I’m glad I’m here though, with you. I wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world right now. Imagine how I’d be feeling if I was back home, if I’d never come here. I’d be in a terrible state. At least being here with you I can help make it all better. At home, I’d be totally useless.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re here too. And doubly glad that nothing happened to you.’ He embraced me in a tight bear hug.

  I snuggled into him and we lay there for a while lost in thoughts of what had happened and what might have been. After a while I reached for my glass and downed the last little drop.

  ‘Would you like another drink?’ I said, picking up our empty glasses.

  ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘The last thing I feel like is going out there and getting a meal. I’d rather starve than go out into that restaurant strip again.’

  ‘We could order up room service,’ I said. ‘Everyone else has been.’

  Room service, they told us, was taking forty minutes because everyone seemed to be doing it. They begged our forgiveness and asked would we mind waiting.

  For some inexplicable reason, the stress of the day made us both crave chips: hot, salty comfort food. Simon added the unusual partner of lamb kebab to his chips, so I said make that two. Our order arrived an hour later, which didn’t seem to matter much as we were both so hyped up from our respective ordeals that we couldn’t stop talking.

  While we waited, Simon cracked open the half-bottle of Turkish red wine in the minibar.

  ‘See, I told you you’d drink the minibar dry,’ he said, smiling at the line of empties collecting on top of the bench.

  ‘I’ve never felt more like it, I have to confess. I’ve aged at least a century in the last day.’

  ‘Nonsense, you’re not old,’ Simon said gallantly.

  ‘No, course not, not me. I don’t even need glasses — I can drink straight from the bottle,’ I said, grabbing the wine.

  But it was almost as bad as the ghastly vinegar I’d had in Istanbul and I said so.

  ‘I guess it’s the same as the wine at home — you get what you pay for,’ he said, grimacing at the taste.

  ‘Well, it’s better than nothing.’

  ‘Maybe the white will be better,’ he said, inspecting the bottle then putting it back in the fridge. He took another sip of red, carrying his glass over to the window and looking out towards the harbour. ‘I suppose I should go and see them tomorrow. On the ship, I mean.’ He paused, then continued, ‘Look, Penny, I’ll understand if you want to call this whole thing off. Perhaps you should catch the next flight home.’

  ‘No way,’ I said. ‘The last thing I heard was you couldn’t get a flight out of here for two days. It’s probably longer than that now. And I reckon if we can get away from the touristy areas, the sort of places these Kurds are likely to target, then we should be all right. I mean, I’ve come all this way and frankly, I don’t want to turn tail and go straight home again without seeing anything.’

  ‘But I don’t want to put you in any danger. If you stay here, the Kurds might strike again. It’s very, very risky.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to go back home. I still want to go on the boat, if I’m allowed.’

  ‘I don’t know what will happen with the boat now. I suppose we’ll continue our voyage in three days’ time, like we’re supposed to. But Lord knows what we’ll do until then. I doubt you’ll get much sightseeing in.’

  Chapter 18

  Neither of us slept well that night. The events of the day kept going through my mind and when I did sleep, I dreamt strange, disquieting dreams. I awoke, fearful I’d lost Simon, but when I reached out to see if he was there, he squeezed my hand as if he’d been expecting it.

  ‘Can’t you sleep?’ I whispered.

  ‘Not really, no. Still too pumped,’ he said.

  Not long after I saw the dawn light through the gap in the curtains, I fell into a deep sleep and when I awoke, Simon had gone. The bedside clock said it was nine. I leapt out of bed in a panic. There was a note on the desk:

  Gone to find Ray and have my check-up. Didn’t want you to come as it’s still a danger zone. I’ll be back in time for lunch. Please stay away from the tourist shops. S

  Damn him, I thought. I’d told him I didn’t want to let him out of my sight and the first thing he does is disappear.

  I looked out the window. The port was busy again with ships and yachts coming and going. The street below was crowded, with dark heads and coloured headscarves scurrying to and fro along the pavement. The shops and restaurants across the road were open, as if nothing untoward had happened. Putting a brave face on it; business as usual.

  I figured I should put a brave face on it, too. I wasn’t overly proud of my behaviour the day before. I’d always thought I’d be calm in the face of a crisis, that I’d be a natural leader. But what had happened? I’d been a tremulous follower, on the verge of tears, ready to weep at the mention of Simon’s name. It was time I pulled myself together and showed a bit of grit, I told myself sternly.

  I knew I’d feel a hundred times better after a shower, so I spent a good half-hour thoroughly washing away all the evils of the previous day, drying my hair and putting on a dusting of make-up so I at least looked presentable. I chose long cotton trousers and a T-shirt with cap sleeves and slipped on some sturdy walking sandals. I’d brought shorts, a sarong, and spaghetti-strap singlets for the boat, but I’d been warned to keep my shoulders and legs covered out of deference to local Muslim customs.

  So when I stepped out into the street it came as a shock to see tourists wearing the briefest of clothes, displaying ample white skin. One very large English woman, making loud pronouncements in a northern accent, had on a bikini top and brief sarong. Now I’m not exactly skinny myself, but if I were her size, I wouldn�
��t be flaunting such a large acreage of flesh, white or otherwise, even in the privacy of my own back yard. And here she was, a guest in a country where women didn’t show their bodies at all, causing double offence — to Muslims and to the rest of us. I was appalled. Her husband wasn’t much better, his beer gut protruding over his sagging grey shorts and his shirt gaping open where the buttons could no longer do up, revealing a heinous string singlet. Trailing after them were a couple of portly kids, the girl wearing a hideous pink frilly miniskirt pulled tight across her round tummy, and the boy in long, baggy shorts hanging halfway down his bum and a singlet that left a gap, showing the top of his crack.

  I averted my eyes, ashamed of my fellow man — and woman.

  But they weren’t the only ones. It seemed as if nearly all the tourists were similarly dressed — some less offensively, some more so. There seemed to be a special code: the larger the body, the smaller the attire. I was positively overdressed for my size in comparison. No wonder the Kurds wanted to teach them a thing or two, I thought nastily, before reminding myself that no fashion disaster, no matter how dire, deserved the death sentence.

  ‘You’d think they were at a beach party in Brighton, huh?’ a familiar voice behind me said.

  I looked around. It was Chuck, pulling a face at the English family. Sandra was beside him.

  ‘If only they’d stayed there,’ I groaned.

  ‘I can’t understand why they do it,’ Sandra said. ‘I mean, they’d look out of place in any resort in the world, dressed like that, but to do it here …’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ I agreed.

  ‘Tell me, did you find your man Simon?’

  ‘I did,’ I said, smiling. ‘He wasn’t far from the blast, but far enough away not to get too hurt. Just a few cuts and bruises.’

  ‘Praise God for that,’ Sandra said.

  ‘You’ll be feeling a lot better today then,’ Chuck said.

  ‘Yes. Except he’s taken off back to the hospital without me. I’m at a bit of a loss. I wanted to go with him.’