Summer on the Turquoise Coast

by Summer on the Turquoise Coast (retail) (epub)

  ‘They’re trying to kill me!’ she cried, desperately trying to wash the half-dried mud off whilst not getting wet.

  Leo took matters into his own hands, picking her up and carrying her to stand underneath the freezing spray.

  ‘You git! I hate you,’ she spluttered as he gamely attempted to rinse the mud off whilst holding a struggling, squirming Nina.

  When he put her back on her feet, she looked down and saw she was clean-ish. Pity. She quite liked being held by him, in those strong arms, against that solid chest. Oh stop it, she thought – you sound like a virgin in one of those romances her gran liked so much, going all swoony over a man.

  Lunch was the usual communal affair of chicken, meatballs, or fish, with rice, bread and salad, which she’d come to expect on these excursions – not haute cuisine, but it filled a hole, and she wasn’t particularly hungry anyway, though Leo ate like a horse.

  ‘It’s the fresh air,’ he said when she asked him where he put it, annoyed he seemed able to eat what he liked and as much as he liked and still be lean and lovely, whilst she only had to look at a calorie for it to attach itself to her bum like a heat seeking missile. She’d have to do some serious gym-work when she got back.

  There was that phrase again “when she got back” – it lurked behind other thoughts waiting to ambush her. For someone who didn’t want to come on this holiday, and was only here out of duty, she sure didn’t want to go home. Get over it, she warned herself. The way you’re going your mood will be lower than a snake’s ass in a waggon rut, and you’ll spoil the rest of the day if you’re not careful.

  There was actually little chance of spoiling anything, because the rest of the day was simply magical.

  They boarded a boat and chugged off down the Dalyan river. Apart from the noise of the engine, it was remarkably peaceful. Leo sat behind her, his arms around her and she leaned back into him, resting her head on his chest, watching the world go by.

  ‘Look.’ She pointed to caves carved into the rocks on a bluff high above the river. ‘Rock tombs. I’ve read about them, and there was some at Tlos too.’

  They weren’t caves, so much as elaborately carved entrances, reminding Nina of temples, with their pillars and engravings, and to think they were nearly three thousand years old. She could imagine people carrying the dead to their final resting place so they could look out over the river and the delta beyond for all eternity. What a stunning place to be laid to rest.

  Thoughts of ancient Lycians were replaced by scenes from The African Queen as they puttered into one of the open channels between banks of towering reed beds.

  ‘Do you think the film was shot here?’ she asked, delighted when Leo knew what she was talking about. She’d watched The African Queen as a child, and again more recently, and admired Katharine Hepburn’s sass, and her unwavering love and loyalty to the rough-diamond she’d fallen in love with.

  ‘Maybe. Google it,’ Leo suggested.

  Nina took her phone out. ‘Battery’s dead,’ she said. ‘Damn it, I wanted to take some photos too.’

  ‘I keep all mine up here.’ Leo tapped his temple. ‘The secret is to visit them often so you don’t forget. I’ll play this whole day over and over in my head, reliving every moment, when it’s cold and wet outside and I’ve had a stressful day at work.’

  ‘How much stress can you get from sub-atomic particles? See, I was listening,’ she teased, pretending to yawn. He stopped her from saying any more with his mouth.

  Mile after mile the boat wove its way through the reeds, until eventually the delta opened out into one deep long channel, the river waters coming together in a final defiant push to the sea.

  ‘Wow,’ Leo breathed as they rounded a bend.

  The river ran parallel to the sea for a while as it snaked its way to the shore, a long stretch of white-gold sand between it and the ocean. Long rolling waves surged in, wild and beautiful (if you ignored the tourists playing in the surf and lying on towels).

  Nina slapped some more sun cream on, revelling in the feel of Leo’s hands on her back and shoulders as he rubbed the lotion into the places she couldn’t reach, and they dashed off to do their own playing in the sun.

  This was indeed a day to remember, and Nina knew, no matter what the future held, she’d never forget it.

  Chapter 28

  When she thought she’d never forget the day, Nina had specific reasons on her mind, mostly to do with a sexy man who had eyes only for her, and whose mouth tasted sweeter than any baklava, and whose body made her long to be alone with him. They were soon dispelled when the coach stopped at Nina’s hotel.

  Nina got off the bus, wishing Leo could come with her, but he had his own hotel to go to and she didn’t think she’d be able to smuggle him into hers. Instead, they’d arranged to meet at one of the bars on the promenade later. In the meantime, she looked forward to washing the sand, salt, and sun cream off herself, and telling Flossie all about her day. Well, maybe not all of it. She’d not include the details of passionate kisses in the sea.

  ‘Excuse me, lady, are you Nina Clarke?’

  ‘Yes?’ Nina looked back at Leo, who had his nose pressed against the glass.

  ‘There is a problem.’

  ‘What?’ Nina didn’t think she’d heard the man correctly. ‘What kind of problem?’ She glanced at his nametag, Asdan. It must something official then, and she hoped there was nothing wrong with their visas or passports.

  Distracted by Leo’s imminent departure, and not wanting him to leave, not even for a second, she turned to look at the coach as it pulled off slowly.

  The rest happened in slow motion.

  ‘The old lady, Flossie, she is ill. They have taken her to hospital,’ Asdan said.

  ‘What?’ she repeated. He wasn’t making any sense. He’d just said… oh!

  Nina cried out as she realised what he’d said, and she crumpled, falling slowly, her knees giving way. The man caught her and held her up, steadying her.

  ‘I am assigned to accompany you there,’ he said. ‘We will leave now, yes?’

  The squeal of breaks was loud, followed by the noise of the air hissing as a bus door opened. Feet slapped on the road as someone ran towards her, and Nina heard it all from a great distance. Then she was swept up into familiar arms and transported inside the hotel’s cool interior.

  ‘What’s wrong,’ Leo barked, putting her into a squashy armchair and calling for water.

  ‘The old lady, she fell down,’ Asdan said.

  ‘Did she have a fall, or did she collapse?’ Leo took charge.

  Nina was in no fit state to, she knew. She’d be alright in a bit, she just needed a minute to take it in. Flossie in hospital – oh no! Her heart banged out a fluttering, unsteady rhythm, and she felt a little faint.

  ‘Ah, I see, she collapsed.’ Asdan stumbled over the unfamiliar word.

  A cold glass was placed in Nina’s hands. Leo helped guide it to her mouth and she took a long swallow, the water reviving her a little.

  ‘Where is she?’ Leo demanded.

  ‘We called an ambulance, they have taken her to hospital in Fethiye.’

  ‘Do they know what it is?’ Leo asked, and Nina was grateful for his calm control.

  She looked up at Asdan, who shook his head. ‘It may be her heart. We do not know.’ He crouched down to her level. ‘Do you want to go to the hospital now? I will take you.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said, getting to her feet. She was alright now, it had been the shock. She’d be okay, everyone always said she was good in a crisis.

  She reached for Leo’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ he said.

  ‘There’s no need. I’m sure everything will be fine.’

  ‘I’m still coming with you.’

  ‘Asdan,’ Nina checked the man’s name tag again, ‘will come with me. He said so.’

  ‘Okay, I understand.’ Leo dropped her hand and took a step back.
/>   She read the concern and dismay in his face, and realised he was worried about her, and about Flossie, and she’d just given him the impression she didn’t want him there. She did. Very, very much.

  ‘I don’t want to spoil what’s left of your holiday,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘Silly girl, I want to help.’ He put an arm around her waist.

  ‘I will call a taxi, but first does the lady have insurance? The hospital will need to see her passport also,’ Asdan said.

  ‘We’ll go and fetch what is needed,’ Leo said. He glanced at Nina, who nodded. ‘How long ago was she taken to hospital?’

  ‘Many hours, maybe four or five. We did call the telephone number which was given on the checkin form, but it did not work.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Leo said to him. ‘It’s not yours either,’ he added quickly, seeing Nina’s face.

  ‘It is my fault. If I’d made sure to charge my phone,’ she wailed.

  ‘Having a charged phone wouldn’t have prevented it happening,’ Leo pointed out. ‘Whatever it is.’ He directed his next question to Asdan. ‘Could you please ring the hospital to see if there is any news, while we gather anything Flossie might need.’

  The manager nodded and dashed off, clearly happier now that he had something constructive to do instead of trying to console distraught young women.

  ‘I knew I shouldn’t have left her on her own, I knew it,’ Nina kept repeating as she opened the door to her and Flossie’s room. ‘What if she’s… Oh!’ She put a hand to her mouth to stop the dreadful word escaping.

  Leo held her by the shoulders. ‘She’s not, the hospital would have rang the hotel and said. Stay positive. It mightn’t be anything too serious.’

  Yet Nina knew it must be. You don’t get carted away in an ambulance for no reason. She just hoped she wasn’t too late.

  ‘You find the documents you need and I’ll sort some toiletries and night things out,’ Leo suggested, as she unlocked the door to her room.

  Nina did as she was told, and opened the safe. She had her own travel insurance, and she prayed her grandmother had taken some out for herself when she’d changed the holiday booking to add Nina’s name.

  Ah, there were the booking details, and the etickets. She quickly scanned them, searching for the one she needed. She was about to move to the next piece of paper when something caught her attention – a date. The date Flossie made the booking to be exact, and it appeared to be the date Nina had almost accompanied her grandmother to the travel agent when the old woman went to change the name from Grandad’s to hers. Impossible.

  She looked at it again, and again, trying to see if maybe the date on the sheet of paper she held in her hands referred to the date Flossie had amended the booking. It didn’t. The booking didn’t appear to have been amended at all. Grandad’s name had never been on it!

  Nina sat on the edge of her bed, listening to Leo collecting what was needed from the bathroom, trying to make sense of it all. Why had her grandmother lied? Did her mother know? Surely if Grannie had wanted some company on a holiday, all she had to do was ask, and Nina would willingly have gone with her. Why the charade and had Flossie been aware of the sort of hotel this was, though it was nice enough once Nina learned to ignore the overly sexual overtones and the smell of desperation. She’d been hit on enough times to have become quite adept at letting the opposite sex down gently, and no one seemed to take offence. If they were too persistent, she made her excuses and disappeared off to the loos, knowing her grandmother’s forthright and often intrusive questions would put any would-be suitors off.

  But that didn’t explain why Flossie had booked this kind of hotel in the first place, nor the date on the confirmation letter.

  ‘What is it?’ Leo asked, putting Nina’s beach bag on the bed next to her. She saw he had filled it with everything he thought Flossie needed for an overnight stay, but Nina had an awful feeling her grandmother was going to be in for far longer than one night.

  She showed him the documents.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘The only reason I’m here is because Gran said she and Grandad booked this holiday before he died. When he passed on she wanted to come to Turkey to sort of honour his memory. My mother persuaded me to go with her, but this confirmation says the holiday was booked after Grandad died. How do you explain that?’

  ‘Does it matter right now? You can ask the question later.’

  Nina sighed. ‘You’re right.’ She stood. ‘I think I’ve got everything.’ She double checked. Yes, passport and insurance. Thank goodness she took some out.’

  Asdan was waiting for them, chatting to a taxi driver. The driver gave Nina a sympathetic smile as he opened the door. Asdan sat in the front but swivelled around to speak to them both as soon as the taxi pulled away from the hotel.

  ‘The hospital would not give me much information,’ he began, and Nina held her breath, fearing the worst. ‘But they did say she is comfortable.’

  Nice to know hospitals all over the world spoke the same language of platitudes and vagueness, she thought, nodding her thanks. As Asdan resumed his conversation with the driver, Nina stared unseeingly out of the window, her hand clutched firmly in Leos as they retraced their steps and returned to Fethiye.

  This morning, when their bus had bounced along the same roads, heading for the dual carriageway and Dalyan, Nina had been brimful of supressed happiness and excitement. Now look at her. What a difference ten hours made.

  This journey was simultaneously interminable, and over far too soon. The cowardly part of her wanted never to arrive, so she wouldn’t be forced to hear the words she didn’t want to hear. But another piece of her was desperate to reach her grandmother’s side.

  Her gran must be so frightened, all alone in a foreign hospital, unable to understand or make herself understood, not knowing what was happening to her.

  A sob caught in Nina’s throat and she dashed away a tear with an angry hand. Now wasn’t the time to fall apart. The episode at the hotel had been nothing more than shock. She was good in a crisis; everyone always said so.

  But this was her grandmother. Hers! And the old lady was depending on Nina. No one else was here to do it, and for one anger-filled minute Nina wanted to know why her mother wasn’t here to deal with it. She felt too young, too unprepared, too scared.

  Her mother would know what to do.

  Her mother? Oh dear, she hadn’t phoned her mother.

  Frantic, she squeezed Leo’s arm. ‘I need your phone.’

  ‘I haven’t got it,’ he reminded her. ‘Who do you want to call?’

  ‘My parents. They should know. They’ll tell me what to do and—’

  ‘Wait, my love. Phone them when you know something more concrete. There’s no point in worrying them when they’re so far away.’

  Nina wasn’t totally convinced, but she took his advice. Anyway, she wasn’t entirely certain whether she wanted to phone home because she wanted to share the burden, or whether she simply wanted to hear her mother’s voice.

  ‘We will be arriving soon,’ Asdan said. ‘The doctors, they will speak to you – though they may have to speak to me first so I can translate.’ He sounded a bit put out, and Nina guessed he might have had some difficulty getting information when he phoned the hospital earlier, because he wasn’t a relative.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and a fresh wave of worry swept over her. Did every injured or sick tourist get the same amazing treatment from their hotel, or did Asdan know something Nina didn’t, and he wanted the hospital to be the ones to pass on the bad news, so they could deal with her grief?

  Chapter 29

  Nina stared at Flossie with tears in her eyes. Gone was the sparky, lively old lady Nina had come to know over the course of the last several days. In her place was a tiny, fragile wrinkled bag of bones, who hardly raised a lump under the sheet. Her grannie was wired up to an assortment of machines, bleeping and flashing, keeping the old wom
an alive.

  For now.

  ‘I really do need to call my parents,’ she said softly, not taking her eyes from the figure in the bed.

  Leo had come in with her, but Asdan waited outside. Leo beckoned him in, and the other man sidled into the room as if they had some contagious disease.

  ‘The doctor, she will be with you soon,’ he reassured them, then said something to the nurse, who nodded.

  ‘This is…’ Asdan swept a hand around the room, ‘I do not know how you say it… special help?’

  ‘Intensive care?’

  ‘Yes. I cannot stay here, I am to wait outside. Only two persons in the room together.’

  ‘You stay,’ Leo suggested to him. ‘Nina may need someone to translate.’ He turned to Nina, holding out his hand. ‘Give me your mobile and I’ll see if anyone has a charger we can borrow. In the meantime, Asdan, can you find a phone Nina can use?’

  ‘Of course.’ Asdan spoke to the nurse again, and she smiled and gestured for Nina to follow.

  ‘Leo? Don’t leave her,’ Nina pleaded.

  ‘I’ll stay with her until you come back. I promise I won’t leave her on her own.’

  She bit her lip, her chin wobbling, and nodded. She knew he wouldn’t stray from her grandmother’s side, but Nina so badly wanted to stay.

  The nurse had her write her mother’s phone number down and dialled it for her, handing her the receiver when it started to ring. Nina clamped it to her ear, desperate to hear her mother’s voice.

  ‘Hello? The local madhouse here, chief inmate speaking.’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Hello, love,’ his voice warmed when he heard hers. ‘I thought it was one of those nuisance calls. We’re getting them every evening about this time, and they’re forever using different numbers so we can never tell if the call is genuine or not, before we answer it.’

  ‘Dad…’ Her voice broke and she took a deep breath, fighting back tears.

  ‘Tell them to bugger off,’ Nina heard her mother yell in the background, above the noise of dishes clattering. ‘Bloody nuisances, there ought to be a law against bothering—’