The goddess of Mavisu

by Rebecca Stratton

  Sadi Selim was certainly no less courteous towards her and it was probably no more than her imagination, but she sensed that he was a little less friendly and more formally reserved since yesterday. Clifford greeted her warmly enough, but even he gave the impression that he had not entirely forgotten her adamant insistence that she did not love him enough to marry him.

  She carefully avoided looking at Kemal, although from the corner of her eye she was aware that he inclined his head in that stiffly formal bow when she came into the room. His coolness hurt more than she had anticipated and she decided there and then that the sooner she left for England the better, as it was unlikely that his attitude would change; he had made that quite clear yesterday.

  Heaven knew what made her decide to break the news of her proposed return home to Madame Renoir before she had even mentioned it to her uncle, unless it was because she knew instinctively that her sympathies were with her. Madame Renoir's reaction was much as she should have anticipated, she looked both anxious and displeased and she frowned over the news darkly.

  'Oh, mais non, ma chère,' she said in a voice that must have been audible to everyone in the room. 'You cannot mean to go yet! '

  Delia glanced hastily at the head of the table to see what her host's reaction might be, but apart from a look of polite interest the fierce, dark features betrayed nothing. She turned again to Madame Renoir, anxious not to be misunderstood.

  `Madame—' she begged, but was waved to silence by a plump, beringed hand.

  `You must stay at least until your goddess's temple is completely uncovered,' Madame Renoir insisted. 'Is that not so, Monsieur le Professeur?'

  She appealed to Professor Crompton, but he appeared, at the moment, to be unable to grasp the significance of her question, and he merely peered at them both shortsightedly. It was Clifford who answered instead, and his reaction was all to clear. `Delia?' He looked at her with a frown drawing at his brows. 'You can't really mean you're -going home now ! '

  Delia took a moment to answer. She wanted so much to look at Kemal, to see how he reacted to the news of her imminent departure, but she feared she might find only indifference, so she kept her eyes downcast, ostensibly spreading butter on a simm it before adding sticky, sweet jam to it.

  'I decided last night,' she said as matter-of-factly as her voice would allow. 'I'm not really contributing very much to the excavation and I'm sure Uncle Arthur will thank heaven when he's free of the responsibility of me ! ' She laughed a little unsteadily and glanced at her uncle. 'Isn't that true, Uncle Arthur?'

  Professor Crompton's rather vague eyes blinked at her for a moment, then he shook his head. 'I shall be quite happy about whatever you decide to do, my dear,' he told her. 'If you feel you want to go home then do so by all means, I shall put no obstacles in your way. It's been more than two

  months now since we came here and you're possibly homesick, hmm?' He peered at her short-sightedly. 'Well, it's understandable, my dear, you've never travelled a lot and I've no doubt you miss all your young friends ! ' He glanced at their host, his smile vaguely apologetic. I'm sure Sadi Bey understands your reasons.'

  The old man at the head of the table inclined his head in that small polite bow, his bright dark eyes hooded with concealing lids as he looked down the table at her. 'I understand, of course, Delia Hanim,' he told her in his smooth, courteous voice. `Our house will be less pleasurable without you, but we honour your reasons for wishing to leave.'

  The flowery little speech was evidently meant to include his grandson, but Delia doubted if Kemal shared his sentiments and at the thought of never seeing him again she was appalled to find that she was once more close to tears. It had not even occurred to her uncle that the events of yesterday had anything to do with her decision to leave, and she could only marvel at his lack of perception.

  Madame Renoir, on the other hand, was fully aware of her reasons and apparently meant to persuade her against it. 'Are you truly homesick, ma chère?' she asked, pouring more coffee for them both. 'Or are you just—escaping, huh?' There was no mistaking her meaning, but this time her voice was pitched at a more discreet level and it was doubtful if even Clifford on the other side of her heard what was said, although he was trying to.

  Delia bit her lip anxiously, afraid that she might

  weaken and cry like a baby at any minute, then she shook her head firmly. 'I—I just want to go home, madame,' she whispered huskily, and Madame Renoir almost undermined her control by gently patting her hand.

  Pauvre enfant!' she sympathised. `I will not allow this to go on! '

  'Oh, madame, please!' Delia whispered the appeal urgently, fearful of what her champion might do in her anxiety to see justice done. 'Please don't —don't do anything—it's better if I go home ! My uncle can drive me into Antalya to the airport, in the morning and I'll fly to Istanbul, then get a flight home from there.'

  'Alone?' Madame Renoir made flying home alone sound like the worst fate in the world, and Delia noticed that she looked at her nephew when she said it. Unless she was reading the signs wrongly, Kemal was being blamed for the whole thing and, even in her present mood, Delia could not condone that.

  `I'll be perfectly all right,' Delia insisted, anxious only to be away as soon as possible now that the idea had germinated into a near fact. She smiled, albeit a little wanly, and shook her head. `I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, madame, honestly,' she said. 'I haven't led such a sheltered life that I'm an innocent abroad.'

  'You are a very unhappy girl who should have someone to take care of her,' Madame Renoir insisted firmly, and once again she looked at Kemal when she spoke with a wealth of meaning in her

  bright dark eyes. It seemed not to occur to her that either Clifford or the professor might as easily be designated to the role of protector and her intention, to Delia at least, was obvious.

  `Please don't worry about me,' Delia begged. 'I'll be all right!'

  Madame Renoir pursed her lower lip doubtfully. 'But why must you go so soon, ma chère?' she asked. 'A few more days perhaps, hmm?'

  She would probably never know how tempting it was to yield to the persuasion of a few more days, but Delia shook her head, her mind made up. 'It wouldn't do any good, madame,' she said in a small, unsteady voice. 'It's much better that I go now—in the morning.'

  Madame Renoir shrugged her plump shoulders, resignedly it seemed. `Eh bien, ma chère,' she said, and once more looked across at Kemal. 'You may safely leave the arrangements to me, I will see that everything is to your liking.'

  In no mood to argue with the suggestion and thankful to have someone more capable of coping with the Turkish switchboards, Delia nodded. `Thank you, madame.' Kemal, she noticed bitterly, seemed to find his breakfast far more absorbing than the prospect of her departure, and she once more swallowed hard on threatening tears.

  'I'm not going to argue with you, Clifford! ' Delia was feeling too emotionally weary to cope with Clifford's pleadings and she turned her back on him deliberately, to shut out the sight of those ap-

  pealing grey eyes.

  `I hoped you'd stay for my sake,' Clifford told her, and she shook her head firmly.

  `No, Clifford, I'm leaving—for my own sake! I don't care how selfish that sounds to you!'

  She had packed her suitcases last night and this morning she had taken a last look around the lovely exotic and now familiar bedroom that had been hers for almost three months now. The gardens beyond the open windows of the salon filled the air with their familiar scents and she closed her eyes briefly on the heady sensation of so many mingled perfumes.

  Beyond her sight at the moment, and on the perimeter of the gardens, was the temple among the trees where it was possible to stand among the heady delights of magnolias and tamarisk and see the lights of Antalya merging with the stars at night, and the big golden moon shining across an amethyst sea. No matter where she went in the future no, where would ever compare with Mavisu, and nowhere would she find another Kemal Seli
m.

  The temple of Artemis would be restored without her further help. Her goddess, Kemal had called it, and she had come to think of herself and the goddess of Mavisu as having some kind of affinity, although it was a vague one. Kemal—everything came back to Kemal, and she was forced to face in earnest now the prospect of leaving and knowing she would never see him again.

  Once again, as had so often happened in the past twenty-four hours or so, the tears were very close to

  becoming uncontrollable and she hastily shook her head, brushing one hand across her eyes to clear the threatening haze.

  The little dark blue dress she wore buttoned high at the neck had seemed the most suitable one for her mood this morning, although she knew that she looked rather too much like a schoolgirl in uniform wearing it, but she didn't really care how she looked. Tendrils of red-gold hair already escaped from the tidy brushing she had given it and added to an overall gamin look that was very touching in the circumstances. Even her green eyes looked bigger than usual in the solemnity of her face, their thick lashes drooping heavily because she had slept little last night.

  Clifford reached out and gently touched the nape of her neck and she could do nothing about the shiver of sensation it caused. It would be useless to pretend that she suddenly found him abhorrent, it was simply that he could not compare with the image of Kemal that refused to be dimmed in her mind, even through the dark hours of the night.

  Clifford was young and attractive and there was no doubt that he loved her—if only she had the sense to fall in love with Clifford everything would have been so much easier and she would not now be on her way home to England feeling so utterly hopeless and dejected.

  She turned at last and looked at Clifford, her eyes still glistening with the threat of tears, no matter if her mouth smiled softly. 'I'm sorry, Clifford,' she said huskily. 'I—I wish it could have been different,

  but ' She shrugged helplessly.

  'I'm sorry too,' Clifford said quietly. 'Sorry I've caused you so much unhappiness when all I wanted was for you not to be hurt.' He put one long thin hand to her face and gently stroked her cheek. 'I love you, Delia,' he whispered. 'Remember that, won't you?'

  'I will.' She was bound to cry now, she thought, and, as the tears started to flow, Clifford leaned forward and kissed her mouth with infinite gentleness.

  Outside in the hall she heard Madame Renoir's voice and thought she caught her uncle's name, but nothing more, and there followed the murmur of voices for several seconds, but she did not move. Then a hand was on the door and her heart missed a beat when she realised that the moment had actually come to leave, and she stood with her hands tightly curled, her head spinning with a thousand and one reasons she could suddenly think of for not going.

  Then the door of the salon opened and Madame Renoir came in, small and dark and quite incredibly bright in the circumstances. 'Delia, ma chère,' she said with a hint of smile, 'the car is waiting for you.'

  'Thank you, madame.' She did not stop to reason why her uncle had not come for her himself, but walked over to join her in the doorway on legs that seemed barely able to carry her. Turning in the doorway, she looked back at Clifford, hesitated, then shook her head. see you again, Clifford,' she

  said, and he nodded without speaking.

  There was no sign of Sadi Selim, but she had said her goodbyes to the old man just after breakfast and she had thought then that he seemed more like his former gentle self and less coolly reserved than he had seemed last night. She had not seen Kemal since dinner the evening before. He had breakfasted early, Madame Renoir had told her, and then gone out. She did not say where he had gone, but Delia felt an envious bitterness when she imagined him with Suna Kozlu.

  Outside the sun was hot and bright and the scents of the garden, more heady than ever, wafted on the warm wind off the sea. Through her gathering tears Delia caught the glitter of a black shiny car body and the rich gleam of chrome, she did' not see her uncle or anyone else at the wheel, but suddenly the hand under her arm as the car door opened was no longer Madame Renoir's plump soft one but a strong dark masculine hand that defeated her instinctive attempt to step back out of its reach.

  Kemal must have come out of the house behind them and it stunned her to suddenly find him there, his dark eyes looking down at her, deep and unfathomable below straight brows, and the powerful warmth and vigour of him just touching her as he urged her into the front seat of the car. She had wanted to see him again, just once, even though it would have been making it harder for her to leave, but the thought of him actually driving her to the airport, making sure she took off, seemed unbearably harsh and she looked at Madame

  Renoir in mute appeal.

  'My uncle,' she whispered huskily as that relentless hand almost pushed her into the seat. `My uncle's taking me to the airport, he

  `You are coming with me,' Kemal declared coolly, and closed the door while she was still shaking her head in bewilderment.

  Too stunned to protest any more, it was only after he had started up the engine that she realised she had not even said goodbye to Madame Renoir and she turned hastily, brushing away the tears that still clung to her eyelashes. Kemal was already driving them along the curved driveway to the road and she caught only a glimpse of Madame Renoir's smooth smiling face before they turned round a bend and she was lost from view.

  She chanced a brief, anxious glance at Kemal as they took to the road and detected a hint of smile on his mouth. Why he had chosen to take on her uncle's job of ferrying her to the airport, she had no idea, unless some deep hidden sense of cruelty drove him to hurt her even more deeply by showing how anxious he was to see her gone.

  `Why?' she whispered huskily as they sped down the steep hill road towards Antalya. `Why didn't you let my uncle bring me, Kemal?'

  He did not turn his head but kept that stern, arrogant profile turned to her, the expression in his eyes hidden by hooded lids and the thick short lashes that fringed them. `Do you not trust me to drive you to the airport?' he asked, and even at a time like this she noticed the absence of any kind

  of title, which was not customary in polite Turkish conversation.

  `Yes, of course I do,' she said, and subsided again, unable to attempt another opening with so little encouragement.

  It was when they passed the road indicated as the way to the airport that Delia's heart gave a sudden anxious skip and then began to beat so furiously hard in her breast that it almost deafened her. She glanced again at Kemal's dark profile and licked her dry lips anxiously. 'Where—where are you taking me?' she ventured, and once more saw the brief twitch of his mouth as it admitted to a ghost of a smile.

  `You sound troubled,' he told her. 'You do not trust me after all, hmm?'

  `Kemal ' She half turned in her seat now as

  they sped out into the countryside without pause, and still he did not turn his head.

  `Trust me, bebek, hmm?'

  He turned his head only briefly, but the brief glimpse of his eyes and that familiar, once despised - nickname sent a deep, vibrant hope surging through her suddenly, a sensation she made no attempt to control, but relaxed in her seat and leaned back her head. Eyes closed, she breathed a fervent prayer that she was not going to be rudely awakened from this dreamlike situation too soon.

  Nothing had been said for a long, long time, it

  seemed, but to Delia their silence now had a deeper

  meaning, an air of contentment that this same

  journey had brought her before. For all that Kemal had an air of compulsion about him, it was not the tenseness of anger that had possessed him ever since Clifford made his claim to her, and his present demeanour was one that her own senses responded to urgently.

  The strong brown hands on the wheel controlled the big car almost automatically, muscular wrists emerging from the white shirt cuffs below a fawn jacket, and the open neck of the shirt exposed the tanned length of his neck and throat where that small pulse throbbed steadily in vuln
erable contrast. She could, Delia felt sure, close her eyes and describe every feature of him without pause for thought.

  They drove as they had before, through little isolated villages, houses set each in their fertile acres. Orchards, houses, goats, children; all recognisable from their last visit, and Delia's spirits soared when they headed up the mountain road towards the yayla of the yoruks. In her heart she had somehow known that they would come back there, and she turned and smiled at Kemal, her last shadow of doubt dispelled.

  The yayla suddenly spread out before them, surprising her as it had last time by its unexpectedness, and when Kemal cut the engine of the car the silence was almost tangible. The voices of the people in the camp were audible as from a distance and the thin bleating of the goats fell shrill on the warm air.

  Kemal turned in his seat and looked at her, and

  Delia could do nothing to stop the warm colour that flooded into her cheeks when she met the look in those dark eyes. There was a glow there that stirred every fibre of her being, and when he leaned across and brushed his mouth against her parted lips she reached out to him instinctively, putting her arms round his neck and drawing him towards her. The weight of his body pressing her against the soft leather seat had a hard urgency that her own body responded to with a turbulence that would have startled her, had she given it any thought.

  `Delia! '

  His voice had a passionate harshness that set her pulses racing and she lifted her mouth to him eagerly. He kissed her with a fierce passion that left her breathless, then strong gentle hands opened the neck of the high buttoned dress and exposed her soft throat to his kisses, caressing her with a compelling ardour that deprived her of all resistance.