‘It is. I know Barney. I saw the way he looked at you when you came to the house. He thinks picking up with a girlfriend from long ago will make him feel young again.’
‘I would have thought it would have the reverse effect, make him even more aware of the passage of the years, seeing how much we’ve both changed.’
‘So you’re admitting the two of you might pick up again?’
‘No, I’m not,’ said Jude wearily, wishing she hadn’t got into the position of owing any kind of favour to Barney Willingdon.
‘If anything does happen while you’re out in Kayaköy, I’ll hear about it! I have contacts out there.’
‘Henry, your contacts can watch me twenty-four/seven. They will not see anything inappropriate happening between me and Barney.’
‘I know that he phoned you on Friday.’
‘I’m not about to deny it.’
‘And he wasn’t just phoning you about practical details for your stay at Morning Glory.’
‘I don’t deny that either.’
‘He said that he wanted to pick up your relationship, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, he did. And I told him there was no chance of that happening.’
‘Hm. Barney can be very persistent.’
‘I know he can. But over the years I’ve got quite good at dealing with persistent men. I’m strong enough and grown-up enough to resist any advances Barney might make to me,’ said Jude, hoping her words were true.
‘Just be careful,’ said Henry. ‘He likes getting his own way.’
‘Yes, I remember that.’
‘And he’s also very good at getting his own way.’
‘Not with me he won’t be.’
‘And when Barney doesn’t get his own way, he can turn very nasty indeed.’
‘I remember that too. It was one of the many reasons why I had to break off our relationship.’
‘Don’t forget what happened to Zoë.’
‘His first wife?’
‘Yes. That was in Turkey. So, Jude, you just be very careful.’
‘What actually did happen to Zoë?’ Jude asked.
But Henry Willingdon had rung off.
SEVEN
Needless to say, Carole won about their transport to Gatwick. Jude would much rather have shared a cab. Then she could feel like she was on holiday from the moment she left Woodside Cottage. Whereas going by rail involved getting up earlier, dragging their bags to the station, waiting about for the train to arrive (Carole had, needless to say, ensured that they arrived far too early), then dragging the bags again from the train to the terminal – and reversing the process when they returned home.
But Carole had said they would catch the 5.50 from Fethering station and so it was the 5.50 from Fethering station that they caught. Carole had two suitcases and a shoulder bag; Jude had a holdall and a small knapsack. Jude was dressed in a bright skirt and a T-shirt. She felt a bit cold, but didn’t want to be weighed down with a bulky cardigan which she knew she’d never wear once when they were out in Turkey.
Carole was dressed in navy trousers and a grey jacket over a white shirt. On top of this she wore her Burberry raincoat. Jude knew that that too would not be worn once during their holiday, but she made no comment. She thought there might be other things over which they disagreed in the next two weeks, but she didn’t want to start the fortnight with an argument.
Jude had got a suitably trashy novel in her knapsack, but she felt too dozy and exhausted to start reading it on the train. Time enough for lots of reading by the infinity pool at Morning Glory.
Carole had, of course, stopped the delivery of her papers. ‘Did you do that, Jude?’
‘No.’
‘Oh dear. Think of the waste.’
‘I didn’t do it, Carole, because, as you might have noticed by now, I don’t have papers delivered. When I want to read a newspaper, I go out and buy one.’
‘Oh.’
They’d left too early for Carole to get a Times from the newsagent, but she had a book of Times crosswords in her shoulder bag, and during the journey to Gatwick she focused intently on one of those.
Theirs was a charter flight and, in the way of charter flights, once they had arrived at the airport and checked in their bags they found it was delayed by two hours.
‘Oh dear,’ said Carole, on the verge of panic mode. ‘That’ll spoil all our plans, won’t it?’
‘No, it just means we’ll get there two hours later than we thought we would. That is, assuming there isn’t a further delay.’
‘Is that likely?’ asked Carole anxiously.
‘You never know with charter flights. Quite possible. But we may get lucky and it’ll only be two hours.’
‘I don’t know how you can describe a two-hour flight delay as “getting lucky”.’
‘Well, it’s just one of those things,’ said Jude. ‘Nothing we can do about it.’
‘But don’t you feel infuriated by the fact that we can’t do anything about it?’ Throughout her life Carole had always hated not feeling in control.
‘No, of course not,’ said Jude with complete honesty. ‘Some things just happen.’
‘Oh, and I suppose you just disappear into some transcendental Zen state and nothing gets to you?’
Jude grinned. ‘No, I just accept that sometimes things go wrong.’
‘Huh,’ said Carole Seddon, as only she could say the word.
‘Oh, come on, let’s go and get some breakfast,’ said Jude.
‘We get a meal on the flight,’ said Carole. ‘We’ve paid for it.’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel very hungry right now.’
‘Didn’t you have anything to eat before you left?’
‘God, no. At five in the morning my system is hardly functioning. Certainly not up to eating breakfast.’
‘Oh.’
‘You had something, I assume?’
‘Just a bowl of muesli.’
‘Come on, let’s go and get something at Café Rouge.’
‘I don’t need to get something at Café Rouge.’
‘Well, come and have a coffee and watch me while I have something at Café Rouge.’
Through Carole’s head was proceeding a thought similar to the one Jude had had at the sight of the Burberry: there may be bigger issues ahead for us to disagree about, so don’t let’s have a disagreement yet. Carole did not wish to upset the apple cart at that point. Besides, she had been considerably cheered by the fact that she’d noticed an open W.H. Smith.
‘Very well, Jude. I’ll just go and get myself a Times, and I’ll join you in there.’
‘Fine.’
Though Café Rouge was allegedly of French inspiration, at the airport they were canny enough to offer a full English breakfast, and that was exactly what Jude felt like, so it was exactly what she ordered.
It had just been delivered when Carole returned, clutching her Times. ‘Goodness, there was a big queue in Smith’s.’ She looked down at Jude’s heaped plate. ‘If you eat all that, you’re never going to manage your meal on the plane.’
‘You watch me,’ said Jude. ‘Anyway, I find while travelling you can eat a whole lot of different meals during the day without noticing.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes. Something strange happens to one’s metabolism. It’s like drinking. You can pour the stuff down your throat on the plane and still feel perfectly sober when you pick up the hire car at the airport.’
‘Can you?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Then,’ said Carole primly, ‘I think it’s a very good thing that we’re getting a cab from Dalaman Airport.’
‘Oh, but we’re not.’
‘What? But I’ve checked out where we get cabs from and the likely price.’ Carole didn’t like the prospect of her research being wasted. ‘It’s also very important that you agree a price with the taxi driver before you start the journey. According to the guidebook I read, some of the drivers are up to all kinds of scams.’