She looked down again to the pool. From the height of her bedroom she could see its ‘infinity’ feature. The water just seemed to flow off the edge of the world. Jude had spread her towel over a lounger and flopped on to it. Swelling out of the bikini, there was quite a lot of her. And yet Carole knew that if she were on the adjacent lounger – even if she, too, was wearing a bikini (perish the thought) – it was on Jude that any passing male’s eyes would linger. She tried, unsuccessfully, not to feel jealous.
Carole Seddon continued making a slow meal of her unpacking.
TEN
Down by the pool, Jude thought idly that she should have brought her trashy novel with her. Or had a look at the stock of trashy novels left by previous guests. It was a fairly predictable selection, mostly in English, but some in German and Dutch. Danielle Steel, Wilbur Smith, Dan Brown and, she’d noticed, two abandoned copies of Fifty Shades of Grey.
But going upstairs to fetch a book would be far too much trouble. More importantly, she should have anointed herself with some suntan cream. Though it felt benign, the late afternoon sun retained its potential to burn, and her skin had not had any previous exposure to its beams that year. But again, the journey back into Morning Glory and up the stairs to her room seemed an insuperable challenge. Jude’s eyelids drooped and closed.
From the point of view of her skin, it was probably just as well that she was woken after ten minutes of dozing by an English voice saying, ‘Just came to introduce myself.’
Disoriented, she looked up at the figure outlined by the descending sun. It took a few seconds and a hand shading her eyes before she could see him distinctly. Revealed was a thin man probably in his sixties with no hair, thin metal-rimmed glasses and a tan so dark that he looked as if he’d been pickled like a walnut. He wore only khaki-coloured shorts and leather sandals, the latter incongruously over thick beige socks.
He held out a hand, which Jude stretched forward to shake. Some women might have been embarrassed sitting there in only a skimpy bikini, but not Jude. Or, at least, not at first.
‘My name’s Travers Hughes-Swann,’ said the newcomer.
‘I’m Jude.’
‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Won’t you sit down? Can I get you a drink or something?’
‘No, no, don’t bother, please. I’m not one of those people who’s dependent on their drink. And I never touch alcohol. But I will just sit for a moment.’ He perched his bony buttocks on the edge of an adjacent lounger. ‘I’m just a neighbour, so I thought I’d be neighbourly and say hello.’
‘Oh?’
‘I live in the next villa. Called Brighton House. You can’t see it through the trees, but it’s quite close. Very close, actually.’
‘Ah. Well, I’m here with my friend Carole, and we’re staying for a fortnight.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Really?’
‘No secrets in a place like Kayaköy. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. And everyone knows about all the comings and goings to the various villas.’
‘Oh.’ What he’d said gave Jude a slightly uncomfortable feeling. Morning Glory had seemed so perfectly remote, but clearly the village had eyes and ears. She was also rather aware now that Travers Hughes-Swann had eyes too. And they did seem to be rather fixated on her cleavage.
From her bedroom upstairs, Carole peered out of the window. God, it didn’t take long for Jude to meet new people. She slowed down her unpacking even more. She felt she personally had met quite enough new people for one day. She didn’t want to go down to the pool and get involved in all that business of introductions and explaining herself.
‘Do you live out here permanently?’ asked Jude, intuiting from his tan that he probably did.
He confirmed this. ‘Yes. After I’d retired I needed to get out of the UK. Place fell apart after they did the dirty on Margaret Thatcher. We stuck it for a few more years under that idiot John Major, but things clearly weren’t going to get any better, so we upped sticks and came out here.’
‘Do you go back to England much?’
‘Not if I can help it, no. Walk along the streets there and you hardly hear an English voice. All speaking Bengali or Somali or something like that. And us paying for their welfare with our taxes. Whole country’s gone to the dogs.’
Jude didn’t make any comment, but not for the first time she was struck by how perversely racist a lot of expatriates were. One might have thought they lived abroad with a view to intermingling, building bridges with the locals, but in her experience that very rarely seemed to be the case. They kept themselves to themselves and nurtured recollections of a home country so perfect as never to have existed. ‘When you say “we” …?’
‘Wife Phyllis. “Her Indoors.” Though sadly saying “Her Indoors” these days is all too accurate.’
‘Oh?’
‘Bedridden, I’m afraid. Has been for years.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes. But one gets used to most things,’ he said in a matter-of-fact way. ‘So Phyllis is “Her Indoors” while I am “Him Outdoors”.’ His little chuckle suggested he thought this was funny. ‘Spend most of my time in the garden. I’ve landscaped it all myself. Can be tricky working on a slope like this, but I’ve put a lot of hard work into it. Built some splendid garden features from the local stone, they look really authentic. It’s a labour of love, actually; I’ve been doing it for years. And it looks pretty damn good, let me tell you.’
‘I’m sure it does.’ Jude looked around. ‘This one’s not bad either, is it?’
‘If you like that kind of thing,’ said Travers Hughes-Swann sniffily. ‘All done by paid gardeners, though. Looks a bit sanitized for my taste.’
‘Oh.’
‘Still, that’s the way Barney does everything, isn’t it? Or, rather, doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t do anything hands-on, anyway. Pays people to come and sort things out for him.’
‘Surely, that’s a good thing, though, isn’t it? So long as he selects the right people to do the jobs.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ her visitor conceded. ‘If you can afford it. Which he certainly can.’ There was undisguised envy in his voice.
‘Did Barney actually build your villa too?’
‘No, ours has been here much longer. Converted farm building. Much more authentic than this.’ He gestured contemptuously to the splendour of Morning Glory. ‘Or any of the others that Barney’s built. He’s got more concern for the home comforts of middle-class English people than he has for preserving the genuine flavour of Turkish tradition.’
Jude thought that the villa seemed to do a pretty good job of mixing ancient and modern, but didn’t make any comment. She did feel mildly interested though, to see, at some point, how Brighton House had preserved tradition more faithfully. At some point – but that wasn’t a point of any great urgency. She couldn’t see herself exactly seeking out Travers Hughes-Swann’s company over the next two weeks.
By now, though, he did seem dangerously ensconced on the edge of his lounger, gazing fixedly at her cleavage, and she was beginning to wonder how she was going to get rid of him. ‘I must go in soon,’ she said. ‘Mustn’t have too much sun on my first day. And I haven’t even started unpacking.’
‘Right.’ He sounded disappointed by the news. ‘Well, if there’s anything you and your friend Carole need to know, anything we can help you with, just say the word. We’ll be glad to help – well, that is, I’ll be glad to help. I’m afraid Phyllis can’t even help herself these days. You can’t miss our place. We’re first left down the track. Brighton House, as I said.’