‘Thank you. Did you call it that because you used to live in Brighton?’
He looked puzzled by the suggestion. ‘Good Lord, no. Full of poofs, Brighton.’ For a moment he seemed aware of some lapse in political correctness. ‘Or what do they like to be called now – gays? God, and now you’ve got same-sex marriages in the UK, haven’t you? I’m not religious, but I think that’s really offensive, disgusting to normal people like me. You know, there is a lot to be said for living in a Muslim country.’
‘But you haven’t converted to Islam?’
‘God, no. I’m not barmy.’ Reluctantly, he stood up. ‘As I say, anything you need, just drop in.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Jude lifted herself out of her lounger and, with some relief, wrapped the towel around her ample curves. ‘Oh, just one thing, Travers …’
‘Hm?’
‘Have you known Barney Willingdon a long time?’
‘Oh yes. Met him when he first started thinking of building out here. Must be fifteen years ago, at least. I’ve watched him build every one of his villas, watched his property empire expand and expand.’
‘Did you ever meet his first wife?’
‘Zoë? God, yes.’
‘I gather she died …?’
‘Yes, far too young. Pretty little thing.’
‘And do you know how she died?’
‘Yes,’ said Travers Hughes-Swann. ‘Scuba-diving accident.’
Cin Bal was an altogether different experience in eating, particularly if you had sampled as little foreign cuisine as Carole Seddon had. For her, going to a Chinese or Indian in Fedborough verged on the exotic.
The low stone-built restaurant was at the centre of a huge area set under trees in the middle of the Kayaköy valley. While the building may have been used during the colder seasons, when the weather improved everyone sat outside. Tables spread in every direction, but there was no sense of crush. Overhead vines were trained to make a kind of awning. Low circles of cemented stones protected the many trees. There was a high noise-level from the many large parties of Turkish families enjoying their evening. And everything was pervaded by the smells of burning charcoal and barbecuing meat.
Barney Willingdon was clearly a regular at Cin Bal. As soon as he had left his white Range Rover in the car park, people were calling out greetings to him, and the nearer they got to the restaurant building the more he seemed to know. Jude grinned amiably at any who came close, while Carole kept her eyes straight ahead. The whole set-up felt very alien to her and, whatever might be offered from the menu, she was determined she would not have a kebab. (She had her Imodium safely to hand in her bag.)
At the entrance to the building stood a tall man in black shirt and trousers who clearly had some kind of official function. ‘Good evening, Mr Willingdon,’ he said in heavily accented English. ‘Would you like to find a table before you …?’
‘No, I’ll have my usual one.’
‘Very good, Mr Willingdon.’
‘We’ll go straight through to choose our food.’
‘Very good.’
‘But could you set up some drinks for us?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll have an Efes beer to start with, then probably move on to the red wine. Jude, Carole, what are you drinking?’
‘Tend to prefer white,’ said Jude.
‘Chardonnay, if that’s convenient,’ said Carole clumsily.
‘Have the Chardonnay if you want to, by all means,’ said Barney, ‘but if you’ll be advised by me, try the Sauvignon Blanc. There’s a local one they do here which is absolutely delicious.’
‘Well, I’m not sure that I—’
But Carole was immediately cut off by Jude’s assertion that they’d love to try the Sauvignon Blanc.
Inside the restaurant building were rows of glass-fronted refrigerated display cabinets. In the first ones they came to were large trays full of starters – an infinite array of dips, salads, stuffed vegetables, shellfish, octopus, sausages and pastries. A waiter with a notepad at the ready hovered to take their order. ‘Just choose what you like,’ said Barney.
‘Is that hummus?’ asked Carole tentatively. Hummus she had heard of. Hummus could be bought in Waitrose and Sainsbury’s. (It could even be bought in the budget supermarket Lidl, though of course Carole Seddon didn’t know that.)
‘Yes,’ Barney replied.
‘Well, I think I’ll have some of that.’
‘And what else?’
‘That’ll be plenty, thank you.’
Barney thought they might need a few more starters, and Jude was, unsurprisingly, more adventurous than her friend. She went for octopus salad, stuffed courgette flowers and an aubergine dip.
‘Have some börek too,’ said Barney. He pointed to some triangular envelopes of pastry. ‘Filled with cheese and herbs. They’ll be served hot – very good.’
‘But don’t you think we’ve got enough?’ suggested Carole.
‘No,’ said Barney and, with a few words in Turkish to the waiter, he moved along to the next row of display cabinets. This was the meat. As well as trays of steaks, livers, cutlets and other joints, above them hung down whole split carcasses of beef and lamb. ‘We’ll get some of each,’ said Barney. ‘And a bit of chicken.’
‘How will it be cooked?’ asked Carole cautiously, fearful that she would soon hear the word ‘kebab’.
‘However you want.’
‘Sorry? What do you mean?’
‘We do the cooking ourselves.’
And that was how it happened. They arrived at their table to find their drinks ready for them. A waiter poured Barney’s Efes beer into a frosted glass, then unscrewed the lid of the white wine and, without any tasting ritual, charged glasses for the two women.
Jude took an instant sip. They’d had drinks with Barney on the terrace of Morning Glory, but the evening heat made her still thirsty. ‘Ooh,’ she said as she took the glass away from her lips, ‘that’s gorgeous.’
‘Told you it would be,’ said Barney.
Carole took a tentative sip. She didn’t make any comment, though she, too, thought it was gorgeous. But, as so often with Carole Seddon, a positive feeling was very quickly replaced by a negative one. Would she be betraying her long allegiance to Chilean Chardonnay? And she’d got seven bottles left in a case back at High Tor. It’d be a terrible waste if those didn’t get drunk.
A man, whose hangdog demeanour suggested a lowly position in the Cin Bal hierarchy, came towards them pushing a trolley. It took a moment for the two women to realize that the open metal box he carried was full of burning charcoal. Their own personal barbecue, which the man affixed to the side of their table. Soon after that their starters arrived, and in due course the cuts of meat they had ordered. These were covered with upturned plates, presumably to keep off the flies. Though, in fact, there seemed to be very few flies around, maybe kept away by the charcoal smoke.
As Barney had said, it was completely up to them how they cooked their meal. The process couldn’t have been more hands-on. Those who wanted their meat pink and bloody could have it pink and bloody; and those who wanted it charred to a crisp could char it to a crisp personally.
But with the salads and the wine it tasted wonderful. All of them at the table mellowed and relaxed. Even Carole Seddon began to feel that going away on holiday to Turkey had been rather a good idea. Fethering was all very well in its way, but it was good to be reminded that a world existed outside the village. Perhaps there were more foreign destinations that she should sample.