Page 50 of Not in a Million Years

‘What do you reckon?’ Daniel asked when we left the hotel at seven o’clock, heading on foot along the now familiar route into town. ‘Should we have said something to him?’

‘I don’t know.’ I fell into step next to him. ‘It kind of feels like anything that makes him feel less positive is probably a bad idea, right?’

‘And depending on what she has to say about it all, we could update him tomorrow.’

‘Exactly. We don’t know what went on between them. Hakan seemed fairly positive, at least.’

‘Yeah, it sounds as if he might be able to travel home in a week or so.’

‘Although who knows what will happen once he gets there,’ I said. ‘I mean, he won’t be able to work for a while. He probably won’t be able to go home unless he gets a stairlift installed or something.’

‘God! Andy with a stairlift. Can you imagine?’

I could, all too easily. The tantrums that would ensue, born out of frustration at his lack of independence, would be epic. I could almost hear Andy saying, ‘What am I, a fucking OAP?’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ I said firmly. ‘And speaking of bridges, is this where we turn?’

Daniel glanced at his phone and nodded. We crossed a humpbacked stone bridge that led across a stream, heading away from the touristy part of town. The busy restaurants and bars, with their menus displayed outside in English as well as Turkish, gave way to small coffee shops and then to ordinary stores selling everyday essentials: sacks of chickpeas, tubs of baby milk, bottles of cleaning products. Instead of hotels and guesthouses, the streets were lined with apartment blocks, two or three storeys high, tiled pathways leading to their entrances, washing hanging on their balconies.

There were still cats everywhere, of course, lounging in doorways, splayed out on windowsills, helping themselves from plastic food bowls set out on the pavement. Daniel paused to fuss a few of them, but mostly he was focused on his phone, plotting our route through the narrow streets.

‘I think this is it.’ We stopped outside an ochre building, the plaster falling away from its walls in places, a creeper winding around its door. Daniel raised a hand to press the buzzer, and we waited. There was the sound of hurrying footsteps, and Ash swung open the door.

‘Welcome! Come on in,’ she said. ‘It’s just up the stairs and to your left.’

As we squeezed past her in the narrow hallway, I could smell her perfume, like she’d been rolling around in a meadow full of flowers. She was wearing a simple white broderie anglaise shift dress, and I felt hot and frumpy by comparison in my rolled-up jeans and vest top, conscious of the sweat that had soaked through on my back, which she must have been able to see as she followed me. I couldn’t help wondering whether Daniel, walking behind Ash, was also aware of the contrast between her almost balletic grace and my clumsy ascent up the steep flight of stairs.

The apartment was small: just one room with a kitchenette at one end and a sofa at the other, which I guessed folded out into a bed. A door led to what I presumed was the bathroom, and a second, glass-paned one led to a tiny balcony where fuchsias grew in hanging baskets. Plates, glasses and cutlery (an eclectic mix that looked like it could have been bought from a market stall or charity shop) were laid out on a low coffee table, and three cushions were set on the floor around it.

For the life of me, I could not picture Andy here. Yet here he had lived, for several weeks, and presumably intended to live for longer, if things hadn’t gone wrong.

‘Thanks for coming.’ Ash gestured to the cushions. ‘Grab a seat. I’m sorry – it’s a bit of a step down from where you’re staying, I know.’

‘Thanks for inviting us.’ As politely as a little boy attending a birthday party, Daniel handed over the bottle of wine we’d brought.

I lowered myself to the floor, crossing my legs and leaning back against the sofa. I looked around, trying to imagine Andy making coffee on the worn melamine countertop, Andy’s designer clothes hanging in the rickety pine wardrobe, Andy emerging from the bathroom with a towel round his waist.

Where I was sitting, he and Ash would have lain in bed together in the light cast by the streetlamp outside, their bodies tangled in sweaty sheets, happy – until they weren’t. That was even harder to imagine than all the rest of it.

Ash placed three glasses of wine on the table and sat down opposite me, lowering herself effortlessly to the floor without using her hands. Her prettiness struck me again: her hair was loose down her back today, slightly kinked from the plait it must have been in earlier, falling almost to her tiny waist. Her eyes were an impossible shade of aquamarine. Her lips were a rosy pink that looked like lipstick but couldn’t be, because she wasn’t wearing any other make-up. No wonder Andy had fancied her. How could it be possible that Daniel wouldn’t fancy her too?

‘So how is Andy?’ she asked.

‘Physically, surprisingly okay,’ I said. ‘Like I told you in my text, he had surgery to pin the broken pelvis, and it’s apparently healing well. Mentally, he’s finding it tough, of course. He can’t wait to get home, but at the same time, he knows it’s going to be a while before he’s anything like back to normal.’

‘Did he… ask about me?’

Daniel said, ‘We didn’t tell him we were coming. We weren’t sure if you’d want him to know, and he wasn’t in a great mood earlier so we thought…’

‘I understand.’ Ash sipped her wine, her eyes lowered so the long lashes cast shadows over her smooth cheeks. Then she said, ‘What kind of a hostess am I, anyway? Let me get you guys some food.’

She performed the sinking-to-the-floor manoeuvre in reverse and took the few steps to the kitchen counter, returning with dishes of salad, bread, dips and cheese. It all looked and smelled delicious, and I wondered how long she’d spent preparing it, and whether it meant she’d been as nervous about having us here as I’d felt about coming.

‘I don’t eat meat,’ she said. ‘So I hope you don’t mind it all being veggie.’

‘Of course we don’t,’ I assured her. ‘This is amazing, thank you. Honestly, we’ve had such incredible food since we’ve been here. We’ve been really spoiled, haven’t we, Daniel?’

‘The breakfast at our hotel is off the scale,’ Daniel agreed, and the conversation moved politely on to the virtues of Anatolian cuisine for a few minutes.

---