Chapter 12
I push through the glass doors to the reception just as Banu is breezing through from the back in a cloud of cigarette fumes.
She greets me with a wide innocent smile as though she didn’t sabotage my first night here with that schoolgirl costume.
‘Key, please,’ I say frostily, refusing to meet her gaze.
This is me letting it go as per Erika’s instructions this morning.
She spins round to retrieve the key from the board of hooks on the back wall.
All the rooms are clearly numbered and the only nod to security, it would seem, is the lift-up flap at the end of the reception desk.
Anyone could walk round and steal a room key while she’s taking a cigarette break out the back.
She drops it with a clang onto the desk just an inch in front of my outstretched hand. So rude.
‘And I’ll need a taxi for an hour’s time. Can you book one for me, please?’
She gestures in a friendly manner, but I can’t decide whether she is genuine or not. ‘Okay. Sure. Where are you going?’
‘The marina.’
‘Which one?’
‘Gumbet.’
‘Quicker to walk.’ She looks me up and down. ‘Exercise is good for you.’
‘Look. Just book me a taxi. I have a heavy suitcase.’
‘Good for arms. I carry heavy things all day, every day.’ She points to a trolley of neatly stacked pool towels. ‘Good for toning weak muscles.’ Again, she indicates my arms as though they are puny and in need of building up. ‘We have gym here at hotel.’
‘I’m perfectly aware of the importance of exercise, thank you. I’m just tired… and now, thanks to this rather exhausting exchange I’m in even more of a rush.’
‘What are you going for?’
‘None of your business,’ I snap. Seriously? Aren’t receptionists supposed to do what the customers ask?
‘Then I can’t tell the taxi where to take you.’
After the crappy day I’ve had, I’m finding Banu’s low level of customer service pretty infuriating.
‘Why not?’
‘One side of marina is for small daytrip boats. Far side is for big commercial yachts. Different road to get there. Taxi drivers don’t speak English but if you don’t want to tell me that’s your choice. I will book it for you now.’
Ah. Now I feel foolish. ‘Okay. Wait. Sorry about that.’ I’m so unbelievably tired I could sleep standing up, my head drooped to one side like a flamingo. ‘It’s for the Love Ahoy! A big gulet boat.’
I’d expect at least a look of admiration that I’m going to work on Turkey’s finest yacht, but she simply shrugs and picks up an ancient-looking phone straight from the 1960s.
She huffs as she holds the receiver to her ear, its curly wire stretched as far as it can while she rings the world’s longest telephone number on the rotary dial, my nerves winding tighter with every whir of the dial as it resets.
After what I swear is a ten-minute wait, with Banu drumming her fingernails against the shiny plastic surface of the desk, I hear her talk rapidly in Turkish before replacing the receiver. ‘He will come in one hour.’
‘But we’ve been arguing about it for at least fifteen minutes and there was the ten-minute wait to get through, so now I need it to come in half an hour!’ I’m so frustrated with this whole scenario I can feel my skin physically tighten right across my face.
She picks up the phone again. ‘I will cancel first taxi and then rebook.’
I watch her fingernail hooking each plastic circle of the phone dial as it whirs back to the start. It connects after a crackle, and I hear the distant ringing tone. I bed in for another ten-minute wait.
As she twirls the spiral cord connecting the handset to the phone, she gives me a sympathetic look. ‘But of course they only have one taxi so maybe you don’t get another taxi for a long time. Is big risk.’
As her words sink in, suddenly a faraway voice on the receiving end answers. Trust them to answer straight away! I yell at Banu as she speaks into the receiver. ‘For Christ’s sake, just leave the booking. Don’t cancel!’
Her head jerks up. ‘Too late. I have cancelled.’
I feel like weeping. I’m so exhausted that I instantly fold like a flimsy, bargain-aisle camping chair. My forehead thumps against the reception desk in defeat.
‘You want I book again?’
‘Yes. Yes, please,’ I mutter. ‘If you would be so kind.’
* * *
I am gutted when I walk through the door of my lovely apartment and gaze longingly at the unslept-in bed.
The beautiful view through the balcony doors that I have yet to gaze out of while sipping a coffee and marvelling at what a great decision to work abroad has been.
The little sofas and coffee table I won’t have a chance to put my feet up on as I contentedly reflect on how thoroughly I am enjoying my new job and how well I get on with my co-workers (fat chance of that happening now).
And don’t get me started on that twinkling swimming pool that I was looking forward to lounging beside while my translucent legs develop a bronzed glow. I think my heart is breaking. I check my watch. I need to leap into action.
I barely have time to shower and repack my clothes before it is time to go back down to reception to get the taxi. I just pray that it is on time.
Banu is waiting to take my key from me.
‘Last night, when I arrived. You gave me a bag,’ I say, watching her hang my key up.
She nods. ‘Yes. Did you have fun at the party? Did you enjoy your free drinks?’
I mean, I had a lot of fun and a lot of free drinks, but she doesn’t need to know that. ‘About the costume,’ I say, tipping my head to the side. ‘I don’t appreciate you playing a joke on me. Especially not on my first night here.’
She looks mildly confused. ‘What joke?’
‘The bag with the costume in?’
She frowns. ‘You threatened to complain about me. Why should I help you?’
Excellent point.
‘Fine, fair enough. Forget it. Everyone else around here seems to hate me, why not you too?’ I slump against the reception desk.
She takes a moment to eye me suspiciously. ‘It was Garry Gee. He gave me the bag.’
OMG. Garry?
‘Are you sure? Did he specifically say when to wear it? Like last night?’
Banu puffs. ‘Bag. Rep. You wear. I was very busy at the time.’
Why would anyone do that? She must be mistaken. But I don’t have time for semantics. I smile gratefully at her in thanks.
Her face changes imperceptibly. ‘He is not a nice man.’
‘He’s not a nice man? Why would you—’
BEEP.
‘Your taxi that you don’t need is here.’
If I survive the next week, I think we may become friends.
I drag my heavy case outside. The reedy-looking taxi driver takes it while I try not to stare at his one tooth as he talks to me in Turkish.
He’s dressed in a stained smock-type garment that looks as though he’s peeled it off the body of a dead fisherman.
It’s only when I’m in the taxi and we seem to be driving away from the sea that I wonder if Banu was right about it being quicker to walk.
Oh God. We are definitely heading away from the water.
I hope he doesn’t think I want to go to the airport just because I have a suitcase. What do I say? How do I check?
We pass a road sign that clearly says Dalaman on it. That is where the airport is. I should know. We went round the roundabout there many, many times while the coach driver waited patiently for me to make a decision on which exit to take (I chose the wrong one in case you’re wondering).
All too quickly, we seem to be leaving the main road (if you can call it that) and driving down a dirt track behind some craggy rocks and wasteland.
My heart begins to thump wildly. My mother’s frequent warnings about kidnappers float through my increasingly worried mind.
After ten excruciating minutes, as I try and fail to convince myself that he knows what he’s doing, I lean forward to speak to the driver.
He turns towards me and grins, his tooth a yellowish brown.
Oddly shaped. Like a lone rock poking from the ground at Stonehenge or Easter Island or somewhere.
I drag my eyes from it to focus on the task at hand.
My imminent kidnapping. ‘Erm… the boat? We go to the boat?’ I make panicky hand gestures (in all honesty, not as easy as you’d think).
First, I look like I’m driving a car, then flying a plane, manning the telescope of a torpedo-laden warship…
before I start rowing frantically. ‘BOAT! BOAT!’
He looks puzzled before he turns back to the road, and just as well, as there is a massive sinkhole in the ground coming up.
He swerves around it, clipping the edge, which causes the car to dip as one tyre bangs against the mound of dirt.
I cross my fingers that we haven’t just burst a tyre because it would have been all my fault for distracting him with my terrible miming.
The driver says something in Turkish that I can’t understand. I glance worriedly out of the window as I’m being hurled about on the back seat. Not a seatbelt or security feature in sight. The track becomes nigh on non-existent as we off-road in a vehicle more suited for scrap metal.
‘The beach,’ I say frantically as we hurtle away from the sea. ‘We go to the beach. Not airport!’
‘Airport?’ he mimics.
‘No! Not airport. Not airport.’ I am literally going to have a heart attack. ‘Beach. We go beach.’
‘Plage,’ he says, nodding.
Plage? Beach? My mind is quickly making word associations.
I recall someone at one of the interviews saying some Turkish words sound very similar to French and send up a quick silent prayer that we are making our way to the gulet boat and not to the airport or the location of my murder.
While I’d hate to prove my mother right, she really doesn’t deserve it on this occasion.
She’s done nothing but try to protect me all my life.
I get a sudden pang to hug her and apologise for every time I’ve ever been difficult.
Suddenly, just as a single tear rolls down my cheek, we swing round a small mountain and there below us is the sea shimmering away.