‘I thought I’d slip in to David’s place for a late breakfast and then maybe drive up to those ruins at Salamis de Whitt is always going on about.’
He gave the suggestion some genuine thought.
‘That should be all right for the first time we let you out alone. The knack is not to let the GC get close to you. They like to be near enough to knife you in the back, or shoot from so close you get muzzle burns. OK? And seriously – take someone wiv you if you gets the chance. Better safe . . . an’ all that.’
‘Don’t worry, Pat. I’ve got the message. I won’t do anything stupid.’
I ran over all the rules he’d been laying on me, on the road to Famagusta – every time I rode with him he gave me a different tip, and they accumulated with a drip-drip consistency. Even someone like me eventually understood that this was becoming a dangerous little island for those who flew the Union flag. I can remember some of his lessons even now: Always tell someone where you’re going, and Don’t go into a Cyp shop on your own, even if you know the people in it. I expect there’s some old sweat in Basra or Afghanistan telling our boys the same things today.
Parking a square canvas-covered truck in Yassine’s small courtyard was a manoeuvre fraught with difficulty. David himself came out onto his steps to supervise. He watched me scraping his gate columns.
‘Next time bring something different, Charlie.’
‘It’s all I could get. Don’t you like the British Army in your car park?’
‘British Army, no problem. Fucking great truck, big problem. Who else can get in here now?’ It was actually a small truck; he was just making a point. He also made me smile, and of course he smiled back. ‘Next time come in a jeep.’
‘We don’t have any.’
‘No problem – I sell you one.’ He would too.
He offered me breakfast, but I put him off at first.
‘I’ll go up and see Stephanie. Will that be OK?’
‘I don’t know, Charlie, I’m not her keeper. Knock on the door – it’s always best.’
When I knocked on the door of her room there was no immediate response. I did it again, and heard someone mumble and begin to move.
‘It’s Charlie,’ I said.
‘I didn’t expect you.’
‘I didn’t expect me myself. I’ve been given a day off.’
She yawned. After a longish pause – enough time for the usual Glenn Miller intro, and a few bars – she said, ‘Why don’t you go down and have some breakfast? I’ll clean up, and see you in fifteen minutes or so.’
‘OK.’
She didn’t say anything, but I knew there was a guy in there with her.
I ate poached eggs with Yassine in an alcove off the bar. Figs. Coffee. Yassine travelled the Middle East with the best coffee makers in the world accompanying him.
‘All right?’ he asked me.
‘I don’t know. I think I may have embarrassed her.’
‘You will find out – she will tell you.’
A tall, thin guy in light khaki drills – KDs – came down the stairs, and walked out through the front lobby. He was carrying a blue UN beret scrunched up in one hand. He didn’t look at us. Steve appeared five minutes later. Her hair was tied back in a short ponytail, and she hadn’t any make-up. It took years off her. The first thing she did was kiss me. Yassine smiled to himself, and looked away. The second thing she did was say, ‘Next time, phone up to my room from here. OK?’
‘OK. You’re not mad?’
‘No. I think I’m pleased. I just need to get used to the idea of having a boyfriend, that’s all. You are my boyfriend, aren’t you?’
‘Of course I am. Want some breakfast before we go out?’
I smoked a pipe, and David smoked a long, thin cheroot. We both watched her eat. I don’t think I had been happier. But I was confused. The fact that I hadn’t told Watson that I hated flying in small aircraft moved to the forefront of my mind. I was confused about that as well.
We took her racy little saloon – its engine revved like one of those new petrol-driven lawnmowers. Yassine asked if I would mind if he had the Bedford moved to a closed garage that he kept around the side of the hotel. Steve drove north out of Famagusta through a gap punched in the Old Wall. One of the Byzantine emperors had needed an inappropriately large gate.
It’s the sort of structure tourists are photographed alongside to prove to their neighbours they’ve been abroad – it’s a bloody horrible-looking thing, if you ask me. As we curled through the old streets her small car attracted more than an occasional wave: she was obviously as well known as Pat Tobin.
‘I take my passing clientele to their shops,’ she told me. ‘They buy me expensive souvenirs by which I am supposed to remember them for ever. After they ship out, I take the gift back to the shop, and collect half the profit. Then the shop sells it again. I have received one allegedly Byzantine candelabra three times from three different men – it’s back in the shop right now.’ She swerved to avoid a lazy dog, and swore. We were still new enough for me to find her directness endearing.
‘What will we do in Salamis?’
‘Explore the ruins, paddle in the sea. Make love in the undergrowth if you like – undergrowth is a lovely word, isn’t it? Just made for lovers. First we must stop at Ekrem’s shop.’ When she was excited Steve spoke at top speed, as if each conversation was a race.
‘What for?’
‘Picnic. We’ll get hungry and thirsty out there.’
Ekrem’s shop was in the shadow of the gate, but just outside the Old City. The UN had a station alongside
