Arabesk

know you don't want to do, we'd have to lodge with Uncle Frank at least at first. And you know what that means, don't you?'

Babur sighed. 'Yes.'

'Nuns in and out all day. long, not to mention parishioners who'd look at you like you were the devil himself. And that housekeeper of his, well…'

Babur smiled. 'The lovely Mrs Reynolds.'

'Cooking up all sorts of horrors,' his daughter raved, flinging her arms expressively into the air. 'And she's a stranger to bleach or any other sort of cleaning material, for that matter!'

'What a colourful turn of phrase you have,' her father said with genuine appreciation. 'So obvious that you are of the soil that bore Yeats, Wilde and Behan.'

It had been said with such admiration and kindness that Zelfa, for a moment, felt quite deflated. With a sigh she sat back down at the table. 'And you are an astute man whom I shouldn't even attempt to dupe. I'd like nothing better than to go home now…'

'But?'

She smiled sadly. 'But as you know there is another consideration here.'

'A young man.' Babur reached out and took one of her hands in his.

'Too young for me,' she said and lowered her head in order to avoid her father's eyes.

'Maybe. But then we cannot chose who we love, can we? Many people said that I was foolish to marry your mother-'

'Well, you did end up getting divorced,' his daughter interjected.

'True. But at least your mother and I tried We were in love, we gave our love a chance and,' he shrugged, 'well, it didn't work, but had we not tried we would never have known that and I wouldn't now have you who is such a blessing.'

She leaned forward and kissed her father affectionately on his forehead. 'Oh, Father,' she said, 'how on earth can I be forty-six years old and still behave like a girl of sixteen?'

'You're the psychiatrist,’ her father said with a wry grin on his face. 'Perhaps your Catholic guilt made you a late starter in the romantic sphere or-'

A loud knock cut Babur's speech short which, from his daughter's point of view, was probably a good thing. Although completely untroubled by religious affiliations himself, Babur, Zelfa knew, had never been happy about her being educated within the convent system. It had been one of the nails that had sealed up the coffin that became her parents' marriage.

'I've got to go now,' she said. She picked up her medical bag, already packed with essential supplies, and stood up.

Babur first sighed and then smiled. 'Well, just be careful, won't you?' he said. 'In all sorts of ways.'

'I'm a big girl now,' his daughter replied as she walked out of the room, blowing her father a kiss as she went.

. Babur looked down at his plate and muttered, 'No, you're not,' and then with one last glance towards the place his daughter had vacated, took his eating utensils out into the kitchen.

Much as they may have welcomed the kudos that came with treating a major Arabesk star, the staff of the Alman Hospital, which is where Tansu and her sister should have been taken after the accident, were to be disappointed. Neither Tansu nor Latife would agree to any medical intervention. Instead, Tansu screamed at isak Coktin to phone his 'friend' Erol Urfa for her.

'But madam,' the officer pleaded as he indicated the large gash on the singer's calf, 'you are bleeding.'

'Yes, and I will only stop bleeding when you get Erol for me!'

Tepe, who was standing behind his colleague, a far less involved expression on his face, added, 'But if you don't attend to it, the cut could become infected.'

'I don't care!'

'I could clean it up myself for the time-'

'If I wanted your dirty hands on me, I'd ask you!'

Tansu snapped as she shuffled herself deep into the corner of her settee. 'As you wish.'

Galip Emin who had earlier disappeared upstairs with his other sister, Latife, now re-entered the room, his face stern.

'What are they still doing here?' he said as he flicked his disgruntled head in the direction of Coktin and Tepe.

'Well, unless this one,' Tansu stabbed a finger at Coktin, 'calls Erol for me, then I really do not know!'

'Why you were outside our house in the first place is a mystery to me,' Galip said as he drew level with the much taller Tepe. 'As if my family haven't had enough of your incompetence already.' Turning from the stone- faced Tepe to Coktin, Gakp sneered, 'And as for you, Kurdish brother-'

'So is Miss Latife all right now?' Tepe managed to interject before things took a turn for the worse.

'She'll live,' Galip answered. His eyes bore relentlessly into Coktin's.

'I know that you know what Erol's new telephone number is!' Tansu yelled. 'And you call yourself a Kurdish-'

Coktin suddenly and violently snapped. 'That's good coming from Turkey's only true darling who courts the forces that paint our villages red with our own blood!'

Turning away from Galip to glare at Tansu, Coktin, or so it seemed to the anxious Tepe, briefly held the whole party in a tense silence. As the large antique French clock ticked ponderously in the background, Tepe wondered if he was alone in wondering whether Coktin's own position within the police was about to be flung at him. It was something that he knew was a possibility even though he was struggling to understand its implications. Until the singer spoke again, Tepe meandered helplessly in what had suddenly, for him, become a foreign country.

Td like you to leave my house now,' Tansu said, her voice small and almost strangled by the control she was having to exert over it

Not taking his eyes from hers for a moment, Coktin replied, 'But you need medical attention.'

'If I wish to die, that's my choice.'

'But-'

'Your report, should that happen, would make interesting reading, wouldn't it?'

Stung, Coktin overreacted. 'Don't be so ridiculous! Dying in order to spite me would be-'

'Just perfect!' the woman screamed. And then hurling herself onto the floor in a flood of enraged tears she yelled, 'Without Erol I am dead anyway!'

Galip and the until now silent Yilmaz raced towards their sister.

'I th-think you'd b-better go now!' Yilmaz man said to the two policemen as he eased Tansu's head out from underneath the coffee table.

'Yes, but-'

'Come on, let's go,' Tepe said and placed one determined hand on Coktin's shoulder. 'There's no point.'

With a sigh Coktin turned and then almost as quickly turned back again. 'But-'

'Come on!’

Tepe took hold of Coktin's arm and, despite some reluctance on the Kurd's part, led him out into the large rose and gold-coloured hall beyond. Once out of the Emin family's orbit, Qloktin allowed himself to be taken towards the front door without resistance. And although Tepe was tempted to ask him at this point just what he thought he'd been trying to prove with Tansu and the others, he resisted in favour of a quiet life,

But as he opened the front door of Tansu's house, two things happened to change that Suleyman, together with two other figures Tepe couldn't quite make out in the gathering darkness, were getting out of the former's distinctive white BMW and Latife Emin stepped out of one of the bathrooms and into the hall.

'Y-you r-really m-must try to be c-calm now, Tansu,' Yilmaz said as he wiped the edge of his handkerchief across his sister's heavily perspiring features.

'Have those dogs gone yet or-'

'Yes, yes yes!' an exasperated Galip said as he sat down next to Tansu and took her hand.

'They'll be back though, won't they?' the singer said darkly, reaching forward to take a cigarette from one of the boxes on the table. 'I mean why were they out there if they didn't know!’ 'I have no