Summer on the Turquoise Coast Read online

  Summer on the Turquoise Coast

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Look out for…

  Copyright

  For my hubby, Rob, for his support, and without his daft name for Ephesus and Pamukkale, this book wouldn’t exist.

  Chapter 1

  ‘But, Gran,’ Nina shot her mother a helpless look. Alice sent her exactly the same one back. No help from that direction, she guessed.

  ‘You do know he’s gone, don’t you, Gran?’ she asked, hoping this wasn’t the start of something more serious. She knew her grandmother could be forgetful, but surely, she couldn’t forget something as significant as that?

  ‘Who’s gone?’ Flossie asked, her attention on a half-eaten packet of biscuits on the table in front of her.

  ‘Grandad.’ Nina was starting to worry, and so was Mum, Nina saw. Alice sat there, thin-lipped, worry clouding her eyes, and her hands were clasped together so tightly her knuckles gleamed white.

  ‘Gone where, dear?’ Gran asked, dunking a chocolate Hob Nob in her tea and chewing noisily.

  Nina and Alice exchanged meaningful looks. No wonder her mother had called in the cavalry, Nina thought. This wasn’t looking good. Nina’s heart dropped to her boots when she considered how her grandmother was going to react to the “news” – though it wasn’t really news was it, considering Grandad had been dead for four months.

  ‘Grandad’s no longer with us. He’s passed on, Gran,’ Nina said, as gently as she could, then braced herself for the ensuing hysteria.

  ‘I know,’ Gran said calmly, demolishing another biscuit, her false teeth clacking as she munched.

  ‘You know?’ Nina replied, mouthing “she knows” at her mother over Flossie’s head and waggling her eyebrows in a “what-on-earth-is-going-on” fashion.

  ‘Of course, I know.’ Flossie dropped what was left of her soggy biscuit on the table, where it instantly disintegrated, and put a wrinkled hand over her heart. ‘I was there when he breathed his last.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Nina said to her mother. ‘You told me she’s planning on going to Turkey, next week.’

  Her gran didn’t give Alice a chance to answer. ‘That’s right, dear, I am.’ Flossie attacked another Hob Nob with determination. ‘But I’m not planning – I’m going.’

  ‘See,’ Alice hissed, twirling a finger next to her temple. ‘Ga ga.’

  ‘I saw that! I’m not senile yet, you know,’ Flossie said and added, ‘It’s Lady Gaga to you.’

  Nina wasn’t so sure about the senility part. ‘Let me get this straight; you’ve booked a two-week package holiday to Turkey? For two? For you and Grandad?’

  ‘Yep.’ Flossie slurped her tea, staring challengingly over her cup at her daughter and granddaughter.

  ‘And you’re going on your own anyway?’ Nina continued.

  ‘Your grandad can hardly come with me, can he?’ the old woman pointed out.

  ‘Er… no.’ Nina sent her mother another “help-me-out” look. Her mother pointedly gazed out of the kitchen window, a martyred expression on her face, silently refusing to be roped into the conversation.

  ‘He planned on coming,’ Flossie said, ‘but he died, so that’s that.’

  ‘When did you book it?’ Nina asked, thinking she saw a light at the end of this proverbial tunnel.

  ‘A couple of weeks before he passed away.’ Flossie ate yet another biscuit. She had managed to demolish over half the packet in less than five minutes.

  Alice let out a strangled sob and dabbed at her eyes. Mum had taken Grandad’s death hard.

  Nina shook her head in confusion. ‘He was really, really ill at that point,’ she said.

  ‘I knew it and he knew it, but it gave him something to aim for. He made me promise to go without him, if he…’ she trailed off, her lips pursing like a drawstring bag.

  ‘Gran, going on your own isn’t such a good idea.’ Nina was trying to be diplomatic, but she suspected she was about to fail big time; her gran wasn’t going to take kindly to be told she was too old.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  Nina paused as a thought occurred to her. ‘Ah, I get it. Is it one of those escorted, organised Saga trips?’ That wouldn’t be so bad. Saga were used to old people and the millions of things which could go wrong with them. Plenty of widows went on Saga holidays so Flossie wouldn’t really be on her own.

  ‘Bah! Not flipping likely. Saga is for old people,’ her grandmother declared.

  Nina rolled her eyes. Her gran was eighty-four, just how old did you have to be? ‘What have you booked, and who with?’ Nina imagined a cruise, or a sedate hotel catering to wrinklies.

  ‘Here.’ Flossie grubbed around in her oversized shopping bag, pulling something out, peering at it, muttering to herself, then thrusting the object back in, before delving in for another item. An apple, a hammer, a copy of Penthouse (really???), a sticky packet of humbugs, and a tape measure were all pulled out and examined myopically, before being returned to the Tardis depths of the bag.

  ‘Got it!’ Flossie announced triumphantly, slapping a tattered holiday brochure on the table. ‘The estate agent in the High Street booked it for me.’

  ‘You mean the travel agent,’ Nina said, trying to read the name upside down. “Athena Holidays – For the More Discerning Travel Lover”. That didn’t sound too bad. In fact, it sounded quite up-market. She had visions of blue rinses, sherry before dinner, and more beige than you could shake a walking stick at.

  ‘Do you want me to contact them for you?’ Nina asked.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To see about cancelling. The insurance should cover bereavement. You won’t get all your money back, because I think you’ll have to forfeit your deposit, but you should get most of it.’

  ‘I’m not cancelling, I’m going.’ Flossie crossed her arms over her bony chest, and stared defiantly at the two women.

  Alice let out a huge sigh. Clearly this argument had been raging for a long time before Nina arrived. No wonder her mother had called her to ‘come sort out your grandmother, because I’m washing my hands of her.’

  ‘Besides,’ Flossie added, ‘there isn’t any insurance.’

  ‘No insurance?’ Nina was flabbergasted. Her mother looked resigned, and Nina suspected Alice knew this already. ‘Everyone has to take out insurance when they book a package holiday, don’t they?’

  ‘Not if you tell them you’ve already got it,’ Flossie said.

  ‘You just said you haven’t got any!’ Nina let out an exasperated sigh. The old woman was going loopy. ‘Have you, or have y
ou not, got insurance?’

  ‘Nope, none.’

  ‘That’s… that’s…’ words failed her. ‘Why?’ Nina wailed.

  ‘Because your grandfather couldn’t get any, not with him on oxygen and being terminally ill.’

  ‘But you went ahead and booked a holiday anyway?’ Nina rolled her eyes again. If she kept going at this rate, her eyeballs would end up stuck in the tops of their sockets, but she couldn’t seem to help it.

  Flossie nodded enthusiastically. ‘Now you see why I’ve got to go – because I can’t get my money back.’

  ‘Gran, you can’t go on your own,’ Nina argued for the umpteenth time. Maybe she should solve the problem by breaking into Grannie’s house and hiding her passport – let the old biddy try to get out of the country without it!

  ‘Don’t be silly, Nina love, I’ve been abroad loads of times. I’m hardly a travel virgin.’

  Nina struggled to hold her temper. It didn’t help that she wanted to laugh, too; travel virgin indeed! ‘You’ve never been away on your own,’ she said. ‘You always had Grandad with you.’

  ‘You really didn’t know your grandfather very well,’ Flossie muttered. ‘I might as well have been on my own, for all the use he was.’

  Nina closed her eyes, hoping when she opened them again, she’d be in her own house, doing a bit of essay marking, or cleaning the oven, or even pulling her fingernails out – any of the above would be preferable to this surreal conversation. Were all old people this stubborn?

  ‘Whether he was any use or not,’ Nina said through gritted teeth, ‘Grandad was still with you. You. Weren’t. On. Your. Own. What on earth were you thinking of, booking a holiday when you knew he’d never be able to go on it?’

  ‘Don’t you lecture me, young lady. What I do is none of your business.’

  ‘It will be my business if I have to fly out to visit you in a foreign country because you’ve broken a hip,’ Nina retorted.

  ‘I could break a hip regardless of whether your grandad was with me or not,’ Flossie retorted with a huff. ‘And I’m not asking you to fly anywhere.’

  ‘No, but I am,’ Alice interjected.

  ‘Finally decided to speak, have you, Mum? Thanks for the input and – hang on, what do you mean “I am”?’ Nina blew out a lungful of air. ‘That’s a relief. Why the kerfuffle then, if you’re going on holiday with her?’

  ‘I’m not going. I can’t fly,’ her mother said. ‘Not with my ears.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your ears?’ Nina demanded.

  ‘I’ve got dodgy ears. They told me I can’t fly with them.’

  ‘Since when have you had problems with your ears?’ Nina asked, scratching her head. This was news to her, because her mother usually loved sharing any, and every, health issue with anyone who’d listen.

  Alice waved a hand in the air. ‘Oh, for a while now.’

  ‘Have you had any tests, and when you say “dodgy” what exactly do you mean?’

  ‘Tinnitus, vertigo, dizziness, and… er…’

  ‘Meniere’s,’ Flossie piped up, her backside in the air as she rooted in the cupboard for another packet of biscuits. She came up clutching some bourbons. ‘I see you’ve not got any custard creams. I’m not too keen on these ones.’

  ‘You ate them all the last time you were here, Mum,’ Alice said.

  ‘You should buy some more,’ Flossie retorted, tearing open the packet and tucking in with such enthusiasm anyone would think she hadn’t seen a biscuit for days.

  Nina asked her mother, ‘You’ve got all those things wrong with your ears?’

  ‘Yes. No. They’re not sure. I’ve got to go back for more tests, but they were adamant I’m not to fly.’

  ‘She’s under the doctor,’ Flossie declared.

  Nina let out a snort at the phrase – it sounded like a doctor was sitting on top of her mother, not that Alice was under the care of one. An image of old Dr Edwards astride her mother, popped into Nina’s mind. She shook her head to clear it.

  ‘Your grandmother’s not asking you to fly – I’m asking,’ Alice said to Nina. ‘I’d like you to accompany her.’

  Nina looked at her mother in confusion. ‘Me? Why me?’

  ‘Someone’s got to go with her,’ Alice said. ‘I can’t, so you’ll have to.’

  ‘What about Aunt Mabel?’ Why hadn’t she thought of Gran’s sister earlier? Two old biddies together was the obvious solution.

  ‘Mabel isn’t well either,’ Flossie said. ‘I’ll be surprised if she lasts the month. On death’s door, she is. Nope, I’ll go on my own.’

  ‘Tell her she can’t go,’ Nina protested.

  ‘I’ve tried that, and so have you. It didn’t get us anywhere did it, and we can’t stop her going,’ Alice added, giving Nina a significant look. ‘Not when she’s still got all her marbles.’

  ‘That’s debatable,’ Nina growled. ‘We can always hide the old bat’s passport.’

  ‘Listen. She wants to do this,’ (Flossie nodded so hard her teeth rattled loosely in her mouth) ‘and we all agree she can’t go on her own…’ Alice said.

  ‘No we don’t. I don’t agree,’ Flossie interjected. The other two shushed her.

  ‘…so I suggest you go with her, Nina,’ Alice finished with a flourish, akin to a magician pulling a dopey old rabbit out of a battered top hat and shouting “ta dah!”

  ‘No, not me,’ Nina squeaked.

  ‘Yes, you,’ Alice said.

  ‘But—’

  ‘But what? Too busy working, are you?’

  Nina shook her head at her mother’s sarcasm. The school summer holidays had started on Friday and Nina taught history in a secondary school, so of course she wasn’t working.

  ‘Is your boyfriend whisking you away for a couple of weeks?’ her mother continued with a relentless lack of mercy, and Nina narrowed her eyes in irritation. Her last proper boyfriend had been two years ago, a fact her annoying mother was well aware of.

  ‘No boyfriend,’ she said, through gritted teeth, ‘I’m concentrating on my career.’

  Between rolling her eyes and gritting her teeth, Nina guessed she was going to need some serious work on her face to put it back the way it had been half an hour earlier, before she’d walked into this madhouse her mother called home.

  ‘It’s about time one of my grandchildren got married and produced some babies,’ Gran said randomly. ‘It’ll give your mother summat else to think about and take her mind off me.’

  ‘Gran, Ben is only eighteen!’ Nina cried, the image of her younger brother holding a baby making her shudder. She’d never known anyone as clumsy as Ben. And she certainly wasn’t ready for children – she saw enough of the little darlings at work. Besides, there was no man on the horizon, and if she was going to have babies, she’d like to do it the old-fashioned way and get married first.

  ‘Are you sure? I could have sworn he was older. Not him then, if he’s only eighteen,’ her gran said. ‘He’s gotta play the field a bit, he needs to try before he buys. But what about you? You’re old enough. In my day, you’d be a bit too old to be having your first baby at your age. What’s your excuse?’ Flossie countered.

  ‘Well?’ Alice folded her arms and stared over the top of her spectacles.

  ‘I refuse to answer that. I don’t have to justify my love life to either of you,’ Nina declared.

  Gran said, ‘I’ve got a vested interest – the way you’re going I’ll probably be dead before you find a bloke to marry, and I’ve got a lovely hat I want to wear.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about marriage and babies,’ her mother said, ‘I was talking about whether you’ll agree to go on holiday with your grandmother?’

  Nina blinked as she tried to get her head around the simultaneous conversations, and decided to answer her mother, as the lesser of two evils. ‘Do I have to go?’ She was aware she sounded as teenagery as the kids she taught, but she couldn’t seem to help it. Her mother often reduced her to fourteen.

 
‘Yes.’ Alice nodded firmly. ‘Just think of all the lovely things she’s done for you. It’s the least you can do for her.’

  Nina screwed up her nose. What was it exactly her grandmother had done? Once, she’d made Nina spend a whole summer when she was fifteen picking blackberries so Gran could sell them by the pound to passers-by (“character-forming” Flossie had retorted when Nina complained about scratched arms and legs) – was that supposed to have been for Nina’s benefit? Or the time when Gran had blackmailed Nina into singing solo at the Old Age Pensioners’ Christmas dinner, when her Gran was well aware Nina was tone-deaf? Nina would never forget the way one old gent had stuck his fingers in his ears to shut out the din. Or the time Gran persuaded Nina to wax her grandad’s back, because he’d entered a body beautiful competition (the senior category, so that was okay then – not); his yells had affected her hearing for days afterwards.

  ‘Besides,’ her mother added, ‘you heard your gran, she’s getting on a bit and—’ Alice dropped her gaze and bit her lip.

  Nina held up a hand. ‘Stop it with the emotional blackmail.’

  Do mothers develop guilt-trip skills when they become pregnant or do they take courses in it, Nina wondered.

  ‘If I go, and I’m not saying I will, I’m not sharing a room.’ Nina shuddered. She loved her grandmother, but there were limits to what she was prepared to do in the name of that love. She needed her privacy, and a place to escape to when her grandmother’s company became a bit too much.

  Flossie turned to Alice. ‘See? It’s impossible. She can’t come.’