Anne Hampson by Beyond the Sweet Waters

Author:Beyond the Sweet Waters [HR-1467, MB-433] (epub)
Format: epub, mobi

CHAPTER SEVEN

During the next few days Jeanette and Craig covered hundreds of miles. Their travels took them over to the quieter, rather rustic eastern shore of the Bosphorus; to Scutari where thousands of Anatolian peasants lived in their picturesque wooden yalis. They visited beauty spots and palaces, quaint waterside cafes where they could choose their lobster, still alive, and eat it less than an hour later. They climbed the hill at Kanlica at seven one evening to watch the fantastic sunset, then sat idling in a village cafe eating the yogurt for which Kanlica is famous. They spent an idyllic afternoon exploring the Sweet Waters of Asia, that playground of Ottoman society, haunt of the Sultans whose guests, rowed upstream in ornately gilded barges manned by six liveried kayikei, would picnic beneath the shade of the trees.

In the evenings Jeanette and Craig would visit a night club or restaurant. One evening they went to a concert at the Italian Consulate and Jeanette was introduced to several people who knew Craig. She was eyed with interest and surprise, for, of course, Craig usually went to such functions either alone or with a man friend.

On the Sunday evening they decided to stay at home, and Craig was Jeanette's guest for dinner. He arrived late, full of apologies but explaining that he had had to take his housekeeper to her mother's. The old woman was nearly ninety and had a serious fall.

'She'll need her daughter's care for some time, I'm afraid,' he told Jeanette.

'So you're without anyone to look after you?' He shrugged.

'I expect Murad can turn his hand to a bit of cleaning; as for the cooking... well, I'm not in very much,' he added with a smile.

She would have liked to offer her help in keeping the house tidy, but she refrained. It seemed altogether too intimate. She would also have liked to suggest his taking his meals with her, when they weren't going out, but she was not at all sure that he intended staying much longer, in Istanbul. For the last two days he had often been deeply preoccupied, and once or twice he had spoken his thoughts aloud, talking about his book, and it was not difficult to see that he was ready - even anxious -to begin working on it again.

Would he go to Buyuk Ada? she wondered with a sudden access of desolation. Under the circumstances it seemed the most sensible thing to do, for then he would have his two Turkish servants to look after him.

They were sitting on the patio, having drinks while waiting for the dinner to be served, and as she looked at his face, trying to read his thoughts, she just had to say:

'Aren't you going to work on your book, Craig? I mean, I've had the impression lately that you're keen on doing so. Also, if you were at the yali you would have someone to look after you.' She was unaware of the tremor in her voice, the hint of dejection in the droop of her shoulders.

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