Godstone by Jonathan Kingsman

Author:Jonathan Kingsman [Kingsman, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

8

Side was indeed full of German tourists as well as carpet shops and stalls selling Turkish delight. The tourists were younger than we had encountered earlier, fewer retirees and more backpackers.

Salim seemed delighted. I was bored. It was 16 October, and I still had three weeks to kill before my scheduled meeting with Gee in Bethlehem. What’s more, I had finished the Thomas Hardy books that Kivanç had given to me as a good-bye present.

Salim disappeared to “explore,” and I decided I should do something positive with my month of enforced hanging around; I didn’t want to just waste a month of my life. Besides, not being able to drink made life so boring and time pass so slowly. I decided I would try to get in shape.

I set out from the hotel in search of a shoe shop. I wanted to buy some proper running shoes so that I could run on the streets as well as on the beach.

I also wanted to find a tourist centre that would tell me how to get to the Roman ruins that I’d heard were just outside of the town. If I couldn’t drink, I could at least try to learn something.

I first went to the tourist office, where I found out where to catch a minibus to the ruins. They also directed me to a shop that sold running shoes. I was trying on a pair when the man from the campsite and the beach—the giant that I thought had been following me—walked in.

He chose a pair of sandals from the rack and asked the salesman in English if he had them in size 50. The salesman said he didn’t think he did but went to look for them in the storeroom at the back anyway. The giant sat next to me.

“Weren’t you at the MoCamp the other night?” I asked. “I think I saw you having breakfast.”

“Yes,” he replied, stretching out a giant hand in greeting. “I’m Ivan—a Russian name. My mother was Russian; well, actually she was from Uzbekistan, a republic within the Soviet Union. She was born near the Afghan border. She is Muslim; so am I. My father is English, an engineer. They met in Uzbekistan.”

That was a lot more information than I had been expecting. I shook Ivan’s hand—or rather he shook my hand—and the salesman came back to say that he didn’t have the sandals in size 50. Ivan didn’t seem surprised.

“I am here to look at the ruins,” he told me. “I am a bit of an amateur archaeologist—accountant by trade in the Isle of Man. Not very interesting, I’m afraid.”

“I’ve never been to the Isle of Man,” I said, largely for the lack of anything else to say. “Is it nice?”

“Fifty thousand alcoholics clinging to a rock in the Irish Sea,” he replied. “It’s where rich northerners go once they have made their brass—their money. Nothing ever happens there; if a sheep dies, it makes the headlines in the local paper. I don’t drink alcohol, and the quietness of the place suits me down to the ground.

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