29 – Castaways
Bang, bang, bang.
Elena flinched. I shot bolt upright, slamming my head into the ceiling. Blimey, I was still half-cut from that send-off with Sinem and Nadia.
“Meaaag, someone at the door.”
“We don't have a door. It's a boat.”
Sounded like an eejit with a chainsaw. Whatever wanted my attention, knocked again.
“I don't care. Make it stop. Need to sleep.” Elena moaned.
A twitchy teenager straddled an idling moped on the dock beside us. “You waiting for satellite dish?”
“Dish?!” Was he taking the mick?
“For to get satellite. You pay to me. I bring.”
“Aye, right!” I kenned with nauseating resignation. The bloody thing was paid for—more than once—customs cleared, and ready for pickup.
We ended up in a staring contest; the gyte, hoping I was stupid, and me, running the odds of him actually pulling off this blag.
“Lady, you pay now!” He finally demanded. “Pay to me. I get dish before uncle, he knows, and I bring to you here. Now. Must hurry.”
“Ah, sod off. It's just up the road. I'll walk over when the sun rises and get it myself.” I tightened my bathrobe. Flashing a minor wasn't high on my list of priorities.
“If you pay to me. I bring, and you and Russian girl leave from here now. Nobody will knowing.” He twisted the moped's throttle for effect. It sputtered and died. How embarrassing for him.
“Nah, this is cracked.” I backed one step down the companionway.
“You should hope not to meet my uncle.” He said between frantic attempts to start his bike. “He will not let you to leave with Russian girl.” He shot me a full-house grin, abandoned the fruitless kick-starting and veritably crooned, “I know you need this satellite. No radio. No phone. No help in ocean.”
“How do you know?” This was beyond it, even for Türkiye.
“I know. Everyone knows.”
“Knows what? That I am an easy mark. And why you? And who in the hell are you anyway? You'll take my money and run.” Then I sneered, “If you can start your wee moped.”
“Uncle is customs man. Better I bring satellite dish and you go. Uncle will not know that you go, it is very much better.”
“Why?”
“Because uncle tells to navy, you go from here with Russian. You will not go far.” The gyte gave his moped one last try. Useless. Too bad, roaring off—more like, farting off—would have been dramatic. He settled for shoving it along by the handlebars, snorting like an enraged emu.
I vaulted down the companionway, replaying things he'd blurted out: Russian girl, customs man, navy, evil forces knowing something I didn't. It didn't make sense, and when things don't make sense in Türkiye, you check for your wallet.
I dug out our passports. “Hoooooleeeee kapoosta!” Elena's visa stickers weren't for one month apiece, but thirty days. “You're illegal!”
Her hand emerged from under the duvet, snatched the passport and retracted. “Oye, visa is done yesterday.”
“No kidding, princess.”
Sheets, duvet, pillows became airborne. “How did not you know this!?”
“Two months! I thought you got two months, not two-times-thirty days.”
“So what? You get the satellite modem, and we leave.”
“The timing, my dear. Vital kit shows up the instant you're an overstay and subject to arrest. Think that's a coincidence?”
“So, we leave.”
“No exit visas! We won't get into any other country.”
“Russians are not let into any countries, anyway.” Aye, that much was true.
Well, somebody certainly knows you're illegal, and that we were waiting for the sat-comm. How was I to know the moped gyte wasn't bluffing?”
“Forget the satellite thing, we go now! The sun's not even up.”
“I'm not super comfy, sailing halfway around the bloody planet with zero communication, navigation, weather.” I jumped into my clothes. “Get Kamal over to weld the satellite antenna on. I don't know how, but I'm going to get the bloody thing, come hell or high water.”
~
Albatross was in his loft, smoking a cigar that smelled like a forgotten haggis in a hot boot. “The way I see it, you should have paid to the man, gotten your equipment, and then been gone from here. You must leave it. Get one in Greece?”
I rehashed the dodgy predicament we appeared to be in: Elena an overstay; her passport flagged. No way we could approach an EU country. And now, cut off from humanity because some shite on a bike wanted to scam me.
With the kind of body language that spoke louder than words, Albatross let me know it was the very last favour I'd ever get from him. He picked up the phone and dialled customs. “The customs agent, he will make a special trip to clear your packages for one-thousand euros.”
“Wow…” was all I could say. But managed, “… this is fucked!” under my breath.
“If that is all it costs you, my friend. You will indeed be lucky.” And then, he threw me out.
~
In front of customs, I leaned on a flagpole. Took a few calls on my mobile: one from a hysterical woman, screaming at me in Turkish, and a couple from Elena. “Meg, Kamal is here on the boat, waiting for you and the satellite parts.”
I checked the time. “I will give the customs agent another half hour; then, I guess we'll do a runner without the kit.”
A Fiat Panda flattened a sandwich board, jumped the kerb, then coughed and died in front of customs. Muttering away, the driver rolled out and staggered toward the building.
He hauled on the institutional, steel and glass door. Locked, of course. Gave it a few more yanks and a feeble kick, then teetered back toward the Fiat.
“You hoo! Over here. Hellooooo?” I called out. It's not just an urban myth. There truly is such a thing as blind drunk.
“You have money?” He asked.
“Uh, yeah. If that's what it takes to get my already paid for, and cleared package.”
“You pay to me for special trip.” He concentrated intensely on getting a key into the lock.
I followed him inside, past a counter and down a corridor to an office he had more trouble unlocking.
“Sit!” He pointed at a metal chair in front of a desk, then placed a bottle and two glasses down between us. “It is my birthday. Today, we drink!” He filled both tumblers to the rim, drained his glass and banged it on the desk. With the back of a swollen index finger, he pushed the other tumbler toward me. “Drink!”
I reached for the glass.
“Thousand euros. You have it?” He tried to sound businesslike.
My bleeding package was right there by the door; adorned with bright orange “Customs Cleared” and “Paid” stickers. “Aye, OK.” I had the Euros stuffed in my back pocket, but with the bloke completely blootered, I took a chance on getting out with some of my hide intact.
“Of course, I have the money.” I drawled while surreptitiously pouring my vodka on the floor. I put my empty glass on the desk by his. “But first, another toast to your birthday.”
Swaying like a cobra, he refilled our tumblers and raised his. “To me!” His head hinged back, and the vodka was down the hatch in a couple of swallows.
I grabbed his empty glass as it arced toward the desk on its return trip. Having it shatter, and open arteries before I got my satellite gear was less than optimal. He was operating on borrowed consciousness. Who was I to stand in the way of his hard-earned, alcoholic slumber? With both of his hands safely at rest on the desk, I switched his empty glass for my full one and proposed another toast. He stared deliberately at the full glass, carefully wrapped his fingers around it and drained it with ease.
Consciousness was deserting his sinking ship—fast. “Mow-neee! I, do o ooon 'av all da'ay.” One of his eyes made a heroic effort to stay focused on me. The other had given up and wandered somewhere up under his right brow.
I opened my wallet and pulled out a colourful note with a big 100 on it. Playing maestro, I waved the bill through the air. His one functional eye valiantly tried to follow. Then, whap! I slapped it down on the desk. You can hypnotize a chicken that way. That time, however, it didn't work.
I quickly pulled out another bill, and another, counting them out and calling them euro-dollars. He had a hard time following those swirling bills but gave it his best shot. It was like his head might roll right off. I'm guessing, all he saw through the delirium of booze were the digits and not the Cyrillic letters because I barely got past ten before he snatched them up, struggled to his feet and staggered from the room. I heard a crash down the corridor; and then, silence.
Shite on a pike! I hadn't intended to kill the poor sod! I grabbed my package and the big wad of keys off his desk. It was high time to get the hell out of Dodge. The Fiat was still parked half on and half off the pavement. Rushing past, I tossed the keys into a pile of rubbish on the back seat. If he hadn't drowned in the crapper, best he sobered up before coming after me and running down an innocent bystander.
~
I fired up the sat-comm and sent my first message. It worked.
It was later in the day than I realized. The air had taken on an unusual, damp chilliness with the onslaught of twilight. Wordlessly, Elena started Boadicea's motor, and I watched to see that everything was cradled in the green—functioning normally.
Kamal was the only one there. It felt like we were the last people on Earth. I like to think that he worried about us. Wanted to be there at the last minute just in case something should break. The three of us stood on the dock, surrounded by his tools. He hugged us with tears in his eyes and whispered something in Turkish. We got on board. He handed the dock lines to Elena and gave Boadicea a shove. I eased the throttle forward. It was eerily calm. Quiet, yet I was terrified. When I dared to look back at the dock, I could just make out Kamal, standing there. Alone.
As the dregs of daylight faded to black, we pointed Boadicea south-east, away from Greek waters. We had never sailed that far from shore; not that we could see it, or the horizon in the pitch dark. The breeze became constant, the waves longer. Bigger. Ponderously rhythmic. We were in open water for the first time in our lives. Boadicea was heeled hard-over, full sail catching the wind. Elena shut down the engine. The sudden quiet wasn't a thrill, it was ominous. I listened to the rush and sloosh of water on the hull. Felt the bow slicing into waves and surging forward to cut through the next. Millions of waves lay ahead. I supposed we would get used to it.
A thick cover of cloud snuffed out the stars. The only source of light was distant Rhodes Island and a zillion glowing microorganisms disturbed by our wake. Soon there was no denying that what we were calling a breeze had strengthened into a blustery wind. Our instruments told us it was twenty knots on the beam—that's perpendicular to the boat. It could have been forty, for how I was feeling, sailing at night and without Sinem. Numb. Afraid to admit, even to myself, that I was absolutely terrified. Lonely. We didn't talk about it. In fact, neither of us said much of anything when a little past midnight, in a developing gale, we slipped quietly into international waters.