The unsavoury meal with Chrissy and Bernard was a momentous milestone in our Turkish escapade. We have resolved to disengage from the emigrey soap opera by rejecting the gang mentality and dumping the monstrous middle England miseries. We will decamp to bustling Bodrum where we hope the ambience will be less corrosive. Co-incidentally (or perhaps not), the ‘Come Dine with Me’ club has also fractured into acrimony, finally collapsing under the weight of its own pretensions.
Chrissy phoned and invited us to meet Mandy, a long-time friend visiting from Blighty. Chrissy does not take no for an answer and with heavy hearts we reluctantly agreed. We met at a village inn for an aperitif. The restaurant is run by Giray the Kurd who has a much deserved reputation as a local Casanova and the regular ride for visiting VOMITs.
Bernard tackled me about our London landlady Karen who had just returned to Blighty. He didn’t think much of her and thought her rude. Pot and kettle sprang immediately to mind. I moved the conversation on to where to eat. Given Chrissy’s long history of food fussiness I asked her to decide. She chose to stay put and we took our table. Right on cue, they were exceptionally rude to the waiters, all tut-tutting and clicking of fingers. As expected, Chrissy hated the food. To be fair our chicken kiev, though delicious, did resemble a deep fried turd. However, this doesn’t excuse their hideous small town Raj demeanour
I went to take a leak as much to take a short break from their irritating fastidiousness as to empty my bladder. As I got back Chrissy was tackling Liam about Karen. She didn’t think much of her and thought her rude. I went up like a rocket. Chrissy spluttered into her chicken. A sharp and nasty exchange ensued with Liam targeting Bernard while I rounded on Chrissy. Liam eventually stormed off and sought sanctuary on the beach. I demanded the bill, paid and left. I hope that’s the last we see of the Vipers in Paradise, an epitaph coined by Karen, ironically.
In honour of Karen’s visit we decided to throw a bit of a do, our very first. We were a tad anxious. We didn’t want to transgress the unwritten social rules that must be obeyed. We sought the advice of catering Guru Chrissy on the food situation. She assured us that nibbles and a cold platter would be acceptable for a cocktail party. Guests will know to eat beforehand.
Our début soiree was well graced. Liam and Karen prepared a delightful spread of cold meats, cheeses, mezes, breads and objects on sticks. Karen mingled amiably with la crème dispensing easy urbane charm. We had our first delicious taste of Charlotte’s mother, Lucia, a seasoned older lady with a twinkle in the eye and a racy past. The more Lucia imbibed, the more her carefully cultivated middle class Donegal brogue degenerated into Bogside. Towards the end of the evening, we showed a DVD of our civil partnership ceremony – a calculated risk but one that went down a storm. Eyes welled, even those of macho Chuck.
Bernard got incredibly pissed very quickly and fell into the car at the end of the evening. He wasn’t fit to drive but managed to arrive home without running down any street dogs or wrapping his flash BCSD car around the trunk of an olive tree. Drink driving by emigreys is depressingly commonplace. Chrissy telephoned the next day and explained why Bernard had got so drunk – he didn’t eat because there wasn’t any hot food. ‘If it had been my party,’ she loftily pronounced, ‘I would have served a lasagne.‘ What a bloody cheek.
Clive and I know one another from our salad days. In those distant times we were two of the three fey musketeers. Our third partner in camp crime was Paul who jumped the good ship Blighty many decades ago to dwell in a Parisian garret and chain-smoke Gitanes. Birds of a feather flock together. We somehow knew we were different and so did everyone else. We were relentlessly teased from the moment we entered the school gates. Nothing physical, you understand. That would be unseemly at a traditional grammar school with 400 years of history. Besides, beatings were reserved for the teachers to discharge. I suppose we hardly helped our cause by being rubbish at rugby and lip-synching to the backing vocals of Mott the Hoople’s Roll Away the Stone in Clive’s front room. Our sex education consisted of lecturing hormonal adolescents on the evils of masturbation. It nearly caused a riot.
Ian is a more recent acquaintance, a mere 15 years so a young friendship. As saucy singletons he and I trawled the dances halls of Europe and had a ball. Nowadays we are both hitched and respectable members of the elder gay community. Ian exists at the epicentre of gay culture by managing a licenced sex shop in Soho. He won’t tell his mother he’s gay. She knows of course. Mothers always do. But then, being nearly 50 with teeth and hair intact and never marrying is a bit of a clue.
Work is a four letter word round here. It reminds me of the bitter daily grind and sends a shudder down my spine. I have to admit, though, that gainful employment did provide a structure to my day and a timetable on autopilot – 6.30am, Heart FM; 7am douche, press, brew, fag, no breakfast; 8am, Tube no seat; 8.55am, Café Nero Americano; 9am PC on. Ready steady go. Now all that is in the past and I can do as I please I sometimes don’t know what day it is. I don’t know where the months have gone since I gave all that up and I often don’t know what I did yesterday. Liam is no better. It’s not a complaint just an observation. Perhaps it’s early onset dementia. Besides it’s easy to imagine I’m Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day when watching the same episode of The Weakest Link on a continuous loop. Tis the fate of all emigreys.
Chrissy invited the ‘Come Dine with Me’ set to a local restaurant in Torba on the occasion of her birthday. The restaurant is run by a slightly fey man called Emir who rides a motorcycle but keeps his helmet hidden in the pannier to avoid getting it dirty. The gang assembled preened, pressed and powdered with breasts out on display despite the nipple-hardening chill.
Recently engaged Emir joined Liam and I at the bar. He suggested that when the weather improved we might like to join him for a skinny dip on Dodo Beach, an isolated spot where we can bathe unmolested. I suspect he had molestation of his own in mind.
The soiree was as cold as the weather. I was asked to judge a handbag competition because, as a gay man, I obviously know all about women’s handbags. I was presented with a ghastly array of (presumably fake), Gucci, D&G, Burberry and the like. I awarded first prize to the ugliest bag, big enough to transport paint from B&Q. The event became increasingly ill tempered. Bernard, a petty, humourless man of many hidden shallows, complained loudly that Chrissy no longer “puts out” as he delicately phrased it, preferring instead to take Jeffrey Archer to bed. We are growing weary of the relentless rivalry and trivial keeping up with the Jones’ village mentality. The crème is starting to curdle.
I’ve long believed that everyone hated us. The British strut the world stage hanging onto the coat tails of our mighty American cousins and I can understand why this gets up the noses of many. Ridicule in Iraq, deadly bombs on the Tube, World Cup humiliation and nil point at Eurovision all point to a depressing impression of widespread antipathy. It’s little consolation that the pushy Yanks are despised more. It’s come as a refreshing surprise to discover than dear old Blighty is the second most popular nation in the World according to a BBC World Service Country Rating Poll. It’s a welcome antidote to the legions of emigrey Brit-bashers and doom and gloom soothsayers on the top of the Clapham omnibus. Alas, we were beaten into second place by the Germans but I suppose we’re getting used to that. Apparently, though, Turks don’t think much of us at all, presumably because they are taught that the English (Britain doesn’t seem to exist in Turkish parlance) were responsible for the final destruction of the Ottoman Empire. That’s what happens when you back the wrong horse.
Peering out of the damp windows provides a timely and salutary reminder of one of the reasons we left Britain. The sea and sky are united in an unbroken dirty greyness disguising the horizon and cloaking the Greek islands in the far distance. We are confined by the persistent drizzle. There are many things I miss about London but the weather isn’t one of them though I was surprised to stumble across Interesting European Weather Facts that suggests that my home town has one of the most benign climates of the major European cities. It must be true. I read it on internet. Whatever the facts I’m glad of our regular city fix that enables us to have the best of both. Despite our warm and forgiving hosts, London is a place where we can genuinely breathe free. I can’t see us becoming diehard Blighty bashers unlike so many of our compatriots.
Everyone has a tale to tell and tell it they do. Many of the stories are depressingly similar – running away from something or someone and seeking renewal. It’s hard to fathom why poor old Blighty is so often blamed for their plight. Do people really think a faraway land offers a sure fire panacea for the demons who lie within? Liam and I have chosen to embrace our new life, not as a rejection of what had gone before, but as validation of our future. We are under no illusion that we can simply deposit our unwanted pasts at left luggage.
A chill night wind conspired to trap us inside most evenings so we amused ourselves with a delicious mix of gossip and the silver screen, liberally lubricated with increasingly less cheap plonk as wine prices seem to rise by the week. We amused Clive with our sorry emigrey tales of the mad, the sad, the bad and the glad. We watched Beautiful Thing and Tea with Mussolini; two of my favourite films. Seriously sentimental Clive just loves a weepy so I kept a box of autumnal shades to hand.
We ventured out to a village morgue bar just the once and really wished we hadn’t. We’d hardly taken our first sip when a despondent, drunken emigrey called Fergus from Falkirk was working his pitch at the bar and looking for a stooge. He collared us to impart his hard luck story. Fergie is a big man with a greasy ginger toupée and a disproportionately hefty lower torso, giving him the look of a bewigged weeble. He had married an attractive tender-aged Thai girl who he had picked out of a catalogue. She was delivered by post and married for security. After a couple of barren years, the Thai bride divorced fat Falkirk Fergie, kept the security and moved south to warmer climes. He now drowns his sorrows in the bottom of a beer glass frittering away the meagre income left to him. A dismal tale of woe too far, we headed for the door, taxied home and chucked on Steel Magnolias to lighten the mood. It was not the best selection. Clive was inconsolable and emptied the autumnal box.
We fancied a singalong fright night in the village and headed down to a local beachfront steakhouse. Popular with the hardy resident emigreys, it’s owned by bubbly, brassy bottle-blond Berni Belfast and her Turkish husband, Deniz, who cooks the best steak on the peninsula. Berni lays on the usual winter fare of fixed price menus, quiz nights and karaoke to coax the emigreys out from under their duvets. I like unpretentious Berni. She is the real deal, calls a spade a shovel and is a bracing breath of fresh air on a brisk night.
Proletarian Berni has a high-octave accent delivered like a sub-machine gun. As my Mother is from that part of the world I can catch the conversation. Alas, poor Liam understands hardly a word and just nods and smiles politely like the Queen at a Commonwealth jamboree.
Berni regaled us with tales of the bar wars. Allegedly, following months of clandestine subterfuge, her former front of house left without warning to launch his own restaurant taking with him their head chef and photocopies of their menus. I sense industrial espionage is rife in the catering trade here but to set up a new establishment dishing up identical fare for the same audience only a few hundred metres along the pretty promenade does seem a touch provocative. The bilious bad blood bubbles just beneath the surface.
Blackpool Bobbi was our camp karaoke compere for the evening’s random entertainment. Unforgettable veteran resident Bobbi fosters a unique, instantly recognisable look. Uncompromisingly clad top to tail in Persil whiteness from his back-combed highlights to his shiny patent leather loafers, he belts out a passable interpretation of ‘My Way’ between the vodka shots. I admire his pluck. Truly, Bobbi is the only gay in the village.
Perking the Pansies 