Oligarch’s tutor or Educating Nikita

For several years I bestrode the world tutoring the children of the rich and infamous. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. It was a life of five star hotels, superyachts and VIP entrances. These billionaires moved me from one country to another at a few hours’ notice. This made it impossible to have a long term relationship. Therefore, seducing nannies and maids became my specialist subject. I did this partially on account of being a roue. But it was not mere libertinism drove me to such courses. I was having to spend long periods of time along with the son of the household who was often in his early teens. Methought it sage to prove to the family that I am incorrigibly heterosexual. I was working in surveillance societies: Azerbaijan, Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan and the UAE. A family would be much more comfortable with me spending a lot of time alone with their son if they knew that their son was totally safe with me. Do not infer from this that I am impliedly accusing gay men of being unsafe with minors. I am merely commenting that such a view is not uncommon in some of the countries I worked in. I had to assume that everything I said and did would be reported to the parents. Therefore even an advance on a lady that was rebuffed would be reported back and serve as evidence of my gallantry and, as they would perceive it, ‘normality.’

How did it all begin? I am Irishman who grew up in the Middle East and I had a bit of an education knocked into me in two of Britain’s most notorious bastions of snobbery: Gordonstoun and Eton. The few years at I passed at Oxford were as elysian and as uneducative as can be bearing in mind that my time there was spent getting hammered, making mostly failed attempts to score and engaging in ill-judged flights of right wing rhetoric. It was the Millennium. The economy was turbocharged, mortgages were easy to come by and salaries were good. It would ever be thus. With Eton and Oxford behind me a golden future was assured me: or so I thought. To continue this life of bookish debauchery I foolishly thought the best option was to teach in British public schools. I was about to have a very painful collision with reality.

Coaching rugger to some malco-ordinated asthmatics, essaying to impart the intricacies of appeasement to Year 10 and staring down the long barrel of involuntary celibacy in rural North Yorkshire palled. I grew weary of being interrupted a hundred times a day ‘’please be quiet.’’ I disliked lying on reports and pretending idlers are good pupils and being excoriated by tyrannical control freaks who call themselves Directors of Studies and school inspectors. I made the astonishing discovery that not every school is Eton. Public schoolboys and schoolgirls in minor public schools are some of the most conceited, boorish and willfully ignorant of the breed. As Graham Greene said they truly are the cream of the country – rich and thick.

For a few years I struggled unavailingly to impart knowledge and virtuosities to the offspring of haute bourgeoisie. The results were indifferent. My decent income afforded me the opportunity to indulge in my hobby of travel. I had conceived and ill-conceived ambition to visit 100 countries by the time I was 30. This involved me visiting anus mundi (Karachi) – don’t! I sometimes asked myself – why do I do this to myself? I was often lonely and dispirited on these tedious trips. I would have been far happier had I got myself a long term bird.

By a set of curious chances I worked in Romania: don’t!

Bucharest is a cheap imitation of Moscow. Some of the buildings are smaller scale models of Moscow buildings. It has totalitarian town planning and architecture. The same held true of other places I worked: Baku and Astana. But as I was in a copy of the USSR; why not see the real thing?

And so it came to pass that I tired of Dacia and penury. The chance came to work in a benzine republic called Azerbaijan.

When I was 7 mother had read me a good on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. I was scintillated. The book limned the leader of the October Revolution as a moral titan: fearless, cerebral, visionary and the emancipator of the downtrodden masses. His mass murders were not even mentioned in passing. But as a child I started to find the Soviet Union enthralling. I had a child’s atlas. It said that the USSR consisted of three countries – Russia, Kazakhstan and Siberia. I know that was oversimplified but it was aimed at little children.

The Soviet Union offered an alternative civilization. It could have all turned out so very differently. When I was little the Cold War was very much on. No one realized it would come to an abrupt end. In the early 1990s the dissolution of the USSR led to several wars.

AZERBAIJAN

I flew into Baku one sweltering September evening. I was greeted by a morbidly obese red bearded Afrikaaner. The elephant – as he was unaffectionately known – had built his career teaching in schools far from his native Orange Free State. He was known by that unflattering soubriquet on account of his elephantine proportions and that he hailed from Africa. He had taken over a British school in Azerbaijan. It was his vengeance for the Boer War!

The British school was perhaps the most mismanaged school this side of hell. But it was well paid. That was the first time working in the former USSR. The school was run by a business manager named Besti – more like beastie. She was a modern version of Rosa Kleb – the female anti-hero from the James Bond film ‘From Russia with love.’ This presumable female was hideous physically and even worse in personality. She was a disgrace to womankind.

Azerbaijan is the hick version of Turkey but with strong Russian influence. The Land of Fire – as it is known – is a secular Muslim country. It is governed or perhaps I should say owned by a dictator: Moustache the Great. It is staggering that this oil rich fiefdom has regular power cuts. It was so redolent of Sacha Baron Cohen’s fictionalized version of a dystopian Muslim former Soviet state that I dubbed it Boratistan.

After a couple of years struggling unavailingly to teach IELTS and the English Civil War to Azerbaijanis I decided it was time to seek pastures new. I have always been a reflector and often wondered of things would have panned out better had I not gone to that land at all or indeed had prolonged my stay by even a few months.

PRIVATE TUTOR

ESKISEHIR, TURKEY

I was in London kicking around. I was tutoring in a desultory fashion. I got some casual work in a Korean hagwon (‘’study institute’’). This one was so undistinguished that it has since gone bust. Trying to make a go of it with Korean pupils. They are the best I have ever had. I hate to be nationally prejudiced. Ductile, cerebral and industrious – they are ideal. I was fortunate that none of them resorted to Cho Sun Hwee behaviour.

On Gumtree my little eye espied an advert for a short term job in Turkey. It was posted by a Mrs. Yuksel. ‘Yuksel’ does that name mean anything to me? I only ever knew one person with that name. It was a diminutive Turk I knew at university.

I was interviewed by Mrs. Yuksel in an up market café in Knightsbridge. She was a very Westernised Turkish lady d’une certaine age who was elegantly dressed, perfectly coiffed and spoke English with only a vestigial accent. The brief was to go to Turkey for a few weeks to tutor mainly a 14 year old boy. The aim was to prepare him for school entrance exams in the United Kingdom. I was game for a laugh.

Have bag; will travel. The job was mine.

A few days later I befound myself boarding Turkish Airways to its theme tune ‘we are Turkish Airlines we are globally yours’ – it was an annoyingly catchy jingle. I was confronted by the potato face of Wayne Rooney gooning out of the screen at me. Turkish Airlines had a sponsorship deal with Manchester United in those distant days.

I was picked up in Istanbul Ataturk Airport by a middle aged chubby Turkish driver who spake not the British tongue. My time in Azerbaijan had gifted me with a few stock phrases in Azerbaijani. I offered him pleasantries in that tongue. He simpered. Azerbaijani is the country bumpkin edition of Turkish.

We walked to the car park. It was divided into zones known my colours – green, red, blue and so forth. It struck me then that I did not even know all the colours in Azerbaijani or Turkish.

I was going to a city called Eskisehir. I considered myself well up on Turkey’s geography. But until that point I had never heard of Eskisehir. It means old city. My experiences of Turkey up to that point had been of the spumaceous littoral. I had only once ventured into the craggy hinterland.

I lodged in Sarar Hotel – named after the nearby textile factory. The hotel was plain but unobjectionable. Only the manager spoke English.

The next day was a chilly March morn. I grazed on the sumptuous Turkish buffet breakfast. All that soft white cheese was not good for my alarmingly bulging waistline.

I was brought to the family’s house a mile away. It was a large beige house with perhaps 4 bedrooms, an outdoor pool and a more than decent sized garden. These people were rich but not Crassus.

I was greeted at the door by an olive skinned maid who was perhaps at the equator of his first century. Her once raven locks were streaked with silver. She was no fawning or obsequious sort. She greeted me in German – her only foreign language. That was how I communicated with her from then on.

‘’Good morning welcome’’ croaked out a 40 something woman.  ‘’My name is Elnura’ she shook my hand. She was the mother dressed all in camel colours. She had dyed dark auburn hair and was heavily made up. She was a handsome female but her looks were marred by decades of smoking. Her voice was as rough as a badger’s arse.

‘’This is my husband Necer’’ she said.

‘’Gunaydin’’ I greeted him as we shook hands. He was the same age as his wife and stood over 6 foot. He was lean and fit: a decidedly good looking man with a hawkish nose and manner. The father’s very dense hair was black and he wore it en brosse. He did not speak any English so our conversation was limited.

‘’This is my son Aslan’’ said Elnur She introduced me a 14 boy so chubby he could have passed for 18. His skin was pale but somehow infused with pinkness that comes from being obese. His black hair was loosely curly and bouffant. He was energetic yet bashful in his greeting.

‘’Now meet Alia’’ said Elnura. I met a 10 year old girl. She was darker than her brother and bizarrely wore a shawl. She was a good looking child apart from her teeth being too big for her mouth and she was somewhat undershod. Her black ringlets hung down to her elbows.

My mother’s English was so good that she expatiated on the intricacies of the first conditional and the second conditional. I can never remember which is which and I am supposed to teach this stuff for a living.

The family was not even vestigially Muslim. There was no Koran, no sign with Arabic calligraphy and no attempt to keep to halal dietary rules. The dad broke out the raki (Turkish vodka) every night.

The house was very modern, well appointed and tastefully furnished. The floors were all white marble. There were a few different seating areas in the drawing room depending on whether one preferred to sit soft or hard.

Then it was up to the son’s bedroom. It was wooden paneled and not large. We dove into the books.

Incredibly, such a fat boy was an international athlete? Which sport? Showjumping. That must have been a strong steed to carry him. I discovered that his poor mount was a gelding. The boy has Olympic aspirations.

Aslan went to a private school close by. He had been taken out of school for some time to bone up for these exams. He had had plenty of English at school but his English was surprisingly bad considering.

I took luncheon and vesperal repast with the family. The healthy food almost killed me. It was vegetables, fish, a spot of white meat, beans and suchlike. They seldom even had bread – it was always brown when they partook of it. There was no ice cream, no cake and no pudding of any sort. I could not for the life of me work out how the boy got so hefty on so meagre a diet.

The maid took pity on me. Perhaps she considered me underdressed. She gave me some of her husband’s clothes. You know you are badly dressed when a Turkish servant donates clothes to you! The shirts fitted me but the trousers did not on account of my bulging waistline. My time in Azerbaijan had not been conductive to slimness. They pack their comestibles with salt and sugar. I had a confection for uc inek (three cow) cheese which did me a power of harm. It had caused my waistline to bulge alarmingly. Nonetheless I appreciated the kindly female’s gifts. I still have some of the shirts and that lambswool jumper.

I did interview practice with Aslan. He mostly got the gist of the questions – mostly. He needed to be coached extensively. Giving monosyllabic answers is not the done thing. Apropos of some question he said, ‘’I am a socialist’’. Methinks me meant secularist.

The family supported the People’s Republican Party. That was the main opposition party. It was the party of the founder of the Republic of Turkey. The family said that the Justice and Development Party was trying to turn Turkey into Saudi Arabia.

The mum was a science teacher. She sometimes drove me home in her land rover. I did used to fear sometimes being alone with her that people might think I had made a move on her.

I had some time off and went to wander around the town. Eskisehir is very historic as its name suggests. There is a narrow, rocky, river gushing through it but the embankment makes it more like a canal. There was hardly any green space. It made me think how verdure revitalized a city.

The city is in the middle of steep stony mountains. The land around is rather brown and almost barren. There are very few short, stumpy dusty trees. The lack of foliage is somewhat dispiriting. It is not a remarkable or beautiful city.

Atop the distant mountains I saw some copses and spinneys. Did the legendary Turkish wolves lurk in these darkling woodlands?

There were a few fine mosques graved with pretty minarets and there were Arabic incantations engraven on the many marble walls in the Latin script. I saw this likewise on buses ‘’Allah Korusun’’ meaning ‘’God protect.’’ I am a cloud dweller and given overmuch to introspection and a rich inward life of fantasy. I often catch myself in loud and animated conversations with historical figures as I amble along the street. Sometimes this befell me as I strolled by a mosque. Occasionally I heard the Arabic incantations emanating from the masjid and these curious cadences mingled with my far-off reveries.

Very few local people had any English. It is well off the beaten track for tourists. It was considered Central Anatolia. I found myself conserving with Johnny Turk in German. Because of the gastarbeiter scheme 40 years earlier some people had worked in Germany for a while. Even those who had not sojourned in Germany had often learnt German in school for a few years.

Much of the city is modern, bland and functional. There are tower blocks and dull shopping centres. There were plenty posters of the AK Party – that was the party of the President – Erdogan.

The streets were not terribly clean. The odd paving stone was chipped. The place could do with a few repairs. Skips on the filthy streets were overflowing with rotten refuse. Charming!

I saw a monument to the Cyprus Air Martyr. I looked him up. He was a local man who became and air force pilot and was shot down when on a bombing mission over Cyprus in the 1960s.

While I was there the Catholic Church elected a new Supreme Pontiff. It inspired me to look up footage from that magnificent documentary – Pastor Angelicus ‘’Angelic Shepherd’’. This 1940s programme is a look at the pontificate of Pius XII and featured His Holiness being carried by the Gentlemen of the Vatican on his Sedia Gestatoria to the heavenly strains of the Allelluia Chorus by Handel. Handel was a Proddy but never mind – the church was feeling ecumenical that day or does the devil have all the best tunes? It was a most visually arresting sequence. I played it to Aslan to teach him a bit about Christianity.

While I was in Eskisehir I had my at the time Azeri girlfriend visit me. The mermaid flew to Istanbul and took a 5 hour bus journey to see me. I do feel a bit guilty as I was not committed to her. I performed my pedagogical duties as usual 7 days a week and performed duties to her too.

I was even to tutor Aslan in German. That is despite speaking it little better than a character on Allo Allo. Fortunately he is the only person in the world whose German is even worse than mine.

I did some lessons with Alia. The child had grown more self-assured. She quietly said to me ‘’pig’’. She lowered her head a little forward as she maintained eye contact and called it again ‘’pig’’. She kept her lower lip down after uttering the word – as if in defiance. She breathed it softly and several times. I did not care. I have been called far worse. Even in pukka public schools 13 year olds have told me to go forth and multiply. It was amusing and almost welcome after the horrors I have been through.

The children’s aunt came to stay. I shall call the aunt Turana.  She was a few years younger than the mum but looked 20 years younger. She was married and childfree. Turana’s midbrown locks almost brushed her shoulders and had blonde notes.  She was tallish, very glam and had had every skin treatment known to humanity. Her makeup was flawlessly done – I began to understand why bronzer is put just below the cheekbones. The optical illusion of shadow makes the person appear slimmer. That is also why models pout – draws the face downwards and make the person seem even thinner than she really is. But if I had nothing to eat I would pout too – moody bitches. Who can find sulkiness sexy?

Auntie was an academic in nearby Ankara. I considered visiting one day but did not.

I told auntie that Alia called me pig. Unsurprisingly she did not believe me. She asked her niece in loud astonishment – do you really call him pig? The child freely confessed and was reprimanded.

Elnura’s parents came to stay. At first blush I mistook the grandmother for Elnura. The grandmother did not look that much older than her. That was because grandmother did not smoke. But for being doddery she could have been the same age. The grandparents were quiet, comfy, chubby and as amicable as one can be without speaking the same language.

We watched telly together as a family. We watched the Indian film called Three idiots. We also watched Turkey play Hungary at footer.

After a few weeks we went to Istanbul. We were going for a showjumping weekend.

Aslan went with his horse. He did not ride all the way – but in the car driven by the groom with the horse trailer behind.

I went with the father in his sports car. It was a 5 hour drive through some stunning lunar landscape. The beige countryside was exceptionally arid, craggy and dramatic. As we neared Istanbul we started to see pine forests. The roads were in exceptionally good nick. Erdogan may be a tinpot wannabe tyrant but he did built spanking new infrastructure.

At last we crossed over the Bosphorous Bridge and drove on towards a huge riding complex on the European side of Istanbul. Soon we were there. There were scores of stables. Not having had much to do with horses for years I had forgotten just how big they are. Aslan’s unfortunate horse was in a stable there.

The place was luxurious and teeming with well-heeled Turks. The manager of the stables was Irish. But I did not get to meet my countryman.

That night went out for dinner. It was a splendid seafood restaurant overlooking the Bosphorous.

A secretary from the father’s was there. Let me call her Yalda. She was a remarkably nubile lady in her early 20s. She was blessed with glossy raven locks, a healthy alabaster complexion and perfectly proportioned features. Her quiet voice tinkled in flawless English. There was also a young Turkish executive from the company named Ibrahim. He was average height and build: he had light brown hair. He spoke in fluent English of getting Spanish citizenship and moving to Israel. Ibrahim explained his ancestors had come from Spain centuries ago. Then he explained he was Jewish. He is the only Turkish Jew I ever met. At that stage relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv were uncordial. He was opting to get out of Dodge while the going was good.

I chatted to Yalda and Ibrahim a lot. They both spoke excellent English whereas the dad spoke almost none. My Turkish was very poor and I could not keep up with the conversation.

I began to suspect that there was something going on between the father of the family and Yalda. Yalda sat beside him. Ibrahim on the other side of the dad. Yalda and the dad were a little close together. I noticed that each of them had a hand under the table. Were they holding hands under the table?

On the second night the father brought me and Yalda to a hotel room in Istanbul. It was spacious and most commodious. This was the room that the father was sharing with his son. I would be lodged in a separate room. Or so I thought. No, the father told me. I would share this room with the boy. My blood ran cold. That is a hanging offence in the United Kingdom. But that was the decision. Would the father be staying in another room in the hotel? Er, no, somewhere else. He did not say where.

I assumed that he went to spend the night in the arms of his secretary. Curiously, I did not ask him. The boy did not seem to be remotely surprised that his father was not spending the night in the same hotel as us. He clearly knew Yalda. Did he have any inkling of what was going on? Did he care?

In fact sharing a room with my pupil was not a problem. I would really have preferred not to have done so but there was no cause for complaint for either of us. A generation ago no one would have looked askance at this.

The next day the father came back. He was rather tired. It had been a very exhausting night. No doubt his secretary had been taking his ‘dictation’ all night long. We drove out to the stables. There was a lot of sitting around and socializing.

Aslan competed with no great success. I watched him in his white jodhpurs and black jacket ride his steed around and take the jumps. He was passable.

There was even a manege for the horsemen to practice when rain pelteth. I spent some time there watching horsemen and a very horsewomen put their mounts through their paces on the sandy floor.

The father of the family also competed. He was a very capable horseman and had a few clear rounds. But he too fell off at one point. I found it prudent not to remind him of it.

That night Aslan was dropped off at the hotel. I was brought to a nightclub with the father and Yalda was there. I was jaded and chose to get a taxi back to the hotel.  The dad and his paramour partied on till dawn.

The next day we went to a smart shopping centre on the edge of Istanbul. It had valet parking. There I met Mrs. Yuksel – the woman who had got me the job. She was lightly made up and sporting a backless white dress.

There was a possibility of a job tutoring Murad. Murad was the eldest son of an extraordinarily wealthy business family. They were so influential that Mrs. Yuksel said if she could not send them a fantastic tutor it would be best not to send anyone at all. She had insisted that I purchase more formal clothes for this interview.

Mrs. Yuksel was a high achiever and also vain. It is not just that she took pride in her appearance. She made sure I knew that her son was born in Istanbul in the American Hospital. I presume because that is expensive she underscored which hospital it was. She was justifiably pleased with her son who took a double first from Oxford and had a flourishing career at the bar.

In a restaurant I met Murad and one of the executives from the family’s corporation. I shall call it Insaat. The executive was a very tidy and slim middle aged man named Rauf. His short, neat grey hair was flawlessly sculpted and his dark blue suit was immaculate and surprisingly understated. Turks tend to be too loud in their sartorial tastes. Rauf had perfected his English in Amsterdam. He was a very sophisticated gentleman.

Murad was 18 but even with a beard he looked 14. I am pogonophobic but as the beard lent him years perhaps it was a wise move to cultivate one. He was short, slight and his bright blue eyes blinked bashfully. There was some very considerable vacuity and gormlessness about him. But he wore all labels. His shoes were those disgustingly unnaturally shiny leather ones so beloved of Turks and pimps. His clothes were all a bit too loud and appeared to have been bought that morning. His hair was just so. The boy spent far too much time in front of his mirror. Not that he was much to look at. He was not ugly but he was no lothario. I suppose he certainly made the most of what he had. There was a sulky set to the thin lips of his overly large mouth.

‘’So, George – Murad would like to improve his English’’, said Rauf.

‘’Yes, I see’’ I nodded eagerly.

‘’Murad is studying business at university. He finished Fatih College last year – the best high school in Turkey’’ Rauf added.

‘’Congratulations. And how do you like university?’’, I inquired of Murad.

‘’Is…’’ he thought for a long while as you searching deeply for le mot just, ‘’good.’’

‘’Well I am glad you are enjoying it’’, I effervesced.

Murad then asked Rauf for the translation. Rauf told him in Turkish what I had just said.

‘’Friends first’’ said Raud, ‘’Murad said you two will become friends first and then think about lessons after that.’’

I got the distinct impression that Murad was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But he clearly got a positive impression of me. Within minutes Rauf and Omur were discussing the particulars of the contract and when I would start.

Later that day I began the long journey back to Eskisehir. The father was at the wheel and Ata was in the back. The groom had the horse in a trailer and drove a different car. I wondered why we never towed the trailer.

En route home we stopped off in Izmit. This is a small city on the Asian shore of the Sea of Marmara – so not far from Istanbul. We parked at a middle class apartment block. The plain edifice gleamed white in the moonlight. It was a warm evening as we sauntered up a few flights of stairs.

The boy explained to me we were dropping in on his grandmother.

The chubby faced old woman with a hijab on greeted us warmly. She was elated to see her son and grandson. I got the notion that she did not see them very often.

The flat was a decent two bedroom affair – sparsely furnished and with an all-white interior. It was unremarkable but there was a Koran high on a lectern and some of the Islamic calligraphy framed on the walls. These were indicative of Islamic piety – something that was conspicuously lacking in Necer’s house. There was even a photo of the grandmother on a camel. Aslan explained it was when she had been on the Haj – pilgrimage to Mecca. Her husband had been called to Janat some years afore.

We ate dinner a typical Turkish dinner. The 70 year old Grandmother finally felt sure that I was not going to molest her so she removed her headscarf. Somehow I managed to control my lust.

After a polite hour it was time to be on our way. It had been an insight to Necer’s childhood. He had grown up in a middle class family that was religiously observant. He had become a multimillionaire and embraced Occidentalism.

We drove long into the night. I fell asleep before we reached Eskisehir.

After a few days my job was over. I was paid in cash. I mean literally in readies.

We traveled to the United Kingdom.

We flew from Eskisehir to Brussels. From there we caught the Eurostar to London. I bade farewell to them at Euston and made my way to my lodgings in London.

I crashed out there – dead tired. I roused that evening to fly to Romania. Four countries in one day! Turkey, Belgium, the UK and Romania.

ISTANBUL

A few days later I jetted into Istanbul again. That evening I was met by a besuited middle aged Turkish driver. The chubby clean shaven man was well below average height. He drove me to my hotel in Yesilkoy (meaning ‘’green village’) which was very close to Ataturk Airport and also within view of the Sea of Marmara. I checked in.

The hotel was a boutique hotel with slightly old world décor cluttering the reception area. It was limpid and distinctly Turkish. The place was not that busy and the dozen coffee tables in the reception area were almost always empty as I was to discover over the next few weeks.

The receptionist was a very cheery little man in his 30s. I shall called him Rahat (‘Joy’) because he was so happy. He spoke near perfect English and was born in Bulgaria which once had a large Turkish minority. The driver said something to Rahat to translate for me. I was instructed to come back down to reception as soon as I had put my luggage in my room.

Back in reception I was to wait for my pupil: Murad. He would take me for dinner. I said to the driver via Rahat that surely he was free to go. He politely insisted on staying.

In a few minutes my baby faced 18 year old showed up. He was all shy smiles. He had a surprisingly deep voice for a youth who was about 5’7’’ and weedy. Despite his bass tone he was soft spoken. It was as though he was more nervous than I was. He was the boss. But then he was only months out of school and regarded me as his teacher. He dismissed the driver who bowed deeply and uttered something in an unmistakably obsequious tone before heading for his car. As Turkish lexi was largely incomprehensible to me, my ear became more keenly attune to its tonal implicatures.

We walked out of the hotel. I am car blind. I can hardly tell one from another. I often remember nothing about cars – not even the colour. Despite not knowing much about automobiles even I recognise a Lamborghini. But it helps that I can read the word Lamborghini.

We got into his gleaming sports car and sped off. Before long I was gripping the door handle. Every car journey was a white knuckled ride. Despite Murad’s unprepossessing exterior, once behind the wheel he was transformed into a demon. The cardboard sign with some Arabic calligraphy dangling from the rearview mirror was presumably a Koranic benediction. Could it really keep us safe from harm? I was to begin to wonder. Murad’s driving was so fast, so erratic and so suicidal that it was a miracle that he did not turn us into a shooting fireball. Was he trying to launch his way to his 77 virgins of whatever it is a pious Muslim is rewarded with in zhanat? His driving was so bad that it was good. It was not that he was without virtuosity. Far from it – he was exceptionally skilled. The trouble was that he knew it and tested his skills to the limit and sometimes I feared: beyond. He would regularly break the speed limit and execute sharp turns. We came within millimetres of crashing more times than I care to remember. He drove well – like a multimillionaire schoolboy with a sports car. Did he have a death wish? Or did he think he was immortal? I did not want to find out. How on earth did he get away with driving so recklessly and not have his licence revoked? He was the son of one of the richest men in Turkey. Given the total corruptibility of the police and the judiciary he could have gotten away with murder – for the right price. I mean that in an absolutely literal sense. His driving was so reckless that if he had killed someone it really would have been murder.

We dined in a nearby pukka restaurant. The restaurant was decorated in a tasteful Turkish style with multi-coloured cushions, dark brown wooden tables, tapestries on every wall and paintings of scenes of Turkish yore. Old women in hijabs kneaded dough in front of a clay oven. It was tasty tucker they served too. Conversation was sparse since Murad’s English was developmental. He seemed genuinely glad that I was there. I was going to tutor this untutored youth. How hard a task would it be to be the pasha’s preceptor?

One of the downsides of the hotel was that there was no gym and the hotel was out of order. It was a very pleasant and efficient hotel but this surely an embarrassment.

We then began my two month contract. I would rise and go for my matinal repast. It was a Lucullan feast in the hotel. It was typical Turkish buffet with several sorts of bread, white cheese, yellow cheese, and of course yoghurt – the Turks invented yoghurt after all. There were very low grade mechanically recovered cold meats but not pork. Eggs of different styles were available.

After this hearty fair I was in the lobby in my suit and tie. Murad would show up some time after nine in his car. He would drive me to the office.

There was an office at a construction site on the far side of the city – well to the east of the Bosphorous. It took over an hour to drive in light traffic.

Istanbul is a gigantic city of 14 million people. It is the largest city in Europe if you consider it to be in Europe at all. Though it is by far the largest city in the Turkish Republic it has not been the capital of the country since 1920. In 1920 the Turks fought what they call the War of National Salvation against the Greeks. The Greeks tried strenuously to take back the eastern shore of the Aegean Sea. After all this had been Greek territory for millennia up to the mid 15^th century. In the early 1920s there was still a considerable Greek minority living there. To forfend the capital falling to the Greeks it was decided to shift the capital to Ankara. There is has remained ever since. In fact, the Greeks never even came close to Istanbul and lost the war.

The ancient and storied City of Istanbul is bisected by the Bosphorous which is a stretch of the sea that connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmaris. From there ships sail to the Mediterranean and all around the world. The Bosphorous is an arterial route for all Black Sea countries including Russia. Traditionally to the west of the Bosphorous is Europe and to the east is considered the start of Asia. But for decades Turkey has tried to redefine the whole country as being part of Europe. Much of Istanbul is a forest of minarets, a labyrinth of alleyways and numberless faceless flats.

The office was only two storeys high and the ground area was not large. Only around 20 people worked there. It was ultra-modern and very expensively furnished. Beside it was an enormous hole in the ground. Diggers and truck were busy there night and day. This was the foundation for a gigantic tower. The colossus was to be a luxurious block of flats. They had gifted one to Jennier Lopez – then at the height of her fame. They eagerly showed me a video of her there – all dolled up and dripping in diamonds. A fake smile was just about perceptible through several inches of makeup. A banner read ‘’J Lo welcome to your new home.’’ I doubt she would ever go near it. She was paid a fat sum to accept the keys. Beside her was her toyboy – a very athletic geled hair young spiv complete with retard earrings.

The journey to work was always a near death experience. Murad purported to believe that driving in real life was like a video game. If you got killed you just lost 5 points and started again. Er… no. Best case scenario we would lose few limbs. Last time I face book stalked him he is very much alive and in possession of all his limbs.

I would be so shaken and jittery by my drive to work each morning that I would politely parry an offer of coffee. The drive had nearly given me a cardiac arrest. The last thing I needed was to speed up my heart with some incredibly potent and bitter Turkish coffee. But the one advantage of this hair raising journey each morning was that I arrived at work each day in a fantastic mood for the sheer joy of still being alive.

Upstairs in the office on the first day I was introduced to Yilmaz. He was a tallish and tubby middle aged Turk with a grizzled greying beard, bealry eyes, a receding grey hairline and a deeply laidback manner. He told me ‘’Murad is the boss.’’

It was blatant to me that Yilmaz was the one actually running the show. But the dimwit Murad was ‘’the boss.’’ They had to fool the fool into thinking that he was in charge. It was not difficult to dupe an empty headed boy of such egregious shallowness and flagrant vanity. Murad was officially in charge simply because his dad owned the company. Seldom has the hereditary principle been so risible.

A little bird later told me that the father had made Yilmaz the manager of this project precisely because he had a good rapport with Murad. In fairness I never sensed the slightest tension between them.

Murad would only rock up to work about 12 noon. He would clock off around 4 o’clock. But he was ‘’in charge.’’

I sat around the office as they got on with tasks. Turkish tea was served in biconcave cups. They poured tonnes of sugar into theirs. I cannot for the life of me understand how that boy managed to be slender when he consumed so much sugar.

How about learning some English? That is what I was there for. It was my task to get him through his first year exam at university. I deduced from his very poor grasp of the language, complete dearth of work ethic and his general imbecility that this would be no easy mission.

‘’How about ten sentences of English a day?’’ I bravely ventured.

‘’No, five’’ said Murad tersely.

I humbly accepted. This heavy burden was later to be reduced to five phrases. Then it was cut to five words. Do not push yourself! You will burn out. He was not imbued with an insatiable yearn to learn.

I was most of the time in a smallish office upstairs with Yilmaz and Murad. It was not that small considering only three people were in it. They liked to express luxury in size. The place was unnecessarily spacious when one bears in mind how few people it accommodated.

Downstairs was a large open plan office filled with perhaps two dozen desks. I never saw even half of them occupied. I came to know some of the other office staff.

Boran was one of the most likeable people I ever met in Turkey. He was a spare man in his late 30s and stood perhaps 5’11. He had dense dark brown hair – perfectly brushed but somehow this did not strike me as indicative of the perfectionism and self-adoration that I always find so nauseating. He came over as genuine, warm, clever, calm and self-aware. He spoke flawless English in a quiet and dulcet voice. He wore thick rimmed glasses, his clean shaven face was decidedly pallid. Curiously enough his name means ‘’snow.’’ His dark suits and block colour shirts were always immaculately dressed and his silken ties gleamed. Boran certainly projected a very positive image for the company.

Dilara was a leggy Turkish lady of only 27. She was svelte and fine featured. Her gleaming youthful skin had not a hint of a line on it. It was a face that spoke of endless insouciance. When I shook hands with her even a second’s contact proved the intense creaminess of her well curated flesh. Dilara’s complexion was a sallow Mediterranean glow. She had well-cared for jet black locks that hung down to her elbows. She always wore well-cut dresses that reached down to her knees and accompanied them with dangerously tall high heels. She spoke superb English with just enough of a Turkish accent to add exoticism to her allure. Dilara – she seemed to be more of a temptress than Delilah! It dashed my hopes when a few minutes into the conversation she dropped a bomb: she had married a few months earlier.

There was another Turkish woman almost a generation older than Dilara. She was like a down market version of Dilara. This older female smoked and it had lined her skin and roughened her voice.

I never saw a single woman in the office who wore a hijab. Murad’s family was fairly religious but everyone else there was a typical Istanbulu: secular and Western-oriented.

Sometimes Murad would go outside the office for a fag. I would accompany my pupil. I said that I had only smoked five cigarettes in my life.

‘’Six’’, he proffered a cigarette in his only ever attempt at mirth.

I thought it meet to meekly accept the cancer stick and smoke it in deference to my overlord.

I was allowed out on some pretext to get something in a corner shop across the road. Methinks ‘twas a sim card. In the car park I made the mortal mistake of introducing myself to the security guard. Turkey likes to have tonnes of them! I thought it mannerly and also perhaps needful. He might not let me back in if he did not know who I was as I had no means of identification on myself. Every other time I entered the office compound it was in the boss’ horseless carriage.

Some days later I was with Murad in the car. As we drove into the car park I raised my hand in acknowledgement of the security guard.

‘’George you don’t do this!’’, Murad loudly chided me with a choleric expression on his babyface. He was heaven born. Those who worked for a living were subhuman. But even he went on to tell me that it was permissible to chat with Boran. Even Murad rated Boran!

The building that the office was in was set well back from the road. On the far side of the busy road there were several residential tower blocks. In the far distance greenish hills tapered away at the outskirts of the metropolis.

The morning routine soon changed. Murad decided he would go to his gym first.

He would pick me up and drive me to the gym. He would go for an hour session with his personal trainer. I would then get out my books and laptop and study. I had some major exams coming up.

As he was doing exercise so would I. In a waiting area around the corner and out of the line of view from anyone I would do some neck rolls and stretches. I could not do proper exercise. I was in a suit and tie.

In the gym I met a stocky and lightly brown bearded Argentine personal trainer. Jesus was a very amiable man in his mid-20s. His family had shifted to Spain to escape the perennial fall of the Argentine Peso. Thence he had moved to Istanbul. I exchanged a few words in my very broken Castilian with him. We then switched to English. I asked Jesus how he felt about the election of an Argentine to the Throne of St Peter.

‘’We are so proud’’, he said with papal glory flushing his youthful face.

I would dine with Murad. He did not partake of much. He was not a big boy and he zealously guarded his waistline. He castigated me for eating too quickly. I was often ravenous.

One of the few things that Murad gave away about himself was that he went to the barber every fortnight. He had short hair! So we went to have a quarter of an inch trimmed off. What a waste of time and money and what revolting personal vanity induced this outrageous overindulgence. I made it a point of honour not to have my follicles cut more than twice a twelvemonth.

Some evenings we went to meet his friends. We went to a café in a shopping centre in Yesilkoy. It was a very ritzy place overlooking the sea. Because it was near the airport planes would fly by all the time.

They conversed animatedly in Turkish and I could only pick up the odd word. His friends were all very affluent Turkish boys in their late teens or early 20s.  They all spoke better English than he did. Sometimes they chatted me with. Murad always ignored me. I did not mind overmuch. He had nothing worthwhile to say.

One day we went to a restaurant and bumped into an African football player from Fenerbahce Football Club.  Murad and the footballer recognized each other instantly. They were obviously well acquainted. It was one of the few times I saw the Turk looking like he was in clover. The footballer was 6’3’’ strikingly handsome, well-built and possessed of a winsome smile. Murad spoke to him in a blancmange of Turkish and English. The sportsman responded and it was very obvious that he spoke precious little of either language. His francophone accent came through very decidedly in English. I then addressed him in my fairly fluent French. He responded in French and was plainly over the moon to meet someone who could speak his language.

In these café bars we would sit with Murad’s rich kid friends. They would talk about automobiles and football. In terms of their fast paced Turkish conversation – I was scarcely able to pick up fag ends.

I was bored and would look out for the planes bursting through the murk. On the skyline the lights would appear and as the plane got closer I was able to make out the livery of the airline. I would play a guessing game in a vain attempt to maintain my sanity. Would the next one be Onur Air or Pegasus or Turkish Airlines or what?

Sometimes Murad went shopping for more clothes to add to his collection of very pricey and tastelessly flashy raiment. I would stand there as he went around the shop and made inquiries of the shop assistants and he picked out a few garments. I have always found shopping to be egregiously boring. When I was not even the person being shopped for the tedium was torturous. I would like this way and that – shift a little and try to figure out what the Turkish words on the signs denoted. I noticed that the shops were always exceptionally fragrant and this olfactory relief was warmly welcome after the smog of such a gigantic city that was relatively bereft of verdure.

Murad was fed up that I was not brain dead like him. He disliked me moving around and commanded me to sit on a sofa. I did as I was bidden.

I felt sorry for some of the street children I saw. I also saw a poor man selling nuts as he stood in between two lanes on the motorway. It was near the Bosphorous Bridge and the traffic was very slow because it was rush hour. But it was still a dangerous and degrading way for him to earn his keep.

The traffic flowed mostly west to east in the forenoon and east to west towards eventide. They changed the direction of one of the lanes accordingly.

Occasionally we travelled in a chauffeur driven car. There were Turkish newspapers in the back. Murad never even glanced at them. I would open them and do my best to make head and tail of them. My Turkish was elementary level. The boy had no desire to learn about anything. I deduced that teaching him would not be a walkover.

Once Murad sent a driver over to bring me to his house. The Turkish driver as a short and slightly podgy middle aged brown skinned man. It transpired that we both spoke German. He had spent some years there. We had a very cheerful confab.

The house he dropped me off at was on a narrow street lined with large houses of several storeys each. The houses were bright colours and were surrounded by gates and sharp fences. It was patently a district where the super wealthy resided.

At a side gate I was greeted by a 6’3’’ security guard. He wore a suit and tie but he was so strong I could see his muscles bulging under his clothes. He had short, tidy gray hair and a healthy tan. He spoke very good English and instantly produced an impression of intelligence and affability. It seemed a terrible injustice that such a gifted person was in a lowly and poorly remunerated position when a complete waste of space like Murad was in an exalted due to the lottery of birth.

A few times Murad would pick me up at the hotel on Harman Sokak and drive me to his girlfriend’s house. Cansu lived in a smart low rise block of flats 5 minutes from my hotel. She would come out and sit in the back whilst I sat in the passenger seat. I was surprised by this arrangement but did not dissent.

The young lady with whom Murad stepped out was lissome, average height, perfectly formed and blessed with the sort of fresh complexion that cannot be faked. Her black hair was splendidly shiny and reached almost to her elbows. She always wore a dress that was feminine yet demure. She never wore footgear other than heels and always carried a bright coloured clutch. I never saw her carry the same one twice. She exchanged but a few words of English with me. I noticed she hardly said anything to him in Turkish either. Cansu seemed pleasant, diffident and faintly vacuous. She was the sort of mindless eye candy that this boy found unthreatening.

Cansu was plainly from a wealthy family. But they were not as scandalously rich as Murad’s family. His family was among the top ten in Turkey. Property prices in Istanbul are almost as bad as London. Working class families live in one room.

Cansu’s name means ‘’life water’’. I bethought me in Irish that is ‘’uisqu baha’’. This has been bastardised into English as ‘’whiskey’’. I thought it prudent not to share this reflection with Murad!

Turkic names so often reolve around sources of light. They bear significations such as light, moon sun, sun moon, sunlight, moonlight, light of the sun, light of the moon, river moon, moon river, sun river, river sun, new light, bright faith, star and so forth.

Luncheon with Murad and Cansu was a chore. There was sparse conversation between those two and none with me. They never touched in my presence – not so much as touching hands. Whether Cansu’s maidenhood remained inviolate I cannot say.

It later transpired that Cansu was 21. Considering that Murad was 18 this was a considerable age gap. I recall at 22 when I had a gf aged 26 thinking that she was quite a bit older than me especially as the male is usually the older party. Why was a ravishing and effortlessly elegant young lady like Cansu in a relationship with a deeply unimpressive braindead dweeb? What first attracted her to this multimillionaire? I cannot possibly conjecture! I must not be too harsh on Murad. The one thing he achieved was physical fitness. He was in very good shape. Even his worst enemy could not call him fat.

Murad sometimes went to play footer. I suggested coming along. He declined saying in front of his friends of me in English ‘’he eat man’’ as I like eating not exercise. I was even chubbier then than I am now. In fairness I would not have been able to keep up with the game. Moreover, I was 33 and he was 18.

Murad and his family were somewhat observant Muslim. Therefore he did not touch spirituous liquor. The machismo that we infidels put into taking strong waters he put into smoking. He smoked much and with gusto as if to underline his manliness. He ought to have been careful. It can stunt your growth.

As for being a dutiful Muslim – I never heard about Murad going for namaaz or anywhere near a mosque. I know that mosque attendance is never obligatory and some Muslims prefer to worship at home. His Islamic observance was not burdensome and limited itself to refraining from vice. I suspected that in his case his submission to the abstract almighty Allah was more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

The very fact that Murad could have a girlfriend showed that they were relatively liberal Muslims. He could spend time alone with her. There may have been some physical contact but presumably it stopped well short of actual fornication. Oddly enough I did not ask him nor did I subject Cansu to an examination of her hymen to determine if she was Virginia intacta.

Murad’s family were fervent supporters of Erdogan’s AK Party. They were said to bankroll his party. I do not doubt that some lucrative construction contracts came their way in return. Such is Turkey. Suchlike would never befall in a Western country!

One of Murad’s enthusiasms was Fenerbahce Football Club. It is the second best team in the Turkish Republic. Fenerbahce means ‘’lighthouse garden.’’

The deadly rival of Fenerbahce is Galatasaray. Galatsaray is usually the stronger side. Turks imbue football fandom with the same fanaticism that that have in so many areas of life. Football fans can turn violent in Turkey.

Ironically, Murad had trained as a child with the Galatasaray youth team. That was because he happened to live very close to their practice ground. Fenerbahce was on the far side of the Bosphorous.

One evening Yilmaz, Murad and I went to a match at Fenerbahce. We parked in the underground car park of the stadium.

On the dirty, broken paved streets by the stadium people hung around in knots.  There were medium rise grey tower blocks around and about. They were mostly men and many sported Fenerbahce jerseys. Some sipped beer from bottles and many smoked. The few women who were there tended to be middle aged and heavily made-up. A woman would have to be rather daring to attend a football match in Turkey even in the immediate presence of her husband. They were a blatantly working class crowd. But they had to be relatively well off working class. Those who were really poor could never afford a ticket to see the working man’s game.

We mingled with the crowd. But we must have stood out like sore thumbs. Yilmaz could perhaps blend in. I am perhaps too tall, too pale and too blue eyed. There are Turks who are totally white but not many. Moreover, my dress sense is decidedly unturkish. As for Murad – he dressed like the multi-millionaire that he was even when attired in casuals. He rolex could not but be conspicuous. The proletarians eyed us knowingly. I was given camouflage – a Fenerbahce scarf. That was just what I needed on a scorching summer’s day. But many others were similarly accoutered.

The police took security very seriously indeed. They are always armed. But I saw one officer near the police bus carrying a machinegun.

We went in a VIP gate. From there it was up by lift to a box on the terrace. The box had an anteroom with seats, a TV and a pretty young hostess serving drinks and snacks.

We went out onto the room that was open to the air. We saw the 50 000 stadium rapidly fill up. It was a match against Kayseri – a minor team from Anatolia.

There was an athletics track around the edge of the football field. There were announcements blaring in Turkish. Fenerbahce was a sports club and not just one for footer. There were announcements about things the club had won in other sports. The women’s volleyball team had won a match. They came out and walked in a victory lap around the stadium and showed off medals as they waved to a largely apathetic crowd. If only the ladies had been togged out in their volleyball gear I am sure they would have elicited a standing ovation!

A few of Murad’s young friends were there. There was a tall chap there name Demirhan – he had a pale complexion and mid brown hair. He spoke more than satisfactory English and always greeted me with particular vivacity.

The crowd were geed up. They were chanting and singing tribally. One end of the stadium would chant to the other.

The Kayseri fans were in their own little section. They were fenced off and surrounded by police for their own protection.

The names of the Fenerbahce players were announced on a big screen as images of them played. The fans chanted the surname of each man as it came on. One was a Dutchman ‘’Kuyt’’ who was a blond as a Nazi wet dream.

Finally it was time for kick off. The fans were in a tizzy of excitement.

I have always been indifferent to footer. But it was impossible not to get excited. The exhilaration was infectious. There is something mysteriously energizing about enormous gatherings.

Our team scored and we were jumping for joy and shrieking manically. It was one of first times I had seen Murad display emotion beyond moroseness. He was ecstatically punching the air.

A while later Kayseri got one back. The atmosphere was sepulchral.

In the second half our lot took the lead again. It finished 2-1.

In fact it was a moral victory to Kayseri. As the second best team in the country Fenerbahce should have thrashed them by a goal difference of at least 3.

A week later we were back in the stadium for another match. It was against a more formidable opponent – Benfica. Benfica is reputedly the most puissant team in Portugal. It was part of some European League. I have never considered the intricacies of such competitions anything better than a footling waste of time.

I was apprehensive lest Benfica win. Murad would be suicidally depressed. No doubt I would be the jinx.

It was much the same format as last time. But you could cut the tension with a knife. The home fans did not expect to win – though no one dared vocalise it.

The Fenerbahce deluded themselves with a chant about going to Amsterdam – where the final of the competition was due to be held.

In the end Fenerbahce exceeded expectations and won 2:1. So I had brought good luck!

On my days off I explored the city. I had one day off a week. I went back to the Sultanahmet district. I walked around the mosques – the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sofia. I went into the Egyptian Market. I took a ferry cruise up to the Black Sea.

I revisited the outside of a hotel where I had lodged ten years before. I saw the phone box wherefrom a Bavarian had called home with me beside her.

On one ferry I met two nurses – one Aussie and the other Canadian. These young ladies were working in Saudi Arabia. It must have been good money. We chatted about Anzac Day – it was coming up. It happened to fall on my day off. Did I want to take a coach for a few hours to Gallipoli and walk up the hill in the predawn cold in time for a dawn service? I must say that was beyond my patriotism. Although Irishmen had most valiantly lain down their lives for King George V there I did not go to honour them.

On the ferry the guide gave us a commentary on all the buildings we were seeing that lined the shore. One of them was Dolumbahce Palace – I had been inside it 10 years earlier. The guide spoke excellent though accented English and showed off his linguistic aptitude by breaking into French and German. The shortish chubby middle aged man was balding but had grown his mid brown hair long. He was a rather white Turk. He told me he was half Turkish and half Greek. I was stunned. I am all for love across the divide. But there was very bad blood between Greeks and Turks especially when he was born in the 1960s. More power to his parents for putting aside all that animus and marrying whom they loved. There had been anti-Greek pogroms in Turkey as recently as the 1940s. A minute Greek minority remained in Istanbul. The Metropolitan of Constantinople lives there and he is head of all Orthodox Christians. The Turks say only a Turkish citizen can fill this role. It is sad that in a city that was once overwhelmingly Greek so few Greeks remain.

On the ferry I chatted to a couple from Buckinghamshire, UK. He was a bald white man in his 40s. She was a pretty Mauritian of Indian ethnicity. She spoke brilliant English with a pronounced French accent. They were child free.

When strolling around a market I strove to shake off a hawker. He addressed me in English. I lamented in Romanian that I did not know a word of English. He spoke in excellent Romanian and told me he could explain it in that language instead. I was stunned.

Zulia came out to visit. She stayed for a few days.

My friend Paul came out. He and his mate were doing a show. I spent an evening with them and we went to a Turkish bath.

On the metro I spoke to a French couple who were tourists. He was black and she was white.

In the evening when I finished work I sometimes took a taxi into the city centre. Sometimes I went by metro.

In the nearby shopping centre there was a viewing platform overlooking the main runway of the airport.

I met an obese oldish Teuton. He quipped that he was Hermann ze German. He really was called Hermann. He had his aviation magazines, notebook and binoculars. He was a plane spotter.

Some days later I returned to the viewing platform. Hermann was gone. In his stead there were several middle aged British men from Manchester. They had all the gear and were having a lively discussion about the planes. They knew all about them. As an AZAL airliner went down the runway one of them exclaimed ‘’look at the speed of that taxi’’. They were ooing over the plane as though it were a Page Three girl in a string bikini. I had a chin wag with these chaps. They told me that had been to Guangdong in China to watch civilian airliners. They heard an irate announcement in Mandarin. It was all Greek to them. Before they knew it they were arrested. They had their plane spotting magazines and tried to explain that they were innocently looking only at civilian passenger planes – the movements of such planes are advertised and are hardly top secret. This explication saved them from the firing squad.

After a few weeks Murad started picking me up late. Pick up was supposed to be 9 o clock.

Some days it was 9:30. He would not tell me. He would simply show up later. I was paid to be available. Next day he would rock up at 10. Another day at 11. One day I was still waiting at 5 o clock. In the mean time I had nipped out for snacks. I had been waiting in the lobby all day.

The pleasant receptionist noticed the discomfort on my face when he addressed me by my Christian name. He asked if he should call me Mr –. I said yes please. In Turkish they always call people by the first name and then add ‘Mister’ or ‘Mrs.’ afterwards.

I chatted to the cleaners there. These hefty menopausal women were Turkish Bulgarians. My smattering of Russian went some way with them.

I was paid a good wage and on a weekly basis. I noticed the bank transfer fee had made a small dent in my pay packet. I did not protest. Remiss of me it was.

I had spent a few weeks in Istanbul. The big test was whether Murad was going to keep me on permanently. He had his university exams.

I got the impression that he was not happy with me. I had once put my foot on the wrong part of the car – where the carpet is not there. That hacked him off. I had waved at a security guard – an unpardonable degradation of Murad’s exalted status. I ate too much.

The summer hols were looming. Murad would estivate on the craggy coastline at Marmaris – this is one of Turkey’s most exclusive resorts. Erdogan had a holiday house there right beside Murad’s place. If I played my cards right I would be invited on holiday with Murad. The thirty-nine thousand pound question was would he give me a one year contract?

A few days later I received an email from Rauf. It delicately delivered not unexpected news. Rauf told me that unfortunately they would not be extending my contract.

I had mixed feelings about it. It had been a handsomely rewarded contract. Istanbul is an enchanting city. I did not think much of Murad. In a sense I was wasting my time – it was not stimulating to work with such an ignoramus. I was achieving nowt. I jetted home.

Aboard the plane I chatted to a swarthy white woman in her 30s. She spoke good English but with a noticeable non-native accent. I asked this petite lady where she hailed from. She parried the question for a while. Half-way into the flight she felt safe enough to state that she was Israeli. Israel and Turkey were having a diplomatic spat at the time. Something to do with the small matter of Netanyahu sending soldiers to kill unarmed Turkish civilians on a humanitarian ship in international waters. This act of piracy was not the woman’s fault and perhaps she was as horrified by it as I was.

Some weeks later I heard that Murad has passed his end of year exams. It was doubtless down to my non-teaching of him. Could it have been deus ex machina? Or perhaps daddy had crossed the university’s palm with silver?

Last time I had a good cyber stalk of Murad I found that he is in a very senior post in his family’s conglomerate. He has added an MBA to his list of qualifications that he bought. Cough. I mean, earned.

ADRIATIC CRUISE

That summer I was kicking around London. I was living with my friends in Twickenham. I was signed up with agencies for summer school work. I would arise before 7 and shower. Some days the phone would ring and ask me to go to Hampstead, Camden or wherever.

‘’Can you make it for 9 o clock?’’

‘’I will run but I might not make it.’’

‘’Ok I will tell them you might be a bit late.’’

It was fun to show at a language school somewhere in London with no preparation. Photocopied sheets would be thrust into my hand by the Director of Studies as I walked into a classroom of teenagers from Colombia, Saudi Arabia, China, Spain, Italy, Russia and elsewhere. With zilch preparation I would ad lib the lesson from these worksheets. It appealed to the showman in me. I like an audience. I would introduce myself:

‘’My name’s George. I am from Ireland. I grew up in the Middle East/ I am X years old and I live in London. I studied history and then I qualified to teach English as a foreign language. I have two sisters. I am not married. In my free time I like cycling, socializing, travel and doing stand-up comedy.’’ I would then give myself a hearty round of applause and they would all join in.

Having modeled this theophrastian self-introduction I would call upon the students to stand up come to the front and do likewise. They would emulated me in a sterling fashion.

My peripatetic teaching was agreeable in many ways. It was a barrel of laughs and no stress. There was variety and cosmopolitanism to it. The trouble was that the pay was miserable. In the evenings I would traipse the comedy clubs of London Town doing my act – my shtick being gallows humour leavened with a rabbelasian rant and a takedown of royalty and political correctness. It was Boris Johnson meets Frankie Boyle. I would seldom take to the stage with less than a bottle of wine under my belt. Needless to say the poverty pay gracelessly dished out by language schools was hardly enough to keep a man of my then unquenchable thirst in funds. On days when I did not have work I cycled around Londinium on a Boris bike. It was a happy go lucky existence. There are few more blissful places to be in the summer than good old London.

I was working temporarily in a language school just over the wall from my dear friends in Buckingham Palace.  Ironically it was up the street from where I had been at nursery. It all goes to prove that if you make a massive effort with education then you end up right back where you started. The chain smoking skinny Scouser in a leather jacket who ran the language school and I were not in sympathy. One day after an adult lesson with an Armenian, two Brazilians, a Kazakh and some others the phone rang. It was Dawn from the agency.

‘’Hello George, how you doing” she chirped in her Derbyshire accent.

‘’Most very exceedingly well thank you and how do you do?’’

‘’I am good thanks, George’’ she giggled. ‘’Anyway there is a job you might like cruising on a superyacht in the Adriatic as a tutor to two teenaged boys.’’

‘’Oh yes?’’ my interest peaked.

Soon I was sold on it. Days later I boarded the flight from Gatwick and flew to Kotor in Montenegro for the first time in my life. I was sure this Adriatic Cruise would take in the Ionian Islands as well as the eastern coast of Italy. I was to prove to be dead wrong on both counts.

Montenegro is a small country that side besides the Adriatic Sea. It border Croatia, Serbia, Albania and Kosovo. It was once part of Yugoslavia. It is not an affluent land.

The Montenegrins call their land Chorno Gora (‘’black mountain’’) which bears the same signification as the Latin name by which we call Montenegro. That very balmy summer’s evening when I landed at the airport I saw signs in Montenegro, Russian and English.

I was met at the airport by a diminutive blackbearded Montenegrin named Marko. Marko worked for the family. He was an amiable sort and spoke faultless English with an accent that it would have been impossible to trace. His lack of stature was a little surprising given that on average Montenegrins are among the tallest people in the world. But of course there is variation in a population. I took an instant liking to him and he drove me to my accommodation. It was a decent room in a modest guesthouse overlooking the Bay of Kotor.

The family would not be in Montenegro for 2 days. Therefore I had been checked into a hotel by them. I had been flown out early because they could not get me a more suitable flight. It was the high season for tourists.

I wandered around the white and beige town of Kotor. The land was exceptionally rocky and the mountains rose very steeply out of the blue bay. I was wafted by zephyrs which meant that 40 degrees did not feel so bad. There seemed to be but one narrow road winding along the indented coastline. This made for horrendous traffic jams.

There were plenty of Russian tourists. It was once of the cheapest destinations in Europe. Montenegro is s Slavonic and an Orthodox Christian land. The Russkies therefore fit in. Russia had backed Serbia in the wars in the former Yugoslavia. The Montenegrins are more Serbian than the Serbians.

I took a few dips in the briny sea. Otherwise I occupied myself my reading in my room like the bibliomane than I am.

The walled town of Kotor is pleasing but offers no outstanding sights.

In an internet café I fell into conversation with some French boys. They were playing games of darts and snooker. They were in their early 20s. I told them why I was there. A slender brown haired Frenchman inquired if I would speak Russian to my Russian family. I affirmed it. He remarked, ‘’Je crois que votre passion est les langues.’’ He was mistaken.

One evening I drifted into an alehouses seeking directions. I was sporting a T shirt from Red Molotov – it had Thatcher in the guise of Che Guevara. It was a marvelous ‘’fuck you’’ to all those leftists who sport T-shirts of the international terrorist racist homophobe who authorized mass executions and torture on an industrial scale and closed down the trades unions in Cuba. It is a scandal that imbeciles adulate this cruel oppressor.

There was a grey bearded Dubliner in his 50s there. The shortish bespectacled man inquired of the likeness on my T shirt, ‘’Is dat Maggie Tatcha?’’

‘’It is’’ I clarified.

He was aghast. He made an allusion to ‘’Occupied Ireland.’’ There is no such place. I had half a mind to tell this Anglophobic ignoramus what I thought of him and people of his ilk. We Irish are British. But I was seeking directions and did not want to go without them. I bit my tongue.

The mother called me the day before they were due to arrive. Daria spoke superb English and came across as very clever and energetic. I was later to discover that she was a lawyer.

The time had elapsed and finally the family had arrived. I was in the marina and found my way to the yacht: Solaia. It was hard to miss. At 40 metres long it was by far the biggest yacht around.

I was there in good time. The captain greeted me – he said his name war Mark. At the gangplank I greeted him most formally, ‘’Permission to come on board sir?’’

‘’Permission granted’’ he tittered at my archaism.

Mark was a middle aged man of middling height who was fairly spare. His black hair was inclining to grey. He spoke in a slightly South of England accent – not Cockney and not Received Pronunciation. He wore a polo shirt and smart shorts. He always wore that – uniform. He was down to earth, courteous, businesslike and approachable. He was not the gruff old seadog that one might have anticipated. ‘’Please do call me Mark’’ he added with a smile.

In a moment I was introduced to the mother of the family, ‘’Hello my name is Daria’’, said a very slender and pretty woman of about 40. She had dark brown hair, deep blue eyes, a notably retroussé nose and light skin. Were those full lips fake? She spoke almost faultless English.

‘’This is my husband Borislav’’ she said turning to a man of about 5’4’’. I got the measure of the man. He was a little older than her and had short spiky brownish hair. He had a wide and faintly idiotic grin as well as large ears. Borislav’s English was a matter of listening more than speaking. He had been to military school as he eagerly told me several times. He had some high up position at one of Moscow’s major airports. I never understood quite what his role was.

Then I met the two boys.

Sergei had dark brown tousled hair, pale skin and smallish brown eyes. He was extrovert, of a sunny disposition and had a very carefree manner. His English was almost fluent bearing in mind he was only 14.

Alex was 10 years old and had mousey brown hair, green eyes and a slightly dark complexion. He was pleasant but timid. He spoke little English and rather let his stepbrother do the talking.

We went into the large drawing room. It was luxuriously furnished.

‘’Champagne!’’ Daria called for. A hostess in a white airtex and matching white miniskirt bowed decorously and returned with tray of flutes filled with bubbly.

Daria insisted I quaffed. It was not yet ten o’clock in the morning. I could tell I was going to enjoy this voyage.

‘’Let me explain’’ said Daria. ‘’I am Alex’s mother – he is from my first husband. We are now divorced and I am married to Borislav. Now Sergei – he is Borislav’s son from his first marriage.’’

So the two were stepbrothers – not blood brothers. That explain it. I had noted that they did not look at all similar.

Along came another couple.

‘’This is my husband’s brother and his name is Mikayil’’ said Daria.

There was a man with an alcoholic’s ruddy cheery face – he was grey haired and stood about 5’9’’. He had an impish smile, devil may care attitude, a venerable beer belly and a surprisingly quiet voice. A vicelike man shook mine.

‘’And please meet his wife Yaroslava’’ said Daria.

The lady was perhaps 25 and though pretty she was almost painfully thin. She had blue eyes, dark blonde hair and a tan that must have been topped up by regular trips to the Caribbean. She was lightsome, energetic, alert but almost monosyllabic. Her husband must have been at least 20 years older than her.

The yacht set sail – out of the Bay of Kotor. Before long we were on the open sea. We were breasting the waves. The Adriatic Sea is fairly enclosed so the waves were smallish. We saw the rocky coastline slowly fade into the horizon. The azure sky smiled splendidly over us.

Mikayil was rarely out of his cabin. What can explain his extraordinary torpor? I seldom saw him without a drink in his hand and never saw him sober. Although he was sometimes on deck attired in nothing more than his swimming trunks I never once saw him take a dip in the sea despite the conditions being idyllic.

Yaroslava spent most of the time working on that tan. It’s a hard life.

My duties were not onerous. I was to chat to the boys and improve their English generally. Sergei would talk the hind legs off a donkey. The trouble was that Alex was diffident and could not communicate well anyway. I was under strict instructions not to let on to the boys that I spoke a little of their language.

Sometimes we played chess. They were both rather good. I let them win a few times. Then they asked me to play my hardest. Though I beat them – it was not easy. I told them I had sometimes played the champion of Azerbaijan. That is true but she had beaten most of the time within 10 moves.

Later the hostess had a chance to introduce herself. She was 30 something, plain faced and had dark blonde hair.

‘’Hello my name is Amber’’ she said in a detectable Australian accent. Her voice was soft and almost expressionless. She was an unobtrusive person but on the dull side. She had been a hostess on superyachts for several years. Her duties were unglamorous. It was cleaning the whole interior of the yacht, serving meals and drinks.

Later I met the other hostess. Agnieska was a tall Polish lady in her late 20s. She had chestnut locks usually tied in a chignon. She had dark blue eyes, a retiring manner and a graceful presence.

There was a Swedish engineer on the crew. The goateed one is the only short Swede I have ever met. He had been in the Swedish Navy as a submariner. There is not a lot of room aboard one of those. His small size will have been an advantage during his 10 000 leagues under the sea.

There was a French chef. Laurent was towards the end of middle age. He was a bluff, greying and bespectacled chap who was agreeable enough and gratified that someone could speak to him in his own language. His English had been acquired working in Cheltenham. As for his culinary skills – magnifique! We had croissants freshly baked each morn.

There were two deckhands in their early 20s. One boy was British and the other an Aussie. They were likeable and vapid.

In idle moments I chatted to the crew about life on the ocean wave. The summer season was mostly spent in the Mediterranean.

The owner was a revoltingly rich American. He had a painting of all the US Presidents of the last 10 years up. All were shown together as though they were both in their presidencies at the same time. The Republicans on one side of a private members’ club and the Democrats on the other. All wore suits. There was a mini library from which we were free to borrow.

I read Andrew J Bacevich’s Washington Rules. In it this US Army officer turned historian eviscerated the military industrial complex.

I had time to watch YouTube documentaries such as Pakistan’s Double Game. It was about how President Musharaff pulled the wool over the Bush Administration’s eyes. He gave just enough cooperation against the Taliban to keep US military aid coming. But it was not enough to defeat the Taliban or provoke pro-Taliban elements into ousting Musharaff.

We dined together and made conversation. Daria was a fairly hardline Russian nationalist. She excoriated US and British policy with regard to liberating Iraq from a genocidal tyrant. She also said that if she were a Westerner she would think differently. I was impressed by her ability to put herself into someone else’s shoes.

We discussed the Falklands. Borislav said trying to be sympathetic that many Nazis had gone to Argentina. True but that does not impinge on the Falklands issue.

Daria said it was terrible that the Republic of Ireland did not permit women to kill their children. It crossed my mind that she had made her womb a crime scene. That is the norm in Russia.

Borislav listened but did not contribute to the dialogue.

Daria told me of having her car stolen at gunpoint by two men from the Caucasus. When she reported the felony to the police they said, ‘’why are you crying? At least they did not kill you or rape you?’’

Daria was a vivacious and likeable person. But she also vocalized the most rebarbative racist prejudices. ‘’Why does France let all those blacks in? They are the ones committing all the crime?’’

I wanted to edify her. But I did not wish to be thrown overboard. How do you correct the bigotry of your employer?

She told me that ethnic minority people should not be allowed to be citizens. She though Kazakhs were all right but she openly despised people from Azerbaijan and Armenia. I told them that in the Republic of Ireland our prime minister was half Indian and an out homosexual. Daria’s facial expression register her utter revulsion. Her husband laughed at her discomfiture.

We stopped off in a few towns along the Adriatic coast. They orange roofs, white walls and elegant piazzas. The Catholic churches in every seaside town boasted fine looking campanile. But these sleepy towns all blurred into each other after a while.

At the first town in Croatia a yachting agent came out to meet the yacht. She had a briefcase full of documents.

The yachting agent was a drop dead gorgeous lissome lady of perhaps 20 years of age. She wore a virginal white skirt and blouse rimmed with the aqua marine livery of the yachting company. Her mid brown hair shone all the down her narrow back. Her healthy young skin was just slightly tanned and her features were of dreamlike prettiness. As she tottered along on her dangerously tall high heels I wondered, why oh, why they company had hired her of all people? She certainly added to the luxurious image.

It turned out Yaroslava did not have the right visa. The captain said he had told the port authorities she was a member of the crew. That was how they got around it. He said that people could go to prison if it were discovered that he had lied for them.

I would rise in the morning and order breakfast. I would have scrambled eggs most of the time.

We would be anchored only a few hundred metres off the coast. Often there were a few islets close by. They would be covered in very dense pine forests and bare rocks. Sometimes there were dense waxy green bushes. They water’s surface would re-echo with the crickets’ croaking chorus. The curious Mediterranean odour of olives would greet my nose.

Alex rose very early and went out on paddle canoes. I had to go too.

Sometimes we went out on the tender. There was a big yellow banana towed behind it. The tender was driven by the deckhands. They would execute sharp turns this way and that to make us fall off. I was faintly frightened about breaking my neck.

After a while the tender would shake us off the banana. We would then have to haul ourselves on.

The boys wanted to dive off the yacht into the sea. I checked and double checked with the captain that the sea was deep enough. He had all sorts of super sophisticated sonographic equipment and assured me that the water was over 10 deep. I did not fancy ending up paralysed. That might be worse than death.

We would dive in from the 3^rd deck about 9 metres up. It was an awful lot of fun. Then swim around and climb up the ladder to do the same. My childishness was an asset. Not many men my age would take delight in such infantile pursuits.

We stopped on the Croatian island that Marco Polo had come from.

On one Croatian island we visited a restaurant half way up the hill. They had cooked a special lamb dish for half the day for us.

The family spoke English to the hefty bearded Croat father and son who ran the place. They Croats were very relieved that their general from the 1990s had just been acquitted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

I was given some time to wander about the town. Mikayil was in a portside bar sipping his 10^th beer of the day – it was almost luncheon. He hailed me over and demanded that I sink a beer with him. I happily obliged. I spoke my broken Russian to him and he was most pleased.

As I was on the boat Daria showed herself to be more than satisified with me. Would I consider coming to work for her as a tutor to her son in Moscow. I had an offer to return to Azerbaijan but did not tell her that. I harboured doubts about going back to Baku and the Iranian I was due to work for there had not responded to emails in weeks.

Yes, I told her. I would be delighted to come to Moscow. We haggled about the salary. I asked for 25% more than Baku was offering.

‘’It is not so small’’ she said with some discomfort. But agreed. Accommodation would be provided.

Daria and company would be going on another super yacht later in the summer. Would I like to come on that? I agreed those dates.

All this was verbally agreed with her. Nothing was put on parchment.

Then the agency contacted me. Could I go on a cruise in August in the Mediterranean off the coast of Sardinia? Another Russian family needed me.

I said yes to this other opportunity.  But I knew that this clashed with the dates I had agreed to Daria.

My policy was to say yes and keep my options open. As the SAS say – never close an option until you must.

I was to come to regret selling the same camel twice over.

The day before our cruise ended Daria paid me in cash. She paid me in banknotes. Some of them were 500 Euro notes.

All good things must come to an end. After a fortnight we ended our cruise in Split. I had farewell to them at the portside. A minibus was there to take them straight to the airport. I bade farewell to the crew.

I bent my footsteps to a downmarket hotel and checked in. They were willing to accept a 500 Euro banknote. I was glad of the change.

I ambled about the harbour side. It is a marvelous city – tranquil yet lively. I visited the must-see: Diocletian’s Palace. The Roman Emperor constructed this resplendent palace many centuries ago. Despite the vagaries of history it remains in astounding good condition.

The next morning I got a cab to the airport. I shared it was an obese Croatian-Australian woman. Her parents had moved to Oz in the 1950s.

The young taxi driver spoke good English and spoke about the wars in the ex-Yugoslavia. His one mistake was saying ‘’occupated.’’

I flew back to London via Zurich giving a wink to a black Swiss International Airlines hostess as I passed through the terminal. Her sour expression suggested that we were not about to build the bridge of nations. I took it in my stride. It may be hard to believe but it is not the only time in my life that a woman had knocked me back.