‘Loud and clear,’ Oxana murmurs. She touches the tip of her tongue to her upper lip.
‘Good. Because you need to know your place. And right now, Defne and I want to be alone. So please take yourself somewhere else.’
I’m actually quite grateful to her. Buse, I mean. And I’m grateful to Defne for letting her behave in that shitty, brattish way. Because I can now retreat from any pretence of intimacy with either of them, and concentrate on what I have to do. As I walk away from the sundeck I glance back and see Defnelooking after me with a stricken look on her face, but I don’t react. It’s better that way.
I’m going down to my cabin from the sundeck when I run into Inci. Big, wide-eyed innocent smile. Have I got a moment to go to her cabin and give her a hand with her hair, because I was so, so helpful last time. Of course I say yes, because I have, most definitely, been thinking about her. And wondering.
The routine’s almost identical. The hairbrush taken from the box. The hundred gentle strokes, counted out by me in murmuring French. My arm around her shoulders. Her warm softness. Her hesitant kiss on my cheek afterwards. Not for the first time, I wish that I could read people better. Is she coming on to me? Normally, I’d say yes, obviously, but nothing about this situation is normal. I’m tempted to force the issue, perhaps by making an unmistakeable pass at her, because there’s something about Inci – a decadent lusciousness, like dying lilac blooms – that I’m beginning to hunger for. I love the taste of very spoilt women.
28
Philippa returns ten minutes after Jack leaves.
‘Where did you get to?’ Eve asks.
‘Just down to the shops for a natter. Looked in at the pet shop to see if they had anything new.’
‘Like what?’
‘Oh, snakes, monkeys, that kind of thing…’
‘Why would anyone want snakes or monkeys?’
‘You’d be surprised. Broad range of interests, people have round here.’
‘And did they?’
‘Naw. Just a couple of ferrets.’ She grins. ‘You and Jack Demerell, eh?’
‘Stop it, Philippa.’
‘He’s a good-looking bloke, that’s for sure. Broken more than one heart round here. No money to speak of, but otherwise definitely a catch.’
‘Not going to happen.’
Philippa folds her arms. ‘If you say so.’
‘Claire. His ex. What was she like?’
‘Why would you want to know that?’
‘Just wondering.’
Philippa shrugs. ‘Not my cup of tea, that’s for sure. Too sharp by half. Quite a lot of lads round here go into the military, and everyone knows that when they come back from a combat zone, they’re likely to be a bit… funny. Drinking, picking fights and that.’
‘You mean traumatised?’
‘Call it what you like, but wives and girlfriends know they need to be patient with them.’
‘Very patient, I’d imagine.’
‘Yeah. Well. Claire wasn’t. Didn’t get why Jack was behaving like he was. Couldn’t understand why he wasn’t out there applying for all those high-paying jobs.’
‘Which high-paying jobs?’
‘The ones that being an army officer is supposed to qualify you for.’
‘But doesn’t?’