My Worst Holiday - Turkey 15 years ago

Alison in 2010

I'm too skint to go abroad this year. So I'm making do with little forays into the British countryside, which, given the beauty and comforting familiarity of much of my own land, will do. It’s a sort-of-compensation that I have lower expectations of UK holidays than far-flung trips. The financial investment in the latter, not to mention my keen hopes of novelty, romance and adventure in more exotic climes make disappointment more likely. I also have a propensity to rush into holiday schemes with others, agreeing to go away with unreliable people who I trust too much and who aren’t as organised as me - I always have the travel booked and paid for, the relevant paperwork at hand, and the first aid kit in my bum bag. I do think - despite some horrific experiences - there's always something to salvage from a crap holiday. Except for Turkey 15 years ago. That was a stinker.

I was living with a man - let's call him Rick - and our relationship was not flourishing. Rick was very handsome but very limited. He worked full time, he came home and drank a lot of wine, he had the sex drive of an octogenarian sloth. He also had a teenage daughter - let's call her Zoe - who was very quiet and serious and with whom I had a relationship that barely qualified for the term. When she stayed with us, the only time she'd separate from her laptop and headphones was when I dished up meals, and during those she was mute. Given Rick's general lack of mojo, it was a surprise when he said that a guy at work had offered his apartment in Turkey to us for a holiday and he was up for it. I was in. I'd never been there. I loved baked aubergine, heat and old Islamic art. Zoe would come with us, but maybe I'd finally get to know her better. I suggested we make the journey more interesting by flying to Athens and travelling by sea across the Aegean to our destination, a seaside town on Turkey's west coast. Ahh. Did I say I was good at planning? I may have lacked foresight here. Off we went, me with a suitcase full of sarongs and my fingers crossed that - away from his corporate job - Rick might relax and retrieve his libido.

In Athens we stayed in a mid-range hotel I knew of old, in a family room for one night only, which could have been fun - if we’d been my family of three when I was a kid, teasing and joking our way through novel holiday situations. Zoe slumped about, in her black lumpy clothes and plain serviceable glasses, her mind an enigma. She was a brain box at her public school, I gathered, but social fraternisation with adults was not her forte. Rick was very vigilant about her needs; too bloody vigilant. My needs -which at this stage of the journey were mainly for some light chat and warm camaraderie - were not attended to. Zoe didn't like the breakfast buffet. It was a buffet: anyone could have found something to eat, but not Zoe. She reacted to the authentic Greek yoghurt like it was a mound of seagull droppings. She sulked all the way to the port and onto the ferry. If I'd been 14 and on a ferry to Turkey, I'd have been ecstatic. But the shimmering turquoise sea, the cheerfulness of the passengers and all the services for our comfort – the nautically designed cafes and bars, the range of seats on and off deck, the fresh cleanliness everywhere, the smiling staff in immaculate whites - didn't shift her glumness. I may have seen a fleeting glimpse of excitement when I bought her an iced Coke, but it passed in an instant.

We were spending the night in cabins. I'd managed to persuade Rick that Zoe could cope in one on her own, but he was worried about her and jumpy, of which I witnessed every toss and turn as he was in the bunk bed above me. I was babysitting other people's children when I was 12 but it appeared Zoe couldn't look after herself. Or Rick thought she couldn't. What was he fretting about? She wasn't exactly the sort of girl to nip out in the night for a knee trembler with a sailor. All she was doing was sleeping in a lockable room right next to her Dad's. I can see now that because Rick wasn't Zoe's primary parent, and because she was locked up in a boarding school most of the time, he didn't have enough practise at parenting. He didn't know when to loosen the ties so that the adults (and the child) could have a break. Because of that, he communicated his fear to her. And then, I think, she didn't feel safe. And on it went.

Kos Town - Kos waiting to wake up

At 6:00 AM we disembarked at Kos where we would spend a few hours before a shorter boat journey to the Turkish mainland. As we sat on a quiet little beach waiting for the cafes to open, I felt guilty for not thinking this bit through. If I'd been on my own or with easy-going companions we could have swum or enjoyed the gradual awakening of life on a Greek island, but Rick and Zoe looked like I’d dumped them on the moon without breathing apparatus. When a cafe was found, the two of them established themselves in a dark corner. Zoe was so miserable, I cracked and urged her to cheer up (maybe a tad impatiently?). Rick, instantly furious, snapped that I couldn't talk to his daughter like that. Suddenly I saw something I hadn't fully realised in three years of being with this guy. He would never care for me as much as he did for Zoe. And any problems I had communicating with her would not be countenanced. Triumph flickered across Zoe’s face. I stood up from the table and with steely control muttered I was going for a walk and would meet them at the dock at midday. I prowled around the touristy shops of the town, deeply upset at Rick’s rebuke and the palpable closing down of their little family unit of two. Zoe had her Dad, and her Dad had Zoe. And I was the weird outsider.

A second tense ferry ride, and we arrived in Bodrum in the early evening to pick up the hire car and drive up the coast. At the car office, the man asked Rick for his driving license. Rick swallowed hard. He hadn’t brought it. If there had been a spear handy, I’d have run him through with it. Luckily for him, I was trying very hard not to cause any more trouble, so I sat aside with Zoe, breathing hard, and let Rick work out some complicated solution which involved calling the U.K. and getting people to vouch for him. The car office man sneered at Rick contemptuously and I couldn’t really blame him. I remembered how, when I’d first met Rick, he’d conveyed to me that he was an adventurer, an explorer, a rebel. Now he just looked like a dork.

The sky was darkening as we drove, Rick marshalling the car with grating clumsiness. I could have tried feeling some pity for him, but I was done in. We arrived at the apartment in the muggy heat of the night. It seemed to be in some sort of characterless complex of blocks, though it was hard to take it in as the street lighting was so poor. We dragged our bags to the entrance. Rick couldn’t find the key for a while, his eyes bloodshot and panicky as he frantically searched. We entered eventually and tried the light switch. Nothing. In the dark, we crawled up some stairs and into the shadowy interior. I was desperate for a drink – our water bottles had run dry hours ago. Nothing came out of the taps but a dry hiss. I was so dehydrated I couldn’t even cry. It took ages for Rick to dig out the scrap of paper on which his colleague had written down some instructions, one of which was that the electricity and water had to be turned on in an exterior cupboard. Whilst, yet again, Rick attempted to remedy the situation, I scrabbled around the flat in the dark looking for bedlinen and established an exhausted Zoe in a room. As I did so, I could just about make out that our holiday home was a sterile, corporate-looking box. Rick failed to find the utilities that night.

That was just the start of the holiday.

Don’t worry, I will not be itemising everything that did - and didn’t – happen in the next ten days. I did try hard to enjoy myself, I really did, but most of the time became a series of banal routines which I had little power to change. It was clear very quickly that Zoe and Rick shared a similar lethargy which meant they liked staying in the flat a lot fiddling around on their computers, except for an occasional dip in the shared swimming pool (tiny) in the grounds of the complex. I submitted to the general ennui, reading a novel and guzzling fizzy drinks (indoors - there were no parasols or garden furniture to put by the pool and the sun was blisteringly hot). Every night, as the only cook in the vicinity, I made food, putting together lovely fresh meat and vegetables, stuffed vine leaves, fresh bread and sauces. Every night, Zoe left half of it on her plate and Rick drowned his with wine. Early on, I tried to seduce Rick in our bedroom (twin beds, but they could be pushed together). He grumbled that he didn’t want to make a noise with Zoe next door and that was that; we barely touched for the whole trip.

Crowded beach - empty in comparison to ours

Our location was pretty basic. Not only was the apartment charmless, but there was no village or town nearby, just a traffic-choked strip of shops and restaurants servicing the beach. One day, I begged to go to the sea, but as we gazed at the vista of clogged crowds of families and all their equipment, we couldn’t even see the sea, and I had to gamely walk a long way to even encounter the shallow treacly water. Rick and Zoe sat on a towel looking mutinous until I returned and we never went there again.

Our best day by far was a trip to a ruined Roman town. I pushed for this, and we managed to get there without car trouble, undue thirst or cross words. It was magical. I wish I could remember the name of it…. Bleached white crumbling temples and civic buildings dotted the hills, penetrated by stoic tough plants and surrounded by firs. There was barely anyone else there. We all clambered about independently, coming together now and then in an organic way. Even Zoe looked enchanted. I was so happy to see her happy: I hoped we could find other phenomena in the big outdoors to thrill her.

Sadly, that lovely day was a one-off. No more interesting jaunts were taken. We went out for a meal one evening on the strip, but it was in a fluorescent-lit, over air-conditioned and bog-standard kebab place and I felt daft that I’d put on a dress and lipstick when we were back at the flat again before night had fallen.

I’d had an idea that Rick worked with some interesting people. He was in a big advertising agency, and though I have a lot of queasiness about marketing manipulation, I’d imagined – and he’d encouraged the idea – that there were some creative types there who had a bit of life in them. Whoever had lent us the flat seemed to be a chap who would be most happy on a golf course, his wife at home reading Mills and Boon on the sofa with a gin and tonic as a fan whirred inexorably. There was no visible sign of personality in the flat. Our little group was scarcely more exciting. At no point did we have a shared conversation that wasn’t completely functional. Zoe tolerated me like she’d tolerate an outbreak of acne – resentful, withdrawn and waiting for it all to be over. Rick was in full avoidant mode, pretending that nothing was wrong, and not wanting to investigate the chasm between us in case he fell in. It’s telling that I took not one photo on that holiday, and I always record my travels with a camera.

A mezze of hot greek soldiers

The day dawned for us to leave, and I could sense relief waiting to roll over me. There would be no hotel in Athens on the way back, just one more night on a boat, then we could catch a plane and go home to where my friends were. I enjoyed the return ferries. On the longer one, I stopped trying to be part of the team and did my own thing. We didn’t have cabins booked this time, only comfortable seats in a lounge. All this had been agreed with Rick beforehand, and I was past feeling guilt about my organisation of the travelling. I drifted away from my disgruntled companions and found another section, most of which was inhabited by beautiful young Greek soldiers in full khaki uniform, sporting thick black hair and nut-brown skin and lounging informally on every surface. There was a luggage shelf on top of which one of these picturesque specimens was lying, virile yet vulnerable in his sleep. I slotted into a me-sized space underneath his perch - and his protective body - and snoozed happily all night. When dawn broke, I wandered on deck and let the sea spray and sunshine caress me. I had a gritty Greek coffee and a cigarette (totally verboten in front of Zoe) and one of those weird plastic-wrapped croissants that substitute for the real thing on long journeys – it was manna.

Rick and I lasted another tortuous year. He ended up sleeping with his cousin and I left our lovely flat briskly and efficiently. Zoe never said goodbye to me, nor I to her.

One day, I’d like to go back to Turkey and see some more ancient ruins and an unspoilt beach or two. Though, sadly, I think it may be too late for a holiday romance with a dashing young soldier…

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