MORNING SERIAL

ALTHOUGH he was dressed with a hustler’s sense of taste, he did look younger, and it occurred to me here that I wouldn’t have known exactly the age to put him at. Sixty? But the day before, in the kitchen, he could have been eighty-five, (albeit an eighty-five capable of kicking my arse).

I myself on the other hand was tidy and clean, but that was about as far as it went. Illie looked me up and down as we headed for the car in the driveway and he said, “Ah, you’ll do, but we’ll have to kit you out now you’re staying.” And he slapped me on the shoulder.

We drove the short dusty journey down to Napa, with Viktor his imperious self in the driver’s seat. I asked where we were going, but Illie just repeated that it didn’t really matter and Napa was much like anywhere else, whilst being not quite like anywhere else. I waited for him to expand on the theory but Illie just grinned and looked out the window. Music played through the car speakers – I think it was Sibelius, although I have never been good at identifying any music written before nineteen sixty-three.

Viktor pulled up on the main drag in Napa, just as the streets were beginning to get busy.

“You had heard of this place before you came here?” Illie said before opening the door.

“Ayia Napa has a bit of reputation, yes,” I said.

“Well, you may wonder tonight what attracts me to this place. If you can’t figure it out by the time we leave then ask and I will tell you,” he said.

As we entered a bar through an open front, I noticed Furkan’s place just down the way and I began to get my bearings.

Napa looked different from every vantage point, as if it was planned out by an amateur who couldn’t tell a right angle from a kebab skewer.

Some of it was a lack of familiarity with my surroundings, but something felt deeper, longer than that; it was like a fairground ride where the ground is made of boards that swing underfoot.

> The Golden Orphans by Gary Raymond is published by Parthian www.parthianbooks.com