he actually read the damned passport,

seeing as he’d spent ages looking at it.

Just then another officer barked an order

at my attentive new suitor to hurry us along.

You have nice holiday in Turkey, Yorkshire lass.

See you later, alligator! he sing-songed out,

standing to attention and saluting.

‘In a while, crocodile,’ I sing-songed back,

as we drove out of the port to an exclamation

in perfectly pronounced patois – Raaastafari!

The Silken Road

Izmir – where the Silk Road met the sea. Caravans of camels brought carpets, conquest and colours; they brought cosmetics, costumes and calligraphy; Stanley lugged Clasford all the way from London, Clasford who was settling inside him now;

crenallated stone walls enclosed wheat and barley plantations; there were orange, lemon and grapefruit orchards; tomato and cotton fields; cattle, goats, sheep; butternut squashes were sold at the roadside, and cabbages the size of a woman at full term, and red pomegranates split open to reveal their slippery, succulent seeds;

they drove through a village narrowly avoiding a skipping, squealing flurry of orange and green embroidered butterflies; men wearing white shirts and black woollen waistcoats sat on squat stools – they all had black moustaches and some wore flat caps – they all had lived-in features, scooped out like lino cuts; women stood in doorways, children sucking thumbs clasped their mother’s billowy floral trousers; they all stopped talking – it was as if they’d never seen a car before; it was just so quiet there, two foreigners driving through, and everyone was waving and everything was new;

Stanley commented, ‘We’re peeping voyeurs’; Jessie replied, ‘No, we’re simply voyagers’;

they parked up alongside a khaki river sprinkled with the dandruff of poplars; found a spot where a lattice of grape vines looped around string nets; the ceremonious breaking of bread and cheese, with olives, with figs; bow-legged women with soggy, paper-bag faces approached with dragging feet, selling honey, fruit, bread;

Stanley’s head lay in Jessie’s lap; she stroked his brow, neutralizing the electrons of his nervous system, sunlight stippling his face through the lattice; he told her about Clasford’s last years, how his father drank hope into oblivion and welcomed the death-catcher; how his son tried to care for him; how he tried to recall fond memories of his father – was there even one afternoon spent at the swings in the park? A game of Monopoly? A trip to see West Ham play? A man-to-man over a beer in a pub?;

she reassured him that he needn’t worry about a thing, while he was with her; before she could hold her tongue, she said that at least having a father who was a burden was better than no father at all;

he sat up, suggested they move along;