First of all I want You to know I’m quite happy. The thought that sooner or later I will end up on someone’s plate or hanging up in a butcher’s cold room doesn’t bother me one bit. Nor should it bother You, although I know it does, so I shall try to explain.

I suppose I ought to introduce myself although You could never pronounce the name my family and friends use when they think of me, so let’s just say I’m Charley-Boy. There are lots of other Charley-Boys where I live and we all look much the same to You which is why You put a flag-thing through our ears which hurts a bit but if it makes You happier, then why should we complain. As I said there are a lot of Charley-Boys where I live and we are all about the same size. If I stand with my backlegs alongside my Mother`s backlegs, the very front of my pinkbit comes to about half way along her side, perhaps a little more. And we can say the same thing about my vertical dimension; the top of my sprouts, which are very tiny compared with my Mother’s, don’t reach the top of her side, so in total dimension I suppose You can say that I am about oneleg compared to her fourlegs. I have never met the Sir who gave me to my mother but I have sometimes seen a Sir being accompanied to the Life Juice Transfer environment and I am not surprised some of You are afraid of the Sirs; they are at least sixlegs compared to my one and their sprouts are very long, curved upwards at the end, and very sharp too. A Twoleg would not want that one of those sprouts entered into collision with his body but then he need have no fear because no Sir would willingly inflict harm upon a Twoleg.

I know what You’re thinking. You’ve seen a Sir take hostile and aggressive action against a Twoleg. Perhaps You have seen a Sir appear to chase or run after a Twoleg but, of course, you have not known how to interpret these events. Firstly, You must understand that the Sirs are programmed differently from Mothers and even Charley-Boys. When a Charley-Boy reaches the age and size of a Sir, this means that he has been chosen to give new Charley-Boys to different Mothers. This means that the Sir must concentrate his constructive efforts on producing Life Juice to give to the Mothers. This is a tiring business, much more tiring than the production of Surplus Mammarial Liquid (the Mothers’ role) or the acquisition of bodyweight (what we Charley-Boys do) and the Life Juice Transfer Procedure - the act of passing the Life Juice into the Mother’s receptive channels - is not without its strain as well. Some Young Mothers who have not fully understood the process sometimes make things difficult for the Sir, further exhausting his energies. Us Charley-Boys are lucky; we can produce much more energy than we need because we are relatively small and the demands on us are very limited. A Sir, who I have said is a six-legs to my one, consumes a great amount of energy just fuelling his life support systems. The Life Juice Transfer Procedure runs his energy banks very low, especially if repeated at short distances in time. The PAF - Pacific Accord Factor - which constitutes a major element in our conditioning is heavily affected by this energy ebb.

What is the Pacific Accord Factor, you ask. To explain PAF, I must first talk about the IRA or Inter-Race Accord.

The IRA is the basis for the cooperation between our races. Basically this means that we provide You Twolegs with sustenance materials in the form of Surplus Mammalian Liquid and Carcass Meat in return for which we are guaranteed living space, sustenance and a total lack of inhibition or degradation. Failure to supply sufficient sustenance of an appropriate quality or unnecessarily inhibit or degrade a member of our race constitutes a breach of the IRA. Mothers react to a breach in the IRA much more slowly than Sirs. That is to say that their threshold of tolerance of IRA breaches is much higher than that of the Sirs. Because Sirs are constantly exposed to energy ebb, their threshold is much lower. All members of our race are conditioned to expect and accept the terms of the IRA. This acceptance and the psychological mechanisms that protect it are known as the PAF. A reduced energy input or disproportionate energy expenditure can bring PAF levels down to the point where PI - Primeval Instincts - can override the PAF. This is a very rare and regrettable event, usually occasioned I regret to say by a Twoleg momentarily overlooking certain stress maxims or misinterpreting the reason for a Sir evidencing stress. There is a dangerous misconception held by some Twolegs that a Sir’s irascibility is strictly related to local events. And that therefore a ‘Carrot and Stick’ approach will prevail. Nothing could be further from the truth as we will see when we examine the particular cause of Sir stress. In the meantime, however, I’d like to stick to the mainstream topic of IRA management.

Now clearly our two races understand the terms of the IRA in different ways. A Twoleg would find it intolerably degrading to stand in an unsheltered food place surrounded by personal detritus; we do not. A Twoleg would not accept the idea of being recalled from her food place at a certain hour of the day so that her Surplus Mammalian Liquid could be harvested; our Mothers rather enjoy it. They liken it to an experience the Mothers in your race talk about, something to do with haircuts and shampoos. It is also an opportunity to ‘listen in’ on Twoleg thoughts. Spending, as our Mothers do, much of their time in unsheltered food places, contact with Twoleg thought bands is rare. Such thoughts as percolate to them are of very limited intellectual value - references to the weather or the quickest route from A to B -whereas the thoughts that they ‘capture’ in the sheltered harvest places are very different, often revealing intriguing aspects of the deep structure of Twoleg society.

Perhaps You will not have realised the very complex role our Mothers play. You perceive them as the placid progenitors of Charley-Boys and the compliant suppliers of Surplus Mammalian Liquid. They are in fact the collective data-bank of the race. Each and every Mother is intellectually webbed to every other Mother. Individual items of data gathered by any one Mother becomes the property of the whole Motherhood. Each Mother can therefore draw on not only her own experience and data-gathering but the whole intellectual and conceptual patrimony of our race. This extraordinary state of grace explains the very high threshold level of tolerance against breaches of the IRA. It also allows an individual Mother who might seem to be suffering an indignity at the hands of one or more Twolegs to placidly accept this in the knowledge that vast majority of Mothers in that particular moment in time are not being subjected to a similar indignity.

I don’t know if you can grasp the mathematics of the equation. Let us take simple example of what you call a ‘farm’. In the part of the world where I am grazing at the moment, each ‘farm’ has a population of between 100 and 200 Charleys - most of these will be Mothers, Not-yet-Mothers and Charley-Boys, about one Mother to 2 or three non-Mothers. Not all ‘farms’ house a Sir. On a ‘farm’ housing 200 Charleys, about 50 of those will be Mothers. Given that most ‘farms’ employ between four or five Twolegs, the likelihood of more than 5 Mothers suffering an indignity at the same time is very low. Even if this were the case, only ten percent of the Mother population of that ‘farm’ would be involved. The other 90 per cent would be counselling ‘placidity’ by stepping up transferable PAF factors. In a community of ten or more ‘farms’, every Twoleg in the community would have to be engaged in a breach of IRA to maintain the ten percent incidence I spoke of. This is a most unlikely scenario. At worst, You may find two or three Twolegs engaged in a breach of IRA and subjecting a limited number of Mothers to indignity but when You consider the collective community of 10 ‘farms’, each with 50 or more Mothers, the fact that a handful of Mothers suffer an indignity at any one time is statistically insignificant and the remaining 95 per cent of Mothers in the community are reacting to their fellow Mothers calls of indignation with transferable PAF signals.

But our world is not made up of a community of ten ‘farms’ but tens and hundreds and thousands of communities of ten ‘farms’. The number of Mothers in constant web with one another is so formidable that isolated incidents of breach of IRA or indignity slip off the bottom of the statistical map.

Unfortunately, PAF signals and threshold level monitoring cannot be conveyed to Sirs. Each Sir, because of his own massive energy consumption, has very poor webbing facilities. He needs to be in the community of many, many heads of Mothers, each ‘lending’ him a little spare conceptual energy for communicative webbing to take place. As a result, many Sirs live as islands unreachable by useful community counselling and this explains the unfortunate incidents that lead to apparent aggression against Twolegs.

The main point concerning Sirs’ aggressive behaviour is that it is not aimed at You Twolegs. A Sir in stress is suffering from his ineffectual webbing performance. He can ‘hear’ the stream of intellectual traffic between individual Mothers and the Motherhood at large but unless his energies have been exceptionally safeguarded, he cannot participate in the webbing. Now, ask yourselves. “Under what conditions do you imagine this phenomenon is most stressful?” The answer, of course, is twofold - the Life Juice Transfer environment and the Community Property Transfer Operation which you Twolegs call ‘Market’. In the first, the Sir knows that he is required to expend energy to the point where his remote chance of webbing with the Motherhood is eliminated; the second because the presence of so many Mothers in the same locality sends up, for him, a deafening web traffic which he cannot interpret. The manifest external signs of this stress - a reddening of the irises and stentorian breathing - are interpreted by You Twolegs as signs of irascibility whereas they are the manifestation of deep internal discomfort that only the calming presence of a number of ‘locked on’ Mothers can web down to satisfactory operational limits.

Do you see the major delusions you labour under - 1 - That Mothers resent Surplus Mammalian Liquid harvesting and 2 - That Sirs ‘enjoy’ the Life Juice Transfer Procedure: I won’t go so far as to say they ‘hate’ it, it is, after all their role in life and a certain satisfaction from a job well done clearly derives. But were You in a position to dialogue with a Sir, I am sure that You would find that he would ‘prefer’ to perform the operation rather less often than he does.

You Twolegs don’t act fair in this interpretation of the IRA. By placing a Sir in close juxtaposition with a group of Mothers or Not-yet-Mothers, a Sir feels obliged to offer his services to each and every one. Were he to be given a reduced ‘family’ to service, he would be able to conserve energy levels sufficient to allow him to web with his community of Mothers and whilst this approach would undoubtedly lead to lower stress incidents in Sirs, it would aggravate the situation with the Mothers. The Mothers’ webbing facility is tied in with their Mammalian Liquid production which in turn is related to Charley-Boy production so they need to be given new Charley-Boys on a regular basis and it is this, and the disproportionate number of Mothers that each Sir is required to service that contributes to the Sir’s continual energy ebb. None of us Charley-Boys really want to go on to be a Sir. It’s much more fun to go to the carcass factory, get the jab from the magic stick and come back in a new Mother but more of that later.

Charley-Boys don’t die then in the way You Twolegs understand it. True, heartbeat is suppressed, lifeblood ceases to flow and Charley-Boys are reduced to sub carcasses for packaging and consumption purposes but the essence, the real being, the memory reappears in a new Mother after she has been provided with a Life Juice Transfer service by a Sir. Both Mother and Charley-Boy benefit from this reappearance. The Charley-Boy’s memory expands with each ‘life’ cycle and the Mother ‘adopts’ the memories of each re-appeared Charley-Boy and passes it on to the web. The communal knowledge that our Mothers share would be sufficient to totally reconstruct Twoleg society. We have the knowledge but we don’t have the limbs.

Sooner or later, do You see, our race will definitively scrap the IRA and it will be You Twolegs who are at the service of us Charleys, providing us with sustenance and environment and such Surplus Mammalian Liquid Harvesting as to make the Mothers comfortable. This will not happen tomorrow. Although we have the numbers to physically suppress You Twolegs, and we have the communal intellectual power to bend You to our collective will, we still have not solved the problem of how to build things with our leg extremities as you Twolegs do.

In the meantime, Mothers continue to milk your collective knowledge and Charley-Boys, like me, grow, get carcassed, re-appear and grow again. The mathematics is inevitable. Oh, I know, that every now and again, your scientists invent what they call a ‘disease’ to create the excuse for a cull of Mothers. It works for a bit, numbers are slightly reduced but the collective memory is unaffected.

Oh. It’s Thursday. Market Day at St. Christophe and I’m for the chop. I’m already in the back of the lorry and by nightfall will be a collection of joints and steaks. So what. The magic stick’s a bit like what the Sirs feel when they perform the Life Juice Transfer service and next week, next week, I’m scheduled to re-appear on a farm at Oyé. It’s one of my favourites. I’ve been there three times already.

You know those stories where people tell you of decisions that changed their lives. Well, this is one of those - almost. On Friday afternoons I travel into the city on the company courtesy shuttle, I spend the afternoon doing what I want to do in my own company and at my own pace; in the evening I meet up with Gwen. I catch the bus back on Monday mornings and spend the rest of the week out on the company’s research facilities on the West Anatolia campus. So, you see Friday afternoon has become a sort of island between the high pressure work week with my Pacific Rim masters expecting solutions before we’ve even clearly identified the problem and the weekend with Gwen rushing me through her own set of social hoops.

I am not ungrateful. I am well paid and I enjoy the work I do. To the contrary of many of my colleagues, I enjoy Campus life, the not having to worry about catering, cleaning and other tedious chores. I am not ungrateful to Gwen either. She is a very beautiful girl, a gratifying companion on the social tour and, when she chooses, anything and everything a virile male could ask for. But I am extremely jealous of those few hours of personal space that I have dug out for myself on Friday afternoons. That’s why meeting my father on that particular Friday really pissed me off and got things off to a bad start.

Living and working in the Cumhurriet is a mirror image of my own work - a mixture of science fiction and Arabian Night fantasy. The City is certainly that. The City is built in the shape of a sword. The blade is the eight-lane highway in from the western ports, passing through all the technological and university campuses and passing under the state-of-the-art integrated rail and bus station complex in Bahcelievler. Where the highway meets what would be the coquille or cup-guard on an epée it dives under the Hisar district of the City and re-emerges to climb the hill that leads to the National Assembly. There the road stops as if to say this is as far east as you are ever likely to want to come.

The Hisar, the old fortress section is actually the centre of all traditional commerce, set within the pentagonal walls of red granite that remind one of Carcasonne or Freiburg in Breisgau. The centre of this stronghold is dominated by the Camhamam Mosque and Supermarket. No I joke not. In the Cumhurriet, the Faith Party keeps its coffers strong by selling the necessities of life just two stories down from where they dispense the truths. If you come in on a courtesy bus as I do and alight at the Aksam or Evening Gate, you have the choice of using the short metro line that links Aksamkapisi to Piazza Buenos Aires, halfway up Government Hill; you can get off at the Camhamam complex, the Eastern Gate - Gunlerkapisi - or bang in the middle of the Pavement at Kizilay. Most of my colleagues, in a rush for the beer and raki bars of the Pavement go this route; I prefer either to walk through the Hisar if I have purchases to make or round the outside. Walking round the walls, there are a number of kiosks and beer gardens where you can stop for a refreshing draught in the shade. You won’t find beer or wine or alcohol of any sort within the walls, just tea rooms for men and family tea rooms where women and westerners can go.

What I normally do is set off round the walls until I come to the gate that leads to the street of the Barbershops. Yes, in the Hisar, every street has its trade. Should you wish a wristwatch or a mobile phone, you direct your steps to Antioch or Adana Caddesi where you will find courtyard after courtyard, passage after passage, multi-storey market after multi-storey market of shops selling approximately the same range of goods. The only guide to price - for no tags are visible - is the crowd in the doorway. So, my first stop is the barber’s.

I am not affected by the modern passion for cropped hair. I wear mine long and flowing, à la Highlander but I have a fetish for cleanliness. I love the long and careful washing process that the Barbers of the Hisar indulge their clients in. and I like the cleanly shaven feel, the sting of the lotion and the punishment of the scalp-friction. It’s almost as good as a workout at the gym. Yes. That’s my other fetish. I am homicidally fit and can still turn out in the back row of any first division club despite my more than thirty years.

So, looking better and feeling better, I come back out into the sun light, buy my papers, magazines and crossword books and look for somewhere to enjoy them. A favourite spot of mine is the Guzel Koku, a pergola garden which lives up to its perfumed name. Here I can pass an hour with a plate of Hill Shepherd Stew, and a few glasses of Efes before passing on to more demanding pursuits.

I was doing just that. I had a litre in front of me, newly arrived, a plate of pistachios and was halfway through Araucaria in the Guardian when Father turned up. I don’t like my father and I don’t like meeting him at the best of times. I certainly do not want to see him on a Friday afternoon. We are both nomads and work takes us to a variety of places, often many thousands of miles from one another. This suits me fine but Fate has a nasty way of dealing spiteful hands and his drilling consortium had decided there was gas under those Anatolian Hills so he too would find himself in the Hisar on a Friday afternoon.

“Are you too busy to say Good Afternoon to your father ?” he enquired as he arranged himself at my table, moving my papers aside to make room for himself and calling the garcon over for his order.

“Not too busy, but totally disinclined. And don’t ask me to buy you a drink, because I won’t.”

“You’re an ungrateful, ungracious little bastard, Johnny.”

“Until you release my funds, pay me what you owe me and clear out of my hair, I see little to be grateful for. Ungracious, I accept. You’re not the only one to say so. As for bastard, only you and your lady wife know the answer to that one, but I suspect you’re right. And should you wish to prolong this exchange, kindly refrain from that infantile form of address. No-one I like calls me Johnny.” Little did I know, I would be saying that again later on in the evening.

“I heard from your mother today.”

“What did the Praying Ma want this time. More of my money or have you found some of your own to hand over?”

This of course is the crux of it. My total lack of respect for him stems from his abject attitude towards his grasping and socially ambitious wife. To stem the ever-flowing demand for more, he has blocked part of my inheritance on its way from Grandpa via Uncle Fred. He can’t do it legally and I only let him get away with it because I know the poor sod hasn’t got a chance without it. But, come the day when John D. Markland - Mark to those who enjoy his confidence - steps into the business arena on his own account, that money is leaving the nest, regardless of gnashing of teeth and accusations of filial ingratitude. And that day, be advised is not a hundred years away.

“So when are you going to cough up in the right direction?” I ask. “This year, next year or are you hoping a Millennium Bug will carry me off ?”

“Is that all you can talk of? Don’t you want to know how Erica is?"

“Who ?”

“Erica. Your mother, you insufferable git.”

“Who ?”

I have refused to refer to his wife in these terms since I was refused a bed in the parental home when I truly had need in early adulthood. I think he would have had a go. He’s still a big man but, as I say, I am homicidally fit and have a tendency to hit back, hard, very hard. He thought better of it, grabbed my Telegraph and immersed himself in it until his whiskey arrived. He also paid the garcon which was in itself unusual.

Instead of enjoying my Friday afternoon, I was now stuck with unwelcome company and frustrated by the thought that any move to another place on the Hisar sword would mean losing my front rank table and having to jostle to find a chair at all.

“When are you on duty?” He asked after he’d ordered another shot for himself.

“On duty? I thought I was off. Don’t catch you, I’m afraid. Not that I’m that anxious, either.”

“Don’t play the Lillwhite with me, Johnnyboy. When does that Telegraph Pole you go around with call you to heel ?” He may owe me money, a lot of money but that doesn’t prevent him from being thoroughly unpleasant, as well. That ‘Telegraph Pole’ was, of course, Gwen. And yes, she is outstandingly tall, over six foot two in her stockings and when she is in high (pun) gala dress her crown is a few (four to five) inches above mine and I’m no titch. So that’s one in the goolies for me. And gall of gall, in moments of incomprehension she is wont to refer to me as her Little John or will laughingly announce in public that she likes me best lying down. We never, never dance in public.

“Fuck off.”

“Erudite for a Guardian reader.”

“I also read the Sun so get fucking stuffed.”

“Oh Johnny, how truly touching. Signs of singed pride. Quite made my day. Well I must be off. I’ve really enjoyed this little exchange for a change. Toodle-pip. I’ll let you pay for the last one.” And off he walked, Telegraph under one arm; the other looping in a vaguely derisory gesture.

Well that was my therapeutic Friday afternoon well and truly buggered up and duty time - God I’m using his words - not far away. He’d managed to turn the prospect of Gwen’s majestic frame into a threat rather than a promise. And then that moment of decision I talked of at the beginning presented itself and I made the wrong one.

To be fair it was dementia driven. Black seething rage at my father, his presumption on my affection in return for ...., left me with one half of the formidable Markland brain blacked out. Oh yes; No false modesty. I am one very bright bugger and pleased to be so but in that moment outside the Hisar walls, the simple housekeeping task of making my way to my appointment with Gwen was beyond me. I turned in the wrong direction.

From Friday midday with the muezzin’s call, the whole of Kizilay, that is the two eastern sides of the Hisar become completely pedestrianised. This area is known ritually to the Westerners as the Pavement because that is what it becomes; This pavement area of granite slabs in the shape of a red crescent - as the name suggests - is at least a kilometre long from north to south as the crow flies, considerably longer following the arc of the building line. At the Northernmost tip stands the Java complex. A tower block with garden discotheque, cinemas, cafes, bars and some of the best jazz clubs in town. This is the “ethnic” end of the pavement and behind the Java stretch mile after mile of low cost and no-cost housing. At the other end of the crescent there is a twin complex - L’Italia - with a similar range of facilities but tending more to the fine dining and western tastes. Round the corner from the L’Italia Tower is Duvar Caddesi, a local politician’s joke because it means Wall Street and houses all the local, national and overseas banks, including Gwen’s Offshore International. Because the L’Italia is so close to her work place, our rendezvous is often there but not that Friday. We were due to meet at seven at the Java Front Bar. At half past six I stepped out of Gunlerkapisi and turned right - south. I should have turned left - north. By the time I reached the L’Italia by five to seven my mind had cleared and I had realised my mistake. On a Friday at seven o’clock, no-one, not even a homicidally fit kamikaze pilot whose girl friend refers to as Little John can make his way to the other end of the pavement in anything less than an hour. Alternatively you take a taxi which, like every other taxi in the city goes round the back streets up to Piazza Buenos Aires and back down again to the Java Tower. This only takes fourty-five minutes and costs something in the region of two million. The price of a very good night out for two once you get to the Java. John D. Markland - Mark to those who enjoy his confidence - was in deep shit. The fury of a socially offended telegraph pole is not a sight even for the homicidally fit. I was stuffed and with but a few minutes to do what my Korean masters pay me so well for, find a solution.

Meltem was a voice on the ‘phone. Meltem was Gwen’s Girl Friday. Meltem was always there, at the office. She was there at 7.05 on that Friday evening too.

“You must be Gwen’s Little John. She’s always telling us what an athlete you are. Actually, she’s always telling us what athletes you both are. But you’re not really Little, are you John ?”

“It’s an Old English Joke,” I said, stressing the capitals, “Covered in the mystery of time. I hate it. Please call me Mark. Should I call you Meltemhanim?”

“Not for some time yet John Mark. Not for some time.” For some inappropriate reason, the though of this Meltem disappearing down the maws of a Moslem marriage afforded me no pleasure. The voice, over the ‘phone, was nice, accommodating, and rhythmic - much money had been invested on excellent language tuition. The touch-me-I’m real version was also nice; we would now explore the accommodating and rhythmic potential.

“If you are looking for Gwen, you’ve come to the wrong place, you know.”

Why ? Have they sacked her for talking about athletics too much on bank time, I thought irreverently.

“I know. That’s why I am here.”

“Now John, there’s very little logic in that explanation,” said the voice. Definitely rhythmic. “Perhaps a little more information might not go amiss. That is always supposing you require something in the way of assistance. Do you require assistance Mr. John Mark ?”

Bucket loads, if you did but know it, I thought but how do you in all decency ask this voice on the ‘phone who you have just met, whose swan-like neck is captivating you, whose pianist’s hands are enthralling you, whose porcelain complexion is blinding you and whose general packaging is, on the top of five pints of Efes doing a whole lot of damage to the loyalty buds... to put you in touch with your girl-friend who you have effectively stood up at the most socially crucial time of the week because of your own stupidity ? Good question, and a solution will soon be required.

“Your appointment with Gwen was at the Java for seven o’clock. It is now gone seven and you are at the wrong end of the pavement. Would that have something to do with it ?”

The highly paid finder of solutions for demanding Pacific Rim masters made a noise which an intuitive voice on the telephone was able to interpret as an affirmative.

“Why then, I ask myself, knowing that you have Gwen’s cellular number, have you not called her ?”

Another very good point there but, the finder of solutions is not only fanatically clean and fanatically fit, he is also fanatically against the possession and use of cellular ‘phones, especially in public places. He does not have a cellular ‘phone and the only way for him to call his girl friend on hers is from a public box. On Friday evening, on the pavement, you can wait for a public box longer than it would take to walk or taxi to the other end.

“I .... ah......don’t .....”

“...... fancy calling Gwen when you are already ten minutes late and have no hope of rectifying matters. Yes, John Mark, I understand.”

Now I hadn’t actually said that, and I think I had come to the bank in the hope that Meltem would in some way put the two of us in touch. I had supposed that I would be doing the talking. The glittering prospect of a Nice, Accommodating Rhythmic Voice doing it for me seemed nothing other than a Solution. Distrusting the linguistic delivery systems I had at my disposal I gave the sort of shrug, and lift of the eyebrows that everybody east of Bari knows to mean “You may well be right but I couldn’t possibly say so.”

“Now, knowing the lady in question as we do, and knowing the importance she places on the social niceties, we have to decorate the truth a little. I happen to be quite good at that. It’s the Levant in me I suppose. Anyway, it’s what the bank employs me for half the time. Now what shall we say? No point in talking about traffic or late buses - you’ve been in town too long for that. An accident or a fight? No. I’m sure she’d look for the bruises. I know. You’ve just had a nasty argument with that terrible father of yours - he was in the bank earlier by the way and mentioned he’d bumped into that ingrate son of his. If we tamper with the timing, it should stand up.”

Meltem means soft Western breeze in English, something close to Zephyr. I have driven a few Zephyrs in my time but never have I come across one with such a command of what is supposed to be my native language. I’m going to stop doing crosswords.

In the meantime, this Friday evening zephyr is purring down the ‘phone making the most conciliatory of noises. I can’t actually hear any machine gun fire from the other end but then I’m not actually straining to catch both ends of the conversation.

“Well, that’s all very amicably settled then. Apparently, your absence is not as disastrous as we might have feared ..... Gwen is not sitting alone and slighted in full view of an unsympathetic crowd. She ...... has company. She is being entertained. Although I’m sure her expense account will show that it was she who was doing the entertaining. The firemen are in town. The visiting auditors. Six of them. All very presentable young men from various points in the Mid West. I gather she will be able to stand their company until we can join them for dinner. The table has been booked at the Buenos Aires Grill.

“We ?”

“Oh yes. I found it necessary to give my superior officer my own personal assurance that I would accompany a certain Mr. Markland to the right place at the right time. It seems there is some scepticism as to his autonomy on some occasions.”

“But, Meltemhanim, Ms Aydin, Meltem. I mean. Don’t you ? I mean, it’s Friday evening ....” Father would have delighted. The Guardian Reader and Finder of Solutions reduced to drivelling garbage.

“Mark. I shall call you Mark as you ask just as long as you drop the Hanim and Ms business. My name is Meltem and I like people to call me that. I am engaged to be married. I have been engaged ever since I was 14. I am now thirty-two. My fiancé is in Iraq. He does not plan to return this side of Ramadan. I do not belong to the Faith Party. I do not wear pastel coloured raincoats or coloured scarves. As you see, I enjoy dressing in what is termed the Western Way. When I become my future husband’s wife, I must be “intact”. This places certain restrictions. It does not curb appetites. I enjoy male company. I enjoy kissing men and being kissed by men; That is all I can allow myself. But I ...., discreetly, very discreetly, do allow myself that. I shall enjoy making sure that you reach the Buenos Aires Grill at nine o’clock. And, perhaps ... No, that can wait. I have no interest in making your relationship with Gwen more trying than it must be already. It is time for us to move up the hill, if we are to enjoy a raki or two on the way. My female intuition tells me that Mr. John Markland who prefers to be called Mark is very much in the market for a raki or two. I suggest the Gölge Bar, the place you westerners call Shadows. It’s a very good place to sit and reveal one’s soul in the half dark. I know. Shall we go, or would you like the bathroom first ?”

The Buenos Aires Grill is on the square of the same name, half way up Government Hill as I have explained. The Grill straddles the arch that effectively marks the end of the line to ordinary mortals. Private car traffic cannot climb any higher; only embassy, government and military vehicles pass through the check points and even they undergo strict scrutiny. Everything that happens above the Grill - the parties, the receptions, the cocktails - carries more social cachet than a Leicester Square premiere. and Gwen is addicted. Meltem has informed me that our visiting firemen have the introductions that count to a “do” at the Belgian Residency. An after-dinner “do”. The best kind apparently . We will be going, I am told.

Ever since I took that wrong right turn, I have felt control slipping away and with this piece of information I can feel the Markland autonomy take a further knock. Am I heading for some cataclysmic event. Am I to discover that for Gwen I am a ticket to be handed in for one of higher value when the opportunity occurs. Am I to lose myself in a desperate affair with the chaste fiancée of one of her country’s ambassadors. Or am I heading for bigger Saturday morning headache than usual?

Meltem and I walk into the Grill as nine is striking and immediately spot Gwen's copper blonde crew cut peeking discreetly above the six blonde ones belonging to the auditor firemen. God; I think she’s bought a basketball team. There’s not one below six foot.

“Well now, Johnny. You’ve managed to make it after all. Now this is Dan. No sorry that’s Dan with the big blue eyes and next to him, also with big blue eyes is Willie. Willie’s a Swede, aren’t you Willie? And the next set of big blue eyes belong to Frank, don’t they Frank. And here on the either side , we’ve got Bill, Bob and Bruin. And would you believe it they all come from Des Moines, or is it Boise and they all speak with the most delicious accents, don’t you all? And, Frank, Dan, Bill, Will, this delightful lady in the charming green suit is Miss Aydin. Miss Aydin is engaged to the Ambassador in Iraq but until His Excellency comes home, she helps me at the bank. Sterling worker and very good at shepherding lost people. She has even managed to shepherd Little John here right on time. Isn’t that admirable ......”

Smashed out of her tiny mind and on a social high

“and do you know, Johnny, what we’re going to do after dinner ? We’re going to dance and dance and dance. No, not you and me Johnny. We don’t do that in public do we ? No. I’ve got six members of the Household Cavalry here to dance me off my feet ....”

And straight into the bushes, by the look of it.

“Don’t worry, Johnny we’ll do our dirty dancing afterwards. We always do, don’t we?”

Well, no. Not what you would call always but don’t let me interrupt.

“And while I’m dancing with people of my own age and height and education, you can sit down and talk over some nice little solutions with Ms Aydin, can’t you Johnny ?”

I did as I was told. I sat next to Meltem at dinner. I went with her in the car the Belgians sent for us. I sat with her at the reception, and danced with her while with regimental precision the six firemen danced Gwen off her feet and into some dark corner. I probably would have let it all go unremarked. Meltem’s company was not a burden and I was beginning to think of insurance policies but Bill or Bobby or Bruin or Brassnose - one of them - just had to come over and rub my nose in it.

“Well Johnny. Looks like your little lady’s got you well and truly tethered to the gate, don’t it?”

“I just wonder if you’ve got the memory to repeat that to me on the balcony and perhaps you might like to bring the other walk-ons with you to the party, “ I said loudly, clearly, rhythmically but not at all accommodatingly in my very best public school accent which I am entitled to because, if nothing else, my inheritance paid for it. “And while you are digesting that, you might also take on board that I was christened John but my friends call me Mark. You, not being one of those, can call me sir, or at the very outside, Mr. Markland.”

There are red rags to all sorts of bulls and a particularly effective one with mentally-impaired auditor firemen from somewhere in God’s Great Mid-West is to speak to them in a mixture of Eton and Harrow vernacular. They don’t understand it but they recognise it. It has something to do with being colonised.

From there on it all went down hill and got very black very quickly. I had stoked up enough steam to be roaring homicidal drunk under the best of situations. I fought them three at a time and took an awful pasting - so Gwen tells me - but none of them were able to walk back down the hill to the taxi rank in Piazza Buenos Aires. Meltem and I did. And I spent the rest of the weekend in her flat not far from the Bahcelievler bus station, so catching the courtesy bus back on Monday was no real problem. We explored the limits of her chastity but we did nothing that she would have to explain to her country’s ambassador in Iraq and for a while I rescheduled my weekends to get off the bus at Bahcelievler instead of at Aksamkapisi.

But now that the promotion has come through and the Junior Directorship has been approved and salary, expenses and perks have all taken a step in the right direction, Gwen and I are back together again, Married actually. What would have happened if I had turned left and turned up on time ? The only beneficiary is the cause of it all, my father. I still haven’t sued him for my money because I don’t need it for the moment. The way Gwen is settling into Hollywood spending patterns though, I may have to revise that position in a month or two. One step at a time. Hopefully, not in the wrong direction.

I got my three day foraging pass at the Penn State border without any problems. In those days, soon after the war, the locals numbly accepted the terms of the treaty. There had been some incidences of retaliation against lone Coasters but these had been dealt with and their Manners Police kept things pretty well under control.

Even so, we only went on these foraging trips in large high-sided rigs with plenty of protection on the outside and in the cab. At the border, they slapped da-glo identification stickers, colour coded for the period of the permit, all along the body work and on the back doors. There was also a special panel in front of the grille with a place for a sticker there. It made us as conspicuous as hell and the rigs were a pig to drive down some of the country roads but it kept their Road Police at a respectful distance and allowed us to ignore their local speed limits on the highways.

Don't get me wrong. When I say I felt a certain pity for the Staters, this has got nothing to do with them losing the war. I just don't know how they can live in those small one street towns or out on those farms. The silence deafens me. It's pretty, sure enough, but so's the city at night, or a lit-up cracker plant, and I know which brand of prettiness I prefer.

On this trip I'd parked the rig on the forecourt of the gas station where the interstate comes into J....ville. It's a town I usually avoid; it's very provinciality - prissy correctness straight from some out-of-date tourist brochure - gives me the willies. We meet hostility everywhere we go in the State and we are trained and prepared for that, but in J...ville, even the modest small town architecture accuses. I let Jumbo out of his hutch behind the cab, gave him a bit of a fuss and made sure the pump boys got a good look at him before he crept back into the shade under the front train. I left him on a nice long chain, buckled on my mace stick holster and went on down the main street to see what the farm produce market had got. I quite like to walk down these streets and let the hostility bounce back off the sidewalks; it sets things up nicely for the business end. The locals, mainly fair-skinned, light-eyed Dutch look at me from under their peaked caps and I don't need to know Dutch to know what some of those looks are saying... but they wouldn't dare; I know it, and they know I know it.

As I say, most of the locals thereabouts are fair or of a nondescript mousy colour and the women keep their hair pretty well out of sight. Lord knows why - with all that sunlight and fresh air, even straight blond flax should get a shine to it. Maybe they just don't like to attract attention when the foragers are in town. So that's why it was quite a shock to see her behind the market stall. She was as pale skinned as the rest with grey or green eyes - I couldn't make them out in the poor light of the market. - but she had a head of tumbling black curls that would have graced one of my own race. It fell down behind her ears onto good strong shoulders. The upper part of her body - all I could see above the table behind which she was standing -was neatly, demurely even, encased in starched white linen in stark contrast to that wonderful crop of curls. As neat and proper as her dress was, it was clear to me that under that blouse, dwelt a bosom of magic proportions.

I don't allow myself to get distracted by these things so I spent the usual two or three hours extracting from the unwilling provisioners the best of their meat and vegetables. When I'd had it all packed away in the rig, given Jumbo his food and a bit of a run, I walked back down to the paging office, described the girl to the clerk and told him where to send her. He looked hard at me but didn't say anything. I didn't expect him to. In the meantime I put the rig at the back of the motel alongside Lorna's and a new natty black job I didn't recognise, and got myself up to my room to wait for her to arrive.

I was in the kitchenette so I didn't hear the door open or close. When I looked up from the drink I was mixing she was already standing there, framed in the doorway. She had a simple way of standing, legs slightly apart, toe pointing outwards, hands held in front of her lap. The chitty was lightly held between forefinger and thumb, as if it attached no great importance.

"You wanted me?" she said, devoid of inflection or expression.

"That is the way of it," I replied guardedly. "Give me that. I'll sign it now."

It was then I noticed the name. "You're not Dutch, then. What are you, Polack ?"

"Czech," she replied (and proud of it said the grey-green eyes).

Although she had give me the chitty, she hadn't stirred so we now faced each other in the kitchenette doorway.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

Without touching or getting near, I motioned her back into the sitting room where she occupied the centre of the floor with that same patient stance. I moved around and past her and sat back on the settle with my back to the window so the late afternoon sun caught her as in a flood light. She was a beauty, alright, but images came to me of trains of cattle trucks and other Mirkas who stood in line waiting for the grey soldiers to make up their minds.

"Have you ever been paged before, Mirka ?" I asked.

"No."

"You know what paging is about?'

"Of course. Everybody does."

"So why haven't ... "

"Because, until yesterday, I was too young."

I glanced at the chitty again and saw what I should have noticed before. She was one day over legal availability.

"Did you go with a boy, yesterday?" I probed.

A little bead of sweat had formed on her upper lip, which she licked at minutely; the expression in green grey eyes turned a duller pewter.

"Perhaps."

"All the way ?" I asked as kindly as I could.

The quirk of smile played with the idea at the corner of her mouth and the eyes went off down a little tunnel of memory.

" Not ...... all the way." Then after a pause that was neither theatrical nor rehearsed - a simple statement of fact, " I wasn't .... ready."

"Then we must be careful, mustn't we?"

I could, of course, have sent her back to the paging office with an "exonerated" note but I doubted the wisdom of that in this tight hostile community and only two other foragers to hand. We have learnt to our cost that taking from a defeated people is one thing - the protocol allows and expects that. But to return requisitioned goods unused is a provocation that no protocal or local provost can guard fully against. Besides, this odd quiet patient Czech girl was wondrously attractive to me.

I told her what I wanted and told her she could use the bathroom if she cared to. When she came back undressed into the room and took up her same stance, I had a feeling of unwrapping a much awaited birthday gift - not daring to believe - only to find precisely what I had asked for. She wasn't pale rosebud pink like the Dutch, but alabaster white. The top of her shoulders were lightly dappled with the tiniest of pinprick freckles as were her lower legs. The profusion of her curls was repeated where I would have expected and her breasts .... I am not unfortunate in that department. myself - far from it as many a lewd glance from these dull Dutch tells me - but Mirka was fashioned in a way that went beyond the erotic to a sublimity in a white woman I had not minimally conceived possible.

I repeated my instructions which she performed prettily without fuss and when I had finished doing the things that I like to do, I lay back, holding her head to my stomach. Slowly, as if coming to the end of a long swim, she changed position and started things of her own initiative, tentative at first and, meeting no resistance from me, with greater authority and skill. She opened my door and found me at home in a way I didn't think whites capable of. Later, just before the chitty ran out, she did it again and there was the hint of smile as Mirka tucked herself back into the neat constraints of her blouse and skirt.

J ... ville wasn't on any of my quotas for the next three months but just as soon as it came up, I was over the border and on the gas station forecourt not long after the markets had opened. I didn't bother with the paging office but went straight down to her stall. At my voice, she stopped what she was doing and followed me at a sensible distance back to the rig.

I should have known better, of course. And so should she. You cannot truck with anything as sensitive as the protocol and expect to come away unharmed. We were lucky in a way. We had settled down in the back part of the cab for a little early exploration when Jumbo started to beat his hutch door down. I covered myself up a bit and raised my head above the level of the glass when it was hit by a volley of tomatoes and eggs and the cab started rocking. Now there is no way even twenty very strong and determined farm-workers can tip over a forager's rig but they can make it uncomfortable for the occupant. I sat up which gave one or two of the more intrepidate a sight of my bare top, dived into a tee-shirt and scrambled over into the driving seat, my uniform trousers still uncomfortably round my thighs. The first thing I did was to slip the catch on Jumbo's hutch. He still had his safety harness on but that allowed him enough play to move people back five yards or so. There were attackers on both side of the rig so he had to dart back under the train and I could see, sooner or later, his harness was going to get caught up under one of the wheels and then he'd be at the mercy of the baseball bats and fencing mallets the local vigilantes had provided themselves with. I hadn't spared a thought for Mirka but she'd tidied herself and was in the seat alongside, strapping herself in.

"The mace is there," I said pointing to the stick clipped to the door on her side. "Fire it through those vents. I'm going to start this thing up."

I doubt very much whether Mirka had ever seen a mace stick before, except hooked onto a forager's belt but she cottoned onto the procedure and was soon poking the stick through the variously directed defence nozzles sending puffs of the nasty stuff out into the faces of those who still thought they might be able to get the door open.

When you start up a forager's rig, various things happen. Accoustic signals go off to alert two and four-legged crew members of the imminent "off", lights flash on and off, the rig lifts and, if you haven't closed the vents, the gas from the freezing plants sprays an area round the wheel base, giving nasty ammonia burns to anybody caught in the jet. My attackers had read their newspapers or had, at any rate, learned from the unfortunate experiences of other over-jealous or over-zealous Staters who'd tried to attack a rig. At the first sound of the accoustic signal, they backed well away, giving Jumbo time to jump back onto the train and get back in his hutch which immediately clicked shut on him and withdrew him and his hutch into the protective cowling behind the cab. Keeping the ammonia hissing at intervals, I edged the rig out of its slot and nosed it toward the exit onto the main road. Here Dutch providence and obstinacy had been at work. Instead of blocking the way out with trucks, cars or tractors - obstacles my rig would have shrugged aside - they'd parked the gasoline tanker right in my path. I had no way of knowing if it was empty, half-full or bursting at the seams. What I did know was, that if any spark from lacerated bodywork found a drop of the stuff, tanker, rig and half the township would go up in one great bonfire. Cursing my own stupidity, and patting Mirka reassuringly on the knee, I fired off the rescue signal and waited for the local gendarmerie to come and escort us to a place of safety.

When a rescue signal goes off, other rigs within a radius of a hundred miles, register it and get co-ordinates; so does our Rapid Action Force at the border crossings. Depending on how deep we are into the State, we usually have company within a few hours. That hasn't always been soon enough, so the protocol has been amended so that State Gendarmes have to provide cover (like it, or not) until sufficient of our people arrive. So that is what happened. A Gendarmerie helicopter hovered closely overhead while the tanker was backed out of the way and a phalanx of ranger cars escorted the rig back to the motel. Here, there was a wait while staff and management were read the riot act and guests packed off to alternative and probably less comfortable accommodation. When there was no obvious threat to Mirka or myself, we walked back through the rig and dropped down onto the steps outside the bungalow that'd been set aside for such occasions. I had to tug Jumbo off the tailgate; his training told him to stay with the rig but when I gave him the hand-sign "no immediate danger" he relented.

Unlike the other rooms in the motel that opened out onto verandahs and balconies, this formed the two sides of an internal courtyard with no architectural feature to betray its presence other than a flush electronically opened door which Jumbo immediately stationd himself behind once he'd made sure there were no other ways in or out.

The Commandant had come in with us and was eyeing Jumbo nervously. "You'll stay here until your escort arrives." he announced. Your RAF should be here in the early morning. Two other rigs are in the vicinity. I don't expect any more trouble."

"Then you can go." I answered evenly in the voice of Occupying Power.

"Madam. You can dismiss me. That is your privelige. My duties end here. You have - forgive me because I know I speak out of turn - committed a grave indiscretion. This incident will not close with simple forgiveness. I fear - not for your safety; that is not at risk and it concerns me no more than the protocol demands - but for her and the temper of this community. She is not one of them. There is no family or brother to quieten the harsh words she will hear or to quell the insolent looks. She faces great difficulty."

"I can relocate her; import her if necessary. She has nothing to fear from me."

"I fear not, Madam. There is no quota for relocation or absorption from this area of non-Dutch. She is here by chance and here she stays until this ...." he struggled briefly for the right word. "Until this administration is changed." He lifted his shoulders in an unhappy, futile gesture, an honest policeman unable to do what he knew would be for the best.

"I know what I must do." said Mirka quietly. "How long will it before Madam has to leave ? An hour, two ?"

"More than that, child. Four at least. What is it you think you can do that I cannot do for you ?" I think he realised the crassness of this, no sooner had he spoken because he looked long and hard at me with grey nordic eyes that did not like what they saw.

"Send us the Manner Police, meinheer, to keep us company until Madam leaves. I will arrange it that no further harm comes from this .... affair" Her grey eyes met his and I don't know whose had a greater depth of understanding, sorrow or determination. "In an hour's time. Please."

"If I am to do that, Madam, you will have to keep your animal under strict control."

"Jumbo can go back in the rig," I replied.

The honest Commandant had no more to say to either of us and left with the minimum courtsey that my rank required and I had no sooner settled Jumbo into his hutch and shot the last electronic stud home before Mirka leapt at me tearing her own clothes and mine. "We have an hour."

It was an hour that raced by, made up of seconds so filled with pleasure that each one itself seemed an eternity.

We were still earnestly engaged with each other when the three Manner Police let themselves in. If you have seen those old North American films where the County Sheriff is the local bully boy, backed up by a bulging belt, a bristling arsenal and a bevy of sycophantic sidekicks, you will not be much surprised by my description of these three. Like many police forces throught the world, their name belies their function. The Manner Police are not on the streets of Penn State to educate. They establish a rude balance between excess and lawlessness on the one hand and their excessive zeal on the other. They are the instruments of a defeated people's self inflicted martyrdom.

On spotting Mirka and myself on the bed through the half open door, the Sergeant called to his henchman in a thick, joyful voice. "Look here, boys. Have we struck gold this time." His eyes on our two naked forms on partly released from great pleasure led to only one scenario in his mind.

Mirka rolled off the bed away from me and slipped into her shirt and when she turned back to face them, they were left with fleeting memories of her glorious outline. I, caught by surprise by her deft movements, was left fully displayed for these three wheat-haired oafs to ogle and clearly this was the first time that they had sighted a tall, well endowed black woman, naked on her back, her breasts alert and her sex open. The effect on their trousers was immediate and my hand reached under the pillow.

"Your job is to is provide us safe-keeping until Madam's people arrive." Mirka intoned. "Do more or less than that, and grave grave consequences will apply. Is that not so, Madam ?"

The quiet authority of her tone had brought me marginly to my senses and the shredder was firmly in both hands and aimed at the large one's crotch, even if this meant they were able to see more of my naked body in motion than I might have wanted "Grave, .... or worse," I managed, waggling the shredder towards the Sergeant's manhood.

"You two, keep watch in the yard, please. You, " pointing at the youngest whose distended blue eyes were fighting a battle all of their own to find a safe point to rest their gaze on, "You can stay."

She was very gentle with him, eased him out of his uniform and helped him overcome both embarrassment and urgency. I frightened him I think, but he did his best with me, poor underequipped white lad that he was. Mirka got the best out of him though and before long, I'd dressed, gone into the kitchenette, made a drink for the slobs outside and sat in the cool garden smoking, shredder in hand, listening to Hans' (that was his name, it turned out from the other two) occasional shouts of pleasure. There was no more pleasure for me that night and when the RAF turned up, I was in the rig on the road without a further look at Mirka.

My supervisors saw to it that J...ville didn't show up on my quotas and I got involved in runs further to the north into orchard country. Here I formed a very pleasant dalliance with a large red-headed girl from Apeldoorn. Collecting her crop and tumbling with her in her hay became my chief sources of pleasure until the troubles in South State led to open rebellion.

I did manage just one more trip to that area before that happened and persuaded my section chief that no harm would come if we went into J..ville on a simple revittal and drive-through mission. We are good friends back in the city so, reluctantly, she agreed.

I went into the market shed flanked by Elaine and one of our male troopers and spotted the old Dutch who worked at the stall next to Mirka's.

"Mirka ? She's OK. Lives in the Manner Police House. Married the young one. You know the youngster, Hans. She's OK." He might have said more, but Elaine guided me away and made sure our convoy did not not pass the MP House on our way out.

We don't go foraging into Penn State any more. Far too dangerous. We use boats - ex-Coast Guard frigates - and fast motor boats for runs into the Georgia and Carolina coastline. Everything is much more organised now - foragers don't travel alone but in well co-ordinated boarding parties - and so the opportunities for getting myself into the sort of mess I got into back in J...ville doesn't crop up. We get what we are told to get and are rewarded accordingly; a fair crop, I must say, some fair, some dark and some of the traitor black but none as white skinned and dark haired as Mirka, none with that marvellous helmet of dark curls, with pin-point freckles on the top of her shoulders and none with that simple way of standing, legs slightly apart, toe pointing outwards, hands held in front of her lap.

Our forces raised J...ville to the ground in a reprisal raid, yesterday. Survivors ? too early to say and my boat leaves in an hour.