Free Daughter of the Winds by Jo Bunt Page B

Betty raised her eyebrows as she flipped the hissing bacon over.
    “ Well... Yeah,” said Pru, less certain this time.
    Pru leant her elbows on the table and held her cup of tea against her lips as she thought about Betty’s question. At the army stables where Pru was a regular visitor, even though her pregnancy stopped her from riding, both the Greeks and Turks worked together, but now she stopped to think about it, the Greeks had the slightly nicer jobs while the Turks shovelled the manure. But she had never seen any animosity between them. She realised now that she didn’t know many Turks. The restaurants that they ate in were mainly Greek-owned; the woman they rented their flat off was Greek; the family she bought fruit off at the side of the road was Greek; all their local acquaintances were Greek rather than Turkish.
    “ I still don’t get it. It’s plainly stupid,” she said finally, making up her mind that they must all be idiots.
    “ Well, the Turkish were unhappy, we all knew that, but I’m not sure them Greeks expected this. But then, if you poke a hornet’s nest, you get stung.” The older woman sighed as she placed cutlery and a bottle of HP sauce on the table. “There’s been trouble fer years and it’s finally boiled over. Eat up.”
    “ But why aren’t the British army doing anything?”
    “ Oh I dunno, pet, but what can they do?” Betty asked kindly. “If we side with the Greeks now and have war with the Turks, we’ll be in all kinds of hot watter. It isn’t our country, pet. This is a politicians’ war. Let them do the talking and in the meantime, we’ll pray that not too many young’uns lose their lives because of some old men’s hunger for power.”
    “ That simple?” asked Pru through a mouthful of salty bacon.
    “ Let’s hope so, pet. I’ve no desire to get back to Newcastle just yet. Now get that inside yer,” she nodded at the plate in front of Pru. “And then get dressed. I want yer help oot in the garden.”
    Conversation over, Pru w as left alone to finish her breakfast. She resented the fact that Betty expected her to do some gardening but she was softening towards the other woman. And, she had to admit, it was nice to be eating proper, lard-cooked bacon again. Betty had even cut off the rind and fried it separately so that it could coil into crispy spirals.
    The news from last night was tapping at her subconscious and she knew she would have to let it in at some point. She was well aware that she should feel something over Dad’s death and the fact that she didn’t get to say goodbye to him. She pushed her bacon around her plate, smearing brown sauce across the circumference and strained to remember that last time she’d seen Dad. It would have been the morning of her eighteenth birthday. She remembered that it had been sunny, despite the chill in the air.
    She opened her presents at the breakfast table over bitter marmalade-dressed toast. She clearly remembered the slender oblong box that Dad slid over to her from beneath the red knitted tea cosy. By the twinkling in his eyes she knew that he was pleased with the gift so she was expecting something special.
    It was the most delicate and exquisite watch with a real leather strap. The face was white with roman numerals around the outside. She couldn’t stop looking at it and bolted down her breakfast in order to get to college and show it to all of her friends her new timepiece. “It’s a timepiece, not a watch, Little Bean.” Did she even thank him for it? Did she tell him she loved him as she flounced out the door feeling like a woman? She could only hope so.
    It was over half an hour later when she joined Betty in the garden in the same clothes that she had arrived in the night before. Whereas the interior of the house may have been like stepping into a semi-detached in middle England, the garden was all Cyprus. There were white and blue tiles on the garden wall and huge cracked terracotta pots around the