Greetings from the Vodka Sea by Chris Gudgeon Page B

think.”
    â€œMonkey, sweetie, you’re on holiday. You’re a thousand miles away from nowhere. You shouldn’t have a care in the world. I know what it’s like. I get to Provence or Gibraltar, I’m weeks before I can settle in. It takes time to shake the city out of your head, to let yourself go and just relax. Go have a nice mineral mud bath — have you tried the mineral mud bath? Treat yourself to something nice and stop worrying so much. You’re just like your father.”
    And Monica took her mother’s advice. She treated herself to a mineral mud bath (it was as good as she’d heard; she emerged, hours later, thoroughly rested, her skin tingling), then wandered down to the sea. She took a sip of the salty water, and then another and another. She spent the rest of the afternoon on the shore, drinking from the Vodka Sea and watching the tiny waves rise and fall.
    The week was almost over, and they’d planned a coach trip to the coast. At the last minute Bruce got an urgent call. They needed his advice on a complicated case (Bruce had pioneered the use of non-invasive procedures, almost single-handedly pulling London out of the Dark Ages of reproductive surgery); they wouldn’t have called but it was, quite literally, a matter of life or death. Bruce kissed Monica’s forehead.
    â€œI’m afraid you’ll have to get used to it, Peachtree. A doctor’s life is never his own.” He urged her to take the motor trip without him. The McGuffans would be there, and that new couple from Bingly (married, it turned out, the same day as Bruce and Monica), and besides, he would likely be in and out of consultation all afternoon. She reluctantly agreed.
    The coach was cramped and hot (air conditioning was yet to be discovered by the locals, it seemed). Monica had a seat mostly to herself, although John sat with her whenever he was taking a break from his guide duties. They drove due west, past the government checkpoint a few kilometres from the resort compound, up into the rolling hills (several rows of barbed wire separated the road from the untended orange groves), and through the gentle grasslands. They drove right past the Hanging Gardens, heralded in several languages as the Tenth Wonder of the World. It looked broken down and unattended, and judging by John’s smirk, it must of been something of a local embarrassment. The coast was . . . well, a coast: rocky shoreline and sandy beaches, although the water looked cold and muddy and violent; it had nothing of the Vodka Sea’s soothing charm. And so they trudged through the half dozen grim tourist shops, each selling the same cheap t-shirts and shell animals, and the dirty bistro (where a mercifully Spartan lunch of fish soup and herbed bread was provided) and out along the same breakwater where pirates and crusaders, centuries before, had stopped to ask directions. Their last stop was an icebox-sized bar, named simply 1234. A glass of local wine was included with the tour (somewhere between a Merlot and a Cabernet, with a peaty, almost mouldy, aftertaste). Monica had one drink, and then John, who’d latched onto her, the Single Englishwoman, bought her another and another.
    â€œIt’s a long ride back.” He smiled. He skin smelled of coconut and motor oil.
    And a long ride back it was. Dusk had come, and the coach fairly crawled along the unlit gravel highway. John gave up his patter ten minutes into the trip, and settled into the spot beside Monica.
    â€œIt seems so curious to me,” she said, after enduring a few moments of silence.
    â€œWhat’s that, miss?”
    â€œYou seem to be somewhat above this.” The wine had made her unusually brave. “I mean, you’re obviously educated. A man of some character and breeding. Surely you aspire to being more than a tour guide.”
    John shrugged.
    â€œWe do what we can, miss. And when we can’t do what we can, we do what