Those You Meet Along the Way: Old Wealth

I keep going back to Kas, Turkey. It’s a fun place. This is 1987, March. We’re spending the winter in this mild climate. Got a nice room, good view of the sea and lots to do. Over two and a half years on the road. Nice honey moon.

Marilyn is taking care of a carpet shop when a British couple come in just to speak their native tongue again. They are being chauffeured about the south coast in a private car. We’ll call them Shirley and Steven. Shirley entered the shop saying she was not interested in purchasing. Marilyn offered to display what she had just bought, and they the ones she did not buy. Shirley looked at one large carpet and announced, “I’ll have it. Come, Steven and see what I've just bought.” They buy two lovely carpets, which will save the shop owner’s economic life. There are few sales in March. Kas is very quite. They find out that next day is my birthday, 2-22, and insist on having us to dinner at their hotel. At this time there is only one hotel, all the rest are rooms or boarding houses.

Over dinner I am asked how long we’ve been traveling and I tell them since July. They are amazed. Eight Months! Then I add July 1985 and he almost chokes on his meat. He asks what I do and I say, “ nothing.” He says that’s lovely but what did I do before I retired and again I say, “nothing.” I tell him I haven’t ever done anything in my whole life and they are convinced we’re rich gringos. Later I tell my Dwarf that the only way you can impress this kind is to tell them you’ve never done anything and never admit you worked.

So, they have a lovely home on a Greek Island, fully staffed of course, and Steven thinks it would be wonderful if we went to it and wrote something while we were there. “ It would be a lovely addition to the history of the house,’ he adds.

Oh, and they have a small place in Buckingham Shire. They’d love to take us there. “It has a small garden but it keeps both our gardeners quite busy! And we love it. It’s not large but each of our 11 grand children can have a room of their own!” No, it’s not large. So it goes.

We hang out. They think we are the most interesting colonials they’ve run into in some time! They’re fair. We are allowed to pay every other time. She buys some more things. The owner is out of his mind with joy. We tell them ruins they can visit. We are thanked, but “ We really just want to relax. It’s been a really horrible year. We just sold the air craft factories and divorced ourselves from the entire industry. So it goes.

They left but not before they gave us their address in London and made us promise when we got there to give them a call and drop by and knock them up. Well, Marilyn had never been to Sloan Square so we did just that. We were in London trying to sell my novel. So that went. The flat only had ten rooms and since we came on Tuesday, the staff’s afternoon off, she served tea herself. It was very good! So were the scones and the banter. Steven snoozed. They were gracious and lovely company. We enjoyed a delightful visit before a play. Once we got outside, London had this weird tinge of green to it. I guess it was the 500 pound notes floating about in the breeze. Who knows? It was fun. And so were they. Wonderfully kind. Delightful to converse with, and most of all they understood American English almost to perfection! That’s a difficult attribute, take my word for it.