"I shall," said the the old man quietly to no one in particular, "surrender myself to outrageous hedonism. And the Devil take the hindmost." He headed towards the garden area of the hotel, his ebook tucked under his arm and a battered bush hat on his ninety year old head. Acres of faded khaki shorts flapped around his bony knees like old sails on the Mary Celeste. His colourless cheesecloth shirt hanging from his thin shoulders like a large cobweb had seen rather too many better days. In the garden he was pleased to find his favourite comfortable chair empty. He collapsed with a contented sigh in the dappled shade. A waiter, with exuberantly crooked teeth, made his way over. As always, he was balancing an enormous tray full of used plates, empty glasses, beer bottles and ash trays.

"Merhaba, Mr Jack" he said, waving a damp rag at the table top.

"Hello Barış, said Jack, "lutfen, kırmızı şarap ve bir bardak su." A red wine and a glass of water with a good book and a comfortable chair on a June afternoon in the Turkish sunshine was about as hedonistic as it got these days.

Jack concentrated on his book. The hero was about to surrender to an overwhelming force of militia. But he got no further than two sips of wine and four sentences into his story. Jack, distracted by the joyful hooting of the kids playing in the pool, thought of his own surrenders. His life, as he looked back, seemed to have been full of big surrenders and small surrenders. A thousand small surrenders disguised as compromises were mostly forgotten. They blurred into the colourful and comfortable tapestry of his long life. But the big surrenders that had caused him great pain at the time still smarted when he bought them to mind. He kept them locked away like poisons tightly locked into boxes on shelves in a back room of his mind. But sometimes they escaped, filling his nose and head with the toxic gasses they still gave off.

He thought of that June Monday, all those years ago, in the Sherrif's Court in Elgin on the Moray coast in Scotland. Still an unpleasant memory, he prodded at the old hurt like people do with bruises. He had married a woman who, it turned out, cared very little for him. They had had three children and, when the youngest child was about seven, they divorced. The children went with Jack and the former Mrs Jack set off to fulfil her dreams. Jack was unperturbed by this memory. He knew he was a difficult young man to live with, he remembered his excitements and enthusiasms being so very different from those of his wife. It had been inevitable that they would part sooner or later. As always though, the fact of children added a layer of complication.

Jack, as he turned it over in his mind, remembered only snippets of the next few years. It was a busy time. He heard nothing from his former wife, he worked hard, he moved south to England with a promotion, time passed. The children, forever wondering where their mother had gone, grew older. There was always a hole for them where their mother should have been. But she was nowhere on the horizon. Then one day, about four years later, she appeared. She had, she said, got herself 'together' and was living with her new partner and wouldn't it be nice if the children could come for a visit. Her partner, it turned out was a young man a good ten years younger than she was. They were both also part of a 'spiritual community' on the Moray coast. Jack squirmed in his chair at the memory. He waived Barış over for some more wine.

"Bloody hippy cult more like" he muttered to himself.

But arrangements were made for the visit. The children were incredibly excited. The visit, as was inevitable, Jack realised, turned into a prolonged stay. Eventually Jack agreed to the children moving up to stay with their mother.

The transition was made. Jack remembered that he was ok with it at the time, sanguine even. Then his former wife died. She went over the handlebars of a motor bike, without a helmet on and directly in front of the children. Devastation rippled out like a tsunami, engulfing everyone. Jack remembered going up to Scotland to try and support his children and was surprised when he arrived to find that he was unwelcome. So unwelcome, in fact, that around fifteen members of the 'spiritual community' were assembled to make sure he got the message. To his lasting shame, Jack was forced to leave for home, without his children. That was his first big surrender.

Months went by. Jack tried to bring his children home and there were dificult conversations with the children and the boyfriend. He got nowhere. He talked and wrote to social services. All to no avail. And then one Friday afternoon a courier delivered a large envelope to Jacks house. It was details of a custody case launched by the ex boyfriend to be held in Elgin Sherrif's court on the following Monday. With no choice and no legal help Jack drove 250 miles to the court and argued for his children to come home. Against him were the 'spiritual community's' lawyers, representing the ex-boyfriend. Jack lost. He was forced to surrender custody of his children to a man of 23 whom he hardly knew. The second, the biggest and the penultimate surrender of his long life.

Death would soon demand the third. It would be the easiest.

Jack forced the poison back into it's box and put it on the shelf in the back room. He looked up and realised it was approaching tea time.