Two Caravans

by Marina Lewycka

  “Watch out, my Dumpling!”

  Andriy, still hanging onto the bonnet, hears Yola’s shriek at the top of the field, and looking round he sees her tottering down between the clumps of strawberries in her flimsy high-heeled sandals. The farmer sees her too as he picks himself up.

  “Go back, Primrose!” He waves her away.

  The car reverses, revs up a bit, then suddenly accelerates forward. There is a horrible crunch. The farmer falls writhing to the ground. The car reverses and revs up again. Andriy is hanging onto a windscreen wiper with one hand and hammering on the glass with the other.

  “Stop! Stop!”

  “My Dumpling!”

  He hears Yola’s cry behind him, but he can’t quite see what’s happening. As the car lurches forward again, he flings himself off and lands on top of the farmer, who is rolling on the ground twisted up in agony, his mouth open as if in a scream, though only faint gurgling noises are corning out. Andriy disentangles himself shakily and stares in horror. The bones of the farmer’s left leg are sticking out all over the place. The car is reversing and revving up again.

  “My poor Dumpling!” Yola stumbles down the field and diving forward, tries to drag the farmer free. But he is too heavy for her. The car is heading at them. Andriy staggers to his feet and the two of them manage to heave the writhing farmer out of the way, missing by inches the front bumper of the car, which has picked up some speed, the blonde Angliska rosa grinning like a maniac behind the wheel.

  Crash! With a horrible rip of metal, it ploughs into the rear end of the men’s caravan, which topples off its pile of bricks and lands at a crazy angle on its axle.

  The Angliska rosa gets out to inspect the damage to her car. Then she walks over to the farmer squirming on the ground in the glare of the headlights, and gives him a kick.

  “You sleazy bastard. Next time it’s curtains.”

  “Wendy,” he groans, “it was nothing. Just a bit of slap and tickle.”

  Yola has been keeping out of the blonde’s way, but self-control is not her strong point.

  “Slapping ticker! What is slapping ticker? Eh?” She lays into him with her fuchsia-tipped toes. “I am primrose, not slapping ticker!”

  “Yola, please…” Andriy struggles to restrain her, but she breaks free and takes a run at the farmer.

  “Get off him!” shouts the blonde. “He may be a sleazeball, but he’s my sleaze, not yours!” She dives at Yola, catching her off balance with one foot poised for a kick, and grabbing her round the waist she wrestles her to the ground. They are both panting and tearing at each other’s hair.

  “You all sleazes!” Yola writhes and thrashes, but the blonde is bigger and stronger than she is. “Let me go!”

  “Stop! Please! Be calm!” cries Andriy, grabbing the blonde and holding her fast in his arms. “Lady, please…”

  Seizing the moment, Yola scrambles away and takes cover in the men’s caravan. He grasps the blonde’s hand, which is clenched into a fist, and tries to raise it to his lips, but she wrenches it free, swings wide and lands it on his jaw with a crack.

  Stars appear in the black space behind his eyes.

  The Chinese girls are staring out of the window, trying to work out what is going on in the field below. Shifting between the blaze of headlights and the pools of darkness, the action is disjointed and confusing. They see the car reversing and driving forward. They see Yola launch herself at the body on the ground. They hear the smash as the car ploughs into the caravan. They see Irina standing with Marta, a little way below the caravan, watching the events at the bottom of the field. At some point in all the chaos, Vulk’s four-by-four pulls in through the open gate and drives silently up round the margin of the strawberry rows to the women’s caravan, headlights off. Irina looks round and sees him appear out of the darkness. She screams and makes a dash for the copse, but this time he chases and catches her. The Chinese girls witness the abduction, but they are unable to stop it. Vulk bundles Irina struggling and yelling into the back of his vehicle, and drives off into the night.

  Bye-bye Strawberry. Hello Mobilfon

  I screamed and screamed. I could see the Chinese girls and Marta turn and run towards me. I could see their terrified faces, white in the blaze of the headlights. I felt the clamp of Vulk’s hand on my shoulder, the grip of his arm across my throat. Then I blacked out.

  When I came round, I was jolting and swaying about in a vehicle, pounding along a road in the dark. I could smell the familiar horrible tobacco stink of the leather upholstery pressed against my cheek. My stomach twisted up with horror and despair. How had I let this happen? You fool, Irina. Stupid. Careless idiot. Drop your guard for one moment and you’ve had it. You might as well be dead. Better to be dead. Better dead than…No, don’t think of it. Blank it out. Blank.

  My shoulders were shaking. My hands and feet were icy cold. Mamma, Pappa, please help me. I am your little Irina. A treasure not a toy. Don’t be angry. Help me. Surely someone will help me. This is England.

  “Little flower OK?” That sludgy voice! I was crumpled up on the floor in front of the passenger seat, my legs folded awkwardly under me, my face resting on the leather seat. A few inches from my face was the tattered bunch of flowers.

  “Little flower think she can running from Vulk. Little flower think she clever. But Vulk everywhere more clever. I vait. I come back. Houp! I catch. I make possibility.”

  Stop. Think. There must be some way…The car door-maybe it will open. The car is going fast. You’ll be hurt-maybe killed. Better dead than…No. Stop. Think. Talk to him. Trick him with words. Think of something, quick. Mamma, Pappa, help me. Make a plan. The car door opens. No, the door is locked. No, the door opens. You fall, you roll. You are hurt but you are alive. You run. Someone will help you. This is England. You run. He runs after you. He has a gun.

  Vulk shoved the battered bouquet at me so that the stems caught my hair.

  “You like it, flower?”

  I shut my eyes and kept quiet. I could hear the creak of his leather coat as he leaned over me. I could smell tobacco and tooth decay. He touched my face. I felt his rough fingers tracing the line of my cheek and my jaw. The car lurched. I kept my eyes shut. The fingers played down my neck. I felt them pressing and lingering in the hollow of my collarbone, creeping down under my blouse.

  “Beautiful flower. You like it, flower?”

  Think. Speak. You are clever-use your wits. The right words could save your life. Say something.

  I couldn’t say anything. My throat went into spasm. I started to retch violently. A dribble of lumpy fluid trickled out of my mouth onto the car seat. I felt the car slow down, swerve, and bump over rough ground. He must have pulled off the road. He leaned over and opened the car door on my side. We were on a shadowy track that seemed to lead into some woods. He pushed my head out of the door.

  “You sick outside.”

  I retched again and again, my head hanging over the side of the car into the darkness. Vulk waited.

  Now. Now’s the time to run. Jump. Run for it. Into the wood. Duck behind the bushes. Vanish into the shadows of the trees. Lie still. Hide.

  My eyes adjusted to the darkness. My body tensed. And as though he could read my thoughts, Vulk said, “You run I shoot with gun.”

  Better dead than…Blank. Dead. Blank.

  I jumped.

  I AM DOG I RUN I RUN I SMELL EARTH AND WOOD AND WATER TREES BUSHES BRAMBLES I SMELL FOX I SMELL RABBIT BUSHES TOO CLOSE TEAR SKIN I BLEED I RUN SHARP STONE PAW PAIN BLOOD LICK BLOOD PAIN I RUN FAR AWAY ANGRY DOG BARKS FAR AWAY MAN SHOUTS SILENCE IS CLOSE NIGHT-BIRD CALLS NIGHT-BIRD REPLIES BIRD-LOVE TALK SILENCE TREES BUSHES HEDGE LONG FIELD SWEET GRASS MOONLIGHT I RUN I RUN I AM DOG

  “You’d better beat it,” says Wendy. She is dialling something on her mobilfon. In the half-light, her face looks ashen and mad. Andriy stares at her, wondering what had possessed him.

  “Beat?”

  “Beat it. Before the police come.”

&nbs
p; He understands ‘police come’.

  “But I…”

  “You rammed him with my car, didn’t you? Dispute over wages.”

  “But…”

  Andriy looks across at the farmer, but he seems to have passed out.

  “Who do you think the police will believe? Here.” She tosses him a car key.

  His heart leaps. But the key is not for the sports car, it is for the Land Rover. “You can take that bloody strawberry tart, too.” She gestures towards the top of the field. What does she mean? He pockets the key and steps forward to embrace her. She backs away.

  “Just go.”

  He climbs into the Land Rover and tries the key. It starts up instantly. The pedals and gear movements are rough. The last car he drove was his father’s Zaporozhets. His first thought is to drive out through the gate and put his foot down, but his passport and two weeks’ wages are tucked in an old sock under his mattress. And there is something else that holds him back-that girl, her dark hair spread on the pillow, waking from sleep. He won’t go without saying goodbye to her. Goodbye and God be with you? Or goodbye and see you again? That’s what he wants to find out.

  He turns off the engine and goes back to the men’s caravan, which is leaning crookedly on its one wheel. Yola is there, sitting on Tomasz’s sloping bed, shaking and crying uncontrollably, and Tomasz is comforting her.

  “I’m going,” says Andriy. He retrieves his passport and money, and starts to stuff his other belongings into his bag. “Before police come.”

  Yola looks up, startled.

  “Police coming?”

  He nods. She jumps up, pushing Tomasz out of the way.

  “I go too. I get my bag.” She makes her way towards the door. “Wait. Please wait.”

  Tomasz pulls his bag down from his locker and starts to pack too.

  “I come with you.”

  Emanuel is sleeping on Vitaly’s bunk, but he opens his eyes and raises himself up on one arm, shielding his eyes from the light with the other, and mumbling something in his own language.

  “We’re going. Goodbye, my friend.” Andriy closes the door quietly and returns to the Land Rover with his bag.

  He drives the Land Rover round the edge of the field, overtaking Tomasz, who is running straight up through the strawberry clumps, his bag and his guitar bouncing on his back. The second gear on the Land Rover keeps slipping and the steering is loose. He’ll have to drive carefully.

  He knocks and opens the door of the women’s caravan. Inside is hysteria and chaos. Yola is trying to gather her possessions by the light of an oil lamp and at the same time to calm Marta and the Chinese girls, who are sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Where’s Irina?” he asks.

  “Man take it,” says one of the Chinese girls, trembling, and the other chimes in, “Woman hairs man take it.”

  “Man in gangster car has taken Irina,” Marta explains in Polish.

  Blood swims before Andriy’s eyes. How has this happened? How has he let this happen? What kind of man would let his girl (is she his girl?) be snatched away like that? He feels faint and sick.

  “Which way?”

  The girls point vaguely down the field. His heart shrinks at the uselessness of it. What a fool he’s been. The blonde. The Ferrari. What a stupid useless idiot.

  “Let’s go. Let’s go.”

  He grabs Yola’s bag, and Marta’s, because she wants to go with her auntie, then the two Chinese girls start shrieking and wailing.

  “We no stay. We come. We go. Bad woman hairs man come again.”

  “You pack up quick quick,” says Yola.

  They are all scrabbling about, shaking hysterically, and Tomasz is getting in the way, clunking them with his guitar each time he moves. Andriy thinks he sees a flash of blue lights between the trees down in the valley. Suddenly he realises what to do. He jumps into the Land Rover, manoeuvres round, backs up, and hitches the caravan to the towing bracket. There is even a socket into which he plugs the connector. It hardly takes two minutes. Then he is off.

  As he bounces along the edge of the field, a small figure in a green anorak stumbles out in front of him, seeming still the worse for eight cans of lager. He slams on the brakes. The caravan lurches and almost leaps off the towing bracket. Hm. He’ll have to remember not to brake so sharply.

  “Get in,” he yells. Emanuel clambers into the back of the Land Rover and settles into the hay.

  At the bottom gate, Wendy is still crouched over the prone body of the farmer. She looks up briefly as they drive off and Andriy thinks he catches the flicker of a smile on her face, but it could be just a trick of the light.

  He can’t get up into third, and it keeps slipping out of second, and trying to control the rebellious sway and tug of the caravan hitched to the back with the steering so loose is no joke. And there, wailing up the valley, are the flashing blue lights. Holy bones! He’s only gone a few kilometres, and they’re after him already.

  How has this happened, Andriy Palenko? Fifteen minutes ago, you had a Land Rover, money in your pocket, the open road, a childhood sweetheart waiting for you. Now you have six passengers, an unruly caravan and the police on your back. Why didn’t you just say no?

  Ahead of him, on the left, is a turning-a grassy track that seems to lead into a wood. He veers off the road. After a few metres the track widens into a parking place with an old picnic table. He pulls to a halt. In the back of the Land Rover Emanuel is asleep on the hay. Andriy sticks his head in the door of the caravan.

  “Everything normal in here?”

  The four women and Tomasz are crouching in a huddle on the floor. Marta has been sick.

  “Where are we?” asks Tomasz.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know where we are or where we’re going. We stay here. In the morning we decide.”

  He sits down on the floor next to the others, resting his head in his hands. He realises his knees are shaking. He is covered in sweat. If the police come, he will just explain everything. He will tell them it was all a mistake and take the consequences like a man. This is England.

  Yola definitely has nothing to apologise for. Definitely not. When your lover betrays you and insults you with slapping ticker, if you are a woman of action, you have to act. There was that big dolt Andriy, trying to make everybody calm. What use is calm in a situation like that? Naturally the wife would try to put the blame on her. All lies. But try telling that to the policeman. She knows the mind of a policeman-she was married to one once. And the way the policeman thinks is this: guilty person is one who has motive. Does Andriy have motive to run over Dumpling? No. Does she have a motive? Yes.

  So best thing is to keep out of police’s way. Back to Poland. Quick quick. But this beetroot-brain says he can’t drive any more, he wants to sleep. And you can see from the way he is looking at the bed that he thinks he should be allowed to sleep here in the women’s caravan. And that knicker-thief Tomasz (he thinks she doesn’t know, but she does) has taken off his shoes. Pah! What a stink! All the girls start to shriek and cover their noses. She folds her arms across her bosom and says firmly, “This is women’s caravan, for women only.”

  But will this pig-headed beetroot-brain listen?

  “Yola,” he says, “you may have been queen of strawberry field, but here on road, I am boss. And if I am going to drive to Dover, I need good night’s sleep.”

  Yola explains patiently that in absence of farmer, for which, by the way, she denies all responsibility, she is senior figure, and she will decide about sleeping accommodations.

  “I am mature and respectable woman, and I cannot be expected to share my sleeping quarters with any man.”

  Well, his reply is so uncouth that she will not repeat it, except to say that it referred to her age, her underdo things, her country of origin, and her relationship with the farmer, which being a pure business arrangement, and moreover one conducted in a foreign country, has no relevance to any discussion of her character, a nuance which is probably
too subtle for a Ukrainian.

  “Andriy, please!” Tomasz intervenes, in a very calm and dignified way. “Is no problem. You can sleep in Land Rover, and I will stay here on floor.”

  “No! No!” cry all the girls in chorus. “No room on floor!”

  “Well, then we will all sleep in Land Rover. Somehow we will manage.”

  Well, they did manage. Somehow. So that’s that.

  Andriy really let rip at Yola, and now he feels better. Out in the cool pre-dawn the sky is already growing lighter and the stars have disappeared. Tomasz has taken off his trainers once more, placed them on the bonnet and stretched himself out on the front seats of the Land Rover, his feet sticking out of the window, perfuming the breeze with his socks. Andriy wonders where Irina is spending this night. The thought makes his stomach clench unpleasantly. He crawls into the back, fitting himself around and on top of Emanuel, who has slept through everything, curled up knees to chin on the sweet-smelling hay. There is an old blanket on the floor that he pulls up over them. Although the air is chilly, the silence of the wood, the breathing of earth and roots and sap at last put him into such a deep sleep that he doesn’t wake until the morning sun strikes through the silvery tree trunks.

  I AM DOG I RUN I RUN ALONE FIELD HEDGE ROAD ALL DARK I SEE BLUE LI6HT FLASH FLASH I SNIFF LISTEN I HEAR BAD WHEELIE NOISE WHOO WHAA WHOO WHAA I RUN FIELD RIVER I DRINK SMALL ANIMALS SCUFFLE SMELL OF GRASS AND EARTH DEAD THINGS ROTTIN6 ANIMAL SMELLS FRESH PISS BADSER FOX WEASEL RABBIT I RUN ROAD FIELD WOOD ROAD WOOD STOP SNIFF SNIFF I SMELL MAN FEET GOOD STRONG FEET SMELL I GO SEEK MAN FEET SMELL I RUN I RUN I AM DOG