Two Caravans

by Marina Lewycka

  “I been there. Is also in Donbas region. Not beautiful.”

  “Well, Barnsley in’t noted for its beauty.”

  “I been in Sheffield once before. And I met Vloonki, who is noted for his wisdom and good heart. When we get to Sheffield, we will ask him for help.”

  “Vloonki?”

  “The ruler. He is blind, but he sees everythings.”

  “Aw! You mean Blunkett!” Rock jumps in his seat and his glasses slip right off his nose and skitter across the dashboard. As he leans to grab them, the steering wheel lurches sharply and the bus swerves, skids sideways and bounces off a boulder. “Bloody Blunkett!” Rock pinches the nose-clip on his glasses to tighten it.

  “Why he is bloody?”

  “Class traitor. Sold our birthright for a mess of posh totty, in Jimmy’s immortal words.”

  Sold what? Who is this Jimmy? Before Andriy can ask, Rock calls out, “There she is!”

  They have been winding slowly upwards for a few kilometres through a wild steep landscape of bracken, peat and rock, more sombre than the sandy heathery plateau of Nine Ladies. At the top of the rise the road levels out, and just as it starts to dip they see a city spread below them in the valley, a dense cluster of buildings in the centre, glinting in the sunlight, thinning out to untidy scatterings of ugly new developments crawling over the surrounding hills.

  “This is Sheffield?” Irina’s voice is cold.

  Andriy’s heart shrinks with disappointment. Definitely this city is not upon a hill.

  Nor is there any bougainvillea. The leafy outer suburbs soon give way to ribbons of bricky terraces as they near the city centre. Rock pulls into a side road where many of the houses seem abandoned, their curtains drawn, their front gardens full of rubbish and weeds, and plastered with To Let signs. How has Vloonki allowed his city to become so neglected? There is a distant taint of steelworks in the air that reminds him of home.

  “Nowhere to park in town. We’ll walk from here. I’m meeting Thunder at the Ha Ha.”

  They follow Rock through a urine-stained underpass up into the town centre. The storm has chased away the clouds, and the day is hot and bright again. Here the surroundings look neater, and the traffic has been diverted to make a pleasant quarter. Busy crowds throng the pavements, and there are shops, market stalls, even some new and stylish buildings. This is still not as he remembers it, but it is better than his first impression. Andriy’s spirits rise. Fountains-yes, there are fountains! And a square with a formal garden full of waterfalls, overlooked by a big Gothic building that seems vaguely familiar, and a modern citadel of glass and steel that should have been a palace, but sadly turns out to be only a hotel. He takes Irina’s hand, twining her fingers between his. She smiles and points. “Look!”

  In the fountains a horde of raggedy children, stripped down to their knickers, are running and splashing through the water. Just like Donetsk.

  I AM DOG I AM WET DOG I RUN I PLAY IN WATER WOOF SPLASH RUN IN THIS WATER IS DREAM OF MY PAST-TIME PUPPINESS HERE ARE CHILDREN WET CHILDREN THEY PLAY WITH ME WOOF SPLASH RUN I AM HAPPY THEY TOUCH ME WITH SMALL WET HANDS GOOD DOG THEY SAY I AM GOOD DOG MY MAN IS WATCHING I RUN TO MY MAN I SHAKE WATER ON HIM SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE GO AWAY WET DOG SAYS MY MAN RUN AND PLAY I AM HAPPY I RUN I PLAY I AM WET DOG I AM DOG

  On the edge of the square is a cafe with tables set out in the sunshine. A very tall girl with cropped blond hair runs towards them, and gives Rock a hug. His nose comes just about to the level of her breasts, which are small and firm and barely covered by the straps of a faded orange vest. She too has a dog on a string.

  “I’ve got a few things to do,” says Rock. “Got to surrender missen to t’ vile clutches oft’ missus. I’ll meet you back here at six o’clock.”

  Irina announces that she too will take a look at the shops. Andriy watches her vanish into the crowd, Dog padding along behind her, still wet from his splash in the fountains. Then he reaches for his wallet and takes out a piece of paper. He needs to find a telephone.

  I was thinking about Natasha in War and Peace, how she and Pierre have their blazing moment of love, and all her beauty and passion flow into him, and all his intellect and strength flow into her, and they face the world together from their glorious tower of love. When you read it, tears will come into your eyes, I promise, unless you have a heart of stone. And then, after she has found the one, the passion slowly dissolves into a gentle everyday love and she becomes a solid housewife, devoted to their four children, and interested in household and family matters. I wonder whether the same thing will happen with Andriy and me. Already I can see the first signs. For example I noticed today that Andriy needs some new underpants. The ones he is wearing will soon be in the same condition as the warrior underpants. This is not appealing in a man.

  That’s what was in my mind as I set out to find the street of shops and market stalls we’d come through earlier, because I had noticed they were selling such items-sexy styles in interesting colours, not the universal dark green baggy type you get in Ukraine. And some very small ladies’ knickers made of lace. I thought if I could find my way back to that street, I could have a look. But somewhere I must have taken a wrong turn, for I found myself in unfamiliar surroundings which seemed to be a commercial district, with redbrick office buildings and only a few cafes and shops, none of them selling clothing, but cleaning products, stationery, office equipment and other useless stuff. I must have been walking for almost half an hour, getting increasingly lost. The wet dog was following me, sometimes running on ahead, sometimes lagging behind or disappearing up an alley, sniffing at pissy lamp posts all the time in his disgusting way.

  The sun was still hot, but the shadows were lengthening on the pavement. There was nobody on the streets here, and a one-way road system, so the few cars were going quite fast. The dog had disappeared somewhere and I was on my own. I was trying to work out where I had gone wrong and find somebody I could ask the way when I noticed that a large grey car was crawling along beside me, and the driver was staring at me and mouthing something. I ignored him, and he drove off. At the corner of the street a blonde woman was standing smoking a cigarette. She was wearing ridiculous satin shorts and high-heeled boots. As I hurried towards her to ask for directions, the car pulled up alongside her and the man wound down his window. They exchanged a few words and she got into his car. Hm. Obviously I didn’t want to hang around in this place. So I turned and tried to retrace my steps, walking quickly, when another young woman came sauntering up the road towards me on spiky high heels. She looked familiar. I stared. It was Lena. She spotted me at the same moment.

  “Hi, Lena,” I said in Ukrainian, reaching out to take her hand. “What you doing here?”

  “What you think?” she said.

  “I heard about the accident. The minibus. I was so upset. Was that at our farm?”

  “I don’t know what you talking about,” she said.

  Close up, she looked even younger. She had grown her hair a bit, and put on white powder like a mask and a smear of very bright red lipstick that accentuated her babyish pout. It was smudged at the edges, as if she had been kissing. Her black stockings and high-heeled shoes looked absurd on her skinny legs. She looked like a child who had been trying on her mother’s clothes and playing with her make-up. Apart from her eyes. There was nothing childish about her eyes.

  “How are the others? Tasya? Oksana?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She had stopped, and was staring straight ahead, over my shoulder. I turned and followed the line of her gaze. She was looking towards the forecourt of an office block, where a number of cars were parked. Right at the back, half hidden behind a white van, was a huge black shiny four-by-four. I must have walked right past it.

  I felt a terrible sick feeling rise up in me. My heart started up. Boom. Boom. Run, run, shouted my racing heart, but my feet stayed rooted to the ground. I looked at Lena, but her eyes were completely dead.

  There is a telephone box at the
top of the square, near to the cafe. Andriy fumbles in his pocket for change, puts a couple of coins in the slot and dials the number on the piece of paper. There is a series of clicks, followed by a long single tone. What does that mean? He dials again. The same empty tone. He listens for a long time, but nothing happens. A blank. He was half expecting it. He sighs. This is it, then. His journey’s end. Vagvaga Riskegipd. A blank. Ah, well.

  A middle-aged woman is sitting at a small round table on the pavement outside the cafe. He shows her the piece of paper.

  “Oh,” she says, “that’s an old number. You have to dial 0114 instead of 0742. But you don’t need that, because you’re in Sheffield. You just put 2 before the main number.”

  He fishes a pencil stub out of his pocket and she writes it down for him.

  He tries again with the new number. This time there is a ringing tone. After several rings, a woman picks up the phone.

  “Alloa?” She speaks in the same broad regional dialect as Rock.

  “Vagvaga?” He can hardly control the excitement in his voice. “Vagvaga Riskegipd? Vagvaga?”

  There is a moment’s silence. Then the voice on the other end of the phone says, “Bugger off.” There is a click, followed by the dialling tone. He feels a stab of frustration. So close, yet still so far. Was that her voice on the end of the phone? He can’t recall her saying anything at all to him that night. How old would she be now? The voice on the phone sounded crackly and breathless, like an older woman’s. He resolves to wait a few minutes and try again.

  When he goes back into the square the same middle-aged woman is still sitting at her table, drinking coffee. She has been joined by a friend, and their shopping bags are clustered around them on the ground. On impulse, he approaches her once more with his piece of paper.

  “No luck?” She smiles at him.

  “What is this name?” he asks her.

  She looks at him oddly.

  “Barbara Pickering. What did you think it was?”

  He stares at the paper. Ah. His twenty-five-year-old eyes see what his seven-year-old eyes had not seen: Roman script.

  “What is mean bugger off?”

  She looks at him oddly again.

  “That’s enough. Bugger off now, will you?” And turning her back on him, she resumes her conversation with her friend.

  He had meant to ask her for some change as well, but now he can’t. He goes to the telephone again and puts a pound coin in the slot.

  “Alloa?” the same woman answers.

  “Barbara?” Barr-baah-rrah. Barbarian woman. Wild. Untamed. An incredibly sexy name.

  “She’s not here.” The voice hesitates. “Was it you that called before?”

  “My name is Andriy Palenko. I am from Ukraine. Donetsk. Twin town with Sheffield.”

  “Oh,” the woman says, “I thought you was some nutter. Barbara’s not lived ‘ere for years. She’s up in Gleadless now. I’m ‘er mum.”

  “I met her many long times ago. I was first coming to Sheffield with my father for Ukrainian miners’ delegation.”

  “Were it that big do at t’ City Hall, wi’t’ Ukrainians? I were there too. By, that were a night!” A cackling sound down the line. “All that municipal vodka!”

  “Is she still live in Sheffield?” Andriy asks. Then he blurts out the question that has been on his mind ever since he had arrived in England-ever since he knew there was such a question to be asked. “Is she marry?”

  “Oh, aye. Got two lovely lads. Jason and Jimmy. Six and four. Do you want ‘er new number?”

  “Yes. Yes of course.”

  He takes out his pencil stub. She says the new number slowly, pausing after every digit. Andriy listens, but he doesn’t write it down.

  I turned to run, but Lena was blocking my way. She had a horrible smudged smile on her face.

  “Be careful,” she said. “He has gun.”

  How could this be happening in an ordinary street in England in broad daylight? Even as I looked the door of the four-by-four opened, and there stood Vulk, grinning at me with his yellow teeth, his arms outstretched in greeting. I could see no gun. If he had one, it was hidden in his pocket. Should I take a chance and run? In the brilliant slanting sunshine his dark backlit outline seemed like an apparition-a tubby grinning nightmare. I felt the same impulse of frozen panic. He started to walk towards me up the hill, quite slowly. His shadow slid before him on the pavement, hard-edged and squat. Behind me I could hear Lena muttering something. If I ran, would she try to stop me?

  He was coming closer. “My darlink little flower.” He had taken off his jacket, and I could see the dark circles of sweat on his shirt under his arms. I thought he was panting for breath, then I realised he was whispering, “Loff, loff, loff.”

  I backed away, barging into Lena, and that is when he got out the gun. I stopped, transfixed. It was grey, and so small it was hard to believe it could do any harm. He didn’t point it at me. He just held it in his hand and played with it, twirling it on his finger, his eyes set on me all the time.

  Then I noticed something at the bottom of the street, behind Vulk’s back-people, movement. Suddenly, there was Dog racing towards us, bounding along four paws at a time, and a few metres behind, red-faced and breathless, was Andriy.

  Dog is barking frantically. Andriy shouts at it to be quiet, but it jumps up, scrabbling at him with its paws, whining and tossing its head like a mad thing. Andriy picks up their bag and follows it up into the street.

  It is half past four. The pavements are busy with shoppers making the most of the last hour or so until closing time. The dog runs ahead through the crush, weaving in and out between people’s legs, then stopping to let him catch up, barking in an urgent, purposeful way. Now his heart is jumping about behind his ribs, because he realises that Dog is desperate to take him somewhere, and that Irina has been gone for over an hour. Dog crosses a busy road and turns up a side street between tall brick buildings. The crowds have disappeared, and they are in a quiet business neighbourhood, heading south-west away from the town.

  Another right turn brings them to the foot of a long rising street of anonymous workshops and offices. One side of the street-the side they are on-is in bright sunshine; the other side is already in shadow. A hundred metres or so up ahead of them are three figures. Even as he races towards them, Andriy is taking in the whole picture. Nearest to them, with his back turned, is Vulk. He is walking slowly up the hill, waddling in that slightly splay-legged gait of people who are carrying too much weight in front. His bulky form fills the whole pavement. He has taken his jacket off and is wearing a dark blue shirt, tucked tight into the belt of his trousers. His ponytail straggles down between his shoulders. In his right hand is a gun, twirling casually over his forefinger. A few metres in front, facing them, stands Irina, motionless, her mouth open in a silent scream. Behind her, also facing them, is Lena, wearing black tights and a ridiculous pair of high-heeled shoes. Her lips are a scarlet gash. Her face is expressionless, completely blank.

  “Stop!” shouts Andriy. “Stop!” He is fumbling in his backpack for the gun. Where is it?

  Vulk turns. He sees the dog and Andriy running towards him, some five metres away.

  “Too late, boy,” he sneers. “I heffit. Go back.” He raises his gun.

  Andriy stops. In that moment of hesitation, Dog growls, bares his teeth and launches himself forward. He has picked up such a speed in running that as he summons up all his strength for that final jump, he appears to take flight, his heavy muscled mass hurtling towards Vulk like a missile-straight at the gun. Vulk pulls the trigger. Dog howls, a long keening howl. He seems to tremble in mid-air as blood bursts from his chest in a crimson shower, then he falls, but still with so much forward momentum that he crashes down onto Vulk, knocking him backwards so that his head hits the pavement with a crack, the huge bleeding dog on top of him, whimpering to its death. The gun falls from his hand and skitters across the flagstones.

  Irina has turned and fled,
ducking into an opening between two office buildings. Andriy lunges for the gun, but before he can reach it Lena steps forward and puts her foot on it. She bends down, picks it up and points it at Andriy.

  “Go.”

  He doesn’t argue. He runs. As he rounds the corner into the same narrow sunless passageway, he hears a single shot behind him.

  I will always think of Dog the way I remember him that last time, flying through the air like an angel of vengeance, stern and black, his teeth gleaming like rapiers. I looked into his eyes before he died. They were deep, velvety brown, and unfathomable. I had never noticed before how beautiful they were; for even an angel of vengeance has pity in its eyes. After that I forgot about his awful pissing and sniffing and eating habits, and all I remembered was the way he looked at me when he took flight. I often wonder what he was thinking. Did he know he was going to die?

  Andriy was so upset, he wanted to go back for him, but I wouldn’t. I said he was dead, and there was nothing we could do to bring him back. I just wanted to get away from that place as fast as I could.

  A few minutes later we heard the wail of sirens and caught a flash of blue lights at the end of the alley. We found a gateway behind some bins that opened into a car park on the next street, and we headed away in the opposite direction, not running but trying to walk normally, trying to look as though we were just a young couple out for a stroll. Andriy had his arm round my shoulder, and I leaned against him. We were both shaking. I realised Andriy must have been frightened too. That was strange, because you always think that men are fearless-but why should they be?

  We walked round and round for an hour or more. This Sheffield-it wasn’t at all as Andriy had described it, palaces, bougainvillea and all that stuff. Nor were there any workers’ sanatoria or communal mudbaths. It was very ordinary. The shops had put their shutters up and people were going home. The roads were clogged with traffic. And maybe down a side street, somebody was lying dead. It could have been me.