For some reason I found myself thinking about my parents. Had my mother lain and waited for my father like this on her wedding night? Was it romantic? Had it hurt the first time? Did she get pregnant? Yes, she did. The seed that was planted inside her that night was to grow into me. I had grown up sheltered by the twined branches of their love, nurtured until the seed sprouted into a tree—Irinochka—that could stand alone. Had he still loved her afterward? Yes, but only for a while. Temporarily. Provisionally. Until Svitlana Surokha came along. For the first time, I found myself feeling angry with my parents. Why couldn’t they have just stuck together a bit longer, their love still entwining and sheltering me, while I learned my own first lessons of love?
I started planning a new story in my head. It would be a passionate romance, a story of enduring love, about two people who came from different worlds but after many diversions found themselves brought together by destiny. The heroine would be a virgin. The hero would have bronzed muscular arms.
The voices down below grew more animated and the guitar stopped. They were having a discussion, punctuated by bursts of laughter. Suddenly I felt the trailer lurch and sway in a most terrifying way. I sat up quaking. Typical, I thought, tonight—the night—the trailer will fall out of the tree. Then I realized the movement was the tug of someone coming up the rope ladder. My heart started to thump. A moment later, Andriy opened the door. He had a nervous smile on his face and a bunch of heather in his hand.
“I picked this for you, Irina.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and handed me the heather, looking at me in that fixed, intense way. “You are beautiful like a green tree in May.”
I buried my face in the heather, which still had the smell of honey and summer about it, because I didn’t want him to see me grinning. On the scale of romance, I would say that was about a three out of ten.
Then he lay down beside me on the bed and started to stroke my cheek very gently. I could feel my body melting at his touch as he pulled me into his arms, kissing me with his lips and tongue, caressing me everywhere, and all the time murmuring my name. Mmm. Maybe a seven out of ten. The candlelight cast one shadow of our two bodies—blurring, looming, wavering on the curved ceiling. When he touched me down there, the unexpected intensity of my feelings made me cry out. Okay, at that point I stopped scoring. I don’t even remember him undressing me, but somehow our clothes slid away and we were naked together, skin against skin, on the bed. The candle sputtered out and the canopy of darkening leaves closed in around us.
Suddenly there was a shudder of wind in the branches, and all at once the storm broke, heralded by a drumroll of rain on the roof, then blasts of thunder and a pageant of lightning flashes all around us like a carnival in the sky. Our little trailer bucked and heaved on its sea of leaves. The rain hammered on the thin aluminum shell and from time to time a razor of light would slash through the darkness. I was really afraid that our tree would be struck and everything would burst into flames.
“Don’t be frightened, Irinochka,” said Andriy, pressing me tighter against him.
And so we gave ourselves to each other that night in the storm.
Yes, it was very romantic. Yes, it did hurt a bit, but my feelings were so intense that I didn’t realize until afterward how sore I was. Yes, I was worried about getting pregnant, but he produced something from his pocket that was rubbery and pink and smelled of strawberries. No, that was not quite so romantic, I admit, but it was thoughtful, and that also is a sign of love. Yes, he still loves me, because in the morning he went down on the rope ladder and came back with some bread and tea, and we spent half the morning lying in bed together talking about the future, and the places we would travel to after Sheffield, and all the things we would do. Then we made love again.
No, I am not the same person I was yesterday.
I AM DOG I RUN I RUN WITH MARYJANE I AM IN LOVE SHE IS A BROWN DOG FAST AND SLIM SHE HAS GOOD SMELL FEMALE DOG LOVE-HORMONES I SNIFF SHE SNIFFS ALL DOGS RUN AFTER HER BUT SHE RUNS WITH ME WE RUN IN STORM AND RAIN WE RUN IN MOONLIGHT WE RUN IN SHADOWS I GIVE HER MY PUPPIES I AM IN LOVE I RUN I RUN I AM DOG
Next day, before they leave, Andriy and Rock climb up the beech tree to resecure the trailer. One of the guide ropes snapped in the night, and the trailer is hanging at an angle, its axle wedged between two branches.
“That were a bit of luck,” says Rock, “or a bit of bad luck, depending on which way you look at it.”
“It was good luck,” says Andriy.
It is early afternoon by the time they get on the road. Irina is sitting in the middle again, her profile inscrutable, her eyes sleepy, as the bus winds its way through narrow lanes and gray stone villages. He puts his arm around her, and she shifts and molds her body more closely against his. Her hair is loose and uncombed. He strokes it back from her face and watches her smile. This girl—she is quite something. Yes, Andriy Palenko, you are one lucky Donbas miner.
“So what takes you to Sheffield?” asks Rock.
The sun is high in the sky, a wispy mist steaming from the hills after the rain.
“Sheffield? Is twin town of Donetsk. My town. Is very beautiful, I think?”
“Sheffield? Aye, you could say that. If you’ve got an eye for steelworks. Or you could say it’s not beautiful.”
“The coal mining is still going there?”
“No, that’s all changed. Used to be loads of slag heaps. Now it’s just got slags.” Rock pushes his glasses up his nose. “Barnsley were twinned with another town in Ukraine. Gorlovka.”
“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 upward for a few kilometers through a wild steep landscape of bracken, peat, and rock, more somber 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 center, 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 brick terraces as they near the city center. Rock pulls onto 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 center. The storm has chased away the clouds, and the day is hot and bright again. Here the surroundings looked neater, and the traffic had 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 f
ountains! 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 underpants, 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 café with tables set out in the sunshine. A very tall girl with cropped blond hair runs toward 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 rope.
“I’ve got a few things to do,” says Rock. “Got to surrender missen to t’ vile clutches of t’ missus. I’ll meet you back here at six o’clock.”
Irina announces that she 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 flows into him, and all his intellect and strength flows 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 colors, not the universal dark green baggy type you get in Ukraine. And some very small ladies’ underpants 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 cafés 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 lampposts 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 gray 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 blond woman was standing smoking a cigarette. She was wearing ridiculous satin shorts and high-heeled boots. As I hurried toward 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 toward 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 makeup. 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 toward 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 booth at the top of the square, near the café. 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 café. 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 picked 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 dialing 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. Bye, 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 on 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 toward 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?
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