Two Caravans Part 25

"That's enough. b.u.g.g.e.r 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 s.e.xy 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 munic.i.p.al 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sageway, 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 p.i.s.sing 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.

"Where are we going?" I asked Andriy.

"I don't know. Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know."

I kept wondering about that last gunshot. I couldn't get it out of my mind.

Most of the time we stayed off the big roads and walked in the side streets, which were empty of people and still hot from the sun. You could feel the heat coming out of the bricks like an oven cooling, the trapped air heavy with dust and fumes. We walked, I don't know how long for, until we stopped shaking and our feet hurt and we started to feel hungry. In the end we found our way back to the cafe. Rock wasn't there, of course. We were more than two hours late.

The afternoon shoppers were gone and the place had filled up with young people, eating, drinking, smoking, talking, the clatter of cutlery and their shrill laughter bouncing and echoing off the hard surfaces so loud that my ears rang and my head started to swim. I realised then how hungry I was. We bought something to eat, I can't remember what, only that it was the cheapest thing we could find on the menu. We looked so shabby and out of place, me in my strawberry-stained jeans and Andriy in his Ukrainian trousers. The girl who served us was Byelorussian.

"Are you looking for a job?" she said. "They've always got vacancies. It's all Eastern Europe round here."

"I don't know," I said.

"No," said Andriy.

"We haven't decided," I said.

She brought us some portions of ice cream which she said were for free.

"Is there a phone anywhere?" I asked Andriy. "I want to phone my mother."

The minute she said "h.e.l.lo? Irinochka?" I burst into tears, and I had to pretend to be sneezing because I didn't want her asking what I was crying about. It would only upset her. I just wanted to hear her voice, like when I had a nightmare as a child and she would tell me that everything was all right. Sometimes all you need is a comforting story. So, still sniffling, I told her everything was fine, except that I had caught a cold and the dog had had an accident, and then she wanted to know why I wasn't wearing warm clothes, and which dog, and what kind of accident, and why I had left that nice family, so I had to make up another lot of lies to keep her happy. Why did she have to ask so many questions?

"Irinochka, now I want to ask you something."

I thought she was going to ask me who I was with, or when I was coming home, and I braced myself to make up another story, but she said, "Would you be very upset if I found a new boyfriend?"

"No, of course not, Mamma. You should do whatever makes you happy."

Mamma! My heart flipped over inside me like a big wet fish.

Of course I was upset. I was upset and furious. You turn your back on your parents for one moment and they get up to all sorts of mischief!

"That's wonderful, Mamma. Who is he?"

"You know I told you about that nice elderly couple who moved in downstairs. And they have a son..."

"But I thought..."

"Yes, we are in love."

First my father, now my mother!

When I put the phone down, I found my hands were shaking. The fish in my chest was flapping like mad. How could my parents do this to me, their little Irinochka? Outside in the square, dusk had come, but it was still warm. Andriy was standing waiting for me, leaning with his elbows on the bal.u.s.trade, watching the fountains, his outline supple and muscular, despite his awful trousers, one curl hanging like a brown question mark on his forehead. He smiled. Just looking at him made my body start to sing.

Would Andriy and I love each other for ever? Love, it seems, is quite a slippery, unpredictable thing-not a rock you can build your life on, after all. I wanted it to be perfect, like Natasha and Pierre, but maybe that's just another story. How can love be perfect, if people aren't perfect? Look at my mother and father-their love didn't last for ever, but it was good enough for a while, good enough for Irinochka, that little girl I used to be. Of course when you're a child, you want to believe your parents are perfect-but why should they be?

"How is your mother?" asked Andriy.

"She's all right." I smiled. Yes, he wasn't perfect: he talked in that funny Donbas way, and he was moody, and he thought he knew everything, despite being riddled with out-of-date ideas. But he was also kind-hearted, thoughtful, courteous and brave, and that was good enough for me. "You know, Andriy, I discovered something just now. My parents don't need me any more."

We leaned side by side on the bal.u.s.trade, watching the fountains, and I started to think about the story I would write when I got back to Kiev. It would be a love story, a great romance, not something stupid and frivolous. It would be set against the tumultuous background of the Orange Revolution. The heroine would be a plucky freedom activist and the hero would be from the other side, the Soviet East. But through his love for the beautiful heroine, his eyes would be opened, and he would come to understand the true destiny of his country. He would be very pa.s.sionate and handsome, with bronzed muscular arms; in fact he would be quite like Andriy. But he would definitely not be a coalminer. Maybe he would have a dog.

In the cafe, somebody popped a champagne cork, and an eddy of noise and laughter carried into the stillness of the square.

"Andriy," I said. He looked at me. His eyes were sad. A shadow had fallen across his face. "Are you thinking about Dog?"

He nodded.

"Don't be sad. You have me now."

I reached up and twined my finger into his brown curl, and pulled his head down for a kiss. Yes, definitely the story must have a happy ending.

You have survived many adventures, and now you've reached your destination. You have escaped death a couple of times, and you have won the love of the beautiful high-spec Ukrainian girl. So why is your heart grumbling away like an old Zaz, Andriy Palenko? What's the matter with you?

He listens to the young people drinking in the cafe a few metres away-they live in a different world. Maybe he and Irina could stay in Sheffield and find jobs for themselves, and maybe he would even go to college and train to be an engineer. He would buy a mobilfon, not for doing business, but to talk to his friends, and at weekends they would come to a bar like this, and drink and laugh. But he could never be one of them. There are too many things he would have to forget.

She thinks it's because he's grieving for the dog, and she reaches out her hand to stroke his hair and whisper some little sweetness into his ear. Well, yes, you will miss Dog; there will never be another dog as superb as this one. But it's not just Dog. There's a special sadness at the end of a journey. For it's only when you get to your destination that you discover the road doesn't end here after all.

"Come on, Andriy! Don't be sad!"

She beckons. He follows her into the square. She skips down the steps, where water is cascading through stone channels and dozens of fountains are spurting like geysers out of the ground. There is no one there apart from a couple kissing on a bench. She takes his hands and pulls them around her back, pressing herself against him.

"Even though it was very exceptional, Andriy, still it was only a dog."

He holds her close. She is lithe and warm in his arms.

"Rock and the warriors dedicated their lives to saving some stones, Irina. You could say they were only stones, but it's what they represent. As their Jimmy would say, victims of global capitalism."

"Is the dog a victim of global capitalism?"

"Don't be stupid. You know what I mean." Sometimes her frivolity is irritating. "My father died..."

"But you are still alive, Andriy. Why don't you think of that sometimes?"

"Of course I do. And then I wonder why it was me who lived and not him."

"But you didn't kill him, Andriy. Do you think he would want you to be always miserable, and brooding about the past? The future will be different."

He shakes his head.

"Andriy..."

"What?"

"...your underpants are like the warriors'." She giggles.

"And so what if they are? You are always so mesmerised by superficial things, Irina."

"No, I'm not." She splashes her hands through the fountain, spraying a wave of water at him that wets his shirt.

"Yes, you are." He splashes back, soaking her hair.

"And you talk like a Donbas miner." She dashes handfuls of water at his face. "Holy whiskers! Devil's b.u.m!"

"And what if I do? Should I be ashamed of that?" He rubs the water out of his eyes. "Now you sound like a bourgeois schoolgirl."

"And what if I am?" She gives him a shove that sends him stumbling backwards into a jet of water. Her eyes are shining. Rivulets of water are running down her cheeks. In spite of himself, a grin breaks out on his face.

"If you are"-he splutters, snorting water out of his nose-"I will have to re-educate you." He grabs her wrist, and pulls her towards him.

"Never!" She lunges forward for another shove, slips on the wet stones, and slides into the fountain. As she grabs at him for balance, he slithers and tumbles on top of her with a splash.

"I will start now." He holds her down and covers her in kisses. "Bourgeois schoolgirl!"