Two Caravans Part 7

In fact Soo Lai Bee's father got on quite well with his b.u.miputra business partner, Abdul Ismail, who had made his millions selling on b.u.miputra-quota car-import permits to the Chinese, and dabbled in construction contracts as a sideline; they even met socially sometimes. It was at one of these gatherings that Soo Lai Bee met Zia Ismail, his son. It was partly the fact that he was b.u.miputra that attracted her to him; it was partly the fact that she was not Malay that attracted him to her. It is the privilege of young people to fall in love with the wrong person, and they did.

Abdul Ismail was furious. He gave his business partner an ultimatum: break up the relationship, or break up the business partnership. Soo Lai Bee wept and wept, but really, there was no choice. Her mother and two older sisters put pressure on her. Her father warned that without the business partnership, and the lucrative public sector contracts, there would be no fees to fund her English university education. Don't worry, I'll wait for you, said Zia Ismail.

Her English medical school place was conditional on her achieving a Grade 7 in the International English Language Test, and her parents thought it best to get her out of the way at once. She signed up with a college for overseas students in London. Within two weeks of her departure for England, Soo Lai Bee learnt that Zia was engaged to someone else.

At first she was sad, then she was furious, then she was glad to be away from home, and in a new country where n.o.body cared what race you were. At the college, she made friends with Song Ying, another Chinese girl, who wasn't even studying but just needed a work permit. They talked for hours about mothers, fathers, boyfriends, brothers, sisters, Poles, Ukrainians, Malays and Englishes. They laughed and cried together. They went off to pick strawberries together. They went off to Amsterdam together.

b.u.t.tercup Meadow

The Majestic Hotel at Shermouth might have been considered luxurious in the 19505, compared with hotels on the Baltic, but it has seen little by way of refurbishment or even basic maintenance since then. Among its many discomforts are the fact that the lift is broken (Yola and Malta's room is on the fifth floor), the water in the communal bathrooms is turned off after 9 PM PM (en suite? You must be joking) and it is infested with c.o.c.kroaches. They do, however, have a very nice view of the sea. (en suite? You must be joking) and it is infested with c.o.c.kroaches. They do, however, have a very nice view of the sea.

But the worst thing about the Majestic Hotel is that inside its ma.s.sive redbrick-Gothic c.o.c.kroach-crawling walls are housed some two hundred people, not travellers or holiday makers, but people trying to live their lives here-migrant workers like themselves, asylum-seekers from every strife-torn corner of the world, homeless families from city slums in England-stacked one above the other like souls in h.e.l.l, jostling in the queues for the filthy toilets, stealing each other's milk from the mouldy communal fridges, keeping each other awake with their arguments, celebrations and nightmares.

There are no communal meals, and 'guests' have to take their meals in cafes or forage for themselves and eat in their own rooms-nice for the c.o.c.kroaches. And though there is no birdsong, neither is there ever silence; for even in the dead of night there is always someone getting up for an early morning shift or returning from a late one, playing music or having a fight or making a baby, or comforting a crying child, so that the only way to stay sane is to cut yourself off, to block out the crush of humanity pressing in through the walls, the floors and the ceilings. Yola sums it up in three words: "Too many foreigners."

If this was really h.e.l.l, though, there should be devils with pitchforks, thinks Tola. Instead, they have been a.s.signed to share a room with two Slovak women, who are not particularly welcoming to the newcomers, having previously had it to themselves, and who have spread their stuff out and hung their wet knickers to dry all over the place, making the room steamy as well as cluttered. Of course they are not to be blamed that the hotel has no proper laundry facilities, but even worse, in Tola's opinion, is the type of knickers they choose to wear, which are of thong design. The uncontrolled way these Slovak women's hefty b.u.t.tocks bounce around beneath their thongs is deplorable, and Yola cannot for the life of her understand why any woman should choose to inflict such discomfort on herself when generously cut knickers of the white cotton style are universally available, inexpensive, and known to have hygienic advantages, and moreover, contrary to what might be supposed, are considered to be extremely seductive by men of a more refined nature, of whom, she can only suppose, there are precious few in Slovakia.

Marta also views the thong knickers with abhorrence, though for different reasons.

When Yola and Marta were dropped off at the hotel, Tomasz was told to stay in the van, as he was needed at the Sunnydell Chicken Farm and Hatchery in t.i.tchington. He protested vehemently that he only wanted to be with Yola, and he didn't care about this new job, he would be happy just to sit with his guitar and sing to her. But the van was already on its way, Yola and Marta waving and disappearing through the rear windows.

"No worry. Not far," said the minibus driver. "You come back when you have good pay in you pocket, then you make good possibility. Heh heh."

For some reason, all the seats of the minibus had been taken out, so the pa.s.sengers had to squat on the floor. From this position, he couldn't see much of the surroundings, but there were fields, woods, and at one point a glimpse of the sea. Then they were negotiating speed b.u.mps on a long tarmac drive, and they had arrived.

The minibus pulled up in front of a pair of small brick-built semidetached houses, standing in a ragged overgrown garden behind a wooden fence. They should have been charming but, even at first sight, Tomasz felt there was something seedy and forbidding about them. The curtains were drawn, although it was late morning, and there were several overflowing black rubbish bags by the front doors which tainted the air with a vile smell.

"Here," said the driver, indicating the house on the left. "You stay here." Then, as if to rea.s.sure him, he pointed to the house on the right. "And I am stay here."

Tomasz picked up his bag and slung his guitar across his shoulder. Well, to stay in a house at last would be a good change, he thought, and at night at least he could close his eyes and close the door.

"When you ready, you go to office there."

The driver pointed across to a double gate behind which was a wide yard and a low redbrick building with a few vehicles parked outside. Beyond that, up another drive, were several huge green hangar-like buildings, some twenty metres apart. That, Tomasz realised, was where the smell was coming from.

I AM DOG I AM SAD DOG MY GOOD STRONS-FEET-SMELL MAN IS SONE MY PUT-OINTMENT-ON-FOOT FEMALE IS SONE MY GOOD-UNDER-SKIRT-SMELL FEMALE IS GONE ALL SONE AWAY GOODBYE DOG THEY SAID GOODBYE GOOD DOG I AM GOOD DOG I AM SAD DOG I AM DOG I AM DOG I AM SAD DOG MY GOOD STRONS-FEET-SMELL MAN IS SONE MY PUT-OINTMENT-ON-FOOT FEMALE IS SONE MY GOOD-UNDER-SKIRT-SMELL FEMALE IS GONE ALL SONE AWAY GOODBYE DOG THEY SAID GOODBYE GOOD DOG I AM GOOD DOG I AM SAD DOG I AM DOG.

The smell from the farmyard was bad enough, but Tomasz was not at all prepared for the stench that would hit him as he opened the front door of the little house: it was a smell of dead air, sweat, urine, faeces, s.e.m.e.n, unwashed hair, stale breath, bad teeth, rotten shoes, dirty clothes, old food, cigarettes and alcohol. It was the smell of humanity. And even though he himself was more immune than most to these smells, still it made him gasp and cover his nose and mouth with his hand.

There were two rooms downstairs. One, which had its door open, had six chairs around a table on which the greasy remains of a meal were waiting to be cleared away. The other room was at the front, and Tomasz opened the door to a wave of hot stinking breathed-out air. Inside were six-no, it was seven-sleeping figures curled up on mattresses on the floor, surrounded by their pitiful possessions spilling out of holdalls and carrier bags-a jumble of shoes, clothes, bedding, papers, cigarette packets, bottles and other human debris. There was a gentle chorus of snoring and snuffling. He backed out quickly and closed the door.

Upstairs was the same. In one room, the smaller of the two, there were four mattresses laid out on the floor, so close that you had to walk over them to get to the other side of the room, and on each mattress was a p.r.o.ne sleeping figure. In the other, larger room, there were six mattresses and six sleeping figures. No-one mattress over in the far corner was unoccupied, and Tomasz realised with a terrible sinking feeling that this was the mattress allocated to him.

He went back downstairs into the dining room, pulled up a chair, and with a feeling of despondency so intense that it was almost pleasurable, he got out his guitar. So this was to be his condition, now. What was he but a fragment of broken churned-up humanity washed up on this faraway sh.o.r.e? This was where his journey had brought him.

There must be a song in this.

I was woken up by birdsong, so sweet and close that for a minute I thought I was back at the caravan. I opened my eyes and looked around. Where was I? Sunlight was streaming in low through a dusty window. Then I remembered: at some point in the night, I'd abandoned the three-legged chair and rolled myself in the plastic sheet on the floor. I must have slept like that. My clothes were still damp. No wonder I felt stiff. I stood up and stretched myself, straightening each arm and leg painfully. Ujjas! Ujjas! What a night. I remembered that I'd had a dream-one of those terrifying dreams where you're running and running, but you can't move. One of those dreams that makes you glad to wake up to a sunny morning. What a night. I remembered that I'd had a dream-one of those terrifying dreams where you're running and running, but you can't move. One of those dreams that makes you glad to wake up to a sunny morning.

My stomach was rumbling again-the effect of yesterday's chips had worn off. I eased the door open and stepped outside. The rain had pa.s.sed and the sky was clear, but there were still puddles on the ground. In Kiev, when it rains in the night you wake up to see all the golden domes of the churches washed clean and glittering in the sunlight, and the pot-holes in the roads full of water. "Mind the puddles, Irina," Mother would say as I set off for school, but I always got splashed.

I was in somebody's garden. The old garage was at the bottom of a long gravelled drive. At the end, behind a screen of trees, I could see the chimneys of a big house. My feet crunched on the gravel and somewhere not far away a dog started to bark. Was it on a chain? Was it fierce? I stood still and listened. The barking stopped. Then faint and far away I heard another sound-the drone of a car engine, getting closer.

A few minutes later, I saw the vehicle. It was a white van. I stepped forward and waved. The driver slowed down and waved back. Stupid man-couldn't he see I wasn't just waving for fun? I jumped directly in front, so he had no choice but to screech to a stop. The driver wound his window down and yelled, "You crazy! What you doing?"

That homely accent! That round face! That dire shirt! I could tell at once that he was Ukrainian. For some stupid reason, I felt tears p.r.i.c.king at the back of my eyes.

"Please," I said in Ukrainian. "Please help me."

He opened the pa.s.senger door.

"Get in, girl. Where you want to go?"

I tried to speak, but I found myself sniffling, which was pathetic, because after all I was alive and nothing terrible had happened.

"OK, girl. You don't cry," said the van driver. "You can come with us."

As the van moved forward I heard voices in the back. I turned in my seat and saw there were about a dozen people, men and women, crouching or squatting on the floor. They were all young. Some were chatting quietly. Some seemed half asleep. They looked like students-they looked quite like me, in fact.

"h.e.l.lo," I said in Ukrainian. There was a chorus of h.e.l.los, some in Ukrainian, some in Polish and a couple of other Slavic languages I couldn't place.

"Strawberry-pickers," explained the driver.

"Ah, that's lucky! Me too."

I started to explain about the caravans and the strawberry field, and then suddenly there it was, just flashing past on the right, the little copse, and the gate, and the lovely familiar south-sloping field. But what had happened to our caravan?

"Stop, please!" I cried. The driver pulled to a halt, shaking his head.

"Stop. Go. Stop. Go. Typical woman."

"Wait. Please. Just one moment!"

I ran back down the lane and opened the gate. The women's caravan had gone-vanished completely. Only the shower screen was still standing, the black plastic flapping forlornly. The men's caravan was there, leaning at an angle. I tiptoed up and peeped through the window. It was empty. No one was around. The field was full of ripe strawberries. At the top of the field I could hear the thrush still sitting there in the copse singing its early-morning song.

I climbed back into the van. "Stop? Go?" said the van driver. "Let's go."

After the Chinese girls have gone with Mr Smith, and Vitaly has taken the Poles to their rendezvous with the van driver (whom he refers to as the 'transport manager'), Andriy, Emanuel and Dog go off for a consolatory ice cream to get away from the heat. They arrange to meet Vitaly at a pub in town.

Andriy hopes that Vitaly, with his new mobilfon wealth, will stand them a round of drinks, but when he comes back it turns out that unfortunately he has no cash on him, so from what is left of his two weeks' wages Andriy has to pay for two small beers for himself and Emanuel and a double Scotch with c.o.ke for Vitaly.

They take their drinks through a door marked Beer Garden into a dank courtyard full of empty beer barrels where the sun barely peeps above high brick walls that are covered with dismal sooty ivy. They are the only people there. Dog finds the remains of a sandwich wrapped in a paper napkin under one of the tables, and gobbles it up, spreading crumbs and shreds of paper everywhere. Emanuel and Andriy sip their beers slowly to make them last.

At once Vitaly wants to know what has become of Irina, and there is an annoying presumptuousness about the way he talks, moving seamlessly between Russian and English.

"I thought you and she would be making possibility by now. I could find her very nice job in London. Dancing. Can she dance? Good pay. Luxury accommodation."

When Andriy tells him about the night-time abduction, he whistles between his teeth.

"That Mr Vulk is a no-no-good. He brings bad reputation to profession of recruitment consultant."

"He is recruitment consultant?"

"Yes, of course. But not same like me. Not employment solution consultant with capacity for advance meeting flexi. He is more interested to make overseas contact. My contact is to find work for people when they arrive on ferry. Dynamic cutting solution to all organisation staffing."

"And he is living here in Dover?"

"In some hotel, not far away I think."

"Can you take me to him?"

"Aha! I see you are still thinking of making possibility with this Ukrainian girl."

Andriy gives a studied shrug. "Well, of course I would be interested to know where she is. But she already has boyfriend I think. Boxing champion."

Vitaly gives him a runny look. "Boxing? This is unusual for high-cla.s.s girl. Angliski?"

"Maybe. I think so." He too has his doubts about this boyfriend.

He feels unaccountably furious with Vitaly. Where did he get these clothes, these sungla.s.ses, this phone? And how all the women were dancing around him at the ferry terminal! It couldn't have been just the mark-up on the beer at the caravan, could it? And why did he keep it all to himself? The strawberry-pickers shared everything, but Vitaly had been secretly keeping something aside for himself all the time. And how quickly this transformation from equal to superior had taken place. Devil's b.u.m! It had happened overnight. Of course he had lived through a time like this in Ukraine-one day they were all comrades, next day some were millionaires and the rest had...coupons. How had it happened? No one knew. It left a bad taste in the mouth.

And what can you do with coupons? You can't eat them. You can't spend them. All you can do is sell them. But who will want to buy? Suddenly, the millionaires were all billionaires, and the rest had enough for a load of coal to see you through the winter and that was it, bye-bye end of story. Now the whole country was run by mobilfonmen.

And this Vitaly-if he finds this Irina, will he ring you on mobilfon and say, hey Andriy, my friend, come and make possibility? Unlikely. And what would she think of this new recruit-consult mobilfonman Vitaly? She considers herself so superior-the new high-spec Ukrainian girl-maybe the new Vitaly will just be in her category. h.e.l.lo, mobilfon businessman-this is Irina calling-can we make a possibility? And if she makes a possibility with Vitaly, what does it matter to you, Palenko? Now he feels irrationally, fumingly angry with Irina as well as with Vitaly.

"And I have an Angliska girl," he adds pointedly to Vitaly. "Vagvaga Riskegipd. In Sheffield. I am on my way to find her."

Vitaly gives him another odd look.

"Listen, my friend, if I see Vulk, I will ask him what happened to this Ukrainian girl."

He almost hopes that Vitaly will offer him a job-good pay, luxury accommodation, etc-just so that he can have the pleasure of turning it down. But he doesn't, and Andriy's pride won't let him ask. They arrange to meet in the same pub at the same time tomorrow. As Vitaly strolls away, he takes his mobilfon out of his pocket and starts to talk, waving his free hand up and down for emphasis. Andriy tries to make out what language he is talking.

The sun is blazing at full heat, cutting short hard shadows onto the cracked pavements. He wanders back towards the caravan with Dog and Emanuel, still feeling irritable and resenting the money he spent on Vitaly's double Scotch. Worse than that, he feels shabby, poor and unattractive. Is he jealous of Vitaly? How shameful it is to be jealous of someone who is inferior in every way, except that he has a mobilfon and better trousers. This is what Vitaly has done to him. This is what Vitaly and Irina between them have done to him. Yes, he thought Vitaly was his friend, and all the time he was taking a bit on the side. Well, here are his true friends. Hey, Dog! But Dog is off on a trail of lamp posts. Hey, Emanuel! Emanuel has found a half-full packet of smoky-bacon flavour crisps in the beer garden, which he shares with Andriy, shaking out the last bits into his hand. The artificially flavoured salt dissolves on his tongue, tasty and toxic.

"Hey, Emanuel. You like fishing? Maybe we have big luck."

"Sikomo. Fishing is very interesting. But where will we attain good nettings?" Emanuel starts to sing, "I will make you fishers of men."

They stroll down to the pier together. The Bulgarian lad who sold him the fish yesterday said this was the best way in town of making quick money. Down a side street, in a maze of car and lorry parks not far from where they left their caravan, they find the entrance to the Admiralty Pier. It must have once been quite a grand structure, but now the ornate cast iron is decrepit and grimy, covered in pigeon-droppings, and a few dead pigeons fester where they have dropped behind the barriers. The stench hits you as you come in.

A couple of men are hanging around at the entrance with a selection of rods and buckets, some blue, some yellow.

"You wanna buy or rent?" asks the older of the two, who is wearing a black woolly hat pulled down over his ears, despite the heat, and a black vest which reveals arms and shoulders covered with an incredible array of tattoos. "Rent is five quid a day. Or you can buy it for twenty-five quid. Superior tackle. Great investment. Pays for itself in five days, and from then on it's sheer profit. Are you gonna be here for a few days?"

The man is talking too fast. It is stretching Andriy's English to its limit. What is the price, he wonders?

"What it is?"

"Quality tackle. As used by all the top compet.i.tive fishermen. Fella caught a twenty-five-pound cod off of here the other day. Got fifty quid for it. Cash in hand." He looks Andriy and Emanuel up and down, as if appraising their fishing potential.

"Put food on yer table every night, and the surplus you can sell to us. A quid a kilo. Easy money. No tax. No questions asked. Yours to spend as you wish. Just five quid for the day. Try it out."

Andriy picks up a rod and examines it. He hasn't been fishing since he was a kid, but it can't be so difficult-that Bulgarian lad didn't look particularly bright.

"Five quids? Five pounds?"

"That's it, mate. Big shoal of mackerel coming in with the tide. You'll cover the cost in no time, and then all the rest's yours to take home to the missus."

Andriy hands over his five pounds. The man gives him a rod and a blue bucket.

As the Ukrainian driver pulled in through the gate, I saw the gleaming white field that I'd spotted from the hillside yesterday. It had looked as though it was covered with plastic, and it turned out to be just that-rows upon rows of tunnels made out of polythene sheeting stretched over metal hoops. Down the centre of each tunnel was a row of straw bales, with bags of compost on them, planted with strawberries. It was like a whole garden under cover. The air was humid and warm, sweet with the scent of ripe strawberries, and another sickly chemical smell that clung to the roof of my mouth. Despite the smell, I was so hungry I couldn't help myself-I reached out and started cramming the strawberries in my mouth. The others laughed.

"You can't be a real strawberry-picker, Irina! We're not allowed to eat them. They'll sack you if they catch you," said Oksana, who seemed to have taken me under her wing. Oksana was from Kharkiv, a bit older than me, and nice, though not very cultured-but all that seemed much less important now.

The supervisor, Boris, was also Ukrainian. He was a bit fat, and not too bright, with a thick Zaporizhzhia accent. He kept looking at me and saying if I proved myself today he'd put in a good word for me, and sort out my paperwork when we got back to the office. He was sure they'd take me on, because the warm weather had caused the strawberries to ripen early and-this was the third time he'd said this, what was the matter with him?-he'd put in a good word for me.

When he told me the wages, I couldn't believe it. It was twice what we got in the other place, and I started thinking about all the things I would buy-some lovely scented soap, nice shampoo, new knickers-little s.e.xy ones that Mother would detest-a ma.s.sive bar of chocolate, some strappy sandals, and I needed a hairbrush, a new T-shirt, maybe two, a warmer jumper, and don't forget a present to take back for Mother. And the picking was so easy; no bending, no lifting. Yes, I thought, I'm lucky to get this chance, and I'd better make the most of it, so I picked like crazy, because I had to prove myself.

At the end of the shift, when we went back to the strawberry farm, Boris came up and said it was time for me to prove myself. Then he pushed himself up against me in a disgusting way and kissed me on the mouth, with wet slimy kisses. I wasn't frightened-Boris just seemed stupid and harmless-so I made myself go limp and let him kiss me, because I really really wanted this job. His gaspy breathing on my face made me feel cold inside. On the scale of s.e.x appeal I would give him zero. OK, it's a transaction, nothing more, I told myself. I tried to imagine Natasha and Pierre kissing, lost in each other. Were men different in those days? When he'd finished, I wiped my mouth on my T-shirt, and followed him up the stairs to the office.

Andriy walks down the Admiralty Pier with his rod and blue bucket in his hands and Emanuel at his side. The pier is a bleak span of concrete almost a kilometre long, reaching like a crooked dog-leg out into the sea, and every metre seems to be occupied by a fisherman, bucket at his feet, rod or line pitched over the water, staring out over the waves. In some of the buckets there are a few small fishes, but nothing to speak of.

About halfway along the first leg, Andriy and Emanuel come across the Bulgarian lad who sold Andriy the fish. He introduces his two friends, who are Romanian and Moldovan.