Marina Lewycka - Two Caravans

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.”

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.