Marina Lewycka - Two Caravans

As he bounces along the edge of the field, a small figure in a green anorak stumbles out in front of him, seeming still the worse for eight cans of lager. He slams on the brakes. The caravan lurches and almost leaps off the towing bracket. Hm. He’ll have to remember not to brake so sharply.

“Get in,” he yells. Emanuel clambers into the back of the Land Rover and settles into the hay.

At the bottom gate, Wendy is still crouched over the prone body of the farmer. She looks up briefly as they drive off and Andriy thinks he catches the flicker of a smile on her face, but it could be just a trick of the light.

He can’t get up into third, and it keeps slipping out of second, and trying to control the rebellious sway and tug of the caravan hitched to the back with the steering so loose is no joke. And there, wailing up the valley, are the flashing blue lights. Holy bones! He’s only gone a few kilometres, and they’re after him already.

How has this happened, Andriy Palenko? Fifteen minutes ago, you had a Land Rover, money in your pocket, the open road, a childhood sweetheart waiting for you. Now you have six passengers, an unruly caravan and the police on your back. Why didn’t you just say no?

Ahead of him, on the left, is a turning-a grassy track that seems to lead into a wood. He veers off the road. After a few metres the track widens into a parking place with an old picnic table. He pulls to a halt. In the back of the Land Rover Emanuel is asleep on the hay. Andriy sticks his head in the door of the caravan.

“Everything normal in here?”

The four women and Tomasz are crouching in a huddle on the floor. Marta has been sick.

“Where are we?” asks Tomasz.

“I don’t know. I don’t know where we are or where we’re going. We stay here. In the morning we decide.”

He sits down on the floor next to the others, resting his head in his hands. He realises his knees are shaking. He is covered in sweat. If the police come, he will just explain everything. He will tell them it was all a mistake and take the consequences like a man. This is England.

Yola definitely has nothing to apologise for. Definitely not. When your lover betrays you and insults you with slapping ticker, if you are a woman of action, you have to act. There was that big dolt Andriy, trying to make everybody calm. What use is calm in a situation like that? Naturally the wife would try to put the blame on her. All lies. But try telling that to the policeman. She knows the mind of a policeman-she was married to one once. And the way the policeman thinks is this: guilty person is one who has motive. Does Andriy have motive to run over Dumpling? No. Does she have a motive? Yes.

So best thing is to keep out of police’s way. Back to Poland. Quick quick. But this beetroot-brain says he can’t drive any more, he wants to sleep. And you can see from the way he is looking at the bed that he thinks he should be allowed to sleep here in the women’s caravan. And that knicker-thief Tomasz (he thinks she doesn’t know, but she does) has taken off his shoes. Pah! What a stink! All the girls start to shriek and cover their noses. She folds her arms across her bosom and says firmly, “This is women’s caravan, for women only.”

But will this pig-headed beetroot-brain listen?

“Yola,” he says, “you may have been queen of strawberry field, but here on road, I am boss. And if I am going to drive to Dover, I need good night’s sleep.”

Yola explains patiently that in absence of farmer, for which, by the way, she denies all responsibility, she is senior figure, and she will decide about sleeping accommodations.

“I am mature and respectable woman, and I cannot be expected to share my sleeping quarters with any man.”

Well, his reply is so uncouth that she will not repeat it, except to say that it referred to her age, her underdo things, her country of origin, and her relationship with the farmer, which being a pure business arrangement, and moreover one conducted in a foreign country, has no relevance to any discussion of her character, a nuance which is probably too subtle for a Ukrainian.

“Andriy, please!” Tomasz intervenes, in a very calm and dignified way. “Is no problem. You can sleep in Land Rover, and I will stay here on floor.”

“No! No!” cry all the girls in chorus. “No room on floor!”

“Well, then we will all sleep in Land Rover. Somehow we will manage.”

Well, they did manage. Somehow. So that’s that.

Andriy really let rip at Yola, and now he feels better. Out in the cool pre-dawn the sky is already growing lighter and the stars have disappeared. Tomasz has taken off his trainers once more, placed them on the bonnet and stretched himself out on the front seats of the Land Rover, his feet sticking out of the window, perfuming the breeze with his socks. Andriy wonders where Irina is spending this night. The thought makes his stomach clench unpleasantly. He crawls into the back, fitting himself around and on top of Emanuel, who has slept through everything, curled up knees to chin on the sweet-smelling hay. There is an old blanket on the floor that he pulls up over them. Although the air is chilly, the silence of the wood, the breathing of earth and roots and sap at last put him into such a deep sleep that he doesn’t wake until the morning sun strikes through the silvery tree trunks.

I AM DOG I RUN I RUN ALONE FIELD HEDGE ROAD ALL DARK I SEE BLUE LI6HT FLASH FLASH I SNIFF LISTEN I HEAR BAD WHEELIE NOISE WHOO WHAA WHOO WHAA I RUN FIELD RIVER I DRINK SMALL ANIMALS SCUFFLE SMELL OF GRASS AND EARTH DEAD THINGS ROTTIN6 ANIMAL SMELLS FRESH PISS BADSER FOX WEASEL RABBIT I RUN ROAD FIELD WOOD ROAD WOOD STOP SNIFF SNIFF I SMELL MAN FEET GOOD STRONG FEET SMELL I GO SEEK MAN FEET SMELL I RUN I RUN I AM DOG

I jumped.

I fell. The ground was soft. I rolled, picked myself up, and I ran. Mamma, Pappa, help me, please. I am little Irinochka .

I was thinking-the trees-I must get into the trees. I scrambled up the bank into the wood, dodging between low branches. Here I would have a chance. If I was lucky, the trees would stop the bullets. I braced myself for the shots as I ran, flinching, waiting for the bang that would tell me I was dead. There were no shots. All I could hear were footsteps, his and mine, crashing through the undergrowth and dead branches on the ground. Crash. Crash. No shots. Why no shots? Maybe I was dead already . It was so dark. Dark like the cupboard under the stairs. Dark like a grave. Before, there’d been a faint glimmer from the headlights, but now I was past that, running into pitch blackness. It was too dark to run. Too many obstacles, shadows that turned into trees, branches that hit you in the face, tree roots that grabbed at your legs, terrors invisible. No moonlight here. On one side, I thought I could see the edge of the wood, the grey gleam of sky through the trees.

I veered right, slithered down the bank back onto the track and sprinted silently along the grass. I could still hear him behind me in the wood. Crash. Crash.

Now there was a bend and the track climbed steeply uphill, with a jagged hedge on one side. Above the hedge I could see the sky, stars, breathless, skipping up and down as I ran. I stopped, panting for breath. My chest was exploding. Blood was pounding in my ears-boom boom boom boom- Keep going. Don’t stop now. You are younger and fitter. You can outrun him . I tripped on a tree root, fell, picked myself up, and ran on-boom boom boom. When I couldn’t run any longer, I stood still in the lee of a tree trunk and listened. My breath was coming in great gulps. I could still hear the crunch of footsteps in the wood, I couldn’t tell how far behind me. So he hadn’t given up yet. I ran again, wildly, stumbling and tripping. Slow down. Take care. If you fall, you are finished .