Marina Lewycka - Two Caravans

So, it has come to this. That mobilfonman Vitaly has a blonde Angliska girlfriend and a red sports car. And what have you got, Andriy Palenko? An old Land Rover that needs a new clutch, a friend who is obsessed with canals, and a dog-well, actually, the dog is quite superb, there are no complaints about the dog. And a Ukrainian girl, nice looking but showing not the least inclination towards you, which you have to admit is disappointing after all the trouble you’ve been to. You would have expected some reward, even just a little kiss.

For when you reached out your hand to stroke her cheek, her plump, curved, irresistible cheek, ripe like an apple, but you did it courteously, and in a gentlemanly manner, she jumped back as though you tried to violate her and cried out, “Leave me alone!”

Then she started to cry, and you would have put your arm round her, but you didn’t want to provoke another outcry. Why is she behaving like this? Maybe she still thinks she’s too cultivated for you. Maybe she just doesn’t find you so attractive, Andriy Palenko. Maybe she is still thinking of her boxer boyfriend, or maybe she’s dreaming of a smart mobilfon businessman type. Then she wants to go to bed, and you say you’ll go back to the other caravan, thinking she will say, no, Andriy, stay with me. But she doesn’t.

She only says, let the dog stay with me. She prefers the dog! Well, what do you care? So you go back to the caravan not in a good mood. And just as you’re about to go to sleep, Emanuel starts talking about canals.

The way he touched my cheek-it reminded me of Vulk. You like flower …My whole body froze. I tried to explain, to tell him what happened to me that night in the woods, how it feels to be hunted. But no words would come. I just started to cry. I was longing for him to take me in his arms and comfort me, make me feel safe. But he just looked annoyed. Then he went off to stay in the caravan with Emanuel. Why didn’t he stay with me? I felt so lonely and scared, I asked if the dog could stay with me, even though I didn’t like it so much, because it stuck its nose shamelessly between my legs and fixed me with its doggy eyes.

In the middle of the night the dog started to bark. When I woke up and saw the headlights of a car blazing in the field, I was overwhelmed with despair. I thought it was the end. I was sure it was Vulk, come to get me.

My mind told me to run, but I couldn’t. Suddenly I felt too tired of running, as though not just my bones but my heart was full of lead. I remembered how light-hearted I had felt when I saw my orange ribbon round the dog’s neck. Then I saw our homely little caravan parked in the field. It’s in the wrong place, I thought. This must be a dream-the honeysuckle air, the whole hillside bathed in that illusory mauve evening light. The door wasn’t locked. Inside, it was warm from the sun, and there was an intense smell of strawberries, and there they were, ranged out on the table, six bowls full. Who were they for? It was like a fairy tale. I couldn’t stop myself-I started to eat. But who could have picked them? I looked around. On the floor was a bright green anorak that looked familiar. And here, in the locker above the bunk, was my stripy canvas bag! I looked inside. My nightie, my hairbrush, my spare T-shirt, some dirty knickers, even my money. It looked as though someone had rummaged through it, but it was all there. Even the pictures we’d stuck up on the walls: David Beckham, the Black Virgin of Krakow, a baby seal, a tiger cub and a little panda. Mother and Pappa. They were all here. Then when Andriy and Emanuel turned up, I knew it wasn’t a dream, and I thought, this is it. I’m safe at last.

No, I wouldn’t run any more. Instead, I crawled under the folding bed, like a hunted animal goes to earth, down into a deep place where it feels safe, and I curled up and pulled all the sleeping bags around me. After a while the noise died down and I must have cried myself to sleep. I can’t remember what I dreamt that night. I can only remember it was a dream of emptiness and despair, as though my cup of life had drained to the bottom.

In the morning I was surprised to find myself still alive, and lying under the bed. The sun was shining through the window. I heard Andriy and Emanuel running up and down the field calling my name. When he said my name-“Ee-ree-na!”-it sent a tingle through me. Then the dog showed them where I was hiding, and we all started to laugh. We had breakfast-strawberries, and bread and margarine again. Then he said, “Today we are going to London to find Emanuel’s friend, Toby McKenzie. Do you want me to take you back to strawberry farm, Irina? Ee-ree-na . Or do you want to come with us?”

“I will come with you.”

Dear sister,

Today we set out for London with me sitting in front beside Andree and I was cheerful at this opportunity for further questioning but Andree said he could not drive and talk in English at the same time.

So I fell to thinking about this English language which sometimes seems like a fearsome slippery serpent sliding this way and that unleashing his scaly coils upon the tongue. Then my first English lessons fizzed into my memory at the orphanage school at Limbe with Sister Benedicta who was not English nor had ever been in England but was from Goa in India and inpartially Portuguese. Who herself had learnt English from an Irish nun who had somehow turned up on their faraway shore by whose exemplar Sister Benedicta herself became a nun and voyaged to Africa because of the many lost souls here to be saved ours among them she said. Sister Benedicta forced education into us through choral chanting from scriptures prayers sermons and other uplifting objects of devotion in order to commit them to memory. Unlike Sister Theodosia who was fat Sister Benedicta was thin and stern with shining brown skin and darting eyes and she wore small gold-rimmed glasses that hung on a chain around her neck and she was quick to chastise us with her staff.

So being aged twelve years at the time and you dear sister were already away at Blantyre I fell into wondering about canal knowledge. When I asked Sister Benedicta she shook her staff at me but Sister Theodosia told me to ask Father Augustine when he came from Zomba but Father Augustine said canal knowledge is Sin and the Wages of Sin is Death. And whenever I think of canal knowledge these words rattle in my memory.

Andriy is still feeling disgruntled after last night and in no mood for conversation with Emanuel, who is sitting beside him in front of the Land Rover, smiling cheerfully and asking questions about canals. Where does this obsession with canals come from? And why was he so excited by that horrible business in the back of the four-by-four? Surely he’s too innocent to be interested in such stuff. Or maybe he isn’t.

And here’s another thing that’s bothering him: why is Irina sitting in the back, when clearly as a woman she should be seated in front? It can only be because she doesn’t want to sit beside him. Is he too uncivilised for her? Well, it doesn’t matter, because soon he will drop them both off in London, Emanuel with Toby McKenzie and Irina at the Ukrainian Embassy where she will get a new passport, and then he will be on his way to Sheffield and whatever awaits him there.

The clutch slips as he tries to engage second, and he has to do a quick manoeuvre to get straight from first to third. This place they are looking for, this Richmond Park-it seems to be nothing but a big field and a few trees. Where are all the houses? Finally, they are directed to a small row of houses on the south side. The house they are looking for, number five, is at the end of the row.

He can see even from outside the gate that it is the house of a successful businessman. Many windows, porticoed door in the centre, double garage, etc. No doubt Vitaly will one day live in a high-spec house like this. And the car? Hm. The only car outside is a VW Golf, 2.0 GLS-not a bad car, features include convertible roof, leather seats, advanced sound system, etc, and looks like automatic transmission, unfortunate in high-powered car because you get better performance with manual gear shift, but even so, quite a nice car. Yes, he wouldn’t mind taking it for a run, but really he would have expected something more interesting in a house like this.