Marina Lewycka - Two Caravans

Andriy stares. Horror rises up in him like bubbling grey matter-horror compounded with guilt. Should he have intervened? Could he have saved him? Was it his own unspoken anger that had summoned Vitaly’s death to him? His first instinct is to laugh-he has to put his hand on his mouth to stop himself. His next instinct is to run-to run from death into the sunlight of the living world.

Beefy Gilbert takes control in an amazingly matter-of-fact way, telling the dining couple to shut up, sit down and wait for the police, attempting to staunch Zita’s wound with clean napkins.

“You can go if you like.” He pulls Andriy quietly to one side. “If you’re worried about the police.”

“Is OK,” says Andriy. Then he remembers the gun in the bottom of his backpack.

When he goes back into the kitchen, he finds that all the other staff have disappeared. Only Irina is still there, clutching onto the sink with both hands, as though she’s about to be sick.

“Are you feeling OK?”

She nods silently. She doesn’t look OK.

“You?”

“Yes. Normal.”

“Where’s everybody?” she asks. Her whole body is shaking.

“I think they’ve gone. They’re all illegals. Apart from Gilbert. Someone called the police.”

Gilbert shouts from the dining room for some ice. Andriy gets a bowl, fills it with ice cubes and takes it through. In a space between tables, Gilbert is struggling to staunch Zita’s wound, his big meaty hands amazingly deft at knotting the napkins into a tourniquet. The smell of cordite still hangs in the air. The young couple are gazing in stunned silence at Vitaly’s forehead, which has stopped oozing and started to congeal, and at their own congealing dinners. The girl is crying softly.

Suddenly, the front door of the restaurant opens. Andriy looks up, expecting to see the police or an ambulance crew, but in walks a big man holding a mobilfon in one hand and a bunch of flowers in the other. He looks like another diner in search of a pleasant meal who has opened the door and stumbled by chance across this terrible scene. But it isn’t just another diner-it is Vulk.

Vulk stops in the doorway and looks around slowly, as if he’s trying to make sense of the chaos. His jowly face reveals no emotion. Andriy backs away noiselessly, his heart pounding. Vulk walks across to look at Vitaly’s slumped body, and mutters something under his breath. Just as Andriy reaches the kitchen door Vulk looks up. Their eyes meet. Vulk lunges forward. Gilbert bars his way with a beefy arm.

“Sorry, sir. We’re closed.”

Vulk tries to push through, shouldering Gilbert aside, using the flowers as a flail, but Gilbert is as big as he is. He blocks his way.

“Didn’t you hear? We’re closed.”

“Hrr!” Vulk gives him another hefty shove and barges through to the kitchen. But in the moment’s grace that Gilbert’s intervention has bought him, Andriy has grabbed Irina, pulled her into the kitchen storeroom and, taking the key from the lock, has locked the door from the inside. Clack.

The storeroom is cool and smells of onions. The light switch is on the outside. In the darkness they wait and listen. She is shaking and whimpering. He grips her tight against him, putting his hand across her mouth to keep her quiet. He can feel her heart jumping around inside her chest. On the other side of the door they can hear Vulk still charging around. They hear a crash of plates and the metallic bounce of a saucepan rolling on the ground, and that voice, like a mad beast bellowing, “Little flower!” The storeroom door judders and the handle rattles, but the lock holds. Someone-it must be Vulk-switches the light on from the outside, and for a moment they gaze into each other’s terrified eyes.

“Little flower! You vill never hide from Vulk! Every place you hide I vill find you!”

Then they are plunged into darkness again.

He holds her closer. A moment later he hears Gilbert.

“What the fuck are you doing? Get out of here, you asshole!”

There is more crashing and banging, and a yell that could be Vulk or Gilbert or someone else. Then the kitchen is suddenly quiet. They can hear a faint wail of sirens.

“Is he gone?” Irina whispers.

Andriy listens. “I think so.”

As quietly as he can, he turns the key and eases the door open a crack. In the dining room he can hear voices, but no one is in the kitchen. He tiptoes through to the scullery end and the washing-up sinks. No one. No one in the cloakroom. He peers through the back window. The yard is empty. He picks up his backpack from the cloakroom and Irina’s striped bag-ever since the incident with the children, they don’t leave anything of value in the caravan-and makes his way back to the storeroom. The door is locked. She has locked herself in again. He taps softly.

“Open the door. Quick. It’s me.”

He hears the key turn in the lock. Clack. She opens it two centimetres and sticks her nose out.

“Is he gone?”

“Yes. Let’s go!”

He grabs her by the hand and together they sneak through the kitchen and out of the back door. There is no one in sight. When they are in the street they start to run. The wail of sirens is everywhere. He has slung the bags over one shoulder, and holding her hand he pulls her along. The caravan is only a couple of blocks away. At least, he thinks it is. Maybe it’s the next block. No? Maybe the next one? No, surely it was back there by those bins. They turn back. They are no longer running, but panting for breath as they walk. They go round the block a couple more times before they realise that the caravan has definitely disappeared.

He sits down on the pavement and sinks his head in his hands. His legs, stretched out in front of him, have turned to lead. His heart is still thumping. The caravan and the Land Rover. Their sleeping bags. A few clothes. The carrots. Their water bottles. All gone.

“Dog! They’ve even taken Dog!”

But even as he is thinking of what he has lost, another part of him is thinking, you’re alive, Andriy Palenko, and the mobilfonman is dead. His blood is turning sticky on his fancy suit, and yours is pumping through your body. And you held the girl in your arms and felt her body against you, yielding but firm, soft but lithe, tenderly curved. And now you want more.

And here’s the problem: they all want more-the twenry-pound-note man, Vulk, Vitaly, and all their seedy cohort of clients-they all want what you want. To wash themselves in the sweet pool of her youth. This decent young girl, as fresh as the month of May. And she senses it. No wonder she trembles like a hunted rabbit. No wonder she jumps about all over the place. Leave her alone, Andriy. Be a man.

I AM DOG I RUN I EAT TWO PIGEONS MY MAN AND MORE-STUPID-THAN-A-SHEEP-FEMALE ARE GONE AWAY I AM DOG ALONE TWO MEN COME TO TAKE AWAY OUR WHEELIE-HOME I BARK I SNARL I JUMP ON THEM I BITE BAD DOG SAYS MAN HE IS BAD MAN I AM BAD DOG I AM SAD DOG I AM DOG ALONE WHEELIE IS GONE MY WHEELIE-HOME IS GONE BAD MAN CATCHES ME PULLS ME INTO BACK OF WHEELIE CAGE WITH MANY SAD DOGS WHERE ARE WE GOINS WE ARE GOINS TO DOGS’ HOME SAYS SAD DOG I KNOW THIS DOGS’ HOME IT IS NOT A GOOD PLACE SAYS SAD DOG IN THIS HOME ALL DOGS LIVE IN CAGES SMALL CAGES AND ALL THE PLACE SMELLS OF DOG SADNESS AT NIGHT SAD DOGS CRY THEY HAVE NO MAN I WILL NOT GO TO THIS SAD DOGS’ HOME I AM A RUNNINS DOG MAN OPENS WHEELIE-CASE I JUMP I RUN MAN RUNS I RUN FASTER I RUN FROM CAGE I RUN FROM DOG SADNESS I WILL FIND MY MAN NEAR THAT PIGEON PLACE I RUN I RUN I AM DOG

When he held me and pressed me against him in the storeroom and I could feel the grip of his arms around me, strong and protective, that’s when I knew for sure he was the one . It was dark in there. I couldn’t see anything. I could only smell and feel. I could smell onions, and spices, and the warm nutty smell of him, my face pressed against his chest, and I could feel our two hearts beating together. Boom. Boom. Boom. I was scared, yes, but he made me feel safe. It was so beautiful, like that bit in War and Peace when Natasha and Pierre finally realise that they’re meant to be together. Except I think he doesn’t realise it yet.