Marina Lewycka: Two Caravans

“Are you looking for a job?” she said. “They’ve always got vacancies. It’s all Eastern Europe round here.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“No,” said Andriy.

“We haven’t decided,” I said.

She brought us some portions of ice cream which she said were for free.

“Is there a phone anywhere?” I asked Andriy. “I want to phone my mother.”

The minute she said “Hello? Irinochka?” I burst into tears, and I had to pretend to be sneezing because I didn’t want her asking what I was crying about. It would only upset her. I just wanted to hear her voice, like when I had a nightmare as a child and she would tell me that everything was all right. Sometimes all you need is a comforting story. So, still sniffling, I told her everything was fine, except that I had caught a cold and the dog had had an accident, and then she wanted to know why I wasn’t wearing warm clothes, and which dog, and what kind of accident, and why I had left that nice family, so I had to make up another lot of lies to keep her happy. Why did she have to ask so many questions?

“Irinochka, now I want to ask you something.”

I thought she was going to ask me who I was with, or when I was coming home, and I braced myself to make up another story, but she said, “Would you be very upset if I found a new boyfriend?”

“No, of course not, Mamma. You should do whatever makes you happy.”

Mamma! My heart flipped over inside me like a big wet fish.

Of course I was upset. I was upset and furious. You turn your back on your parents for one moment and they get up to all sorts of mischief!

“That’s wonderful, Mamma. Who is he?”

“You know I told you about that nice elderly couple who moved in downstairs. And they have a son…”

“But I thought…”

“Yes, we are in love.”

First my father, now my mother!

When I put the phone down, I found my hands were shaking. The fish in my chest was flapping like mad. How could my parents do this to me, their little Irinochka? Outside in the square, dusk had come, but it was still warm. Andriy was standing waiting for me, leaning with his elbows on the balustrade, watching the fountains, his outline supple and muscular, despite his awful trousers, one curl hanging like a brown question mark on his forehead. He smiled. Just looking at him made my body start to sing.

Would Andriy and I love each other for ever? Love, it seems, is quite a slippery, unpredictable thing-not a rock you can build your life on, after all. I wanted it to be perfect, like Natasha and Pierre, but maybe that’s just another story. How can love be perfect, if people aren’t perfect? Look at my mother and father-their love didn’t last for ever, but it was good enough for a while, good enough for Irinochka, that little girl I used to be. Of course when you’re a child, you want to believe your parents are perfect-but why should they be?

“How is your mother?” asked Andriy.

“She’s all right.” I smiled. Yes, he wasn’t perfect: he talked in that funny Donbas way, and he was moody, and he thought he knew everything, despite being riddled with out-of-date ideas. But he was also kind-hearted, thoughtful, courteous and brave, and that was good enough for me. “You know, Andriy, I discovered something just now. My parents don’t need me any more.”

We leaned side by side on the balustrade, watching the fountains, and I started to think about the story I would write when I got back to Kiev. It would be a love story, a great romance, not something stupid and frivolous. It would be set against the tumultuous background of the Orange Revolution. The heroine would be a plucky freedom activist and the hero would be from the other side, the Soviet East. But through his love for the beautiful heroine, his eyes would be opened, and he would come to understand the true destiny of his country. He would be very passionate and handsome, with bronzed muscular arms; in fact he would be quite like Andriy. But he would definitely not be a coalminer. Maybe he would have a dog.

In the cafe, somebody popped a champagne cork, and an eddy of noise and laughter carried into the stillness of the square.

“Andriy,” I said. He looked at me. His eyes were sad. A shadow had fallen across his face. “Are you thinking about Dog?”

He nodded.

“Don’t be sad. You have me now.”

I reached up and twined my finger into his brown curl, and pulled his head down for a kiss. Yes, definitely the story must have a happy ending.

You have survived many adventures, and now you’ve reached your destination. You have escaped death a couple of times, and you have won the love of the beautiful high-spec Ukrainian girl. So why is your heart grumbling away like an old Zaz, Andriy Palenko? What’s the matter with you?

He listens to the young people drinking in the cafe a few metres away-they live in a different world. Maybe he and Irina could stay in Sheffield and find jobs for themselves, and maybe he would even go to college and train to be an engineer. He would buy a mobilfon, not for doing business, but to talk to his friends, and at weekends they would come to a bar like this, and drink and laugh. But he could never be one of them. There are too many things he would have to forget.

She thinks it’s because he’s grieving for the dog, and she reaches out her hand to stroke his hair and whisper some little sweetness into his ear. Well, yes, you will miss Dog; there will never be another dog as superb as this one. But it’s not just Dog. There’s a special sadness at the end of a journey. For it’s only when you get to your destination that you discover the road doesn’t end here after all.

“Come on, Andriy! Don’t be sad!”

She beckons. He follows her into the square. She skips down the steps, where water is cascading through stone channels and dozens of fountains are spurting like geysers out of the ground. There is no one there apart from a couple kissing on a bench. She takes his hands and pulls them around her back, pressing herself against him.

“Even though it was very exceptional, Andriy, still it was only a dog.”

He holds her close. She is lithe and warm in his arms.

“Rock and the warriors dedicated their lives to saving some stones, Irina. You could say they were only stones, but it’s what they represent. As their Jimmy would say, victims of global capitalism.”

“Is the dog a victim of global capitalism?”

“Don’t be stupid. You know what I mean.” Sometimes her frivolity is irritating. “My father died…”

“But you are still alive, Andriy. Why don’t you think of that sometimes?”

“Of course I do. And then I wonder why it was me who lived and not him.”

“But you didn’t kill him, Andriy. Do you think he would want you to be always miserable, and brooding about the past? The future will be different.”

He shakes his head.

“Andriy…”

“What?”

“…your underpants are like the warriors’.” She giggles.

“And so what if they are? You are always so mesmerised by superficial things, Irina.”

“No, I’m not.” She splashes her hands through the fountain, spraying a wave of water at him that wets his shirt.

“Yes, you are.” He splashes back, soaking her hair.

“And you talk like a Donbas miner.” She dashes handfuls of water at his face. “Holy whiskers! Devil’s bum!”

“And what if I do? Should I be ashamed of that?” He rubs the water out of his eyes. “Now you sound like a bourgeois schoolgirl.”

“And what if I am?” She gives him a shove that sends him stumbling backwards into a jet of water. Her eyes are shining. Rivulets of water are running down her cheeks. In spite of himself, a grin breaks out on his face.