2007 - Two Caravans (32 page)

“And why not? In my country if a young girl can make a good marriage to a wealthy senior it is good for the family. Everybody is happy. Sometimes nowadays the young girl can get AIDS, which is a terrible tragedy in my country. But this will not be a problem with Mr Mayevskyj,” she added quickly. “The only problem is his two daughters. These are not nice people at all. They have already intervened three times to prevent him marrying.”

“Is this true? He has had three fiancees?”

“Maybe they are worried about the inheritance.”

“He has inheritance?”

“He told me he is a millionaire.” Her eyes twinkled darkly. “And he has written a famous book. A history of tractors.”

I could believe he has written a history of tractors. But I must say, he didn’t look like a millionaire. Or smell like one.

“But maybe you already have a lover.” She winked.

“Maybe,” I said with a nonchalant shrug.

“You know, you can stay here if you like. There’s a spare room in the attic which cannot be used for residents because of safety reasons. It’s been empty for years.”

She gave me another twinkly look. I could feel myself blushing. There is something incredibly romantic about attic rooms.

The Malawian nurse turns out not to be Emanuel’s sister after all, though she does look a bit like Emanuel, thinks Andriy: very small and slightly built, with a round shining face. Her name is Blessing.

“I am sorry to disappoint you.” She gives him a dazzling smile that also reminds him of Emanuel.

They are sitting in the nurses’ room while Yateka and Blessing are having a tea break.

“But don’t you know some other Malawian nurses?” says Yateka.

“You know, my cousin was in a nursing home in London that was closed because of a scandal—the proprietor was stealing the residents’ money. Some of the other nurses there were from Malawi. They all lost their jobs. The agency found new jobs for them, but they had to pay another agency fee. Nightingale Human Solutions.”

Yateka wrinkles up her nose. It is a small plump nose, shiny like a stub of polished wood. Quite a nice nose, in fact.

“Would you like me to ask my cousin?” says Blessing.

“Yes, please. I give you telephone number where Emanuel is staying. Maybe you help brother and sister be reunited.” He writes the address and phone number of the Richmond house on a piece of paper and passes it to Blessing.

Another rather pleasant thought has started to nudge at the edges of his consciousness. He has heard it said that black women are incredibly sexy, but he has never before had an opportunity to find out for himself. Maybe here will be an opportunity for him? This little coupe-model Malawian nurse, she has quite an entrancing smile. And the other one—Yateka—see the way she moves, the curve of her shapely legs accentuated by those clumsy lace-up nurse’s shoes, the sway of her buttocks in her slightly-too-tight uniform. You have to admit, there is something incredibly sexy about a woman in uniform.

Stop! Stop this idiocy, Palenko! Here is a lovely high-spec Ukrainian girl sitting beside you, and still you are letting your thoughts chase about after other women. When the road forks, whichever way you choose, you can only go one way. Goodbye, Africa Yateka. Goodbye, Vagvaga Riskegipd.

Goodbye and God be with you? Or goodbye and see you again? Andriy Palenko, what’s the matter with you? Goodbye is goodbye. End of story. And yet…And yet it’s not really desire that makes that last goodbye so hard to say—it’s curiosity. Never to know where the other road would have led you. Never to know what lies beneath that taut crisp uniform; never to know whether that long-ago kiss lingers in her memory as it does in yours. Never to know what would have happened when you met.

Irina’s voice snaps him out of his reverie. She is talking about something incredibly interesting.

“I think there is only one thing to do,” she is saying. “We must give Mr Mayevskyj back his gearbox.”

“Gearbox?”

“Yateka told me he used to keep a gearbox in his room. A beloved relic of an old motorbike. But the matron found it and took it away from him.”

“Since then,” said Yateka, “he has become unstable.”

“It is enough to make any man unstable.”

“I think if he had his gearbox again, he would behave in a more normal way.”

“You are right, Irina.”

Sometimes you have to let a woman think she is right.

I AM DOG I AM SAD DOG MY MAN IS IN LOVE WITH THIS MORE-STUPID-THAN-SHEEP FEMALE HIS VOICE IS THICK AND SOFT HIS PISS IS CLOUDY HE STINKS OF LOVE HORMONES SHE STINKS OF LOVE HORMONES TOO SOON THEY WILL MATE HE WILL HAVE NO MORE LOVE FOR DOG I AM SAD DOG I AM DOG

“I think Bill the handyman will know where the gearbox is,” says Yateka. “Since Matron asked him to take it away.”

“Down the stairs at the end of the corridor, then turn left,” says Blessing.

Bill is back in his basement room, poring over an open newspaper. He is a short square man with a bald head and a clipped moustache. He looks up as Andriy comes in.

“They’ve nicked me bloody matches again. Those old birds. You can’t trust ‘em. Bunch of flaming firomaniacs. Who are you, anyway?”

“I am looking for gearbox of Mr Mayevskyj. He has been asking after it.”

Bill takes this as a reproach.

“It weren’t my idea to take it off of ‘im. I just do what Matron says.”

Even as his mouth searches for a suitably annoyed expression, his eyes fall upon Dog.

“That your dog?”

“Yes, my dog. Dog.”

“I used to have one like that. Mongrel. Called him Spango. Great ratter.”

Bill settles himself back in his chair, and passes the newspaper he has been reading over to Andriy.

“What d’you think of them, eh?”

A young woman with bare breasts and blond hair is smiling at the camera. Andriy looks at the picture. The light in the basement is dim. Actually, she looks very much like his last girlfriend, Lida Zakanovka. Could it really be her? He stares more closely. Did she come to England? Did she have a mole like that on her left shoulder?

“Nice, eh? Better than the missus. You should have seen the pair last Thursday. Magnificent.” Bill gives a companionable grunt. “You can keep it, if you like. I’ve finished with it. Any time you like, you can bring your dog down here.”

“Thank you.” Andriy folds the newspaper under his arm. He will have to look at it in daylight.

“Does he drink tea, your dog? Spango was a great tea-drinker. Here, boy…”

Bill reaches for a mug with a few centimetres of cold brown tea left in the bottom and pours it into a bowl for Dog. Dog wags his tail, and starts to drink, gulping noisily. Andriy watches, amazed. He realises for the first time how little he knows about this dog. First he was sitting up for chocolate biscuits. Now he drinks cold tea, slurping and slopping as if in ecstasy. Where did this creature come from? How did he appear so mysteriously in the night? What was he running from? Why did he choose them?

Meanwhile, Bill searches in the corners of the room and comes back with a small, heavy package wrapped in an oiled cloth inside a plastic bag.

“This must be it. She told me to throw it away. But you can’t, can you? Don’t tell her where you got it from.”

“Thank you. Dog likes your tea.”

There is no one in the nurses’ room when he takes the gearbox upstairs, so he pulls out a chair and sits down to wait. Something else is bothering him now. That mole—did Lida Zakanovka have a mole there? He unfolds the paper to take a closer look. Hm. Definitely it is like Lida. Holy bones! What is she doing in England? Here in the brighter light of the nurses’ room, he can see clearly. No, maybe this one is more pneumatic. His Lida was more like the cabriolet model. To think he wasted four years of his life over her! What a fool he was. Lucky she never got pregnant. This girl in the photo is quite something. Good curves. Not too thin. But is it Lida?

“What are you looking at?”

Andriy jumps up. Yateka is standing behind him. She must have tiptoed in on those softie-softie nurse’s shoes. She is frowning.

Andriy jumps to his feet and quickly folds the newspaper away. Did she see? Of course she did. That was a bit of bad timing.

“I have gearbox, Yateka.” He smiles pathetically.

“You have it already?” Her face is severe. Her uniform is so crisp it almost seems to crackle. He can feel a blush creeping up his cheeks.

“Should I take to Mr Mayevskyj?”

“Better wait until tomorrow. It is nearly his bedtime now. Too much excitement at bedtime can make him knotty.”

“What is knotty?”

Her face relaxes. The smile comes back. “You know, that Ukrainian, he is always looking for a wife. Mrs Gayle, Miss Tollington, Mrs Jarvis. They all told me he asked them to marry. And they all three accepted. And now…” Yateka rocks back on her heels hooting with laughter; she laughs so much she almost falls over, and has to hang onto the door for balance. “And now also Irina.”

“Irina?”

“Yes, he has asked Irina to marry him. I think she will accept.”

“Irina?”

“It is a good marriage for her. British passport. And he has an inheritance.”

“It is not possible.”

Yateka smiles. “In love, anything is possible.”

Then one of the buzzers starts going off, and Yateka grabs her bag and disappears silently on her softie shoes.

There was a gravel pathway leading through the rose beds down to a lower lawn, a secret place hidden away inside a circle of laurels, with a couple of benches and an old sundial.

“You and Andriy can sit down there,” said Yateka. “I finish at seven o’clock. Then I’ll show you the spare room.”

It was still warm, but the sky was heavy with rain clouds, and no one else was in the garden. You could sense the storm coming, the leaves of the laurels were curling in the heat. Dog appeared out of nowhere and started padding along beside us, farting disgustingly. What had he been eating? Why couldn’t he leave us alone?

Andriy sat down on one of the benches, and I sat down beside him. He seemed very moody. I was wondering whether I had done something to annoy him. Bad moods are not attractive in a man.

“I want to discuss a problem with you,” he said. “Love problem. Man-woman relationship type of thing.”

Oh, at last, I thought, and my heart started to beat faster. Then he said, “Mr Mayevskyj, this old scoundrel, has proposed marriage to three old ladies, and all have accepted.” He gave me a nasty narrow-eyed look. “Now I hear that it is in fact four. And that you also, Irina, have fallen victim to his charm. Is it true?”

What has that naughty Yateka been telling him? I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly.

“Irina, you cannot go about smiling at every man who comes your way.”

This made me quite annoyed. What makes him think he has the right to lecture me?

“I can smile at who I like.”

Then he said, in a very primitive voice, “And if you do, you will end up giving full body massage to Vitaly’s mobilfon clients for twenty pound.”

I was shocked. Why is he saying such a horrible thing to me? I thought he was teasing, and now it seems he’s serious.

“Vitaly is dead,” I said.

“No, the world is full of Vitalys. You just don’t see them, Irina.”

“What are you talking about, Andriy?”

“The men you smile at, Irina—some of them are not decent types.”

Oh, so he’s still upset about the twenty-pound note, I thought.

“Mr Mayevskyj is not a bad type.”

“Actually he’s quite a scoundrel.” He frowned. “Are you going to marry him?”

“That’s my business. I can decide how to live my life. I don’t need you to lecture me.”

“You are blind, Irina. You don’t see what is happening in this world.”

“For example? What don’t I see?”

“This mobilfon world all around you. Businessmen buying and selling human souls. Even yours, Irina. Even you they are buying and selling.”

“Nobody is buying and selling me. I made my own choice to come to the West.”

I was thinking, if he is going to carry on like this, maybe tonight will not be
the night
after all.

“The West is no different. This Orange Revolution that you like so much—what do you think this was but a Vitaly-type business promotion? Who do you think paid for all the orange flags and banners, and the tents, and the music in the square?”

What on earth has got into him? I thought we were going to walk in the garden, and maybe talk about something romantic, that would be nice, and instead he starts prattling about politics. Maybe this is how it happened with Pappa and Svitlana Surokha. No, with them it was probably the other way round—first the politics, then the romance. Well, if he can argue, so can I.

“If we’re going to talk about this, at least let us do so honestly, Andriy. Nobody paid my mother and father to be there. They went because they want Ukraine to be free from Russia. To have our own democracy—not one run from the Kremlin.”

“To exchange one run from the Kremlin for one run from the United States of America.”

“This is Russian propaganda, Andriy. Why are you so afraid of the truth? Even if the government doesn’t change, the important thing is that we the people have changed. No one will take us for granted any more. Once in a lifetime a nation makes a historic bid for freedom, and we have the choice to be participants or to stand on the sidelines.” Was that from one of Pappa’s speeches, or one of Svitlana Surokha’s?

“What use is freedom without oil and gas?” he sneered.

“With freedom, maybe we can join European Union.”

“They are not interested in us, Irina. Only for new business possibility.”

He lectures me in that ridiculous Donbas accent, as though I am the dim-wit.

“And who do you think paid for the buses that brought you up from Donbas? Eh?”

“This is all Western media propaganda. You are naive, Irina, you believe anything that any mobilfonman tells you. You thought you were the actors, but you were only extras.”

“You didn’t walk, though, did you? You Donbas miner?”

“Hah! Now we hear the typical voice of the bourgeois schoolgirl!” His tone had become harsh and sarcastic.