Free 2007 - Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka Page B

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