2007 - Two Caravans (14 page)

And what can you do with coupons? You can’t eat them. You can’t spend them. All you can do is sell them. But who will want to buy? Suddenly, the millionaires were all billionaires, and the rest had enough for a load of coal to see you through the winter and that was it, bye-bye end of story. Now the whole country was run by mobilfonmen.

And this Vitaly—if he finds this Irina, will he ring you on mobilfon and say, hey Andriy, my friend, come and make possibility? Unlikely. And what would she think of this new recruit-consult mobilfonman Vitaly? She considers herself so superior—the new high-spec Ukrainian girl—maybe the new Vitaly will just be in her category. Hello, mobilfon businessman—this is Irina calling—can we make a possibility? And if she makes a possibility with Vitaly, what does it matter to you, Palenko? Now he feels irrationally, fumingly angry with Irina as well as with Vitaly.

“And I have an Angliska girl,” he adds pointedly to Vitaly. “Vagvaga Riskegipd. In Sheffield. I am on my way to find her.”

Vitaly gives him another odd look.

“Listen, my friend, if I see Vulk, I will ask him what happened to this Ukrainian girl.”

He almost hopes that Vitaly will offer him a job—good pay, luxury accommodation, etc—just so that he can have the pleasure of turning it down. But he doesn’t, and Andriy’s pride won’t let him ask. They arrange to meet in the same pub at the same time tomorrow. As Vitaly strolls away, he takes his mobilfon out of his pocket and starts to talk, waving his free hand up and down for emphasis. Andriy tries to make out what language he is talking.

The sun is blazing at full heat, cutting short hard shadows onto the cracked pavements. He wanders back towards the caravan with Dog and Emanuel, still feeling irritable and resenting the money he spent on Vitaly’s double Scotch. Worse than that, he feels shabby, poor and unattractive. Is he jealous of Vitaly? How shameful it is to be jealous of someone who is inferior in every way, except that he has a mobilfon and better trousers. This is what Vitaly has done to him. This is what Vitaly and Irina between them have done to him. Yes, he thought Vitaly was his friend, and all the time he was taking a bit on the side. Well, here are his true friends. Hey, Dog! But Dog is off on a trail of lamp posts. Hey, Emanuel! Emanuel has found a half-full packet of smoky-bacon flavour crisps in the beer garden, which he shares with Andriy, shaking out the last bits into his hand. The artificially flavoured salt dissolves on his tongue, tasty and toxic.

“Hey, Emanuel. You like fishing? Maybe we have big luck.”

“Sikomo. Fishing is very interesting. But where will we attain good nettings?” Emanuel starts to sing, “
I will make you fishers of men
.”

They stroll down to the pier together. The Bulgarian lad who sold him the fish yesterday said this was the best way in town of making quick money. Down a side street, in a maze of car and lorry parks not far from where they left their caravan, they find the entrance to the Admiralty Pier. It must have once been quite a grand structure, but now the ornate cast iron is decrepit and grimy, covered in pigeon-droppings, and a few dead pigeons fester where they have dropped behind the barriers. The stench hits you as you come in.

A couple of men are hanging around at the entrance with a selection of rods and buckets, some blue, some yellow.

“You wanna buy or rent?” asks the older of the two, who is wearing a black woolly hat pulled down over his ears, despite the heat, and a black vest which reveals arms and shoulders covered with an incredible array of tattoos. “Rent is five quid a day. Or you can buy it for twenty-five quid. Superior tackle. Great investment. Pays for itself in five days, and from then on it’s sheer profit. Are you gonna be here for a few days?”

The man is talking too fast. It is stretching Andriy’s English to its limit. What is the price, he wonders?

“What it is?”

“Quality tackle. As used by all the top competitive fishermen. Fella caught a twenty-five-pound cod off of here the other day. Got fifty quid for it. Cash in hand.” He looks Andriy and Emanuel up and down, as if appraising their fishing potential.

“Put food on yer table every night, and the surplus you can sell to us. A quid a kilo. Easy money. No tax. No questions asked. Yours to spend as you wish. Just five quid for the day. Try it out.”

Andriy picks up a rod and examines it. He hasn’t been fishing since he was a kid, but it can’t be so difficult—that Bulgarian lad didn’t look particularly bright.

“Five quids? Five pounds?”

“That’s it, mate. Big shoal of mackerel coming in with the tide. You’ll cover the cost in no time, and then all the rest’s yours to take home to the missus.”

Andriy hands over his five pounds. The man gives him a rod and a blue bucket.

As the Ukrainian driver pulled in through the gate, I saw the gleaming white field that I’d spotted from the hillside yesterday. It had looked as though it was covered with plastic, and it turned out to be just that—rows upon rows of tunnels made out of polythene sheeting stretched over metal hoops. Down the centre of each tunnel was a row of straw bales, with bags of compost on them, planted with strawberries. It was like a whole garden under cover. The air was humid and warm, sweet with the scent of ripe strawberries, and another sickly chemical smell that clung to the roof of my mouth. Despite the smell, I was so hungry I couldn’t help myself—I reached out and started cramming the strawberries in my mouth. The others laughed.

“You can’t be a real strawberry-picker, Irina! We’re not allowed to eat them. They’ll sack you if they catch you,” said Oksana, who seemed to have taken me under her wing. Oksana was from Kharkiv, a bit older than me, and nice, though not very cultured—but all that seemed much less important now.

The supervisor, Boris, was also Ukrainian. He was a bit fat, and not too bright, with a thick Zaporizhzhia accent. He kept looking at me and saying if I proved myself today he’d put in a good word for me, and sort out my paperwork when we got back to the office. He was sure they’d take me on, because the warm weather had caused the strawberries to ripen early and—this was the third time he’d said this, what was the matter with him?—he’d put in a good word for me.

When he told me the wages, I couldn’t believe it. It was twice what we got in the other place, and I started thinking about all the things I would buy—some lovely scented soap, nice shampoo, new knickers—little sexy ones that Mother would detest—a massive bar of chocolate, some strappy sandals, and I needed a hairbrush, a new T-shirt, maybe two, a warmer jumper, and don’t forget a present to take back for Mother. And the picking was so easy; no bending, no lifting. Yes, I thought, I’m lucky to get this chance, and I’d better make the most of it, so I picked like crazy, because I had to prove myself.

At the end of the shift, when we went back to the strawberry farm, Boris came up and said it was time for me to prove myself. Then he pushed himself up against me in a disgusting way and kissed me on the mouth, with wet slimy kisses. I wasn’t frightened—Boris just seemed stupid and harmless—so I made myself go limp and let him kiss me, because I really really wanted this job. His gaspy breathing on my face made me feel cold inside. On the scale of sex appeal I would give him zero. OK, it’s a transaction, nothing more, I told myself. I tried to imagine Natasha and Pierre kissing, lost in each other. Were men different in those days? When he’d finished, I wiped my mouth on my T-shirt, and followed him up the stairs to the office.

Andriy walks down the Admiralty Pier with his rod and blue bucket in his hands and Emanuel at his side. The pier is a bleak span of concrete almost a kilometre long, reaching like a crooked dog-leg out into the sea, and every metre seems to be occupied by a fisherman, bucket at his feet, rod or line pitched over the water, staring out over the waves. In some of the buckets there are a few small fishes, but nothing to speak of.

About halfway along the first leg, Andriy and Emanuel come across the Bulgarian lad who sold Andriy the fish. He introduces his two friends, who are Romanian and Moldovan.

“Usually two or three of us here,” says the Bulgarian. “Next few metres is Baltics. Fish fryers. Up there”—he points for Andriy’s benefit—“Ukrainians and Byelorussians. Beetroot-eaters. Over there”—he points for Emanuel’s benefit—“we even have Africa. God knows what they eat. Down that end are Balkans—Serbs, Croats, Albanians. Best steer clear of those. Too much fighting.”

“And Angliski fishermen?”

The Bulgarian lad points at the end of the pier.

“That’s where all Angliskis go. Right up to end. Past Balkans. You can tell which is Angliski. Every one wears woollen hat. Even women. Pulled down over ears. Even in summer. Very good at fishing.”

“You get good fishing?”

“Plenty. Plenty fish everywhere. Easy money.”

Andriy glances down into the lad’s bucket. There are a few tiddlers. Who does he think he’s kidding?

“How long you been doing this fishy thing?”

The lad looked shifty. “Few days.”

“Where you get this fish line and bucket?”

“Man by pier. Same like you. Easy money.”

“Easy for him.”

The Bulgarian lad looks away and fiddles with his fishing rod. Andriy feels like thumping him, but what’s the point?

“He says plenty plenty mackerel coming this morning,” the lad calls plaintively to Andriy’s disappearing back. Poor mutt, doesn’t even realise it’s the afternoon.

“I go find Africa!” Emanuel heads off towards the two black figures hunched over their rod near the angle of the dog-leg.

Andriy picks up his bucket and rod and goes off to find the Ukrainians. They are two thin-faced youths, one with a shaven knobbly head, one with a sticking-up Klitschko-style crew cut.

“Hi, lads.”

“Hi, mate.”

“Any luck?”

“Not much.”

In fact, judging from the content of their buckets, none at all.

“Where you from?”

“Vinnitsa. You?”

“Donetsk.”

Andriy positions himself in the small gap beside them and takes a look at his rod—he’s paid for it, so he’d better try to get his money’s worth. Then realises he didn’t get any bait. He asks the lads if he can borrow some.

“No need for bait. Just stick feather. Mackerel go for feather. They think it’s fish,” says the knobbly-headed one.

“Must be bit stupid.”

“Yeah. Huh huh huh,” the lad sniggers.

“Does anyone ever catch anything?”

“Yeah. Course. They must do.”

“I mean, enough to pay for rod and bucket?”

“Yeah, I reckon somebody must. Why d’you get blue bucket?”

He notices their bucket is yellow.

“Blue, yellow. What’s the difference?”

“Blue is you rent. You give back at end of day. Yellow is you keep. Use every day.”

“You mean I give back bucket at end of day? Even if I catch nothing?”

“Maybe you are his fish, and he has caught you.” The knobbly-headed lad grins. “Not even with any feather. Huh huh huh.”

“Devil’s bum!”

Andriy looks up and down the pier. There are mostly yellow buckets, a few blue ones, and some buckets of other colours, red, green, black, grey. Really you’ve got no one but yourself to blame, Andriy Palenko, for listening to that moon-faced cretin. He counts the yellow and blue buckets and tries to calculate how much profit the Mr Tattoo has made in a day. Easy money.

Over in Africa, Emanuel seems to have been abandoned by the others and left in charge of their fishing gear. What’s going on? There is something about Emanuel that brings out a protective impulse in Andriy: he too is an innocent soul lost in this rriobilfon world. Andriy gives him a thumbs-up sign, but Emanuel doesn’t notice. He is staring intently at the sea.

Andriy also stares down at the waves, their dismal unpromising churning, their slap and gurgle against the concrete, the obscure and disgusting-looking bits of debris that come to the surface from time to time. The sea is very overrated, he thinks.

The next time he catches Emanuel’s eye, Emanuel is looking agitated and beckons him over. He seems quite distressed.

“Africa Mozambique men say please look after our fishy things, we go for toilet. One hour. Two hour. Still not coming back.”

What on earth is he talking about?

“No problem, friend.” Andriy lays a soothing hand on his arm. “Everything normal.”

This is strange, he thinks. Why is this bucket red?

After a couple of hours, the Mozambicans have still not come back and the two Ukrainian lads, having caught four fish between them, are celebrating with a roll-up cigarette and a bottle of beer and then a few more bottles. They offer him a bottle, but he shakes his head. He likes a beer as much as the next man, but there’s something desperate about the way these lads are drinking. He’s seen it on the Donets often enough—a lad has a beer, then a few more, then for a laugh he jumps into the river to cool off, and that’s it: bye-bye, body never found, end of story.

A cool breeze has sprung up, and those that have brought jackets zip them up; those that haven’t, including Andriy and Emanuel, start to shiver. The slap and gurgle of the sea gets stronger, and sometimes a spray of water splashes over them. The tide has come up. At one point there is a ripple of excitement along the pier. A shoal of mackerel has been spotted, and is definitely on its way. But it never seems to arrive.

As evening approaches, most of the fishermen are ready to call it a day. There have been a few bigger fish caught up at the Angliski end; the Balkans, too, have had a run of luck, and a fight has broken out over who gets what. Andriy still hasn’t caught anything.

“Hey, pal,” says the Klitschko-crew-cut Ukrainian, “you should keep on to that rod and bucket. Why give it back to Mr Tattoo? Then at least you get something for your money. Five quids is robbery. Better get yellow like us next time. Investing for future.”

Hm. There seems to be some logic in what the Ukrainian is saying.

“But Tattoo man waiting for us at end of pier?”

“You can get past him easy. Look, Ukrainian boy, we help you a bit. We put your blue bucket inside our yellow one.” He takes the bucket and with a quick slop transfers the four little fishes. “See? We take one rod each. We meet you at pub—over there.” He points. “You buy us pint of beer, and rod and bucket will be for you to keep.” He gives a big toothy grin. “OK?”