But one thing is disappointing. Where is the meat? In a house like this you would expect a big fat steak, maybe some juicy pork cutlets cooked with garlic, or at least a tasty piece of sausage or some stew with dumplings. As though reading his mind, Maria McKenzie goes over to the cupboard, and fetches a large tin marked Steak in Gravy. The picture on the tin shows huge chunks of gleaming brown meat. His stomach purrs in anticipation. She opens the tin, and empties the contents into a bowl. Then she puts the bowl on the floor, and before he can say anything the dog has gobbled it all up.
“Would you like some more?” she asks them.
“Yes please, madam.” He and Irina say it simultaneously. They look across the table at each other and laugh. Her cheeks dimple in that sexy way, and she doesn’t seem so stuck up any more. Maria McKenzie fetches some raw carrots from the refrigerator and chops them into fingers, with some celery and cucumber pieces, and a bowl of some delicious creamy nutty sauce, which he eats with great pleasure. But his eyes meet Irina’s and they exchange smiles again, because there is a bag of carrots in their caravan, and Dog is sitting in the corner with a satisfied look on his face and licking his jaws.
While they are eating, Maria McKenzie takes out her mobilfon and dials some numbers, and though she speaks very quietly with her back turned towards them, he can pick up what she is saying.
“Yes, from Malawi. Yes. Yes, he said prison. No, he said substances. Toby, don’t lie to me. No, he doesn’t know. He’s not here yet. OK. OK. See you soon, darling.”
She turns to her guests with a radiant smile.
“Toby says he’ll be back soon.”
The woman, Mrs McKenzie, was very kind, despite having purple toenails like a witch’s. In my opinion, nail varnish, if used at all on the toes, should be discreet. She offered me some strawberries and I forced myself to eat a few out of politeness, for how could she know the truth about her strawberries? Then she made me some special herbal tea, which she said would re-balance my positive and negative energies-it’s a stupid idea, but the tea was quite nice. It was warm and quiet in the kitchen, and it smelt of baking. We sat on a sofa to one side of the huge enamelled stove. You could hear the tick-tock of a big clock, and the snoring of the dog-sss! hrr! sss! hrr!-who was curled up in the cat’s basket in front of the stove.
We chatted a bit. It turns out she has been to Kiev. She asked about my parents, so I told her my Pappa is a professor and has written a lot of books, and I hope one day to become a writer too, and my mother is just a housewife and a schoolteacher. Then I felt sad for Mother having such a boring life, and I remembered I had never made that phone call to say sorry.
“Would it be possible to telephone my mother?” I asked.
“Of course, dear.”
She passed me the phone.
“Mother?”
“Irina? Is that you?”
At once she started on about being lonely, and wanting me to come home.
I said, “Mamma, I’m planning to stay here a bit longer. And I’m sorry about what I said last time. I love you.”
I’d been dreading saying it, because I thought it would make me cry like a baby, but as soon as I said it I felt better.
“My little girl. I miss you so much.”
“Mamma, I’m not a little girl. I’m nineteen. And I miss you too.”
There was a silence. Then Mother said, “Did you know your Aunty Vera is expecting another baby? At her age!” She put on a scandalised voice. Aunty Vera is a source of much gossip in our family. “And a nice couple have moved into that empty flat downstairs. They have a son a bit older than you. Very nice-looking.”
“Mamma, don’t start getting ideas.”
And we both laughed, and suddenly everything between us was normal and easy again.
Just as I put the phone down, the door opened and a boy walked in, about my age, wearing jeans cut off in that raggedy fashion below the knees, and a black T-shirt with a skull on it. His hair was a koshmar-long and twisted in thin rats’ tails all over his head-and there were some wispy bits of beard on his chin. Definitely not my type.
“Hi, Ma!” he said.
Then he looked at Emanuel, and their faces broke out in big smiles, and they hugged each other and shook hands in a peculiar thumb-twisting way, and hugged again. Mrs McKenzie started to sniffle. Andriy and I looked at each other and grinned, and he squeezed my knee under the table. Then the cat came in and hissed at the dog, and the dog chased the cat around the kitchen, and Andriy shouted at the dog and he knocked the flower vase over, the water went everywhere, so he started mopping it with a towel and Mrs McKenzie cried out “It’s destiny!” still dabbing at her eyes.
Then the door opened again and a man came in, and he said, “Good Lord. What on earth is going on here?”
And the amazing thing is, he looked just like Mr Brown in my school textbook. But where was the bowler hat?
“Darling…” Maria McKenzie’s voice is so low and seductive that Andriy feels a distinct tremor in his manly parts, though she is speaking not to him but to the man who has just come in and is now slumped down on the sofa. “Darling, let me get you a drink. Whisky? Double? On ice? Darling, these are some friends of Toby’s. Emanuel here is from Limbe, in Malawi. Do you remember when Toby did his gap year in Malawi? Well, Emanuel is one of the friends he made. And now he’s come all the way over here to visit us. Isn’t that wonderful? And this is Irina, and Andriy. They’re from Ukraine but they’ve been staying in Kent. And Emanuel has brought them along because they’d like to meet a typical English family.”
“Well, they’ve come to the wrong place, haven’t they?” The man takes a quick gulp of his whisky. “And what about the dog. What’s the dog’s name?”
“Sir, the dog’s name is Dog.” Andriy wishes he had thought of something more intelligent, but the man chuckles.
“Excellent. Excellent name for a dog. Cross breed, is it?” His voice is deep and booming, like a foghorn.
“Sir, we know nothing of origin of this dog. It arrived mysteriously in night.”
“Hm. That’s interesting. Dog, come here. Let me look at you.”
Obediently, Dog walks across and sits down at the man’s feet, returning his gaze in a way that is both friendly and courteous. Andriy’s heart swells momentarily with pride.
“Labrador collie, I’d say, with a bit of German shepherd in there too. Excellent cross. Best dogs you can get.”
“Yes, he is very excellent dog.” Though he has heard of the Angliski love of animals, still it seems strange that this man seems more interested in the dog than in any of the people in the room. “He is hunting also, and brings all type of creature for us. Many rabbit and pigeon.”
Dog is glorying in the attention, wagging his tail, turning his head and lifting up his paw. The man takes the paw in his very clean businessman hand and shakes it.
“How do you do.” Just like Mr Brown! “Hm. Not a young dog. You say he arrived in the middle of the night?”
“Yes. When we are camping in wood. We think he is long time running, because feet is bleeding and he has scratchings on body.”