And although you can see there will still be many disagreements to negotiate-because this girl, this Irinochka, she’s still young, and she thinks she knows everything; she has led a very sheltered bourgeois life, her experience is limited, and there’s a lot she has to learn-and let’s face it, she does say some very stupid things-still, you’re in no hurry, you have eternity in which to re-educate her. And though she can be both stubborn and slippery, she’s not unintelligent. Quite the opposite. She has already started to take an interest in Ferrari, and look how she came up with a solution to the gearbox problem. Yes, definitely you have made the right choice.
Andriy gazes through the window at the stars. Why is she taking so long? His mind drifts back over the events of the day, and for no particular reason he starts thinking: room twenty-six, Mrs Gayle’s room, is directly below this one-two floors down. Is she still smoking down there? He thinks he catches a faint whiff of smoke wafting upwards. The matches-what was that word the handyman used?-he should never have let her have the matches. Is there a fire escape in the attic? If that room were to catch fire in the night, how many of them would survive to see the next morning?
Then the door opens. Irina comes into the room, padding softly on bare feet. She is wearing nothing but a towel twisted around her hair in a turban, and a small towel wrapped around her body. A very small towel. She walks towards him. Her legs and arms are rosy from the hot water, and her cheeks are glowing. She smells wonderful. He murmurs her name.
“Irinochka!”
She smiles shyly. He smiles too. He reaches out his arms to her. His whole body seems suffused with radiance. Wait a minute-one part of his body is not suffused with radiance-the manly part. From there, all radiance seems to have completely disappeared. Why is this? What has happened to you, Palenko?
At that moment, Dog wakes up and sniffs the air. He growls, a long low growl. He sniffs again, then he starts barking madly.
I AM DOG I AM GOOD DOG I SNIFF I SMELL SMOKE MAN-SMOKE FIRE SMOKE I SMELL FIRE PAPER FIRE WOOL RUBBER CLOTH BAD FIRE SMELL FIRE NOISE CRACKLE CRACKLE I BARK WOOF WOOF I BARK TO MY MAN WOOF WOOF WOOF MY MAN RUNS TO FIRE HELP HELP FIRE HE SHOUTS GOOD DOG HE SAYS I AM GOOD DOG I BARK HE SHOUTS BELLS START TO RING EVERYBODY RUNS ALL DOORS ARE OPENED ALL OLDIES START TO RUN SOME START TO PISS ALL THE PLACE SMELLS OF OLDIE PISS SMOKE FIRE AND OLDIE PISS ALL OLDIES STAND IN GARDEN TALK TALK TALK BIG RED WHEELIE COMES WHOO WHAA WHOO WHAA WHEELIE IS FULL OF WATER WHEELIE PISSES ON FIRE SSSSSSS FIRE GONE OLDIES LAUGH MY MAN LAUGHS GOOD DOG HE SAYS I AM GOOD DOG I AM DOG
Mrs Gayle has been expelled from the home. The door of her room gapes open, and peeping inside, Andriy sees everything is black with smoke. The small rug where Dog had sat and eaten chocolate biscuits yesterday is a charred mess, and even the edges of her bedclothes are singed from the fire. Really, she had a very lucky escape. Good Dog.
Mr Mayevskyj’s room is further along the same corridor. It is a small, untidy room, with books and loose papers spread over every surface, and it has the same all-pervasive smell of rabbit hutch and air-freshener. Sometimes the rabbit hutch seems stronger, sometimes the air-freshener dominates; and now the faint whiff of smoke adds its own sinister flavour.
“Oh, you darling!” cries Mr Mayevskyj.
Andriy thinks at first he is addressing him, but the old man’s gaze is fixed on the gearbox that Andriy is holding in his hands.
“This gearbox is from 1937 Francis Barnett. My first love.”
“But not your last, Mr Mayevskyj.” Andriy tries to sound severe. “I have heard you have made many conquests among ladies at Four Gables.”
“Yes, that is inevitable,” beams the old man. He raises his hands as if in surrender.
He is completely bald, completely toothless, and his skin hangs in loose wrinkles; he sits in a wheelchair and his urine dribbles down a plastic tube into a bag at his leg. So this is his rival in love. Yet there is such an untamed energy about him that Andriy can feel its magnetism.
“What a pleasure it is to talk in Ukrainian.” He leans forward eagerly in his wheelchair. “Ah! Such a beautiful language, that can express both poetry and science with equal fluency. You are from Donbas, I guess from your accent, young man? And you have come all this way to return my gearbox to me? I wonder how it ended up there-these swindling Africans must have stolen it and traded it for vodka.” He races on before Andriy can get a word in. “And this new young woman Irina is also from Ukraina. She is my latest love. What a beauty! Such a figure! A very cultured type of Ukrainian, by the way. Have you met her?”
“Yes, I have met her. She is indeed very cultured. But…”
“Stop!” The old man raises a gnarled hand. “I know what you will say. She is too young for me. But how I see it is this. To find wisdom and beauty in one individual is rare. But in a marriage, this combination is possible.”
“You are thinking of marriage?”
“Of course. I think it is inevitable.”
Inevitable? What has Irina been saying to him? Perhaps she is not so innocent as she appears. That smile-who else has she been grinning at? What a fool you are, Andriy Palenko, to think it was specially for you.
“But you have also proposed marriage to Mrs Gayle and two other ladies previously. And all have accepted.”
“Ah”-he waves his hands in the air and smiles gummily-“these were just passing fancies.”
“Mr Mayevskyj, it is not gentlemanly to offer marriage to so many women.”
Mr Mayevskyj shrugs with such a smug little smirk that Andriy feels an urge to punch the old goat on the nose. Control yourself, Palenko. Be a man.
“Women are weak creatures, and easily tempted, Mr Mayevskyj. It is not gentlemanly to take advantage of their weakness.”
“You see in our situation there are no other men for these foolish creatures to love.” The old man is still smirking. “Apart from you, now, of course. And by the way I have heard certain murmurings in this direction also, young man.”
“Murmurings about me?” Andriy feels a panicky quiver in his chest.
“There is one lady who says a mysterious Ukrainian visitor has proposed marriage to her. This same Mrs Gayle, in fact. Formerly my fiancee. She was celebrating last night with whisky bottle. She has already made announcement to her family.”
The quivering in his chest becomes more violent. He can almost smell the rabbit hutch closing in on him.
“It is all completely untrue.”
“This would be good marriage for you. Passport. Work permit. Inheritance. Big house,” the old man continues with enthusiasm. “Only family may cause problem. Same like my family. Children nose-poking in parent’s love affair.”
Holy whiskers! This would be an original outcome to his adventure-he will marry Mrs Gayle, Mr Mayevskyj will marry Irina, and they will all live happily together in Peterborough, end of story.
“Mr Mayevskyj, if there has been some misunderstanding about my intentions, I will do my best to clarify with those concerned. And you must do same. You must tell these old ladies that you have no intention to marry. If you refuse this, I will take away the gearbox.”
“My dear Francis Barnett. We had many happy times.” His lower lip puckers like a child’s about to cry. “Is it so wrong to long for love?”
“Mr Mayevskyj, you are old. It is better for you to love your gearbox, and to leave ladies to their follies.”
The old man gazes at the gearbox.
“Maybe I have been too dissipated in my affections.”
Andriy takes some tissues from a box by the bed, cleans the residual oil from the gearbox and places it on the bedside table.
“Now, you must promise me that you will tell these ladies that you have taken vow of chastity, and there must be no more talk of marriage. Next problem is where to hide gearbox so that Matron does not find it and remove it again.”