Nine Ladies

It will be a miracle if we ever make it to Sheffield, thinks Andriy. This old single-decker bus must be fifty years old at least, with prehistoric transmission, only four gears plus reverse, on a long angled gear-stick, like the old Volgas. The engine drones like a swarm of bees, and when it picks up speed-the maximum is forty Ks per hour-the whole body shakes and vibrates. Even in Ukraine, to undertake a long journey in such a vehicle, you would call in the priest and ask for a blessing or two.

There is something else he notices-the smell from the engine. It is actually quite a pleasant smell. It reminds him-this seems strange-of the little restaurant on the corner of Rebetov Street. Fried potatoes. Irina sits up and sniffs the air.

“Fish and chip?” she says.

“Nearly,” says Rock. “Actually, it runs on used chip fat-I converted it missen. Burns up t’excess by-products of consumerism. Not strictly legal, because you don’t pay tax on it. But, as Jimmy Binbag said, the chips of wrath are wiser than the vinegar of instruction.”

She is sitting next to him at the front, gripping onto the edges of the double seat. Andriy catches her eye.

“Are all Angliski drivers crazy?” she whispers in Ukrainian.

“Seems so,” he whispers back. “At least this one is not speed maniac.”

“So where are you two from, then?” Rock relaxes into a steady thirty Ks per hour, resting his forearms on the wheel and rolling a cigarette at the same time.

“Ukraine. You know it?”

“Aye.” He pauses to lick the paper. “We had some Ukrainians up in Barnsley. Miners.”

“My father was miner,” says Andriy.

“Snap,” says Rock. “Mine too. Before he died.”

“He died in accident?”

“Neh. Pneumoconiosis. Black lung.”

“Mine died in accident. Roof falling down.”

“Fuckin’ roof fall. That’s tragic. Sorry, pal.”

“You still miner?” asks Andriy.

“Neh. They shut all t’ pits round us. Anyroad, me dad said I were too soft. Said I should get educated, instead. What use is educated in Barnsley, I said. Anyroad, I went to college and did mechanical engineering. But then I thought to missen, in’t engineering part of t’ problem? So I decided to do this, instead.”

Still resting his forearms on the wheel, he strikes a match and lights the cigarette. Puffs of sweetish smoke billow through the bus. “You still a miner?”

“I was. Before Father’s accident. Now I cannot go back down. I cannot work underground. So I have no work. I come in England for picking strawberry.”

“Aye, it’s all crap. As Jimmy Binbag said, when t’ toilet of capitalism is flushed, all t’crap rains down on them below.”

He takes another deep puff and holds the smoke in his lungs. Then he passes the cigarette to Andriy. Andriy shakes his head.

“My father said, when miner goes underground, death may visit. When miner smokes, death is invited.”

“Jesus! I bet that put you off! Anyroad, I thought they’d shut all t’ mines in Ukraine.”

“Many was shut. Then we open them again.”

“You opened t’ mines?”

“Miners did it. With our hands.”

“Weren’t that a bit dangerous?”

“Of course. Also illegal. Working in seam one metre tall. Thirty-seven degrees of heat. One hundred per cent of humidity. No ventilatsya. No safety vikhod. No power tool. Only with pick in our hand we go back underground to cut coal. Then we sell it for money. You know, in this time there is no other work. We have to live.”

“Holy fuck.”

The swarm of bees drones on, soothing and purposeful. A few drops of rain spatter against the windscreen. Irina sighs and stirs, her head heavy on his left shoulder. She is asleep. She hasn’t heard anything. One day, he will tell her the whole story: the bright spring morning; the hole in the ground, gaping like a wound, where they lowered themselves into the earth; the stifling darkness that swallowed them up. Those first tremors. Then the long roar of the explosion. The shaking. The tumbling boulders from the roof. The voices shouting, screaming. Then the silence. Black dust. He moves his arm up and enfolds her, pulling her head onto his chest. Her hair flows over him like streamers of dark silk.

Behind the front seats, a curtain made out of an old sheet has been strung across the bus. It is only partly drawn and Andriy can see into the back, where all the seats have been taken out apart from four, which are arranged around a square makeshift table. In one corner is a low cupboard with a gas ring on top, and some cardboard boxes in which clothes, food and pans are jumbled together. The rest of the floor space is taken up by a double mattress, with some grey-brown tousled bedding.

“You convert this bus youself?”

“Aye. It weren’t hard.”

“I would like to do something like this. Get old bus. Convert. Travel round world.”

Would Irina come with him, he wonders, on a trip like this? And Dog? On the mattress in the back of the bus, Dog is snoring and farting in his usual vigorous way and Rock’s dog, curled up beside him, is sniffing and sighing more delicately.

“I’m not sure Alice would make it round t’ world.”

“Alice is your girlfriend?”

“Neh, Alice is the bus. My girlfriend’s called Thunder.”

Hm. Interesting name for woman. Quite sexy.

“She is also miner?”

“Neh. They don’t have women miners over here. Mind you, if they did, she’d be ace.”

“Rock, if you not miner or engineer, what work you do?”

“Me?” Rock takes another long drag on his cigarette and adjusts the little round glasses that have slipped over to one side. “I suppose you could say I’m a warrior, like.”

“Warrior like? This is your job?”

“Neh, not a job. More like a calling. Aye, an earth warrior. Defending t’ earth from t’ vile clutches of corporate greed.” He starts to giggle.

“Hm. This is original.”

“Aye, you see there’s this ancient stone circle up in t’ Peaks. Three thousand year old. And some greedy bastard wants to open up a quarry right beside it. So us warriors-we’ve made a camp there, up in t’ trees. They can’t blast the quarry without cutting t’ trees down. And now they can’t cut t’ trees down, because of us”-he giggles again-“defending our ancient British heritage from tentacles of globalisation, in Jimmy’s immortal words.”

This Jimmy sounds an interesting type.

“But why for they make quarry in such historic place?”

“Greed, man. Sheer greed. All for export. Building boom in America. Turn muck into brass. Jimmy calls ‘em t’ enemy within.”

He has become quite agitated, staring all around him with anxious eyes.

“In Ukraine was same,” says Andriy soothingly. “Everything was sold. Now is nothing left.”

“Was it Ukraine where they had all them protests? Summat about t’ election? Orange banners an’ all that?” His voice has become calm again, almost dreamy.

“That also was greed. Few businessmen have got all public asset into their hand. Now they will sell to West.”

“Andriy, you are talking complete rubbish!”

She sits bolt upright, rubbing her eyes.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“How can I sleep when you talk such rubbish?”

“Is not rubbish, Irina. You know nothing about our lives in the East.”

They have slipped into Ukrainian, and raised their voices. Rock watches them with a benign smile on his face, leaning low over the steering wheel. The bus is going incredibly slowly now, barely ten Ks per hour.

“I know what is good for Ukraine, Andriy”-she stabs her finger at him-“and it is not to be dominated by Russia.”

What’s got into her? OK, so now it is time for re-education to begin.

“Is not domination, is economic integration, Irina. Integrated production, integrated market.” He speaks slowly and clearly. Can she, a young girl with a head full of feminine things, be capable of understanding such ideas? “Ukrainian economy and Russian economy was one. Without Russia, Ukrainian industry collapsed.”