The Network - Jason Elliot [17]
‘Nice parking,’ I say. A soft leather handbag is slung over her left shoulder. In her right hand is a mobile phone, which she waves in a gesture of embarrassment.
‘Can you help me?’ she asks. ‘No signal!’ She sounds Russian, which is unexpected. ‘I have to make a phone call. Do you know where there’s a telephone?’
‘There’s no reception here,’ I say. ‘I have the same problem.’ I’m feeling in my pocket for my phone, then realise I’ve left it at home. ‘Maybe I can help,’ I suggest, because it’s not every day you get to come to the aid of an Oriental damsel in distress. ‘I have a rope,’ I tell her, wondering how I’ll extricate it from under half a ton of logs. ‘We can drive back to your car and try to pull it out.’
I open the passenger door for her, and apologise for the logs that have fallen into the front of the car. She looks hesitantly for a moment at the debris of bark on the seat.
‘You are farmer?’
I can’t explain I’ve been stealing wood, so the simplest thing is to agree.
‘I live here,’ I say, brushing off the seat and throwing a few logs into the back. Her accent is definitely Russian, though by her looks she’s from central Asia. She smiles, gives a girlish shrug of assent, and climbs aboard.
‘My name is Anthony,’ I say, feeling unexpectedly nervous to have such a beautiful stranger by my side. I turn the car around.
‘Anthony,’ she repeats. ‘I can call you Tony?’
‘Absolutely not. My friends call me Ant. Like the animal.’ I make a crawling motion on the dashboard. She laughs, and the slender gold circles of her earrings dangle with the motion of her head.
‘My name is Ziyba,’ she says.
‘The word for beautiful.’
‘My God!’ she squeals. ‘You speak Uzbek! How is it possible?’
‘A farmer knows many things,’ I say. I don’t actually speak a word of Uzbek, but the word has the same meaning in Persian, which I know well enough.
‘I am lucky to find such a farmer,’ she says with irony. But I’m the one who can’t believe my luck. Her jacket has fallen open and my eye has been caught by the contours of her sweater and the medallion-like buckle of her belt, which is made from concentric circles of pink coral beads. I’ve almost driven past her stranded car when I hear her point it out, and pull over. I retrieve the tow rope from under the seat, and make a show of effort hooking up the U-bolts to the towing brackets of both cars.
‘Start the engine and drive forward gently, and let’s see what happens.’
I drive ahead of her, take up the slack very slowly and in the mirror watch as the Alfa rolls onto the road. Then we both get out to admire our success.
‘It worked!’ She’s beaming. ‘Thank you,’ she says. There’s an awkward pause. I live half a mile away and haven’t the courage to ask her back for a coffee. I roll up the tow rope and throw it back into the car, but I can’t bear to see her go. She’s like a bird of paradise that’s landed in my lap, and I’m racking my brains for an idea that will stop her from disappearing.
‘If you need to make a phone call, you can follow me to a pub. It’s just two minutes away.’
She shrugs again after a moment’s thought, and agrees to drive behind me.
It’s my local, but I’m not there very often. A couple of scruffy-looking local cars are parked outside, as well as a powerful grey BMW, looking very out of place. We walk in together through the back door, where I point out the payphone in the corridor. I check if she has change for the phone, and ask if I can buy her a drink.
‘Just a mineral water,’ she says, smiling.
I push open the door to the bar and smell the smoke and beer. A few locals are sitting at tables with their drinks. Standing at the bar itself is a solitary man with his back to me, wearing a Barbour that has lost its shine. I order a mineral water and a pint of local beer, and glance at the man a