“Men that way, Lovejoy. See you later.”
“Eh?”
The admissions lady said something to me, Ivy the same thing. I nodded with a weak smile, and entered a changing room. Blokes, including Ilya I was surprised to see, were stripping off. I looked for what we were all to change into. Nothing? Everybody stripped down to their nip, like after a football match.
“Parilka,” Ilya said to me, nodding and smiling.
“Parilka,” I said, hoping it meant yes I’m fine. I could hardly see, my temples thudding. I couldn’t make out what he said after that, but it sounded the same thing the taxi driver, Ivy and the wardress had told me.
We entered a room so hot I felt my skin try to peel itself off. Everybody stood around, some doing exercises, others posing or patting themselves. Sweat started but evaporated as soon as it reached the torrid atmosphere. Breathing was actually painful. I could hear my breath rasping as it went into my lungs. I thought, this is madness, and they’re all off their blinking rails, quite barmy. What the hell is all this hot air for, for God’s sake? Ilya tapped my shoulder and beckoned. I followed, anything to get out of the terrible heat.
We entered a room so thick with steam I couldn’t see a damned thing. There were rocks. The heat was stifling. Breathing was like inhaling gravel, and my head thumped worse. Everybody was starkers. Some loon ladled water onto heaped rocks so we could be steamed worse. More steam hissed and filled the air. I scented eucalyptus. I thought my skin was coming off. It was unbelievably hot. Somebody said something in Russian. Others laughed. I heard swishing. Then Ilya, who looked hell of a sight more of a bruiser naked than when clothed, took up a bessom thing and shoved me onto a vacant plank.
Others were reclining, to be beaten by the twigs. The first swish drove the remaining breath from me. That was the steady hiss-hiss sound I’d heard ever since we’d arrived. I heard women’s voices somewhere close. The broom slashed at my skin. I noticed others swapping places and lashing out. My skin felt raw. I felt I hadn’t breathed properly for a week.
Ilya finally stopped and I was given a switch of small branches. I lashed out at the blighter, thinking take that, you swine. Other blokes poured fresh water on the rocks to sizzle more steam. It was hellish.
A few minutes, with me spent and sagging, Ilya rose and beckoned. I followed out of that steamy hell into a freezing cold tiled room where an icy pool shimmered.
“Basseyni,” Ilya said proudly, and leapt into it. He shrieked, “Colt! Colt!”
Basin? Cold? Wincing, I tiptoed slowly down the small ladder into the freezing cold pool, gasping and puffing as the ice – there was actually floating frigging ice on the surface that some lunatic had put there, for Christ’s sake – as the ice rose up my legs. I shrivelled, the blokes splashing in the pool roaring laughing and trying to make waves so I would be engulfed. I made it, for the sake of national honour, and tried swimming about a bit, gasping and huffing.
Ilya, the sadistic swine, was already climbing out and beckoning.
“Parilka,” he said, guffawing.
I’d hated parilka last time and wanted to go back to the ship. He hauled me out and dragged me into the steam for a second go. I was definitely on the blink by then, my circulation having given up and my brain beeping its last goodbye synapse.
The steam slammed me almost moribund. I got beaten stuporous by different twigs, floppy fir bessoms this time, in hot clouds that were surely lethal. I was too weak to switch Ilya, who was killing himself laughing by this time and explaining to his mates I was a weak-kneed visitor, which set them all roaring laughing.
The cold pool experience was almost natural by the time I followed dully for the re-run. Naked as a grape, I floundered in. My skin had given up trying to make sense of all the sensations. I couldn’t feel heat or cold.
Three goes, and I was shoved unceremoniously through a doorway into ordinary climate, where some bulky woman slapped a sheet at me. I was asked for money, but Ivy was already there, draped in a toga and seated on wooden slats. Women and men were arguing about something quite passionately. I wrapped myself in my sheet and flopped exhausted by Ivy.
“You rotten cow.”
“There, there, darling.” She was laughing. “Would you have come if I’d told you what it was?”
“Well, no.”
“And how’s the headache?”
I tried to feel something, anything, in my head or anywhere else. It felt light, things at a distance but no pain between my temples.
“Gone.” It was a guess.
“I can’t hear, darling,” she said, her pound of flesh.
I cleared my throat. “Gone.”
“There!” She waited. “Thank you, Ivy darling, would be super.”
“Ta,” I said ungraciously.
“Not at all, Lovejoy.”
She unscrewed the cap from a thermos flask and poured a little of the fluid for me to taste. It was unbelievably sweet.
“Tea, with mint, jam and honey and molasses sugar,” she said. “It’s traditional. Different parts of Russia people swear by various recipes. In Novgorod, where the banya started, they favour honey and a distilled juice they make from various berries.”
It was good. Feeling crept back into my shoulders. I could actually sense a breeze on my face. Maybe I wasn’t dead after all. I returned her cup. She decanted some for herself. Cautiously I glanced round at the twenty or so people sitting round the room.
“How does your skin feel?”
“Smarting, like it’s sore.”
“That’s good. The toxins are leaving.”
“I haven’t got any toxins,” I said, narked.
“Not now.” She was all smiles. “We rid ourselves of impurities by coming to the banya. In the West, people don’t bother. This is more sensible, don’t you agree? And you get to like it.”
“Did they thrash you with those twig things?” I asked, curious.
“Of course. They don’t do it elsewhere. Southern Russians think it’s ludicrous. St Petersburg folk repeat the hot-steam-cold process twelve times in a fixed ritual, some saying favourite poems with each bath. Especially Pushkin. This banya doesn’t have a hot open-air pool, but many banyas do. Russians favour those. You can gaze at the moon while floating in the warmth, even in the snows. Luxury, with friends drifting along to argue politics and poetry! Could anything be more Russian, or more wonderful?”
She gave me some more of her strange tea. I liked it.
“Alternative to toxins, eh?”
“Much better, darling.” She smiled. “And you kept your key!” They’d given me a locker key on a string round my neck.
“Time to return to the Melissa?”
“In a few minutes. We can just listen to people.”
So we listened, doing nothing except sit there. I couldn’t understand a word. There wasn’t a toxin in sight. I thought, God Almighty, do I actually love this woman? I thought of her in my Ten Word Game, and lost.
* * *
The ship was quiet. We were the only ones returning, and the Atrium into which we stepped was tranquil. Apart from a couple or two seated round the lounges and a stewardess serving a lone bar-fly, there was nobody to listen to the tinkling piano. The three balconies soaring above showed people reading or talking. It was so peaceful.
“Do come, Lovejoy.”
“Look, love. Ta for the banya. How much do I owe you?”
“Not a thing. It was my pleasure.”
“Are you sure?”
We went to her cabin. I hesitated when she opened the door and invited me in.
“Er, is this all right with your Billy? Only, I wouldn’t want – ”
“For heaven’s sake!”
She pulled me and I entered. It was much larger than mine. Twin beds, a proper bathroom instead of just a shower, and a sitting alcove. Not quite on the scale of Lady Vee’s, but getting there.
“Would you like a drink?” She had a fridge, and took out some wine. I demurred, but accepted so
me water. I was thirsty. She had two armchairs and a desk. I sat when she ordered.
“Peter the Great used a banya near the river. He used to run along the riverbanks naked after a good steaming.” She laughed. “The phrase they all say, that you asked about, is ‘Hope your steaming goes easily.’ And afterwards they say, ‘Hope it was easy.’ It’s a custom.”
“Do you and Billy come back to Russia all the time?”
“This is the first. We’ve been married ten years.”
A silence started. I find that silences don’t just extend lengthwise, getting sort of longer. They actually spread out, covering everything you can see and touch. I was nervy for some reason. This was odd, because there’d been scores of mixed people in that banya place.
“Look,” I said, on edge, putting my glass down. “I’d best go. I’ve to see somebody later. I don’t want to be late.”
“Stay, Lovejoy,” she said, not looking. Her voice had almost extinguished itself.
“I’m in such a mess, love,” I heard myself say, sounding even more pathetic than usual. “I durstn’t make matters worse by – ”
“Please,” she said, and did a kind of brave smile. “And I’ll tell you more about Russia?”
I tried to say it was a deal, but could only croak.
* * *
We lay in the cramped single bed. I’d almost fallen off while we made smiles. She was lovely. I’d never seen any woman with such long hair, not since Norma from Swansea, only hers turned out to be a gruesome hairpiece she’d won in a raffle and couldn’t bear to part with. She’d woken me (Ivy, not Norma) because I was crushing her leg and she’d got pins and needles. I came to grudgingly, hoping she’d given me enough time to sail out of the small death. I felt around inside my brain. Peace was in there. I smiled.
“Wotcher.”
“Was I all right?”
See? Always that doubtful litany. I said she was stupendous, I’d been in paradise. I think poets should get their acts together and educate women to believe in ecstasy, tell them there’s no need for doubt because making smiles is never anything less than superb. She squinted at me, probably wondering how many of her imaginary defects she could muster to convince me she was poor quality.
“I’m such a mouse, though. And I’m hardly a stunning looker.” This from a woman who’d given me sheer bliss.
“Do I seem unhappy?” Ball in her court.
“No.” She went shy. “You seemed … transported.”
“Possibly because I was.” There’s no way to convince them, though I always try. “Then we’re quits.”
“Once before, I fell for another man,” Ivy said softly.
“Did Billy see him off?”
“Billy?” She laughed a laugh with a snarl. “He wouldn’t know if I’d written it in letters a foot high. It was Potemkin, the Prince of Princes.”
Potemkin was dead. “Isn’t he, er…?”
“I still worship him. He ruled Russia. Tall, a born ruler, a superb man any woman would go crazy for.” This made me, a shiftless antiques dealer heading for doom, feel really confident. “Catherine the Great’s lover.”
“One of them.”
“Don’t believe rumour. She only ever took a dozen serious lovers. And always Potemkin. She married him in secret, and called him ‘My marble beauty’, saying ‘better than any king!’” She giggled. “His old dressing gown kept flapping open, but he didn’t care!”
The pillow was fluffed up. I pressed it down to see her better.
“I thought you were all for Pushkin, that poet bloke?”
“Oh, I was!” She drew patterns on my skin with a finger. “Pushkin sent me demented.”
“Potemkin too?”
She gave my shoulder a sharp bite. I grunted. “Before that it was Byron. Every woman’s dream lover. And Shelley. The things I did when I was on my own, thinking of poor Doctor Keats!”
“When was this?” I asked uneasily.
I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but even I could see something was seriously wrong. Fine to admire heroes, but Ivy’s voice contained something near lust. Uneasily I wondered if she was slightly barmy. Now, I’m all for love. There’s not enough of it about. But it has to be there, here, sort of somewhere, not a vague abstract fondness.
Take Marilyn Monroe, for instance. I’d give a lot to have known her, and history says Cleopatra was dynamite between her sheets. But I’ve more sense than sob in my ale because I can’t make smiles with them in the car park. No chance of a swift snog and grope there, because sadly they are no longer with us. So I must face my deprivation with fortitude. Mind you, dreamery can be an innocent game played by educated people with truly brilliant minds. Like, the wholly imaginary Sherlock Holmes has a real London address, to please tourists asking for directions in Baker Street. And in October 2002 he was made a Fellow of some prestigious English Royal Society. Quite daft but harmless, people having a laugh. Ivy’s cravings after dead lovers? It was beginning to sound like a weird career.
“After I was married, I never thought of Russia much. I was a little girl when we left. Bilingual, of course. At home we spoke Russian. Billy was always busy, so I did a degree in the language, and kept going.”
“Expert, eh?”
“Grandpa was a poet here, in the great siege of Leningrad. Did you know that poets kept the city going? When everybody was dying from shells and hunger, the radio kept broadcasting poetry. Then one by one even the poets died from starvation or the guns. The radio had nobody left, and simply broadcast the clock ticking, ticking, so the defenders knew that they were not alone. Somewhere in the snow among the ruins, others too were standing to arms.”
She shivered. I held her. We all have too many ghosts, and Ivy had more than most. I felt like saying it, but I have a habit of getting things wrong.
“Sorry there’s only me here, love.” It was a joke, but fell flat like jokes do.
“Thank goodness.” She reached for me and I quivered. “I’m so grateful. Can I be on my side this time, please? Only, you overlaid my leg and it’s still sore.”
“Oh, right.” Still, whose fault was that? You can’t think of everything, when paradise is on offer.
* * *
Despite what she said, I roused enough to leave before half-four. Ivy said to stay a minute longer, but I was in enough trouble. A barney with Billy was out of the question.
Dressed and ready to go, I found her between me and the door. Her face was streaming with tears.
“Did I say summert wrong, love?”
“No, Lovejoy. You’ve been lovely.” She slowly recovered. “Will you go to the evening show after dinner?”
“Dunno. I’ve to see Mangot.”
“Please don’t fob me off.” Her arms came round me. “I want to help you. Promise me one thing.” And when I nodded, “The tours tomorrow. Whichever you are sent on, make sure I am on the same one. Promise? Cross your heart and hope to die?”
I wouldn’t go that far, so said, “Hand on my heart.”
“Thank you for today. You’re what I wanted.”
“Me and Potemkin?”
She gave a shy smile and let me go. Nobody in the corridor, by a fluke. I left thinking, she wants to help me? How, exactly, and why? Why was it so vital to be on the same tour? Worst of all, why did I feel her gift of love had been in farewell? In Old London Town they used to stop the tumbrils at St Giles Church to give condemned criminals one last drink before they reached the hangman at Tyburn. Making smiles with Ivy was better than any swig, but I wanted the rest of the cruise to be safe. I went to find Mangot.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Purser Mangot was in the Mayfair Lounge, openly seated near the bar in an armchair and smoking a cigar. He couldn’t have been less smug. I expected him to clobber me in private. He beckoned, booming, “Hey, Lovejoy! Have a drink!”
“No, ta.”
Mangot was in full fig, attracting two ladies to join him.
“You liked the Hermitage exhibition, then? I heard
you went today.”
As secret as rain. What was this? Until now, all contact had been sub rosa, and here he was bandstanding in public. A steward brought him a brandy.
“Aye, great.”
“You with your divvy skill.” He winked at the two women, who simpered at his wit. “Any of them duds?”
“They seemed okay. I had to go out. It got stuffy. There’d been some surface restoration on – ”
“Don’t blind us with technicalities,” he boomed. Everybody laughed. Such a popular bloke, our Executive Purser. “Going ashore tomorrow?”
“Dunno. I was waiting for you to tell me.”
“What?” He did a theatrical start, guffawing. “Passengers needing to be told where to visit? You chose this cruise, or have you forgotten?”
“You said – ”
“Seven guided tours tomorrow, and all excellent value. You’ll like the Rasputin one.”
“Do you mean that’s the one I’ve to go on?” I wanted it spelled out before witnesses.
“Up to you. Glad you liked the Hermitage.”
“Right.” For a second I stood like a lemon, but that seemed to be it. I left, mystified, and went to find Lauren to get ready for the antiques quiz. I wasn’t deceived.
By talking to me in the Atrium, Mangot was making sure everybody knew I’d been to suss out the Hidden Treasures Exhibition. He was setting me up. I can scent the trick a mile off.
Okay, those old-style windows in the Hermitage wouldn’t give any self-respecting thief heartburn. Even I could get in with a rope and a putty knife. There’d be guards, and detectors. I’d seen no cameras, no CCTVs, felt no sticky-mats, seen no red-eye beamer lenses, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Security people hide their gadgets in walls nowadays, safe from fiddling fingers. And a canal running underneath the Hermitage was God’s gift to grabbers. But stealing is one thing and escaping with the loot is another. Until tomorrow, I was presumably safe on the ship.
Lauren was in her cabin. She let me in, looking bleary and dishevelled. I’d been nervous coming to meet her. I always find it’s difficult saying hello to someone you’ve made smiles with not long before. It must be easy for women because they’re always in control, having the moral ascendancy. I never know whether to be cheery and extrovert or meek. It’s a bit creepy. Women have it so easy. I always finish up getting narked with myself.
Ten Word Game Page 27
