It’s Squire’s turn to talk. Squire is an experienced hitchhiker. Squire flicks his hair over his shoulders, to stop it falling in his beer.
“So there I was, stuck in Chebarkulb, of all places. Only 300 km from home and I had an exam the next day. I couldn’t even remember what subject… So I was thinking, ‘Shit!’ It was taking forever. I kept getting all these battered old trucks, which would take me five kilometres, fifteen at most. I was getting sick of it. So in Chebarkulb I wrote UFA on a bit of card in massive letters and stood by the side of the road. I stood there for half an hour, an hour… The long-distance drivers just shrugged, even the Bashkirs. ‘Shit, come on!’ I was thinking. ‘Somebody, just stop!’ Suddenly this amazing jeep pulled up. I’d never seen anything like it. Get this, the speedometer was kind of… it was, like, projecting onto the windscreen!”
“Cool!”
“So this bloke got out. He looked at me really carefully then told me to get in. Turned out he was driving it from the Far East for some client, and he’d been followed the whole way. They’d already tried to seize it twice. Basically he’d only picked me up so I could help out by watching the mirror and… well, I don’t know. Anyway… So, we set off. It was a right-hand drive so I was sitting on the left, and, get this, there was a loaded Makarov between us! The guy wouldn’t shut up about this super-jeep. He kept going on about how cool it was. Then — this is the funniest bit — just as we were coming to the top of the steepest hill this marvel of modern technology broke down! The indicators and screens on the dashboard started making a load of noise. Some kind of belt was broken, apparently. And — get this — it was impossible to fix it! Some bolts had stuck dead, and the keys wouldn’t fit. Useless piece of Japanese… Ahem, anyway, Slava — that was his name — decided the client could go to hell. He straightened the keys out with a hammer and almost wrecked the engine. We kept trying to flag someone down, but not one bastard stopped to help. You’ll never guess what happened next… A couple of hours later Slava picked up his Makarov and went and stood in the middle of the road with it!”
Everyone laughed, washing it down with beer. It was a very entertaining story. Next up? Nastya. She had a very different tale to tell.
“Mine’s not quite so dramatic, I’m afraid. When I was travelling from Tyumen to E-burg yesterday, I got picked up by a foreign car too. The old guy driving it seemed really nice. So I got in, we set off, and then he started coming out with all the usual bollocks — aren’t you scared to be travelling alone, don’t you get men coming on to you all the time, aren’t you just asking for it, all that stuff. Basically, he was trying to convince me that I wanted to sleep with him, and I was trying to convince him that I didn’t.”
“So who won?”
“I did. So he made me get out. And he was going as far as Sverdlovsk too, the bastard.”
It was the kind of story that makes you think, rather than laugh. There was a lull in the conversation.
“Seriously, though, doesn’t it bother you, travelling on your own?” Squire asked after a pause.
“Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t… I always travel alone.” Nastya shrugged then added, carefully choosing her words, “Let’s just say I haven’t found the right travelling companion yet.” She paused. “And I don’t know if I ever will.”
Why did Vadim decide to step in at this point? Who knows. Maybe it was the beer talking. A few drinks always lifted your spirits, reduced your inhibitions and made the impossible seem possible. Or maybe Vadim had realised that she was talking about finding not just a travelling companion but someone more significant? I don’t know. Probably a bit of both.
“But how can you be so sure that you haven’t met the right person yet? Maybe I’m the man for the job!”
Everyone laughed. This was just a bit of fun, wasn’t it?
“The thing is, you see… I don’t need just any guy. I need someone special. Someone with, how can I put it… with wings! Yes, that’s it.”
While she was speaking Nastya’s face took on a dreamy look… This was no longer a bit of fun as far as Vadim was concerned! So she was interested in the creative type, was she? Did that mean she thought he was some kind of philistine?
“Wings, eh? I write poetry, you know, and loads of people say it’s really good. There’s a rock group back home in St Petersburg, Anichkin Bridge they’re called, and I wrote two of their songs. Shall I sing them for you?”
“No, don’t!” Nikita interrupted his friend. He knew that later, when Vadim began to sober up, he would be excruciatingly embarrassed by anything he might have recited or — even worse — sung. He wasn’t exactly a natural performer.
“Take your T-shirt off,” Nastya suddenly requested.
Vadim was taken aback, naturally, but under the influence of alcohol one tends to act first and think later. So the T-shirt was removed and thrown aside.
At least he used deodorant. You know what it’s like, after a whole day on the road, the tarmac radiating heat like a furnace…
“Flex your biceps, please.”
Vadim had nothing to be ashamed of. He wasn’t built like a weight-lifter, of course, but wasn’t exactly a seven-stone weakling either. He was reasonably well developed for his age, for his generation.
The only problem was the deodorant. I’m sure you know how unattractive unshaven armpits can look with crusty residue hanging from them…
She ran her finger along his muscles. What the hell was going on?!
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you but I can’t find a single trace of any wings here. ‘Wings’ is what they call the muscles beneath the biceps on really well-developed men, just here. They stick out a little bit. If you want ‘wings’, sweetheart, you’re going to have to pump some serious iron!”
Nastya grinned. Was that a bit harsh? Well, he shouldn’t have started it!
Stripped to the waist, Vadim sat down, stunned. He’d been dismissed. At ease, soldier! Squire and Nikita were clearly feeling uncomfortable too. Squire muttered something along the lines of, “Well, we can’t all be bodybuilders…”
“What a bitch!” thought Vadim. “What was that all about? I was going to read her my poems, sing to her, even… And I almost did it too! Bloody hell…” It was the first time Vadim had been rejected so blatantly, and he was shocked. Shocked to the point of admiration, which is not uncommon. Grabbing the can of beer, he poured what was left into his and Nastya’s glasses.
“Well, cheers! You’ve certainly got a sense of humour…”
Seeing that the beer had run out, Squire sighed with relief. It was the middle of the night and they should have gone to bed hours ago. He couldn’t wait for the evening to be over, especially after that last little episode. They’d stayed up too late tonight.
“Right then, people, bedtime! What time are you planning on hitting the road tomorrow?”
“It takes about forty minutes to get to the highway from here, doesn’t it?” Nikita mused aloud. “In that case, around seven or eight. But you should probably ask Vadim, really…”
But Vadim had other things on his mind! He and Nastya were building bridges.
“So which are the best bands in Tyumen, then?”