“Do you know that during one of his drinking bouts Ivan decided he was betraying his Motherland by claiming asylum here? He asked the Home Office to return his documents.”
“Oh God, he didn’t? I never heard about that.”
“It was probably before you met him. When he sobered up he went down to Croydon. Andrei accompanied him — he was doing his legal training then. They explained that Ivan was drunk and didn’t know what he was saying. They accepted his reapplication.”
We step off the pavement as a group of hooded youths surge past.
“I doubt he’d have got away with it these days,” I say.
“He got away with a lot in his life.”
“How do you think he would have fared if he’d stayed in Russia?”
“I don’t think he would have lasted so long — it’s much tougher these days.”
“I must say I’m amazed how understanding the Soviet system was of its drunks — holding their jobs open and trying to offer treatment. And Georgia was virtually a tramp’s paradise…”
“Yes, but today’s Russia is not a kind place for people like Ivan. If you don’t shape up you’re fired. There’s no room for the vulnerable. I hate to think what could have happened to him if he’d stayed, he might have been murdered on the streets…”
We reach the bus stop.
“Are you going to the Elephant?” asks Vadim
“Yes.”
“I’ll come up with you, take the tube from there.”
He flashes a sudden, shy smile. “Ivan told me about you. At first I was surprised that he was telling his story to an English person, but he said you’d lived out there.”
“I did. I knew where he came from…”
The number 68 lurches towards us. We board and head off northwards.
MAP OF IVAN’S TRAVELS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Ben Yarde-Buller, my agent Peter Buckman, G.K. Darby, Conn McAfee, Paul Daly, Amy Spurling and Andrei Walton for their appreciation of Ivan’s story; also Lana Feldman for introducing me to the brilliant Natalia Vetrova. Above all, I am grateful to Ivan for telling his story to me.
Copyright
First published in 2013
by Old Street Publishing Ltd
Trebinshun House, Brecon LD3 7PX
This ebook edition first published in 2013
All rights reserved
© Caroline Walton and Ivan Petrov, 2013
The right of Caroline Walton and Ivan Petrov to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–1–908699–23–7