Carrie didn’t wake up at all last night, so I spent the time reading her emails, which was enlightening, to put it mildly. She’s very trusting to leave her laptop lying around without a password, but then she’s very trusting to allow a total stranger to share a room with her. These are things that people do when they’re travelling – but you’d think when you passed the age of thirty that some of the naivety would disappear, along with the youthful roundness and flawless skin. Not that there’s anything wrong with Carrie’s skin. Quite the opposite. It’s as smooth and pale as alabaster. She looks at least ten years younger than she is. It surprises me that she’s so trusting in some ways, and yet so on the ball with other things – like knowing the currency and the costs and not letting us get ripped off. I’ve been ripped off a few times, but then I suppose, when you’ve never had to work a day in your life, never had to want for a thing, it’s easy to play fast and loose with a few quid.
Just like my little game of not paying for anything.
I’m sure Carrie has realised by now that she’s paid for all the accommodation, food and tickets since she met me, but she hasn’t commented yet. Well, unless you include her drunken rant on the train. To be honest I’m getting a bit bored with the game now. I’ll draw some money out and pay her back today.
I ate breakfast alone, which wasn’t the plan, but Carrie barely stirred when I asked if she was getting up, so I suppose she needed that sleep after all. Being the good friend that I am, I took her up a little something from the dining room. Some bread, jam, ham, cheese and what I think was a raspberry yogurt – it was difficult to tell from the picture on the carton. The maid was on our floor when I left, and I asked her for a few extra coffee sachets and some fresh milk. Perhaps I’ll take Carrie out for dinner tonight too, to say thank you for everything. Partly because I want to, but also because it will knock her off guard and give me the upper hand again. I sense she is starting to tire of me, and I’m not ready to move on just yet.
The street that our hotel is on is quite dull and grey, but a few streets on, heading towards what I think is the historic town centre, things start to brighten. The place is fairly quiet, on the whole, but I’m glad of a little downtime for a while. I can see the brightly coloured rounded turrets of a church in the distance and feel myself drawn towards it. There is something very beautiful about the over-the-top gaudiness of the Russian Orthodox churches. This one is called Kazanskaya Tserkov – and it looks like a cross between a gingerbread house and a children’s painting of a castle, all red brick and green chequered turrets. I stop at the entrance and take a few photographs, but I decide not to go inside. The sun is shining, and I need to stretch my legs and blow away the cobwebs.
Carrie was interested in finding out about the Decembrists – those revolutionaries who were exiled to Siberia in the 1800s, but as I’ve no idea when she’s likely to surface, I decide to visit the area myself and report back. It’s not my fault that she slept in and missed the chance to do the only thing she came here for. I take out the map that I picked up from the surly receptionist, briefly checking that I am going the right way, and it’s not long before I come across the streets filled with ramshackle wooden houses where they set up their new community, under much suspicion from the locals. It’s interesting enough for a while – I try to imagine what it must’ve been like, although it’s hard to believe that it’s almost 200 years ago. But without anyone else to talk to about it, I get bored fairly soon. I’m not particularly interested in the history, but at least I can tell Carrie that I have been. For both of us.
Back in town, I pass another fancy church but I don’t bother taking a photo of this one as it’s not as impressive as the one that I already have many photos of. I’m craving some human interaction now, and I consider heading back to the hotel to see if Carrie has woken up yet, but then I see a sign for a market and decide to pop in there first. I didn’t eat a huge amount for breakfast, spending more time wrapping up a pretty little parcel of food for Carrie – I hope she’s eaten it and not let my efforts go to waste.
My thoughts today are uncharitable, and I feel irrationally irritated, for no real reason that I can put my finger on. Maybe it is time for me to move on. Perhaps Carrie isn’t what I’m looking for after all. Or maybe I’m just feeling a bit out of sorts and in need of another adventure. I’ve always had a short attention span. I tend to spend a lot more time coveting what I think I want, than I do enjoying it when I have it. I used to beg my parents for things when I was younger, and they used to hold out for as long as possible, just to see me suffer. Then they’d relent, and I’d be fed up with whatever it was I had campaigned so hard to get: everything from the newest trainers, to fancy dresses, overnight stays in fancy places, and eventually a car. They bought me a pale-blue Saab 900, wrapped it in a red ribbon and left it on the driveway. I didn’t even bother to learn to drive it. For reasons that no one could ever understand, my parents and I played a constant game of cat and mouse – with each of us taking turns in both roles. I suspect it was because we were all extremely bored. What’s the point of getting all the things you want if you don’t even have to make an effort?
The market turns out to be one of the covered, permanent types, in a huge building taking over an entire block. This seems to be where everyone in the town hangs around, as there are more people just at the multiple entrances, hovering around, smoking, chattering and doing nothing, than I have seen in any of the streets up to now. On a bench outside, a youngish man in a tracksuit sits swigging from a can of beer while jabbering away on his phone – at the other end of the same bench, an elderly woman is knitting. A small bottle of vodka rests on the ground next to her handbag. Behind them both is a kiosk, about the size of two telephone boxes jammed together. It is glass fronted, and all that is on display is about five hundred different kinds of alcoholic spirit. On the counter itself are several different brands of beer, cans and bottles.
So this is what people get up to in Russia. The guidebook did suggest that drinking plays a significant part in their daily lives, but I hadn’t expected it to be quite so blatant. But then, we are in the depths of Siberia. It’s a nice enough day right now, but I hate to think what winter might bring.
As I enter the market, I am assaulted by the strong smell of fish. I walk quickly past the stalls with their frightening-looking underwater creatures – which I assume have come from the lake – and I’m subjected to many calls in Russian, presumably telling me which of their wares are the best and trying to get me to buy them. I head down another aisle and am smacked in the face with the intense aroma of cheese. I slow a bit here, and allow them to tempt me – taking small cubes on cocktail sticks and making appreciate noises. I don’t buy anything. I pass the salivating scents of bread and cakes, the meaty stench of the butchery section, and then I get a strong hint of hops, and I follow my nose down a narrow aisle that leads to the prize.
A series of narrow aisles join a wider open area, where lots of men, of various ages, and a few women, are standing at high tables, drinking from plastic cups of beer. All around the tables are small stalls with one or two beer pumps, and some with snacks: blinis and pretzels and nuts and olives. The sounds of the chatter are echoed and magnified, and I glance up and realise there is a huge glass-domed roof that wasn’t visible from outside. I look around, and see that while I had initially thought that most people were here in groups, there are lots of people on their own too, some sharing tables, some looking like they want to chat and others not. For a moment, I wish that Carrie was here. She would be in her element. She’d be scouting around for the liveliest table, asking for recommendations for the best beers. She’d be in the thick of it. Not like me. Hanging back, those familiar feelings of being overwhelmed coming to the surface. I can hear my mum’s clipped voice: ‘You’re too dull to make friends. It’s no surprise that they all get bored with you.’ I’ve tried though. I have. I shake my head, trying to get my mum’s face out of my mind. Her patronising voice. What did she ever do with her life? Her friends are all fake, only sticking around for her over-the-top parties and her too-expensive gifts. She’s bought all her so-called friends, and I don’t want to be like her.
Thinking about money, I remind myself that I wanted some cash to take back to Carrie. There’s a cash machine across the room and I head over and withdraw 50,000 rubles. I’ve no idea how much that is, but it’ll do for now. I push the money deep into the pocket of my denim cut-offs, and head to one of the small bars. I frown at the pumps, not knowing which one to go for, and then something makes me turn around. That feeling when there’s someone in your presence, a shift in the air that grabs your attention. He’s at the next small bar, the one I had almost chosen before this one. His head is dipped, turned away from me, and I can’t see his face, but suddenly I can’t breathe.
It can’t be.
‘What you like?’ The man behind my bar is holding a glass aloft, head cocked slightly. Waiting.
‘I…’
I can’t stop staring at the man at the next bar. It’s something in the way he moves his head. The way he runs his hand through his thick, sandy hair. His hair was one of the first things I noticed – well cut and styled, but natural; not one of these stupid hipster haircuts full of wax and cream. The shape of his shoulders, too, and the perfectly sculpted arms, fitted perfectly into his T-shirt – not straining and bulging like those idiots who spend too long in the gym.
I’d stood behind him at the reception desk, waiting to check in. The man behind the counter was flustered and taking too long. He was serving a couple who seemed to be making a number of requests that he wasn’t used to dealing with.
He was standing behind them, seemingly unbothered by the delay. Head bent slightly as he scrolled through his phone. He smelled of citrus aftershave and the underlying hint of coconut sun cream. I’d taken a couple of steps towards him, and I could see his phone screen though the gap in the bend of his arm. Pictures of him and friends. Active, happy people. I think he must’ve sensed me then, in his personal space, and had taken a step forwards, just as the harassed receptionist finished with the couple and beckoned him to the desk.
I’d stepped forwards too, but kept enough distance this time. I dropped my rucksack onto the floor and started to rifle through the top pocket, making it seem like I was busy looking for my passport or something.
‘Miss – you want beer?’ The man behind the pumps speaks loudly to me, as if he thinks I haven’t heard him.
‘I … uh.’ I shake my head and step away from the bar. Another man slides into my space and he and the bar man start talking in fast Russian.
The man at the next bar points to one of the pumps and the man behind the bar nods and starts pouring the beer. Dark liquid and a thick foamy head that spills over the sides. He slices the foam off the top with a long, flat knife and places it on the bar. The man with the sandy hair hands over a note and he must sense me staring, because he turns around to face me, and I feel a whoosh of relief. Of disappointment.
‘All right?’ he asks. Australian. Quite a bit younger than I’d thought. He lifts his pint up and says, ‘Cheers, then,’ and gives me a look that says he’s not really sure what I am staring at him for. Then he walks away, and I watch out of the corner of my eye as he joins a table of similarly young travellers, all shorts and sunglasses and empty glasses all over the table.
It’s not him. Of course it’s not him. I checked his Facebook a few hours ago, and he was still in Thailand, so he’s not likely to be here in Siberia now, unless someone has stolen his phone and is continuing his trip updates for him.
I start laughing. I can’t help it. Then I have to pretend to look at my phone so that I don’t look insane, and I go back to my little bar and point to the pump and drop a note on the bar, and smile … and take a huge drink of the beer, barely tasting it – enjoying the fizz as it burns down my throat.
‘I’ll have another,’ I say, pointing at the pump again. The man behind the bar says something I don’t understand, and then he grins, and hands me my drink.
I’m shaking slightly, as the adrenaline leaves my body, and I walk over to a high table where two men are drinking and chatting expressively with loud voices and gesturing arms, and I say ‘Hi.’ Then, ‘Dobryj den’ – which I memorised from the guidebook and I hope means ‘good afternoon’. They glance at me, and then back at each other, and then back to me again.
‘Hello, lady,’ the first one says. They look practically the same – dark hair, cut in the same, blocky style. They are both wearing tracksuits, which is what most of the younger men seem to wear.
‘Another beer?’ the other one says.
‘Da, spasibo,’ I say. Yes, thanks.
They both laugh at this. ‘Your Russian is very good,’ the first one says.
I giggle at this, because it’s what I think they expect. ‘That’s about it,’ I say. The second one goes off to one of the little bars to get more beers, and I smile and try not to look like I feel – which is utterly out of my depth.
It was easy to talk to Sam, I realise now – but it felt almost impossible at the time. I glance around at the table where the Sam-lookalike sits with his friends, and I think about going over there, giving them my biggest grin. Trying to merge in with their plans. Act like I’m just like them.
But I can’t.
Russian number two comes back with our drinks, and I know I’ve chosen this path now.
‘Za zdorov’e!’ says Russian number one. We all smash our glasses together, but they don’t chink, because they’re plastic. I take a long, slow drink. I can feel their eyes on me, so I smile. They grin back, and there’s a hint of something else under the surface. Something dangerous. I like it.
Russian number two moves around the small table until his arm brushes against mine. ‘You want to go to party?’
‘Fun party,’ says Russian number one. ‘We look after you.’ He points to his chest. ‘Sergei—’
‘And Lev,’ the other one cuts in. They’re both grinning, delighted with themselves for managing to ensnare me. Or so they think.
I drain my drink, and grin back. ‘Sure. Why not?’