‘You have a one-track mind. I have to go: business calls!’ She pulled on thick black tights. When she stood, her legs looked like wire. ‘All you think about—’ she pointed a long finger, ‘is sex.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s not true. I think about other things. Plenty of things.’ He scratched his balls. ‘But I like touching you. I love it. I thought you loved it too. But sometimes … recently … I think you can’t bear it.’

  ‘I just did, didn’t I? You touched me quite a lot, eh? I bore it. You can’t complain!’ She said the words softly, smiling over her shoulder and nodding her head, but still she didn’t look him in the eye.

  Vlad lay motionless and watched her dress, the movements hurried and exact. She zipped up her skirt and fastened the button like she was turning a chicken’s neck. She never stayed. She came and went and left him by turn surprised, delighted, angry or empty. He would have liked to have held her for a while, maybe gone to sleep with her head on his shoulder, her dark hair across his chest, her graceful, fragile-boned hands stroking the hairs around his nipples, her full mouth wet against his skin. Their breath would slow and mingle as they subsided into sleep. But she never stayed.

  ‘I’m very busy, and you should be too. We’ve got lots to do. How is your case study going? Good progress?’

  He looked at her blankly. He’d been staring at her breasts while she twisted into her bra. A sweat broke on his brow.

  ‘I can still feel you all over me, Polly, smell you in my nostrils, and you can’t wait to talk about my patients.’ He turned his beautiful grey eyes to the ceiling with a sigh.

  ‘Your patients? He’s not your patient, is he? You’re a student, like me. Don’t kid yourself with that doctor-speak. You’re no more a doctor than I am.’ She collected herself, and began to tug on a chunky-heeled boot.

  ‘He is my patient, Polly! I’m not pretending to be a doctor, you know! I’ve been helping him! It’s not like I’m working in a shop!’

  She took two steps towards the bed and Vlad pulled the pink sheet up over his torso.

  ‘What did you say?’ Her bottom lip quivered as her eyes pinned him down. ‘Did you … imply, that I’m just a shop girl?’

  Vlad swallowed. ‘No, I didn’t mean that. You made me angry, I—’

  ‘I thought you believed in me, Vlad! I thought you got it! How could you—’ She took another step towards him.

  ‘I do! I do believe in you. I love you. It was a stupid thing to say, I’m sorry.’ He sat forward, hands raised in supplication as she stood over him. ‘I was angry. It’s … I just wish you’d stay.’

  She turned away, head down, and sank onto the shaggy pink stool by the dressing table. Her breathing slowed and she caught his eye in the mirror.

  ‘I feel so good now, you know.’ Her tongue flicked over lips, a smile flowering briefly. ‘Don’t make me feel bad. It always feels so good with you. You’re a sexy boy.’

  He looked away. She turned to him.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry I have to go. I’ll stay another time.’

  Still he didn’t look at her.

  ‘Am I the only one, Polly?’

  She made a moue and returned her gaze to the mirror. ‘Of course you are! You mean … so much to me. You’re my Vlad! My partner in crime!’ She picked up a compact and dotted powder on her nose. ‘I rely on you. I need you. And I know sometimes I can be a little … sharp. But you know how difficult my life has been—’ She turned to him, face white, eyes intense.

  ‘I know, I understand—’

  ‘How can you understand?’ Her voice wobbled as she turned back to the mirror. ‘And it’s all Papasyan’s fault! But I’m changing it, aren’t I? Life can be good, can’t it?’

  ‘I know, and I’m helping you as much as I can, Polly. You know I am. I’d do anything for you—’

  ‘And I’m good to you, aren’t I?’ She came over to the bed to lean over him, her fingers gripping his thigh. His eyes followed the movement, the muscles in his leg quivering under her touch. He reached to clasp the hand.

  ‘You are.’

  ‘You liked that sweater I gave you, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but Polly—’

  ‘It looks so sexy.’

  ‘You think?’ He smiled into her eyes.

  ‘And how about the watch? I know you love it: you always wear it.’

  ‘I do love it.’

  ‘I bought them for you, didn’t I?’ Her fingers dug into his leg.

  ‘You did.’

  Black eyes stared into his.

  ‘And I have nothing. I’m clever, you know. And that’s your proof. They’re the best. Really expensive. And they prove that I love you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She flopped onto the end of the bed and ran her fingers through her hair. The air prickled with the sound of a thousand tiny rips. He reached out a hand. She took it in hers, turned it to her face and licked the palm.

  ‘You can help me so much, Vlad. You’re brave and caring, and you have such talent: you can ask people anything, and they tell you, because you’re handsome and strong, and they think you’re a doctor.’ Her gaze flicked up as her teeth dug into the pad of his thumb.

  ‘Yes, but …’

  She sucked his fingers one by one, tongue flicking under the nails, up and down the joints. He groaned as his brain emptied.

  ‘Humour me. Tell me how old crinkle-cheeks is doing, since your miraculous diagnosis. It was quite a story. Has he been sleeping well?’ She was leaning over him now, breath hot on his face, her voice a whisper.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him. I’ve been discussing my report with Dr Spatchkin, and writing bits up.’ Vlad was pushing his hand into her bra and struggled to keep his mind on the words coming out of his mouth as her breast spilled out above him. ‘I heard his nightmares have started up again, and his appetite is patchy.’

  ‘Ah? So he’s bed-ridden now? Definitely too poorly to go home?’ She straddled him.

  He couldn’t believe talking about his patients was turning her on, but was happy to go with it, if that were the case. ‘Well actually …’ her nipple was in his mouth, muffling his voice, ‘I heard Spatchkin gave him crayons … and he’s making progress.’ He attempted to push his other hand down her tights. ‘He’s remembered everything now. So he might go home soon.’

  She turned to concrete in his touch, hovering above him.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘He might go home.’

  ‘He can’t go home!’

  ‘Why not?’ A puzzled smile creased his face.

  ‘I … He …’

  ‘Well?’ He touched her cheek.

  ‘I took his key!’ she blurted. ‘I mean … I’ve been doing up his flat. For us!’

  ‘What?’

  She gazed down at him.

  ‘I … that day in your office, when I read his file … I saw he lived alone, in Rostov, and I just … the temptation was too much. We need a love-nest, Vlad!’

  ‘Well,’ he closed his eyes as he searched for the right words. ‘That’s a sweet idea, Polly, but it’s completely crazy!’

  ‘I’ve been making it nice for you!’ Her smile curled into a snarl. ‘I’ve been making it ready!’

  ‘But you can’t do that – it’s not your property!’

  ‘So what! Why should it be his? He doesn’t need it!’

  ‘He does! I mean, he will do! And what if Matron finds out?’

  She jumped up his body, buttocks thrusting against his neck, pushing his chin up and back. Her face hung above him, eyes stark, lips drawn back in a wild grimace. Nestling down hard, she gripped his head between her thighs until he felt the blood pulsing in his temples. ‘He can’t go home.’ She pronounced each word slowly, as if talking to a particularly stupid child. ‘Do you understand? That’s the whole point! He’s got to stay at the Vim!’ She didn’t blink as she glared into his face. He felt the veins swell under his eyes. ‘Don’t ruin everything, Vlad! Don’t ruin us!’ She released her grip and sat back on his chest.

  She was smiling again now. It was not a friendly smile. He had the feeling she might just as easily try to break his neck as kiss him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly, clearing his throat. ‘I didn’t realise it meant so much to you. You want him to … stay there – in the Vim?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She kissed the end of his nose, stroked his cheek and then jumped away from the bed to stand giggling before the dressing table, once again running her fingers through her hair. ‘My Vlad, you are so slow!’ She picked up her leather coat from the floor, shrugging her shoulders into it. ‘He doesn’t need that flat. We do! Don’t you want a love-nest?’

  He frowned and nodded wordlessly.

  ‘So, do as I say. It’s easy! I’ll get a spare key cut and return the original. Matron will never know.’

  ‘Right.’ Vlad rubbed his fingers up and down his frown-line, eyes shut. ‘It’s just … You know – it doesn’t seem right. I think I can help him, Polly—’

  She sauntered back to the bed to stand over him, hands on hips.

  ‘Don’t waste your time, honey. You’ve done enough for him already.’ She smiled and shook her head, then bent to place one finger to his lips, while the other hand cupped his balls. ‘You want to make love in our very own little heaven, don’t you?’ Her hand squeezed. He nodded. ‘And it will be our secret. I won’t tell Matron … if you don’t. You’re in this with me, aren’t you, Vlad? After all, you let me read his file—’

  ‘I was asleep!’

  ‘So you were – after we’d made love across Matron’s desk. You know, that won’t look good, if it gets out. You gave me access to his personal effects, after all. You’ve come this far … So just do the paperwork; make sure he doesn’t get discharged. I’ll do the rest. That’s OK, isn’t it?’

  He nodded and she released her grip. A dull realisation trickled through Vlad’s brain.

  ‘Was it a coincidence, Polly? That Anatoly Borisovich turned out to be the cousin of the man … the man who—’

  She smiled. ‘Of course. Sometimes life’s like that. The man who no longer needs his flat, is the cousin of the man who doesn’t deserve his flat. Pure coincidence.’

  ‘You didn’t read it in his file?’

  She giggled and shook her head. A shiver passed through him and he sat up to look for his clothes. His pants were still hanging from the lampshade, his trousers trampled in the middle of the floor. As he stood to collect them, they heard the slam of the front door.

  ‘Shit! She’s early!’

  Polly grabbed up her bag.

  Vlad scrambled around, sweat-stained sheet wrapped around his middle, scrabbling into his jeans, one leg still inside out, while grabbing for his pants and socks.

  ‘This is what you’re in it for,’ Polly taunted in a whisper as she watched him twirl and stagger. ‘You can’t live like this! You know you can’t! I’ll see you later in the week.’

  She opened the door, poking her head around it, and then looked back at him. She watched him struggle, blew him a kiss and made a dash across the hall, jumping silently through the front door. It clicked behind her.

  Vlad could hear his landlady in the kitchen, clanging pots and pans on the table top, switching on the radio, preparing for an evening’s baking. She called out something sharp as the front door closed. He reckoned he had sixty seconds before she came through the door to get washed and changed. He still hadn’t found his shirt. He could hear her calling now, stomping up the hallway, her hand reaching out, opening the door …

  The Kindly Orderly

  ‘Citizen patient! Where are you going?’

  He froze, fingers twitching in the folds of his robe. He could see the end of the corridor clearly now, the doors to the communal sitting room. He heard the tread of a rubberised sole and his head retracted into his shoulders. He wanted to look back, to see who was following him, but he felt stiff, as if he might snap. He pulled up his pyjama bottoms with shaky hands.

  ‘Back to your room, Anatoly Borisovich.’

  The warmth of a body brushed his side, the smell of bottled roses filled his nose. He relaxed. It was the kindly orderly, the one with the blue-black beehive and friendly eyes.

  ‘I thought I’d stretch my legs,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘Is it late? I can’t tell: I seem to have lost my watch.’

  ‘You old men,’ she said, winding her arm around his, supportive and controlling. ‘Of course it’s late – almost eleven.’ She gently turned him around and looked into his face. ‘How did you lose your watch?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m sure it was in my cabinet. But it’s not there any more.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she frowned, ‘that’s a shame.’

  She held his arm as he slid one foot in front of the other, Siberian moccasins gliding on the pale lino, skating in easy, stubby strokes back along the corridor.

  ‘I’m wide awake now – out of routine!’

  ‘Because of all the drawing?’

  The other orderlies had been in and out of his room all day, clucking over his sketches and interrupting his thinking.

  ‘Maybe. I have remembered, you see, and, well … my brain is on fire, sometimes.’

  ‘But it’s good to see you up. You’re making real progress, aren’t you?’

  ‘I think I am.’ Five more doors to pass. Snores and squeaks, sighs and buzzes came squeezing under the doors of his neighbours’ rooms and fluttered off down the corridor behind them. On he skated, hands making little twirling movements at his sides, like a pot-bellied dancer. ‘It is night now, and I know who I am, and where I am.’ He smiled at the kindly orderly. ‘I know who you are.’

  ‘That’s very good. Here we are, nearly back.’

  ‘Where do you roost after dark, my dear?’ He raised enquiring eyebrows and crinkled the skin of his cheeks. ‘You don’t patrol the corridor all night, do you?’

  ‘No. Up there,’ she nodded down the corridor, the opposite end from his foray. ‘There’s a camp bed in the office. I was just going to turn in when I heard you.’

  ‘And what’s up that way?’ he nodded in the direction he had been going.

  ‘The sitting room, and beyond that there are offices, the library, and the main entrance hall. You might be able to go to the sitting room in a few days, if you feel up to it.’

  ‘That would be wonderful.’

  He gently swished into his room, the ligaments in his legs regaining long-forgotten elasticity. He felt almost human.

  ‘Goodnight,’ nodded the orderly as she held up the blankets for him to slide inside. ‘Sweet dreams. And no more wandering.’

  He snuffled his thanks and lay back on the bed, concentrating on pulling air into his lungs. It was a long time since he had walked. But he had done it. And he would do it again.

  Green eyes flicked towards the black glass of the windows glinting behind the blinds. Somewhere in the trees, he knew, there was a sound, ancient and familiar; the distant flapping of wings spangled with snow crystals. There was comfort in the sound. There was comfort in the knowledge. How could he ever have forgotten?

  His eyelids drooped as his breathing relaxed, the thrill of exercise leaving his bones warm. He was falling into sleep, patting Lev’s velvety head as they sat together under the table on a long-lost Siberian evening. The stove roared in the corner. His head nodded. Soon Baba would return, and there would be sausage and cheese, and stories.

  Then the sound came. Not out in the forest, not on the cottage window. Somewhere altogether closer. Somewhere on the biting green corridor outside his room. The sound of fingertips, tapping.

  He curled the pillow over his head, pushing his hands against his ears. The sound got louder.

  ‘Go away! I’m trying to sleep!’

  He listened to the roar of the silence, and then:

  tap-tap-tap

  ‘Is there to be no peace?’

  He pushed the pillow to the floor and heaved himself to sitting, but stopped as a pricking in his nose sluiced sleep from every cell of his body.

  Smoke!

  There was nothing to see, no fug, no yellow flame, but he could smell it all the same. It gave him a nasty feeling, sick and wicked like a belly full of spoiled meat.

  A Subdued Troika

  A subdued troika set off for the Vim & Vigour sanatorium on that shivering Friday in late October. Sveta was quiet, the raspberry lipstick failing to camouflage her pallor as she wrapped her arms around herself. Gor observed it and threw caution to the wind, setting the car’s heating system to three.

  ‘I didn’t sleep,’ she said in reply to his enquiring eyebrow. ‘All kinds of dreams. I ate cheese after dinner … never again.’

  Albina, meanwhile, was in rude health, but filled with disgust at having to sit in the back. She flung herself down, pushing both knees into her mother’s seat as she did so.

  ‘I’m actually taller than her now,’ she said, jabbing a finger towards the back of her mother’s head. ‘And I get sick in the back. It’s so unfair!’

  Gor said nothing, but hummed a little ‘rum-pum-pum’ and pulled out of the courtyard with a jerk. He too had not slept well. Rapping at the door had woken him early, and although it did not go on long, sleep could not be retrieved. Another anonymous letter telling him death awaited himself and his cats had also done nothing for his mood.

  ‘Albina, darling, it won’t take long to get there. Please sit up properly. You agreed to be a good girl, didn’t you? Remember your promise?’

  ‘Yeah!’ Albina snapped forward and pressed herself between the two front seats, grinning into Gor’s cheek. He could smell her breakfast. ‘She bribed me! If I behave, whatever that means, she’s going to buy me some Danish yoghurt!’

  ‘Darling, I’m sure Gor doesn’t want to hear—’

  ‘Don’t interrupt me, Mama, I—’

  ‘Ladies, please!’ He held up his hand, a slim barrier between his ear and Albina’s mouth. ‘I must concentrate on the road. Let us have hush at this early hour,’ he spoke firmly, but not unkindly. Albina flopped back onto her seat.