‘I’m not sure I should tell you. It’s quite shocking really, and highly personal. Maria Trushkina told me in confidence. As Polly’s, you know, guardian. Sort of.’ Alla looked around the empty tables and chewed the inside of her cheek.

  ‘In confidence, eh, direct from the fat pharmacist?’ Valya crouched lower to the table and pushed her bulldog head up below Alla’s chin, eyes twinkling. ‘So now you have to tell me, eh, All-inka? What’s the scandal?’

  ‘You’ll never guess.’

  ‘I won’t. So tell me.’ Valya slurped her tea.

  ‘It’s like this: Maria was rushed off her feet all day: elderly customers, questions, niggles, prescriptions. You know how it is: sometimes nothing is right.’

  ‘Yes, we have that at the bank also.’

  ‘Yes, but at the bank you don’t have people wanting to show you their boils, do you?’

  Valya considered. ‘Not often!’

  ‘So, Maria was dealing with this old girl. She wouldn’t give up. “Really, Citizen, I cannot view your boil. You must take the ointment home and apply it. Just a pea-sized blob. No more.” “But I can’t reach! Believe me, I’ve tried! What can I do – ask the man next door?”

  ‘You can imagine the scene, yes? It’s the end of the day, everyone has had enough, and you get faced with a boil. Anyway, Maria is doing her best, and she sees Polly just standing around at the other counter, gazing at the clock, looking stroppy, picking her nails – the way girls do.’

  ‘Tell me about it! At the bank, we had one who used to read magazines—’

  ‘Don’t interrupt! So, a boy comes in, a note in his hands, and starts asking Polly a long question about mustard plasters for his mama. You know what she does?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘She says “No, brat! Just piss off!” – just like that! The boy stammers, but he doesn’t give up. No! He sniffs and starts again. Now, Maria can see Polly’s lid is about to blow – she’s boiling with it. So what does she do? Bares her teeth and snarls at him like a rabid dog! Snarls! He drops the paper and runs away!’

  ‘She needs training!’ laughed Valya. ‘Woof! Woof!’

  ‘It’s not funny! Maria had to have words, obviously, and Polly says it was just a joke and the boy misunderstood. But Maria knows: Polly is always rude, distracted, late or off sick. She’s already facing a disciplinary. So Maria decides to keep an eye on her for the rest of the evening. She tells Polly she’s going to get off early, and asks her to lock up. She’s done it before. But this time she doesn’t go home: she pretends to, but instead she hides in the back, where she takes her breaks. She’s doing surveillance.’

  ‘Ah? Sneaky pharmacist!’ Valya bit into her pastry.

  ‘So, it’s five to eight, nearly time to shut up shop, and the little bell on the door tinkles. Polly starts shouting “Get out, we’re shut!”, but stops. Maria pokes her head around the corner. Guess who is there?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know who is there. Brezhnev?’

  ‘It’s only your Vlad, with a big bunch of roses, walking on his knees to the counter!’

  Valya’s jaw hit the table. ‘Oh no! That stupid boy!’

  ‘So they have some conversation, I don’t know, something to do with an argument—’

  ‘Yes, yes. He came home Friday very late and all sullen. I had to make him eat, he didn’t want to. Wouldn’t tell me what it was about.’

  ‘Ah? Well, there it is. So, they were making up, and Polly starts being … well, being friendly—’

  ‘Ha! I know her “friendly”!’

  ‘The last customer slinks away, and Polly tells Vlad to go lock the door.’

  ‘I knew it!’

  ‘And he comes back and says, “We can start again, Polly, if you love me. Do you love me?” And she says, “Why don’t you come around here, behind the counter, and I’ll show you?” She raises the hatch to let him through.’

  ‘Raises the hatch!’ Valya rolled her eyes and took a serviette from the pile on the table. ‘A man behind the counter? That’s enough there, isn’t it, for dismissal? And then?’

  ‘It gets worse. They start … you know … kissing. Maria can’t see, but she can hear. And she hears zippers, you know, zipping, and clothes … ripping. And panting: bottles rattling on the shelves; moaning, groaning—’

  ‘I get the picture.’ Valya’s cheeks glowed as she blotted her forehead.

  ‘And this is in the shop, with the lights on and everything! There are medicines about!’

  ‘Exactly! Think of the medicines! What happened next?’

  ‘The counter starts creaking. Creaking, it is! And there’s rattling, and before you know it – bottles smashing! Of course, Maria has to go right out there and shouts blue murder! Sacks Polly on the spot!’

  ‘Ah-ha! Oh my goodness! Polly! Ha! My poor Vlad!’

  ‘They had their pants round their ankles and their bits on display like tomatoes at the market! Doing it on the counter, with no thought for the stock!’

  ‘Ahh, ha-ha! No! That’s terrible! What is the world coming to?’ Valya’s laugh hissed like a snake. ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!’ She dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘Polly starts screeching like fury, blaming Vlad and cursing him. Maria Trushkina threatens to call the police, it’s that bad – she’s afraid for her safety! And Vlad, of course, zips out of there like a scalded tom – away into the night.’ Alla took a breath. ‘So, that’s it! Finished! She won’t be able to get me those tablets any more, will she?’

  ‘Oh no! That’s terrible. Poor you!’

  ‘What a hussy! She’s really let me down! I helped her get that position, I did! I pleaded with Maria Trushkina. But I always knew she was a bad one. I only did it as a favour to her poor mother!’

  ‘Well, you know my views.’

  ‘But listen: now Maria can’t bear to touch the counter, where it happened … she can’t put tablets on it, as if it’s haunted!

  ‘Woo! Ha ha!’ Valya twisted her buttocks into her seat as Alla hid her face in mock disgust.

  ‘And worse: the place is covered in Zelenka.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Now Valya’s hands flew to her cheeks. ‘The antiseptic?’

  ‘That’s what was broken: two bottles of Zelenka!’

  ‘I thought there was a funny smell in the bathroom this morning!’ Valya hissed into her tea, eyes streaming. ‘You can’t get rid of Zelenka.’

  ‘Such a silly girl,’ Alla coughed and wiped her eyes with a crispy serviette. ‘I tried so hard to support her. She’s ruined now, of course. They’ll throw her out of university.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Valya slurped her tea. ‘I’ve got no sympathy. Deserves it. And what about my Vlad?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t really his fault, was it? She led him on. He’s only a man, after all.’

  ‘Yes. That’s true. But still: embarrassing for him. Oh, poor Vlad! I hope it won’t, you know … affect his studies. He’s quite sensitive.’

  The two women sipped their drinks. A young girl and her boyfriend walked past, hand in hand, laughing.

  ‘She was useful when she got your tablets,’ said Valya, ‘at least we can say that for her.’

  ‘And she gave me good advice about my you-know-what,’ replied Alla. ‘But I’ll have to break with her now, won’t I? After that? And I’ll have to tell her mother.’ Alla nodded into her hot water. ‘Strange girl. She never seemed happy, did she?’

  ‘No, not happy. But that’s no excuse.’

  ‘You’re right. After all, who is? She’s dead to me now. Dead!’

  ‘Come on, time to go. I need to see if Vlad’s all right, poor boy! At least you’ll have something to talk about over the counter tomorrow, eh?’

  Alla drained her hot water and pulled on her gloves. ‘Oh yes. Although I don’t like to gossip.’

  ‘No. Me neither. Terrible thing, gossip.’

  Albina Gives Chase

  ‘Well, Mama seemed better,’ said Albina, after they’d had their allotted ten-minute phone call.

  ‘Yes, she’s stopped coughing, did you notice?’

  Albina nodded.

  Gor put a pan of milk on the hob ready for cocoa while Albina released the kittens from their play-pen. He could hear their downy mews as she came back into the kitchen with them scooped up in the hem of her jumper.

  ‘They’re so sweet. I’d keep them all, if I were you. They’re more cuddly than Kopek.’

  Gor was about to say that things with beaks were rarely cuddly, when the telephone bleeped. He looked in its direction. Albina looked at him, but neither moved.

  It rang five more times, six, seven, eight.

  ‘Are you going to answer it?’

  Gor said nothing.

  ‘Why don’t you ever answer your telephone? I’ll answer it for you!’ She skipped out to the phone, one hand still holding the jumper-sling of small cats. Gor attended to the drinks, keeping half an ear on Albina. She came back. ‘No one there. I asked and asked, but no one spoke. So I wished them luck – in Japanese, of course.’ She smiled.

  ‘You’re a good girl.’

  ‘The phone was ringing last night too, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I heard tapping on the window, when I was in bed.’

  Gor sighed. ‘Yes, I thought you might. I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘Is it the spirits?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t think so either. Why don’t you do something about it?’

  ‘Well, Albina, we were doing something about it, remember? But your mama got injured, and now … well … What can I do?’ He hunched his shoulders and turned to her. ‘What can I really do? We must ignore it. I have other things to worry about.’ He ran a hand around the back of his neck, dry skin on dry skin, and busied himself once more with the cocoa.

  ‘But,’ she said, kicking the door jamb, ‘that’s like giving in, isn’t it? Letting them win.’

  ‘They’re not winning, whoever they are. And there’s nothing to win, Albina. The whole thing is … ridiculous.’

  A knock rang out on the apartment door. Albina’s eyes stared into Gor’s tired face. Together, they went to answer.

  ‘We must be careful,’ cautioned Gor.

  He checked the spy hole.

  ‘No one.’

  ‘But they knocked.’

  ‘Albina—’

  ‘Open it! Don’t be scared.’

  ‘Very well.’

  He released the bolts and the door creaked. No one was there. However, the dull brown light of the corridor eventually picked out the corpse of a crow, sodden, black and worm-ridden, lying on the door mat. There was a message tucked underneath it. Gor shifted the body with his foot.

  ‘What does it say?’ whispered Albina.

  They stared at each other.

  ‘You see? No point answering the door!’ Gor tipped the crow down the rubbish chute and bolted the door.

  They sat at the little table to drink their cocoa. Albina swung her legs, rubbing her toes on the old brown lino. Outside, the wind whistled around the building, sharp edged from Siberia.

  ‘I will fry some potatoes and cutlets. I think there’s a tin of peas somewhere … we won’t let them beat us.’

  ‘Don’t bother with the peas,’ murmured Albina as she ran a determined finger around the bottom of her cup to retrieve a lick of chocolatey mush.

  The tapping started after they had eaten, and as Albina gave Gor her assessment of his record collection. He was seated in his armchair by the piano, Albina huddled in a heap on the floor with the kittens and a blanket. She had brought a pair of teasels home from the dacha and the kittens were fighting them, the prickles sticking all over the rug.

  Softly, insidiously, tap-tap-tapping scuttled through the apartment. Gor sucked in his cheeks, and Albina raised her head.

  Gor rubbed his eyes. ‘Just ignore it. It will go away, eventually.’

  The kittens pounced, again and again, from behind Albina’s outstretched leg onto the crumpled teasels, their razor-sharp claws ripping at the spiky seed heads, their backs arching, hair on end, when the teasels shook.

  tap-tap-tap

  Albina pushed herself up from the floor. She stood silently, listening. A kitten tried to claw its way up her tights. She shook it off with a slight ripping sound.

  ‘I’m going to brush my teeth,’ she said.

  ‘Good girl.’ Gor picked up a well-thumbed music periodical. He leafed through its familiar pages. Dust particles, illuminated by the standard lamp, circled in the air all around him like tiny, flickering moths.

  tap-tap-tap

  ‘Agh!’ she shouted from the bathroom, toothbrush clenched between her teeth. She appeared in the hall, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

  ‘It’s in the kitchen!’ Her voice boomed with excitement.

  ‘Take no notice!’ said Gor from the sitting room. ‘I’m not going to let it bother me. I’m taking no notice.’ He hummed a little pom-pom-pom as his eyes strayed to the window.

  Albina turned on the kitchen light and took a seat at the table. She listened as the clock ticked through the seconds. She counted to 139, and then it came again.

  tap-tap-tap

  ‘Gor!’ Her voice was a fog-horn along the hall. The kittens scattered.

  ‘I heard.’ He turned another wrinkled page.

  ‘I’m scared,’ she bellowed.

  ‘You’re not! Well, not too much.’

  She smiled in the darkness and marched her toothbrush up and down the table in time with the ticking clock, making it into an ally; keeping herself brave.

  tap-tap-tap

  Now she saw as well as heard. The silhouette of a long, thin finger tapping at the top corner of the glass. The blood drained from her face and collected in her legs, weighing her down. She kept her eyes on the window, blinking away tears of excitement. She couldn’t hear the clock any more, only her own heartbeats. She waited.

  tap-tap-tap

  This time she saw it quite clearly. There could be no doubt. And this time there was a face at the window.

  She shot from her seat into the hall.

  ‘Gor!’

  The note in her voice silenced his humming. He dropped the periodical to the floor.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘W-what—’ she stammered, tongue knotted. ‘What’s above us?’

  ‘Above us?’

  ‘Up there!’ She pointed to the ceiling.

  ‘Nothing. That’s the roof.’

  ‘The roof!’

  She dashed for the front door, tugging on the lock levers.

  ‘Albina, wait!’

  ‘We have to get up there! That’s where the tapping is coming from.’

  She twisted her feet into her moon-boots as Gor looked on doubtfully.

  ‘Whoever’s doing it is on the roof!’

  ‘But—’

  ‘With a stick! So simple: they’re standing on the roof, tapping your window with a stick!’

  Gor stared at her, a confused smile on his face. ‘So simple? The devil!’ He stamped his feet into his boots with two loud bangs. ‘The devil! I’m coming with you. The roof is no place for a child!’ His blood was up. He scrabbled for keys and a torch on the sideboard and hurried out to the echoing corridor behind the girl.

  In the stairwell, they stopped, face-to-face, listening: there was no sound, no one leaving the building down below, no hint that anyone was up above. They climbed, feet careful on the narrow steps, boot-toes nudging cigarette butts and bottle-tops left by the local youth. A notice on the dark wooden door at the top proclaimed: ‘Stop! No Public Access’.

  ‘It should be locked,’ said Gor. He stretched out long fingers and pushed: it gave easily, opening wide to reveal three battered concrete steps up, followed by the blue-black Azov sky.

  He took Albina’s hand. They crouched as they passed through the covered doorway, huddling against its wall while scanning the long, flat roof studded with satellite dishes, sky-lights, rubbish and air vents. He took a moment to get his bearings. If they had come along the corridor from the apartment, and had come back on themselves on the stairs, and if that was the library building he could see over to the left, the windows to his apartment must be …

  He shuffled round on all fours and screwed up his eyes. Was that a figure he could see, hunched over the parapet, directly above where his windows must be? Or was it some rubbish piled up, or a stray plastic bag flapping in the wind? He nudged Albina, and pointed.

  ‘Is that … is that a person, there?’

  She clicked her tongue. As Gor was considering the options for action, she lurched to her feet and waved her hands at the figure.

  ‘Hey! You! What are you doing? Trying to scare a poor old man, eh?’

  She stomped forward. Gor scrambled to catch up, feet slipping on the cold, wet skin of the roof, the beam of his torch bouncing. The huddled shape straightened, silhouetted against the lights of the town behind, and turned towards them.

  ‘Yeah?’ Albina’s steps faltered, but she held her hands out in front of her in a karate challenge. The figure turned away, dropped, scuttled. The girl broke into a trot.

  ‘No, Albina!’

  The enemy was running towards the far end of the roof. Dodging sky-lights it scurried, turning over satellite dishes and old deck-chairs as it went. Albina leapt the sky-lights, gaining on her prey. Gor realised, with a sick feeling, that he could not catch her up.

  He looked down to negotiate a sky-light, and when he looked back, the intruder was leaping onto the parapet: for a moment it stood on the wall, clear against the night sky, looking down at the earth far below.

  ‘Hey!’ shouted Albina. ‘Stop!’

  Metal scraped on concrete. The figure dropped out of view, clattering down the twisted skeleton of the fire escape.

  Albina launched herself at the parapet, moon-boots squealing as she pushed herself up onto the narrow ledge. Her prey was half-way down already. She reached out.

  ‘No!’ roared Gor, ‘Danger!’

  She clambered onto the fire escape. It shifted in its moorings, the rusty nuts and bolts grating against the skin of the building. The ground swayed beneath her. Fear welded her hands to the cold metal handrails.

  ‘Don’t move, Albina! It’s dangerous!’