Hard to explain. Maybe it was both mind and body — and soul too? Except George wasn't much of a one for believing in souls. He didn't disbelieve, but he would like
evidence. He'd probably be praying when he died, just in case, but until then…
As for what Anne had said about Yulian at schooclass="underline" well, it was true, as far as it went. He had taken all of his exams early, and passed every one of them, but that wasn't why he'd left early. George had a draughtsman, Ian Jones, working for him in his London office, and Jones had a young son in the same school. Anne would hear none of it, of course not, but the stories had been wild. Yulian had 'seduced' a male teacher, a half-way-gone gay he'd somehow switched on. Once over the top, the fellow had apparently turned into a raver, trying to roger every male thing that moved. He'd blamed Yulian. That was one thing. And then:
In his art classes, Yulian had painted pictures which caused a very gentle lady teacher to attack him physically; she'd also stormed his bed-space and burned his art folios. Out nature rambling (George hadn't known they still did that) Yulian had been found wandering on his own, his face and hands smeared with filth and entrails. Dangling from one hand he'd carried the remains of a stray kitten. Its carcass was still warm. He'd said a man had done it, but this was out on the moors, miles from anywhere.
That wasn't all. It seemed he walked in his sleep and had apparently scared the living shit out of the younger boys, until the school had had to put a night-guard on their dorms. But by then the head had spoken at length with Georgina and she'd agreed he could leave. It was that or expulsion — for the sake of the good name of the school.
And there'd been other things, lesser things, but that had been the gist of it.
These were some of the reasons why George didn't like Yulian. But of course there was one other thing. It was something very nearly as old as Yulian himself, but it had fixed itself in George's mind indelibly.
The sight of an old man clutching his sheets to his chest as he died, and his last whispered words: 'Christen it? No, no — you mustn't! First have it exorcised!'
Anne could be strident if she had to be, but she was good through and through. She would never say a thing to hurt anyone, even though she might think certain things. To herself — if only to herself — she had to admit that she'd thought things about Yulian.
Now, lying back a little in her seat and stretching, feeling the cooling draught from the half-open window, she thought them again. Funny things: something about a big green frog, and something about the pain she'd get now and then in her left nipple.
The frog thing was hard to focus on; rather, she didn't like to focus on it. Personally she couldn't hurt a fly. Of course a child, a mere five-year old, wouldn't realise what he was doing. Would he? The trouble was that as long as she'd know Yulian he'd always seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Even as a baby.
She had called him a 'funny little thing', but in fact George was right. Yulian had been more than just funny. For one thing, he never cried. No, not quite true, he had cried when hungry, at least when he was very small. And he had cried in direct sunlight. Photophobia, apparently, right from infancy. Oh, yes, and he'd cried at least one other time, at his christening. Though that had seemed more rage — or outrage — than crying proper. As far as Anne knew, he never had been properly christened.
She let her thoughts take hold, carrying her back. Yulian had just started to walk — to toddle, anyway — when Helen came along. That was a month or so before poor Georgina had been well enough to go home and take him back. Anne remembered that time well. She'd been heavy with milk, fat as butter and happier than at any other time in her life. And rosy? What a picture of health she'd been!
One day when Helen was just six weeks old, while she was feeding her, Yulian had come toddling like a little robot, looking for that extra ounce of affection of which Helen had robbed him. Jealousy even then, yes, for he was no longer all important. On impulse — feeling a pang of pity for the poor mite — she'd picked him up, bared her other breast to him, her left breast, and fed him.
Even remembering it, the twinge of pain in her nipple came back like a wasp sting to bother her. 'Oh!' she said, stirring where she had fallen half-asleep.
'You all right?' George was quick to inquire. 'Wind your window down a little more. Get some fresh air.'
The steady purr of the car's engine brought her back to the present. 'Cramp,' she lied. 'Pins and needles. Can we stop somewhere — the next cafe?'
'Of course,' he answered. 'There should be one any time now.'
Anne slumped, returned half-reluctantly to her memories. Feeding Yulian, yes… She'd sat down with both babies, nodded off while they fed, Helen on the right, Yulian on the left. It had been strange; a sort of languor had come over her, a lethargy she hadn't the will to resist. But then, when the pain came, she'd come quickly awake. Helen had been crying, and Yulian had been — bloody! She'd stared at the toddler in something close to shock. Those peculiar black eyes of his fixed unwaveringly on her face. And his red mouth, fixed like a lamprey on her breast! Her milk and blood had run down the swollen curve of her breast, and his face had been smeared and glistening red with it; so that he'd looked like a dark-eyed gorging leech.
When she'd cleaned herself up, and cleaned up Yulian too, she'd seen how he'd bitten through the skin around her nipple: his teeth had left tiny punctures. The bites had taken a long time to heal, but their sting had never quite gone away…
Then there had been the frog episode. Anne didn't really want to dwell on that, but it formed a persistent picture in her mind, one she couldn't wipe clear. It had happened after Georgina had sold up in London, on the last day before she and Yulian had left the city and gone down to Devon to live in the old manor house.
George had built a pond in the garden of their Green-ford home when Helen was one; since when, with a minimum of help, the pond had stocked itself. Now there were lilies, a clump of rushes, an ornamental shrub bending over the water like a Japanese picture, and a large species of green frog. There were water snails, too, and at the edges a little green scum. Anne called it scum, anyway. Mid-summer and there would normally be dragonflies, but that year they'd only seen one or two, and they'd been small ones of their sort.
She had been in the garden with the children, watching Yulian where he played with a soft rubber ball. Or perhaps 'played' is the wrong word, for Yulian had difficulty playing like other children. He seemed to have a philosophy: a ball is a ball, a rubber sphere. Drop it and it bounces, toss it against a wall and it returns. Other than that it has no practical use, it cannot be considered a source of lasting interest. Others might argue the point, but that summed up Yulian's feelings on the subject. Anne really didn't know why she'd bought the ball for him; he never really played with anything. He had bounced it, however, twice. And he'd tossed it against the garden wall, once. But on the rebound it had rolled to the edge of the pond.
Yulian had followed it with eyes half scornful, until suddenly his interest had quickened. At the edge of the pond something leaped: a large frog, shiny green, poising itself where it landed, with two legs in the water and two on dry land. And the five-year old child froze, becoming still as a cat in the first seconds that it senses prey. It was Helen who ran to retrieve the ball, then skipped away with it up the garden, but Yulian had eyes only for the frog.
At that point George had called out from inside the house: something about the kebabs burning. They were to be the main course in a farewell meal for Georgina. George was supposed to be doing chef.