‘That was taking a bit of a risk, wasn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you couldn’t have been anywhere near sure we’d land on this stuff.’
‘You mean you think I made the rope break on purpose? But we might easily have been killed.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘You think I’d take a risk like that? In God’s name, why?’
‘Why not? I admit I can’t see you designing and installing the necessary release-mechanism, but you’re perfectly capable of the rest of it.’
‘What nonsense,’ she said, not offended, not amused, not puzzled, just making a denial.
The daughter had been delayed by collapsing with laughter, or a pretence of doing so. Now she came up to them, still giggling. ‘That was terribly funny, mummy. Did you mean to do it?’
‘Of course not,’ said Mrs Korotchenko as before.
‘Do you mind if we go indoors now?’ said Alexander, standing up and taking off the loop of rope. ‘I think I’d like to sit down for a while.’
They went through the kitchen, where there was a lot of dirty crockery and cooking-pots and a lot of flies, and into the drawing-room, previously unvisited by him. He sat in a chair with a torn floral cover and the two females looked at him with expectant interest, as if he had come by appointment to sell them insurance.
‘Can I have a drink?’ he asked.
‘Certainly. I’m afraid there’s only vodka.’
‘That’ll do fine.’
‘Dasha, bring Mr Petrovsky the vodka from the kitchen. And a glass. On a tray. Quickly, there’s a good girl.’
When the girl had gone, he said, ‘Have you got that list?’
‘What if I have? What can you do with it now?’
‘Until I know you’ve got it I can’t punish you, can I’?’
‘It’s upstairs. Will you keep your boots on this time?’
‘If you insist.’
She shut her eyes and moaned softly.
‘But it’ll be just the two of us,’ he went on. ‘No audience for this one.’
‘Agreed.’
He was left alone long enough to puff out his cheeks, rub his eyes and swear a couple of times, but no longer. Dasha came back with his drink, which she proceeded to serve efficiently enough. After considering him for a time, she said,
‘Are you in the army or the police?’
‘The army.’
‘I thought you were in the police.’
‘Well, I’m in the army.’
‘Do you fuck a lot?’
He threw down the vodka in one. ‘Quite a lot.’
‘How often’? Twice a day?’
‘I suppose if you averaged it out it would come to something like that.’
‘Have you got a nice horse?’
‘Yes,’ he said neutrally, curious about where this might lead.
‘What’s he called?’
‘Oh. It’s a mare. She’s called Polly.’
‘My pony’s called Frisky.’
‘Is he?’
‘Yes. And he is frisky, too.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes. That’s why he’s called Frisky.’
‘I see.’
Their colloquy was interrupted by the return of the girl’s mother carrying an envelope. He held out his hand for it but she kept it away from him.
‘Before you can have this I want the answer to a question.’
‘Fire away.’
‘What are you really going to do with it? You’re not the sort that plays jokes.’
He had rehearsed this one till he was word-perfect; not only that, but blink-perfect and shrug-perfect too. First the slackening of muscles to indicate relief, then pressing lips together – momentary resolve not to tell, followed by a glance at the envelope and away again – wavering, on to lowering the head – touch of shame, finally the blunt statement in a be-damned-to-you tone, ‘Sell it.’
‘Who to?’
‘I don’t know. Of course I know who to deliver it to. I should think the man who’s buying it is an enemy of Director Vanag’s, wouldn’t you? But there’s a lot of those, so we’re not much further forward.’
‘But why? You can’t-’
More shame and defiance in tandem. ‘Money.’
‘I was just going to say, you can’t need the money.’
‘Oh can’t I!’ he said with great but not too great bitterness. ‘You try a few evenings of backgammon at a thousand a point with the luck against you and see whether you start needing money.
‘How much are you down?’
‘Nearly six million.’ He stared into space, stricken at the very thought of so much waste.
‘That’s quite a lot of money, even these days. But surely your father would let you-’
‘No. Can I have that now?’
‘It’s very lucky that man came along just when he did, and also when you’d got friendly with me.’
‘He came along originally six weeks before I knew of your existence,’ he said indignantly. ‘The luck was that he hadn’t found a seller in the meantime. And getting friendly – well, I can’t make out it was your idea and not mine, but I didn’t start it… Thank you.’ While he was opening the envelope he went on, ‘Did you have to have a lot of things done to you to get this?’
‘Yes. Well, rather a lot. Some of them revolted me.’
‘Merciful God.’
He drew out a document and unfolded it. What he saw made him jump to his feet without having consciously intended to, something that could have been said of very few other bodily actions of his since early childhood.
‘Christ in heaven!’
‘What is it?’
‘Where’s the telephone?’
‘In the hall. What’s the matter?’
He hurried out to the instrument, which apart from being of inferior manufacture was virtually identical with the one in use here half a century before. As he spoke into it Mrs Korotchenko watched him with mounting anxiety and annoyance. After a very short conversation he slammed the handset back into its cradle and turned towards the front door. She barred his way.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I have to leave. Something very urgent has come up.’
‘I knew you were in the resistance.’
‘Nonsense. Now, if you…
‘What about my punishment?’
‘I’m afraid that’ll have to be deferred till next time.’ She threw a punch that would have knocked him out if her weight had been properly behind it. As it was he staggered back and crashed into the table where the telephone stood, dislodging a mug of the anthropomorphous sort he had noticed in the dining-room on his last visit; it broke in two on the tiles. When he came back at her she was waiting for him with her guard up. Swearing afresh, he feinted with his fists and rammed his knee into the pit of her stomach; she bent double and started noisily trying to breathe; he stepped past her, turned and, his eyes gone distant, fetched her a kick in her bare arse that brought her head against the frame of one of the glass doors hard enough to daze her and laid her sprawling on the chequered floor. Her child appeared from the drawing-room in good time to see this and be reduced once more to what might have been helpless laughter. Alexander banged the front door behind him.