Elena keeps walking. She needs oil and scouring powder, and may perhaps buy a bag of bread rings for the little boy, but the afternoon is warm and her feet feel swollen and heavy. She turns right down a side street and the car glides right too, hugging the curb, nosing level with her legs.
Now she is beginning to feel breathless. The city is full of fumes and each day the walk to the universam gets a little harder. She stops for a moment and steadies herself beneath a plane tree. The car stops moving, too. The passenger window slides down with a soft electric hum, though because of the shadow cast by the tree she cannot see who sits inside. It doesn’t matter. She never sees, never looks. She bends down as if she is about to pluck a weed out of the soil, but instead she scoops up something in her hand and quickly, awkwardly, throws it into the car: a dog turd, not as fresh as she would like, yet still stinking.
On Saturday night, when Elena taps at the door of the flat on the thirteenth floor, Rachel is having second thoughts about going to Vee’s without Ivan. She arranged the time with Elena the day before, holding up seven fingers and repeating ‘syem!’ but now she has more or less decided to send her away. However, as she opens the door Elena thrusts a small carton of peach juice at her and slips quickly inside, divesting herself of her thick cardigan and shoes. The old woman smiles and shuffles down the hallway as if she is the housekeeper or Ivan’s elderly godmother.
‘Ivan is sleeping,’ whispers Rachel, cutting Elena off at the kitchen, miming and pointing to the closed bedroom door. Lucas is in the bathroom so she switches on the television, keeping the volume low. Elena nods and sits down at the table while Rachel, unsure what to do next, sets the kettle on the hob and puts biscuits on a plate. Ivan won’t wake, she reminds herself. He’s become a deep sleeper like his father.
When Lucas appears she asks him to explain that they will be back at ten-thirty and if anything is wrong she must call Vee’s number, which is written down on a sheet of paper next to the telephone.
‘Ten thirty?’ mutters Lucas. ‘This is Teddy’s leaving dinner! Well, I suppose Zoya can bring you back earlier.’
Rachel doesn’t risk a last peek at her son. She closes the front door softly behind her.
‘Hurry up,’ says Lucas, stabbing at the button of the lift. ‘I don’t want to be late.’
Rachel stands in the hallway of Vee’s flat and stares at the homemade bunting that hangs along the wall. Each triangle is cut from a photograph of Teddy or Karl, or both. In all the pictures they are laughing, sometimes with Vee, sometimes posing with other people, sometimes caught unawares. These are snapshots of lives that are busy and sociable; lives that mean something.
‘Look, here’s a picture with you in it,’ says Vee, pointing at a dark image. It is a little out of focus and shows Rachel with her eyes half shut sitting next to Karl and Teddy on the bed at Lucas’s birthday party.
‘It’s a nice idea,’ murmurs Rachel, as she glances along the row and sees a picture of Lucas, smiling through a cloud of cigarette smoke, one arm around Teddy, the other round Vee. What was it Lucas told her they used to call themselves? The Troika.
Rachel, having assumed the dress code for the night would be ‘expensively understated’, is wearing the jeans she bought with her credit card and a pale blue shirt she has carefully ironed. Tonight, however, Vee is wearing a low-cut dress made from some silky, stretchy material that clings to her hips and shows off the creamy lustre of her breasts. Lucas keeps glancing towards her as he chats to Karl beneath a triangle of Vee and Teddy pouting at the camera.
Vee has dragged her kitchen table through to the bed-sitting room. Rachel looks in and sees candles and linen napkins and counts places laid for eight. The doorbell rings. Vee’s other guests have arrived, and Rachel is surprised to find she recognises all three of them: Sorin, Dr Alleyn from the embassy, and Viktor Lukyanenko, the young film director, who pulls Vee close and kisses her on the mouth.
Vee serves black caviar with the bottle of proper champagne that Sorin has presented to her. Rachel, squeezed between Teddy and Dr Alleyn, isn’t feeling very hungry. She needn’t have come, she thinks. Vee has moved on to someone else. Her husband, sitting opposite her between Karl and Lukyanenko, looks wary in the glow of the candlelight. For a moment she pities him.
‘Our hostess is spoiling us!’ stage-whispers Teddy, as he scoops up a spoonful of the sticky beluga eggs and smears them across a freshly-made buckwheat blini.
‘Ah, but I have a friendly supplier who gives me a discount,’ laughs Vee.
Dr Alleyn raises an eyebrow. ‘Of course you do,’ he says, to no one in particular.
‘Well, I should like to raise a toast to these intrepid adventurers – Teddy and Karl!’ says Sorin from the end of the table, waving his glass.
‘To Teddy and Karl!’ repeat the others. ‘Nazdarovye!’
The main course is a platter of fresh perch along with baby potatoes and herb butter. Wine and vodka appear, and before long the table has divided into separate conversations all happening at once. Dr Alleyn talks to Sorin about isotopes and river contamination. Teddy tells Rachel about Bosnia, and how he and Karl hope to get into Sarajevo, despite the fact that it is under continual bombardment.
‘There’s a tunnel,’ Teddy says. ‘From UN-controlled territory right into the city. Paid for with cigarettes, I heard.’
‘But it’s too dangerous, surely?’ asks Rachel, as she picks through the fish on her plate. She thinks of the mortar bombs and the weeping women and skeletal men she has seen on the news.
‘Maybe,’ says Teddy, serious for a moment. ‘But I’d rather take my chances there than get my head smashed in by some queer-basher down by the Dnieper.’
Rachel is shocked. ‘Has something happened?’ she asks.
‘No,’ says Teddy, though his glance over to Karl makes her wonder. Karl is quiet tonight, which isn’t unusual, but now she sees how one side of his face is slightly yellow. He seems to be holding himself in, his left arm crossed over his chest. She draws a deep breath, ready to probe further.
‘Shh,’ whispers Teddy, watching her carefully, holding a finger to his lips. ‘Out of the frame, remember?’
Lucas seems to be getting into a discussion with Vee and Lukyanenko about the film industry and the progress of his feature. Lukyanenko is talking about financing, his face serious, his tone sombre, yet he is holding Vee’s hand and they are pushing against each other’s thumbs, each bending the other’s back with real force. Suddenly Lukyanenko’s thumb gives way and he laughs.
‘What’s funny?’ asks Lucas, clearly unsettled.
Lukyanenko sits back; he is now caressing Vee’s fingers. He isn’t the kind of man Rachel expects Vee to choose as a partner. His face is too pointed, his head too small; but his expression is intense, and Rachel finds herself staring.
‘Everything is funny,’ he says, looking round the table. ‘I am here, eating dinner, sitting next to my – ah, that phrase – “whip-ass” girlfriend. Yet my movie is very far from secure. Everything is paid for – wages, post-production, PR -’ he nods at Sorin – ‘yet I depend on the… protection of my backers to ensure the film is released and is shown in our cinemas. Now I have a problem. Someone is making threats.’
‘Who?’ asks Lucas quickly.
Vee leans back and studies Lucas from behind Lukyanenko’s head. ‘See there’s the real story, Lucas. Haven’t I always said so? It’s not the production you should be interested in, but the money flow, the gate-keepers… I know a guy with a white goods store. Nothing too fancy – take a look at his sort if you want to dig deep. He’s connected, all the way. Not even Sorin here can touch him!’