Snegurochka by Judith Heneghan (best ebook reader for laptop .TXT) 📕

‘The smokers will stay in the kitchen,’ says Lucas as he takes two bottles of cheap Russian fizz out of the fridge and sticks half a litre of vodka in his coat pocket. ‘Vee has promised. And Ivan can sleep in her bed when he gets tired.’

‘You know that won’t work,’ chides Rachel.

‘But it’s my birthday,’ says Lucas, only half-joking. ‘And that means everyone does what I say.’

Vee’s apartment is at the top of the stairwell in a brown building near the Dnipro Hotel. The invitation says eight o’clock, but Rachel and Lucas are late because Rachel wanted to bathe Ivan first and get him into his pyjamas. She is already peeling him out of his snowsuit as Lucas presses the bell. The landing smells of garlic and dill, and there’s a handwritten sign stuck above the spyhole in Vee’s shiny steel door.

‘Sshh! Baby sleeping!’ it reads, in thick, cartoonish letters.

‘So thoughtful!’ says Lucas, tapping it when Vee opens the door. Vee puts her fingers to her lips and pulls a Betty Boop face, then laughs. She is wearing a clinging top over jeans and stylish high-heeled boots. The hallway behind her is jammed with guests; the clamour of voices rises over a pounding europop beat.

‘Happy birthday!’ she shouts, waving them inside. Lucas shrugs off his coat, then, while Rachel removes hers, he lifts Ivan up on one shoulder and ploughs into the crowd.

‘Don’t let him get over-excited,’ murmurs Rachel. It is too late. Ivan’s eyes are wide and bright, his legs kick enthusiastically and his fists reach out towards every passing thing. The apartment is warm with bodies and breath, there’s a string of gold tinsel dangling from the ceiling light and Vee is passing round plates of blinis garnished with baby gherkins, sour cream and a dollop of red caviar. She holds them high over everyone’s heads.

‘Hello!’ says a man with a beard as Rachel inches past a wardrobe in the cramped hall. It is Dr Alleyn from the embassy. Rachel, startled, slips into the dim cave of the living room that doubles as Vee’s bedroom. Lucas passes her a tumbler of sweet champanskoye and points past a couple trying to dance in a tiny space in front of Vee’s dressing table. He is motioning towards the bed where Teddy and his boyfriend Karl are sitting with their backs against the wall, clutching their knees. They are talking to an older, balding man in a white shirt who looks as if he has only recently removed his tie.

‘What’s Sorin doing here?’ Lucas mutters, before turning to greet an acquaintance from Interfax. Someone has given Ivan a plastic spoon. More guests squeeze in through the doorway – pale faces – no one Rachel recognises. The near-darkness in the living room, the crush of bodies and the noise create a cocoon of anonymity. She tips back her glass and drinks.

* * *

An hour or so later, Rachel is clutching a bottle of beer and squatting on the floor next to Teddy.

‘Where have you been?’ she asks, her eyes re-focusing on Ivan, who has fallen asleep in the crook of Karl’s arm. He looks so perfect, she thinks, so trusting and fragile.

‘Oh you know,’ says Teddy, rubbing his hand down his shin. ‘In the café, mostly.’

The café. Rachel remembers the photographs of figures standing still in the street, carefully positioned like statues or chess pieces, each staring at something outside the frame.

‘I want to ask you,’ says Rachel. ‘I mean,’ her head is a little fuzzy, ‘about that picture you took at the monastery, the one on the cover of Time . . .’

‘It was shit,’ says Teddy, pulling a face.

‘No it wasn’t . . .’ soothes Karl. His finger traces the edge of Teddy’s ear.

‘It was shit,’ insists Teddy. ‘A cheap shot. Old woman, snow, banana. State of the nation. God – I hate it all – hate the way we tell a story, as if it is just waiting for us to come along and scoop it up. Because story is king, right? Let’s all worship the story king.’

‘I hated it too,’ says Rachel.

‘Exactly,’ says Teddy. Then, after a moment, ‘What did you hate?’

Rachel takes a sip of beer and wipes her hand across her mouth.

‘That picture! I don’t know – it was wrong. Maybe because Ivan and I weren’t in it. We were there. We were part of that scene as much as the old woman.’

Teddy looks taken aback. ‘You wanted to be in it?’

‘No,’ says Rachel. ‘I don’t know, maybe. You made it look like she was begging, but I bought that banana and took it home and Ivan ate it. You didn’t show that. It sounds stupid, now . . .’ She peeks again at her sleeping son. ‘I like your gallery pictures better.’

‘Not stupid,’ murmurs Karl, stroking Ivan’s soft cheek. ‘You two should be on all the front covers.’

* * *

A few minutes after midnight Teddy climbs on a chair in the hallway to get everyone’s attention and Karl hands him a tray bearing a large pink iced cake.

‘Vee made me hide it in the bathtub,’ he says, laughing. ‘Happy Birthday, Lucas!’

‘You’re too late!’ shouts a voice from the kitchen. ‘It’s already tomorrow!’

Then someone starts singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in a comically deep tone and someone else turns the music down, while a handful of others join in. Soon they are calling ‘toast!’ and looking round for Lucas, because no one has seen him for a while, but then Rachel hears the front door open and sees her husband walk in from the outside hallway. Behind him steps Vee.

‘We were smoking!’ she cries. ‘Not having sex in the lift like you two, you squalid pair!’ She throws her pack of Marlboros at Teddy and Karl, and everyone laughs. Rachel laughs, too, and kisses her sleepy son because she is at a party with lots of different people and her fear is waiting quietly on the landing behind the door. By the time she has knocked