Marcel Theroux - Strange Bodies

She levelled her gaze at me. ‘As you can imagine, I am not easily embarrassed.’

You have to marvel at her sleight of hand. Her frumpishness and built-up shoes, her whole odd being that spoke of some chromosomal abnormality, she had suddenly magicked into a source of strength.

‘I don’t trust Hunter or Sinan to take care of Jack in my absence. It’s not a question of competence, you understand. The fact is that our interests are not entirely congruent. Hunter and Sinan admire Jack and his work very much, they respect what he represents. But his actual well-being is a lesser consideration. Whereas my feelings for Jack are very simple. I love him.’ She said it with a finality that brooked no contradiction.

Until this moment, I have always assumed that Vera had her story prepared, but it’s not inconceivable that she was improvising expertly. The suggestion of forgery was as convenient a front for her as it had been for Hunter. After all, there is a kind of logic to using a plausible criminal enterprise to conceal a diabolical one.

‘Vera,’ I said, and began wearily to enumerate my objections to this plan.

She cut me off with a raised palm. ‘I do not want to elaborate on the nature of your obligation to me, but I do have a sense of pride. I do not want to speak about what I am giving up.’ There was a catch in her voice. Tears started into the corners of her eyes. She dabbed one away with her forefinger. It was clear to me then that her indifference had been a pose. Our recklessness had unearthed her buried wish for a child.

At the corner of Piccadilly and St James’s Street she stood on tiptoe to kiss me on both cheeks. She smelled of cigarette smoke and dry-cleaning. She drew back, holding my gaze for a moment, and gave my hand the lightest of touches. ‘Nicholas,’ she said softly, almost to herself. Then she turned and left, bobbing through the crowd with her unmistakable walk, until she was lost amongst the passers-by.

Did I have a choice? Of course, I did. It was in my power to walk away then. There was no rational reason to be sentimental about the abortion. I didn’t have to help Vera. But I think the truth is that I was moved by her plight. I felt guilty about inflaming and then dashing her hope for a child. The least I could do was care for Jack while she was gone.

And so, a week to the day after I’d read my paper in Florence, Vera and Misha Bykov brought Jack to my house. They arrived in a large, black new model Mercedes. Jack lay asleep on the back seat under a tartan blanket.

Bykov’s involvement was a particular surprise. It turned out that though he was Malevin’s hired muscle, he was unquestioningly loyal to Vera.

He waited in the front garden while Vera followed me into the house. ‘Are you sure it’s wise to have Bykov in this?’ I asked her. Through the gaps in the net curtain, I could see him lighting another cigarette. He rubbed his rumpled face with his hand and poked under the acanthus with the toe of one of his Italian winklepickers.

‘Misha is an ally,’ Vera said. I must have looked doubtful. She said he was a good man and trustworthy. ‘He has formed a sentimental attachment to me,’ she added.

‘Does he know …?’

‘About the pregnancy? Yes.’

From the way Bykov had avoided looking me in the eye when we met, I’d had the feeling that he believed me guilty of some failure of gallantry. Now I knew.

‘Vera, I’m so sorry about all this,’ I said.

‘I am also sorry,’ she said. ‘Whether I could carry a child to term is doubtful. But I have known too much death to discard life lightly.’

She was uncharacteristically fragile that day. I suppose that even at that early stage of pregnancy, the physiological changes were playing havoc with her mood.

Vera roused Jack from the back seat of the car. Bykov and I each took one of his arms across our shoulders and shuffled him across the threshold like a drunkard. He was less substantial than I anticipated — his body strangely soft and light.

We put him in Lucius’s room at the back of the house; it had a door that locked and Vera had made it abundantly clear that the less visible he was, the better.

She waited for him to wake up in order that he might adjust more gently to his new surroundings. She assured me that she would be gone no longer than a week, but it was clear that she was testing the elasticity of my tolerance by progressively revealing the more alarming aspects of my new charge. Virtually the last thing she gave me was a spongebag with his medications, pepper spray and a chemical cosh to use if he became, in her words, ‘unruly’. Naturally, she told me the last two were merely a formality, and the likelihood of their being necessary was tiny.

The whole of his worldly goods was in two plastic bags. I left them on top of the empty drawers in Lucius’s room for Jack to arrange as he saw fit, and cleared Lucius’s desk of its Warhammer figurines. Vera emphasised the importance of keeping him to his room. She said he was in every respect like a traveller from a distant country. The currency baffled him; he found it hard to follow the speech of the natives. He would be happiest simply sitting and reading or writing. I should be concerned to keep him off the streets as much as possible, particularly in the early evenings and at night. He had a healthy appetite but preferred simple, lightly seasoned food. She gave me a list of favoured items.

It reminded me of the detailed instructions that Leonora used to leave me when the children were toddlers and I was at home looking after them. I’d invariably chuck them away. Looking after tiny children is miserable enough without being entirely deprived of your agency. Out would go the schedule, the naps, the tubs of sweet potato and healthy snacks. And more often than not, Leonora would return to a house in chaos, with the children rampaging around it, wired on sugar and sleep deprivation.

Jack stirred in his sleep at about five in the afternoon. Vera sat beside him and woke him up gradually by applying gentle pressure to one of his hands. It moves me to recall her tenderness to him. When he was awake, she helped him upright and immediately gave him two pills and a large mug of warm milk which he took without demur.

‘Are you well, Jack?’ she asked.

There was no response. He had a toddler’s ability to ignore questions he regarded as superfluous.

‘I have to leave you for a while.’

Now I saw definite anxiety in his eyes.

‘I’m entrusting you to the care of my friend, Dr Slopen.’

His lips issued a muffled noise that sounded like: ‘Doctor?’

I used to chastise Lucius and Sarah when they told their friends that I was ‘not a real doctor’, but privately I’ve always understood the profound reassurance that the medical qualification brings.

‘If you behave yourself, Dr Slopen will let you use his library.’

At this, he brightened and put down the mug of milk. He rubbed his shaved head — it seemed to be a tic, a form of self-comforting.

‘Goodbye, Jack.’ She inclined her head slightly towards him in farewell. I saw her to the door.

I could tell she was on the brink of framing a question. Then she paused on the threshold and said, ‘I need to ask again. I need to be sure this is what you want.’

‘This …?’

‘The termination, Nicholas.’

‘It’s impossible, Vera. I’ve got no money.’

‘I have money. Don’t let the reason be money.’

‘Of course it’s more than that. Bringing up kids is hard.’

‘I think you and I could make each other happy, Nicholas. Intellectual companionship is very important. Sexually we are compatible. You have been a good father already.’

‘Vera, I’m on my uppers. I don’t have the resources — emotional, financial, spiritual. You name it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’