Andrea Bennett - Two Cousins of Azov

Polly hurried along the creaking corridor. The hand-written posters advertising the flat were finally done. They had taken longer to copy out than she had expected, and she still wasn’t ready for her shift at the pharmacy. She would be late. She smiled to herself: it didn’t matter.

She stood in the doorway to the wash room. Every one of the working sinks was taken. Girls chattered and argued as they scrubbed, their pants around their ankles, flannels, soap and towels balanced in hand or hanging from string bags. How she loathed the wash room. But the shower-block was worse with its blatant peep-holes and green-algaed floor. A voice in her head asked if she wouldn’t rather live in the flat herself. It whispered of quiet and solitude. But she knew it couldn’t be: only hard cash and Palekh boxes could buy tomorrow. A girl pushed past her into the hall, and she dashed forward for the vacant basin.

Stripped to the waist she bent over to swish her hair under the tap, her spine knobbling the moon-washed smoothness of her back. The Turkish shampoo smelled like jam and lathered like it too. She’d pinched the bottle at the pharmacy, and now wished she’d chosen with more care. No doubt Maria Trushkina only ever pilfered the best.

The pharmacy: incubator of her clever idea. She had thought of it over the summer, during those endless, airless afternoons when they trailed in off the streets and stood at the counter, chattering about how they wanted to live at home but needed some help with the toilet and washing, and those sores, and sometimes they couldn’t remember what day it was or if they had taken their medicine and sometimes, yes they took too much. And yes, they never slept at night because of all the funny noises and the criminal gangs and the fear of theft. And they really missed their no-good children and their no-good grandchildren – because they never came to visit any more. They had all this space, all these rooms, all these things, and they all needed cleaning and dusting and winding and mending, and wasn’t it a bother? And no, they didn’t keep their money in the bank any more because the banks were full of thieves and the money was worthless and instead they bought jewellery and trinkets and cameras and chocolate and hid it under the bed. Speculating: they were investing for a future that simply wasn’t theirs, and in doing so, they were stealing hers.

It was a good idea, a big idea. She just had to make it work. So far, the results were mixed.

She returned to her room, dressed unhurriedly, put her damp hair in a taut bun and set off down the gritty staircase. In the foyer, black leaves blew in at the door as girls huddled around ancient, half-dead radiators waiting for their dates.

‘Hey, Polina!’ She heard the screech before she registered the dark scuttle across the floor. The concierge was at her side as her foot touched the floor. ‘How was the séance on Friday?’

‘Scary, Elena Dmitrovna. Very scary. The spirits turned the table over.’

‘Never! Did they have a message for you – any warnings?’

‘Me? Well, the way I interpreted it, they said that I would be very rich, some day. But I knew that anyway. As for the rest… they said old people shouldn’t be nosey. Do you have a more meaningful message for me – via telephone, perhaps?’

Polly held out her hand.

‘I haven’t been paid since August, you know,’ said Elena Dmitrovna.

‘That’s a shame.’ Their eyes met. ‘The message?’

Polly stretched to take the paper from the old woman’s hand, but she snatched it away, huddling into the corner.

‘Don’t push! I won’t be bullied! Stay away!’

Lisping conversations were broken off and girls’ heads turned to stare.

‘I’m not pushing,’ Polly hissed between her teeth, her hand closing around the paper. She tugged hard. ‘You’d know if I pushed you, you old witch.’

Elena Dmitrovna watched Polly’s face as she unfolded the note.

‘Caller: Maria Trushkina, Pharmacy No. 2. Message: Student has been late for work placement or absent without reason four times in the last fourteen days. Case referred to University Sanctions Board; employer seeking dismissal, recommends removal from course.’

Elena Dmitrovna’s shoulders shook as she laughed silently into the knot of her headscarf and turned away. ‘Rich, eh? I don’t think so, the way you’re going. On the streets, more like!’

Polly scrunched the paper in her fist.

Madame Zoya was not keen to answer her door. Light seeped out around its rim, but it took several raps and a threat of calling for the ambulance and/or her landlady to make her move.

‘What is it you people want?’ she rasped as she pulled it open a fraction and her beak protruded. ‘I am trying to sleep.’

‘Madame Zoya, we are sorry for the intrusion,’ said Sveta. ‘But we must talk to you about the séance.’

‘Oh, not you two,’ she grumbled, wrinkling her nose, ‘my table is ruined! Ruined! I am upset.’

‘Oh,’ said Sveta, ‘that’s most unfortunate. May we come in and observe: we may be able to offer compensation?’

Zoya’s eyelids fluttered at the words, and she wobbled gently away from the door towards her salon, waving her arm in a welcoming gesture. The visitors followed, bumping into furniture and tripping over fallen stuffed animals.

Zoya collapsed in the centre of her ornate French sofa, forcing Gor and Sveta to choose a moth-eaten armchair each. The curtains were tightly closed and the chamber felt forgotten: a long-buried time-capsule. Their host wore a ragged silk kimono draped loosely at the front, which revealed a scraggy breastbone clad in sagging violet flesh. She winced as she breathed.

‘Are you well?’ enquired Sveta brightly. Gor coughed and Zoya laughed from the pit of her shrunken stomach.

‘No, my child. I am not well. I’ve had an awful headache since Friday. I can barely move. I’ve hardly eaten. But you’re not interested in me. What is it you want?’ She took a deep drag on her smelling salts, and issuing an ‘ahhh!’, closed her eyes.

‘Well, we wanted to talk to you about Friday, that’s it, exactly, isn’t it Gor? We want to know how… everything occurred, and how the table came to be scratched… Madame Zoya?’

‘Huh?’ She opened one sticky eye and regarded Sveta, mouth sagging.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Erm, yesssss, I think so. Hnnnk.’ Again her eyes slithered shut.

‘This is a waste of time. She’s… unconscious!’ Gor said.

‘Not!’ replied Zoya thickly. ‘Don’t be so rude, you!’

‘Is she always like this?’

‘No! Not at all. I mean… she’s a character, of course. But—’ Sveta hesitated, and then in a louder voice, ‘come, Madame, wake up! Speak to us!’ She pushed herself out of the armchair and crossed to Zoya, taking her ashen face between her warm hands and rubbing swiftly at her cheek.

‘Gerroff!’ rasped Zoya, pushing her away, her hand landing with a smack in the middle of Sveta’s surprised face, the fingers smudging the raspberry lipstick and pushing up her nose.

Sveta staggered. ‘Now really, Madame Zoya! There’s no need for physical attack! What is wrong with you?’

Zoya opened both yellow eyes, and closed them again. ‘Self-defence,’ she muttered. ‘This world is full of… hate.’ Again she reached for the little bottle around her neck, but was too weak to raise it.

‘What is that pouch, Sveta?’

‘Smelling salts. She always has them with her: for low blood pressure, I think. It certainly seems low at the moment.’ Sveta was attempting to take the woman’s pulse, and looked alarmed.

‘May I see?’ Stepping forward, Gor swiped up the pouch.