Andrea Bennett - Two Cousins of Azov

Softly, insidiously, tap-tap-tapping scuttled through the apartment. Gor sucked in his cheeks, and Albina raised her head.

Gor rubbed his eyes. ‘Just ignore it. It will go away, eventually.’

The kittens pounced, again and again, from behind Albina’s outstretched leg onto the crumpled teasels, their razor-sharp claws ripping at the spiky seed heads, their backs arching, hair on end, when the teasels shook.

tap-tap-tap

Albina pushed herself up from the floor. She stood silently, listening. A kitten tried to claw its way up her tights. She shook it off with a slight ripping sound.

‘I’m going to brush my teeth,’ she said.

‘Good girl.’ Gor picked up a well-thumbed music periodical. He leafed through its familiar pages. Dust particles, illuminated by the standard lamp, circled in the air all around him like tiny, flickering moths.

tap-tap-tap

‘Agh!’ she shouted from the bathroom, toothbrush clenched between her teeth. She appeared in the hall, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

‘It’s in the kitchen!’ Her voice boomed with excitement.

‘Take no notice!’ said Gor from the sitting room. ‘I’m not going to let it bother me. I’m taking no notice.’ He hummed a little pom-pom-pom as his eyes strayed to the window.

Albina turned on the kitchen light and took a seat at the table. She listened as the clock ticked through the seconds. She counted to 139, and then it came again.

tap-tap-tap

‘Gor!’ Her voice was a fog-horn along the hall. The kittens scattered.

‘I heard.’ He turned another wrinkled page.

‘I’m scared,’ she bellowed.

‘You’re not! Well, not too much.’

She smiled in the darkness and marched her toothbrush up and down the table in time with the ticking clock, making it into an ally; keeping herself brave.

tap-tap-tap

Now she saw as well as heard. The silhouette of a long, thin finger tapping at the top corner of the glass. The blood drained from her face and collected in her legs, weighing her down. She kept her eyes on the window, blinking away tears of excitement. She couldn’t hear the clock any more, only her own heartbeats. She waited.

tap-tap-tap

This time she saw it quite clearly. There could be no doubt. And this time there was a face at the window.

She shot from her seat into the hall.

‘Gor!’

The note in her voice silenced his humming. He dropped the periodical to the floor.

‘Yes?’

‘W-what—’ she stammered, tongue knotted. ‘What’s above us?’

‘Above us?’

‘Up there!’ She pointed to the ceiling.

‘Nothing. That’s the roof.’

‘The roof!’

She dashed for the front door, tugging on the lock levers.

‘Albina, wait!’

‘We have to get up there! That’s where the tapping is coming from.’

She twisted her feet into her moon-boots as Gor looked on doubtfully.

‘Whoever’s doing it is on the roof!’

‘But—’

‘With a stick! So simple: they’re standing on the roof, tapping your window with a stick!’

Gor stared at her, a confused smile on his face. ‘So simple? The devil!’ He stamped his feet into his boots with two loud bangs. ‘The devil! I’m coming with you. The roof is no place for a child!’ His blood was up. He scrabbled for keys and a torch on the sideboard and hurried out to the echoing corridor behind the girl.

In the stairwell, they stopped, face-to-face, listening: there was no sound, no one leaving the building down below, no hint that anyone was up above. They climbed, feet careful on the narrow steps, boot-toes nudging cigarette butts and bottle-tops left by the local youth. A notice on the dark wooden door at the top proclaimed: ‘Stop! No Public Access’.

‘It should be locked,’ said Gor. He stretched out long fingers and pushed: it gave easily, opening wide to reveal three battered concrete steps up, followed by the blue-black Azov sky.

He took Albina’s hand. They crouched as they passed through the covered doorway, huddling against its wall while scanning the long, flat roof studded with satellite dishes, sky-lights, rubbish and air vents. He took a moment to get his bearings. If they had come along the corridor from the apartment, and had come back on themselves on the stairs, and if that was the library building he could see over to the left, the windows to his apartment must be…

He shuffled round on all fours and screwed up his eyes. Was that a figure he could see, hunched over the parapet, directly above where his windows must be? Or was it some rubbish piled up, or a stray plastic bag flapping in the wind? He nudged Albina, and pointed.

‘Is that… is that a person, there?’

She clicked her tongue. As Gor was considering the options for action, she lurched to her feet and waved her hands at the figure.

‘Hey! You! What are you doing? Trying to scare a poor old man, eh?’

She stomped forward. Gor scrambled to catch up, feet slipping on the cold, wet skin of the roof, the beam of his torch bouncing. The huddled shape straightened, silhouetted against the lights of the town behind, and turned towards them.

‘Yeah?’ Albina’s steps faltered, but she held her hands out in front of her in a karate challenge. The figure turned away, dropped, scuttled. The girl broke into a trot.

‘No, Albina!’

The enemy was running towards the far end of the roof. Dodging sky-lights it scurried, turning over satellite dishes and old deck-chairs as it went. Albina leapt the sky-lights, gaining on her prey. Gor realised, with a sick feeling, that he could not catch her up.

He looked down to negotiate a sky-light, and when he looked back, the intruder was leaping onto the parapet: for a moment it stood on the wall, clear against the night sky, looking down at the earth far below.

‘Hey!’ shouted Albina. ‘Stop!’

Metal scraped on concrete. The figure dropped out of view, clattering down the twisted skeleton of the fire escape.

Albina launched herself at the parapet, moon-boots squealing as she pushed herself up onto the narrow ledge. Her prey was half-way down already. She reached out.

‘No!’ roared Gor, ‘Danger!’

She clambered onto the fire escape. It shifted in its moorings, the rusty nuts and bolts grating against the skin of the building. The ground swayed beneath her. Fear welded her hands to the cold metal handrails.

‘Don’t move, Albina! It’s dangerous!’

‘But he’ll get away!’

‘You cannot follow! It’s not safe!’

The fire escape wobbled and groaned as the intruder hurried down. Albina stared at the gap between her feet, the earth, and the building. Her hair blew into her face and she felt the earth shift.

She shut her eyes. ‘I can’t move,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t like heights.’

‘It’s all right. I’m here,’ Gor knelt onto the parapet to face her. ‘Open your eyes, Albina. I’m right here. See?’ She peered at him. ‘Just shuffle your feet up one step, that’s it. Now lean this way, towards me, and now jump across, come on!’

One by one she unpeeled her fingers from the frame, kicked her feet and launched herself off the ladder.

‘Oof!’ She collided with Gor’s chest, knocking him backwards from the parapet onto the flat roof behind.

‘That was scary,’ she whispered, and then giggled until she ran out of breath.

‘You did very well,’ said Gor as he picked himself up, coughing, and then helped her to her feet. ‘You are truly a brave comrade! But don’t ever run off like that again! You gave me a dreadful fright.’

‘I couldn’t help it! I could have caught him!’

‘Precious girl!’ He tweaked her ear and together they leant out over the parapet towards the swaying trees. Gor played his torch across the fire escape: the mysterious figure was at the bottom, an evil shape, all shadows and scurrying. They could make out no features. The clattering stopped, there was a loud thud and a muffled cry, then uneven footsteps retreated across the courtyard.