babies, nodded off while they fed, Helen on the right, Yulian on the left. It had been strange; a sort of languor had come over her, a lethargy she hadn't the will to resist. But then, when the pain came, she'd come quickly awake. Helen had been crying, and Yulian had been — bloody! She'd stared at the toddler in something close to shock. Those peculiar black eyes of his fixed unwaveringly on her face. And his red mouth, fixed like a lamprey on her breast! Her milk and blood had run down the swollen curve of her breast, and his face had been smeared and glistening red with it; so that he'd looked like a dark-eyed gorging leech.
When she'd cleaned herself up, and cleaned up Yulian too, she'd seen how he'd bitten through the skin around her nipple: his teeth had left tiny punctures. The bites had taken a long time to heal, but their sting had never quite gone away…
Then there had been the frog episode. Anne didn't really want to dwell on that, but it formed a persistent picture in her mind, one she couldn't wipe clear. It had happened after Georgina had sold up in London, on the last day before she and Yulian had left the city and gone down to Devon to live in the old manor house.
George had built a pond in the garden of their Green-ford home when Helen was one; since when, with a minimum of help, the pond had stocked itself. Now there were lilies, a clump of rushes, an ornamental shrub bending over the water like a Japanese picture, and a large species of green frog. There were water snails, too, and at the edges a little green scum. Anne called it scum, anyway. Mid-summer and there would normally be dragonflies, but that year they'd only seen one or two, and they'd been small ones of their sort.
She had been in the garden with the children, watching Yulian where he played with a soft rubber ball. Or perhaps 'played' is the wrong word, for Yulian had difficulty playing like other children. He seemed to have a philosophy: a ball is a ball, a rubber sphere. Drop it and it bounces, toss it against a wall and it returns. Other than that it has no practical use, it cannot be considered a source of lasting interest. Others might argue the point, but that summed up Yulian's feelings on the subject. Anne really didn't know why she'd bought the ball for him; he never really played with anything. He had bounced it, however, twice. And he'd tossed it against the garden wall, once. But on the rebound it had rolled to the edge of the pond.
Yulian had followed it with eyes half scornful, until suddenly his interest had quickened. At the edge of the pond something leaped: a large frog, shiny green, poising itself where it landed, with two legs in the water and two on dry land. And the five-year old child froze, becoming still as a cat in the first seconds that it senses prey. It was Helen who ran to retrieve the ball, then skipped away with it up the garden, but Yulian had eyes only for the frog.
At that point George had called out from inside the house: something about the kebabs burning. They were to be the main course in a farewell meal for Georgina. George was supposed to be doing chef.
Anne had rushed to save the day, along the crazy-paving, under the arch of roses on their trellis to the paved patio area at the rear of the house. It had taken a minute, two at the outside, to lift the steaming meat from the grill onto a plate on the outdoor table. Then Georgina had come drifting downstairs in that slow get-there-eventually fashion of hers, and George had appeared from the kitchen with his herbs.
'Sorry, darling,' he'd apologised. 'Timing is everything, and I'm out of practice. But I've got it all together now and all's well…'
Except that all had not been well.
Hearing Helen's cry of alarm from the lower garden, Anne had breathlessly retraced her steps.
At first, as she reached the pond, Anne hadn't quite known what she was seeing. She thought Yulian must have fallen face down in the green scum. Then her eyes focussed and the picture firmed. And however much she'd tried to forget it, it had remained firm to this day:
The tiny white mosaic tiles at the edge of the pond, slimed with blood and guts; and Yulian slimed, too, his face and hands sticky with goo. Cross-legged by the pond like a buddha, Yulian, the frog like a torn green plastic bag in his inexpert hands, slopping its contents. And that child of — of innocence? studying its innards, smelling it, listening to it, apparently astonished by its complexity.
Then his mother had come wafting up from behind, saying; 'Oh dear, oh dear! Was it a live thing? Oh, I see it was. He does that sometimes. Opens things up. Curiosity. To see how they work.'
And Anne, aghast, snatching up the whining Helen and turning her face away, gasping, 'But Georgina, that's not some old alarm-clock — it's a frog!'
'Is it? Is it? Oh dear! Poor thing!' She'd fluttered her hands. 'But it's a phase he's going through, that's all. He'll grow out of it…'
And Anne remembered thinking, God, 1 certainly hope so!
'Devon!' said George triumphantly, jogging her elbow, startling her. 'Did you see the sign, the county boundary? And look, there's your cafe! Cream teas, fudge, clotted cream! We'll top the car up, have a bite to eat, and then we're on the last leg. Peace and quiet for a whole week. Lord, how I can use it… '
Arriving at the house and turning off the Paignton road into its grounds, the party in the car found Georgina and Yulian waiting for them on the gravel drive. At first they very nearly failed to notice Georgina, for she was over-shadowed by her son. As George stopped the car, Helen's jaw fell open a little. Anne simply stared. George himself thought, Yulian? Yes, of course it is. But what's he been doing right?
Getting out of the car, finally Anne spoke, echoing George's thoughts.- 'Yulian! My, but what a couple of years have done for you!' He held her briefly, taller by inches, then turned to Helen where she got out of the back seat and stretched.
'I'm not the only one who has grown,' he said. His voice was that dark one Helen had heard on a previous occasion, apparently his natural voice now. He held her at arm's length, stared at her with those unfathomable eyes.
He's handsome as the devil, she thought. Or perhaps handsome was the wrong word for it. Attractive, yes — almost unnaturally so. His long, straight chin, not quite lantern-jaw, high brow, straight, flatfish nose — and especially his eyes — all combined to form a face which might seem quite odd on anyone else's shoulders. But coupled with that voice, and with Yulian's mind behind it, the effect was quite devastating. He looked somehow foreign, almost alien. His dark hair, flowing naturally back and forming something of a mane at the back of his neck, made him seem even more wolfish than she'd remembered. That was it — wolfish! And he was getting tall as a tree.
'You're still slim, anyway,' she finally found something to say, however uninspired. 'But what's Aunt Georgina been feeding you?'
He smiled and turned to George, nodded and held out his hand. 'George. Did you have a good journey? We've worried a little — the roads get so crowded down here in the summer.'
George! George groaned inwardly. First names, just like with Mummy, hey? Still, it was better than being shied away from.
'The drive was fine.' George forced a smile, checking Yulian out but unobtrusively. The youth topped him by a good three inches. Add his hair to that and he looked taller still. Seventeen and already he was a big man. Big- boned, anyway. But give him another stone in weight and
he'd be like a barn door! Also, his handshake was iron. Hardly limp-wristed, no matter the length of his fingers.
George was suddenly very much aware of his own thinning hair, his small paunch and slightly stodgy appearance. But at least I can go out in the sun! he thought. Yulian's pallor was one thing that never changed; even here he stood in the shade of the old house, like part of its shadow.
But if the last two years had improved Yulian, they'd not been so kind to his mother.
'Georgina!' Anne had meanwhile turned to her cousin, hugging her. Beneath the hug she had felt how frail she was, how trembly. The loss of her husband almost eighteen years before was still taking its toll. 'And… and looking so well!'
Liar! George couldn't help thinking. Well? She looks like something clockwork that's about wound itself down!
It was true — Georgina seemed like an automaton. She spoke and moved as if programmed. 'Anne, George, Helen — so good to see you all again. So glad you accepted Yulian's invitation. But come in, come in. You can guess what we've got for you, of course. A cream tea, naturally!'
She led the way, floating light as air, and went inside. Yulian paused at the door, turned and said, 'Yes, do come in. Feel free. Enter freely and make yourselves at home.' The way he said it, somehow ritualistically, made his welcome sound quite odd. As George, at the rear, made to pass him, Yulian added, 'Can I bring in your luggage for
