The Other Son

by Nick Alexander

  Because the truth was that Robert drove her father insane, and once he was gone, things were sadder, they were far less exciting. But they were also so much calmer.

  She forces herself to return to the here and now of the kitchen. She looks at the flour tin again, no longer a hiding place or a secret or a symbol. Just a flour tin for the first time in years. She reminds herself that even though it doesn’t feel like it, she still has the five hundred pounds.

  As emergency funds go, it’s not much these days. She supposes that she could, like Dot, siphon off a little extra if she wanted to. She could even use Dot’s cashback system. Ken rarely helps with the shopping. He almost certainly wouldn’t notice. But she would feel as if she were stealing – she’s never earned a penny, after all. Not since she married Ken, anyway.

  ‘Consider it pay for all that childcare and housekeeping,’ Dot said, ever the devil on her shoulder. ‘Count the hours you used to put in and multiply it by the minimum wage. And if you do decide to leave him one day, just write yourself a big cheque on the joint account before you tell him. You earned it. Do the maths.’

  Alice fingers the tin one last time and then stands and returns it to the food cupboard.

  It would be stealing though, wouldn’t it? And she’s not really going to leave him anyway. She’s still not sure why she keeps thinking about it. It’s not like Ken’s even being particularly difficult these days. It’s because of Dot, no doubt. It’s because of Dot and her flat and her sofa in the sunshine.

  ‘Alice?’ Ken’s voice, coming from the lounge. ‘ALICE?’

  ‘Yes?’ she calls back. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Alice!’ Ken shouts again.

  She rolls her eyes. She knows he can hear her. She heads down the hallway towards him.

  PART TWO: THE SON

  4

  OCTOBER

  Natalya glances up at the clock on the mantelpiece then returns her attention to filing her nails. It’s gone seven and Tim is not home, which means that despite their argument this morning he has decided to visit his parents after all.

  From upstairs she can hear one of the children wailing. It sounds like Boris but from this distance it’s hard to tell – it could equally be Alex.

  She splays her fingers, tilts her hand from side to side as she appraises her work, and then swaps the nail file to the other hand. Let Vladlena deal with the children. It is, after all, what she’s paid for.

  She focuses briefly on the muted television screen. An image of Putin has caught her eye. They will be talking about the gas supplies to Ukraine again – it’s one crisis after another these days.

  She hears the front door open and, stuffing the nail file down the side of the sofa, rises and crosses the room. She finds Tim in the hallway hanging his coat on the coatrack. He’s wearing his checked Paul Smith suit and the gold tie she gave him for his birthday. She thinks he looks particularly handsome in a suit.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, crossing the tiled floor and pecking him on the lips. ‘You’re early.’

  ‘They weren’t in,’ Tim says. ‘Right bloody waste of time . . .’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame.’

  Tim cocks his ear towards the staircase and frowns. ‘So what the hell’s going on up there?’

  ‘I know,’ Natalya says. ‘I was just go seeing.’

  Tim restrains a smirk at her. Just go seeing. He loves Natalya’s English language mistakes; he finds them endlessly cute.

  Natalya strokes his arm. ‘You relax,’ she adds, starting to climb the stairs. Letting Vladlena deal with the screaming children is one thing. Letting Tim see that this is what she does when he’s not here would be quite another.

  Upstairs in the rumpus room she discovers Vladlena trying to tug a reluctant, red-faced Boris through the door of the bright red playhouse.

  ‘On ne budet spat,’ Vladlena says. He won’t go to bed.

  ‘Boris, come out!’ Natalya orders, leaning through the window to tug ineffectually at Boris’s other arm. ‘Is bedtime!’

  ‘No!’ he says, then again in a scream that sounds like she’s about to perform dentistry without an anaesthetic, ‘NOOOO!!!’

  Natalya lets go. ‘You want I get Tim perhaps?’ she asks Vladlena, matter-of-factly.

  ‘No, I’ll be fine,’ Vladlena tells her, speaking in Russian.

  Natalya nods, stands, then walks from the room, closing the door firmly behind her to seal off the noise.

  ‘Is nothing,’ she tells Tim when she reaches the lounge. He is pouring himself a whisky. ‘So your parents weren’t home?’

  ‘No,’ Tim says. ‘Really annoying. I swear they’re getting worse. It might even be the start of Alzheimer’s.’

  ‘And you phone them?’ Natalya asks, pulling a glass from the bar and pouring herself a shot of Stoli.

  ‘Yes, at lunchtime. Oh, you mean now? Of course. But you know what Mum’s like with her mobile. She picks up about one time in ten.’

  Natalya nods and shrugs her shoulders. ‘Well, they are not so young now,’ she says. She has to tread carefully where Tim’s parents are concerned, has to walk a fine line between not contradicting Tim’s assessment of them while not joining in his criticism either.

  Personally, she’s relieved that they weren’t in. She doesn’t like how his visits to his parents affect him. She doesn’t like how irritable he is afterwards, nor how much he drinks when he gets home.

  ‘Anyway, you were right not to come,’ Tim says, putting his drink on the coffee table and collapsing into the comfort of the leather chesterfield. ‘It’s bad enough that I had to traipse all the way over there.’

  And this is the other reason that Natalya is glad they weren’t in: because it lets her off the hook. They had argued, this morning, about whether Natalya and the boys should visit the grandparents as well. Natalya simply hadn’t felt up to it, hadn’t been able to summon the necessary reserves of courage to cope with taking the two boys all the way to Birmingham just to listen to Alice’s thinly veiled criticism of their parenting techniques, of the boys, of Natalya herself.

  You would think that Alice and Ken would be happy that one of their offspring has finally given them grandchildren, but their dissatisfaction is endemic, is made of the same stuff, as far as Natalya can see, as their dissatisfaction with their own children, with each other. Nothing Tim and Natalya do is ever enough for Alice and Ken and it riles her. It perhaps riles her even more than it should do because she feels the same way. She too would like her children to be extraordinary. She too would love Tim and her to be perfect doting parents of a united happy family. She would love to be the rich, beautiful, placid daughter-in-law she pictures in her mind’s eye, rather than a desperate, grasping Russian, swamped by dark thoughts and random moods, by inabilities and insecurities. She would love Alex and Boris to be beyond fault, to be perfect models of politesse and creativity, demonstrations of their wonderful upbringing.

  But despite her best efforts, her humble origins trap her, her lack of education belies her. She uses the wrong words and everyone laughs at her. Tim insists that they’re laughing with her, but they’re not. They’re really not. And only too often the kids speak like her too, they make the same mistakes. Half of that comes from Vladlena, not from her, but Natalya still gets the blame. ‘Is OK,’ Boris will say, and Alice points it out every time. ‘Is OK?! That’s from you, Natalya,’ she’ll say.

  And then Boris will steal from Alice’s biscuit jar and smear chocolate all over her white sofa, and Alex will open her purse and start taking her money out, and when everyone asks her, ‘Why, Natalya? Why does Boris steal food?’, she’s unable to give them the only answer that might make any sense: that Boris’s mother grew up in an orphanage, that she had to steal potatoes and hide them under her mattress just so she could get through the night, just so the rumbling of her stomach and the pain of hunger wouldn’t wake her.

  Memories of the orphanage fill her mind now, the weak light drifting through the grubby windows, the echoey
voices in hallways from stern people making decisions about their futures, the stench of the cheap disinfectant they used everywhere – it’s as much as she can do not to wrinkle her nose.

  And could that really be why Boris steals food? Could that really be why Alex, at seven, collects coins he finds around the house and puts them in a jar, why he once even buried the jar in the garden? Is it really possible that Natalya’s own terror of poverty has transmitted, via her genes, to her children? People say that kids pick up on things, but this surely goes beyond that?

  She looks at Tim lighting a cigar and remembers the taste of cold potato, remembers the sound of other children snoring (or crying) around her as she ate it, remembers the fear of being caught.

  ‘So how was your day?’ Tim is asking, blowing smoke rings as he speaks, already turning up the sound on the television, already looking for American families that are brighter, funnier or more dangerous than his own.

  ‘Fine,’ Natalya says, her mind partly still in those horrible Mazanovsky corridors. ‘Busy.’

  ‘Good,’ Tim says, tugging at his tie, loosening his collar.

  ‘And yours?’ Natalya asks.

  ‘Other than traipsing all the way over to Mum’s for nothing? Yeah, fine. Normal,’ he says.

  Upstairs, the screaming has stopped. ‘I go kiss the children goodnight,’ Natalya says, ‘then I get dinner. Is Veal Orloff.’

  ‘Sure, great,’ Tim says, his attention shifting to The Simpsons. ‘Tell ’em I’ll be up in a bit as well.’

  Twenty minutes later, once Vladlena has left and Natalya has read the children a story (it’s good for improving her English) she returns to the lounge. Tim has fallen asleep in front of the television, the half-glass of whisky miraculously still held in one hand.

  She looks at him sleeping for a moment and reminds herself that she has little idea what his days in banking involve. She only knows that they’re stressful and tiring, and that they pay for all of this for all of them. She gently prises the glass from his fingers, momentarily waking him.

  ‘Um? Uh!’ Tim grunts.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Natalya says. ‘Sleep a little. I wake you when dinner is.’

  She is just pulling the tray of Orloff from the oven when Tim appears in the doorway. ‘Perfect timing,’ he says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Smells good too.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Natalya replies. Vladlena actually made the dish this time, but there’s no point telling Tim that.

  ‘Did they go off OK?’ Tim asks, crossing to the huge refrigerator and pulling a half-consumed bottle of wine from the door.

  Natalya looks confused, so he rephrases. ‘The kids. Did they go to sleep all right?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Natalya replies. ‘I read them a story from new book. The Russian one. Is funny reading these stories in English, you know?’

  ‘Baba Yaga again?’ Tim asks.

  ‘No, this time they choose Ivan the Fool.’

  ‘You wanted to call Boris Ivan,’ Tim reminds her.

  ‘Yes, you are right. Not such a good name after all.’

  Tim hangs his jacket over the back of the chair. Natalya always overheats the house, but the oven has left the kitchen feeling quite tropical. He pulls the cork from the bottle of wine with his teeth and sloshes servings into both his and Natalya’s glasses.

  ‘So where do you think they go?’ Natalya asks. ‘Alice and Ken.’

  Tim shrugs. ‘I’ll call them after dinner. I thought we could invite them over on Sunday. They haven’t been for ages. What do you think?’

  Natalya licks her lips, then forks a large chunk of still-too-hot Veal Orloff into her mouth as an alibi for not replying.

  ‘They’re my parents, Nat,’ Tim says. ‘I have to see them sometimes. And the boys need to spend time with their grandparents. Family’s important.’

  Natalya pulls a face, all innocence, and shrugs and points at her full mouth. She thinks about these feelings she has about Tim’s parents. She disguises her wince as being caused by the hot food in her mouth rather than by the pain of her jealousy.

  Because, yes, she’s jealous. She wishes she had parents she could visit, grandparents she had known. She wishes she even knew what that meant – to have a family you want to see, even though they drive you mad. Because they do drive Tim – quite literally – mad.

  After a proper visit from Tim’s parents (the real thing, not a half-hour pop-in), Tim is irritable and he drinks too much, but beyond this, something more profound happens to him. Something goes wrong with his brain; something happens to his logic circuits. All his decisions for twenty-four hours afterwards – sometimes for days – are skewed, and only Natalya can see that he’s not making any sense. So he’ll decide to drive all the way into Birmingham for a new watch battery even though he works next to a watch shop every day of the week. Or he’ll attempt to fix something they both know he can’t fix, and only make it worse. He’ll decide to cook the one thing they don’t have the ingredients for, or he’ll throw away something they need to make space for something they don’t, or he’ll lose his keys, or his phone, or his wallet. And without fail, he’ll complain to her about Alice and Ken afterwards. Interminably.

  He’ll moan about their negativity, about their lack of recognition for his achievements, for Natalya’s cooking, for the children’s progress. But she’s not allowed to join in; she can’t even hint that she agrees, otherwise he jumps to their defence with the vigour of a lioness defending her cubs. He’ll turn on her in an instant, and suddenly the problem’s not his parents but Natalya herself.

  So she’s supposed to listen to these endless complaints – many of which are justified – yet somehow remain neutral about seeing them the next time, and the time after that.

  In fact, she’s not even supposed to remain neutral; she’s meant, somehow, to remain positively enthusiastic about entertaining them. She has to be keen, because, yes, they’re his family. Whatever that means.

  ‘I say nothing,’ she protests, once she has finally managed to swallow. ‘Yes, of course we can have them. I can make rassolnik again. Alice liked my rassolnik.’

  ‘Great,’ Tim says. ‘I’ll call them after dinner.’

  Natalya sips at her glass of wine and imagines them all sitting around the table eating. She wishes they had a separate dining room, but it’s been knocked through by the previous owners to make for a bigger lounge. If they had a separate dining room, she could cook and serve up without Alice questioning everything she does, without her saying doubtfully, ‘Oh, so that’s how you do that, is it, Natalya? Okaaay . . .’ She could escape just long enough to breathe.

  She thinks about the big house in Broseley. She shouldn’t mention it now; it’s not the right time. She should wait until the weekend. She should wait until Tim is relaxed and amenable, but she’s never been that good at self-control.

  ‘So what was all the fuss about?’ Tim asks, saving her from herself. ‘It sounded like Vlad was torturing them up there.’

  Natalya nods with fake sadness. ‘Yes, she try the waterboard thing.’

  ‘What waterboard thing?’

  ‘You know, like in Guantanamo. She say if it’s good enough for the Yankees . . .’ Natalya smiles wryly.

  ‘Oh, waterboarding, yeah,’ Tim laughs. ‘We could get them little orange jumpsuits too. And leg irons.’

  ‘Yes,’ Natalya says flatly. ‘I already order them from the Internet.’

  After dinner, Natalya stacks the dishwasher before returning to the lounge.

  Tim has changed into jogging trousers and a sweatshirt. He’s thumbing through a copy of What Hi-Fi?.

  Natalya joins him on the sofa and snuggles against him. She glances over his shoulder at the magazine. The centre photo shows a man standing next to a loudspeaker the size of their refrigerator. His scarf looks like it’s being blown sideways by the sound from the speaker.

  ‘It’s so big,’ Natalya says.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘This is for con
certs, yes? Or rave party?’

  Tim laughs. ‘No, these are home speakers. About the best you can get.’

  Natalya glances over at their existing hi-fi. ‘I think ours are big enough, yes?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Tim says vaguely.

  ‘You don’t think to buy these?’

  Tim shrugs. ‘I’d love to hear how they sound.’

  Natalya leans in more closely and studies the picture, then attempts to imagine these monstrosities in their lounge. ‘This is crazy,’ she says. ‘They look just silly.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not about how they look, is it?’ Tim says. ‘It’s how they sound.’

  Natalya snorts quietly. But she restrains herself from pointing out that Tim rarely even listens to their existing hi-fi these days. He’s always at work or asleep in front of the television. And when he’s not, he’s fiddling with his phone or surfing on the iPad.

  But no, Natalya does not say any of this. Instead, she does a deal with herself, mentally exchanging not saying this for saying the other thing, the thing she promised herself she would not say. Because she has just realised that she can link the one to the other.

  ‘Well, those are too big for this room anyway,’ she says. And this is a fact that even Tim would struggle to argue with. ‘We cannot even move if we have these speakers. Oh! Talk of big house. You know which house they are going to sell now? The big white one on the hill in Broseley. I saw the . . . how you call that?’ She makes a shape with her fingers.

  ‘For Sale sign?’

  ‘Yes, that one.’

  ‘The architect’s house?’ Tim asks, glancing sideways at her, his interest awakening. ‘The one with the big windows?’

  ‘Yes,’ Natalya says. ‘Now this is house for big speakers.’

  Tim raises an eyebrow and she sees that he has picked up on her strategy, has spotted the bridge she has been trying to build. She shouldn’t have mentioned it twice.

  Tim flicks through a couple more pages of the magazine before saying, ‘I wonder how much they want for that. A fortune, I bet.’