Fatal Choices

by Anne Morgellyn

  Dr Schlosser assured me that Professor Vrubin was pleased with the secluded location. After they arrived, he went for a short walk alone and returned to the chalet when he was ready. They then made a short video recording in the presence of an independent witness, in which the professor stated that he was acting of his own free will. Dr Schlosser gave him the drug to drink and an anti-emetic. Professor Vrubin swallowed the dose and lay down on the sofa. Respiration ceased within a couple of minutes.

  There were no complications. The police and ambulance were called, together with the coroner, though I was told that this was a formality since no autopsy would be required. The officials watched the video and recorded a conclusion of unnatural death. The ambulance went away and the body was taken to an undertaker and later cremated, in accordance with Professor Vrubin’s wishes. I asked about the disposal of Buz’s remains, but Dr Schlosser replied that he was only involved with the assisted suicide procedure, not with what happened afterwards.

  Androssoff was angry when I told him I had met with Dr Schlosser, though I assured him that the meeting had taken place when Nicky was at Kindergarten. He felt that I was sticking my nose in where it wasn’t wanted and that Buz deserved some privacy, since that was clearly what he had wanted ante-mortem. When I said I was shocked to hear there was no post-mortem examination, he said he wasn’t surprised. The cause of Buz’s death was blindingly obvious: it was the sodium pentabarbitol wot did it. I thought his attitude cynical and callous towards a friend and well-respected colleague. I thought it was our duty, as Buz’s trustees, to seek to know what had happened during his final hours. Androssoff dismissed this as sentiment, suggesting that Buz had killed himself out of vanity, the Huntington’s being just a smoke-screen for his professional embarrassment because he couldn’t face the shame of failure. The fact that this Nobel Prize nominated scientist had received no commemoration other than his contribution to the ignominious pollution of a lake did nothing to stir Androssoff’s compassion. I was dismayed to see he had no loyalty to Buz, either as a colleague or a friend.

  It wasn’t surprising, then, that he dismissed the protest going on outside the Hotel Beau Rivage that Saturday as just another inconvenience, threatening the pharmaceutical companies who funded his infernal research. We circumvented the demonstration as we passed along the promenade, en route for the boat station, Nicky perched high on his father’s broad shoulders and tugging at his collar-length hair. I looked round after we had cleared the crowd and spotted Masha and Zonny shouting slogans. Many of the placards related to anti-globalisation issues, human rights abuses, the war in Afghanistan, the role of military policeman taken by the USA in its foreign policy, etc. Like many such demonstrations, it seemed anarchic, lacking in focus: a crowd of young people shouting themselves hoarse, the police looking on idly, and no sign at all of the pharmaceutical suits who were safely cocooned inside the grand hotel. I saw nothing that specified the Fondation Charon, nor the polluting practices of other assisted-suicide clinics.

  Nicky was tired out after the boat trip, which left the whole evening to Androssoff and me. This should have been our private time, of course, but it was awkward. My resentment of him was growing, in spite of his alacrity to compromise over the move to Geneva. Now was the time for me to ask him about his working week at Charity’s, the latest gaffe from Janice Impawala, the latest scandal about the hospital Trust; but I just wasn’t interested. It was quite some time since Androssoff and I had been regular lovers. At first, this was due to my tiredness, as much as to his absences; but now it was increasingly due to other inhibitions: my growing resentment, my old suspicion of him, and now my anger about his attitude to Buz’s suicide. It had been months since we last had sex, for that was how I saw it now – a mechanical exchange of body fluids, rather than an act of love. I resented Androssoff for returning me to an icy state where I was simply going through the motions. It is easy to fall in love – that comes on quickly, like a sickness; falling out of love is a much longer process. I still had feelings for Chas though – the man I fell for in the first place. He didn’t change because I found more to dislike about Androssoff.

  It was suddenly obvious to me – in the way things previously unnoticed pop up unexpectedly and shout the truth about themselves – that Masha and Zonni lived together as a lesbian couple. In fact, with my pixie haircut and biker boots, I probably looked more butch than either of them. I was certainly more weathered. They were much younger than me, and we seemed to have little in common beside the Project, in Masha’s case, and The Charon Clinic, in Zonni’s; but they seemed to have taken to me and kept on asking me out to meet at the Cinque Portes bar before their Wednesday spinning. It became a regular thing, with Naomi babysitting Nicky for an hour or two, and when they suggested a film on a Saturday night at some historical arts cinema on the other side of the city I reasoned that Androssoff would be home then and could spend the evening entertaining his son. There was a child-friendly fondue place where the waiting staff dressed up as Schtroumphs, those blue-faced favourites of small Swiss children. The dessert on the all-in menu was a chocolate fountain and a plate of fresh fruit. Bizarrely, I thought of Buz when I saw the Schtroumphs – as one did often in Geneva. Was this what he had in mind when he proposed a Swiss upbringing for Nicky, this benign infantilism that began with comfort food like melted cheese on gobbets of bread and finished up with chocolate trains, yodelling, and plastic watches with crayon-box faces? It belied the dark side to the pays de refugés, the unnumbered bank accounts hiding the plundered funds of the world’s most notorious dictators, the racism, particularly towards Eastern Europeans like Masha and to women in burkas, the assisted suicide clinics, normalised by so-called humanitarian ideas. The word humanitarian began to have a hollow ring for me when I had lived in Geneva for two months, which was a shame because I was fed up with London and things hadn’t worked out in Wellington. I had burned my bridges. They change their skies, but not their souls, they who cross the sea. The poet Horace was right about that: the problem was within me – why couldn’t I settle?

  6

  The cinema was an old vaudeville theatre with itchy plush seats. They still had old brass ashtrays fitted to their backs, transformed by the non-smoking age into a handy receptacle for chewing gum, which always revolted me. The audience was a mixture of elderly Swiss, gay couples, and a bewildered American backpacker. Marion Cotillard, the actress playing Piaf in the film, was stupendous. After watching such a tour de force, all I wanted to do was go off by myself and relish it, so I declined the nightcap proposed by Masha and Zonni and went straight back to the villa. As I let myself in, I thought I heard giggling. There was a door that led from the kitchen at the rear of the apartment to the escalier de service. The tenants of the chambres de bonnes were required to use these stairs since there was no access to the attics through the main entrance.

  Androssoff lounged in his bathrobe on the living room sofa. I asked him if Nicky had been good.

  ‘What’s good?’ he retorted. ‘He’s five years old. He behaves like a normal five year old boy. What’s good got to do with it?’

  I thought that a very odd remark, but didn’t question it. I went to Nicky’s room and saw that he was sleeping peacefully. The night light was glowing – a small red owl plugged into a socket by the door. Androssoff followed me and put his arms around me, fondling my breasts. ‘Not tonight, Josephine,’ I told him. ‘I’m all in.’

  Nicky seemed to be going down with something, so I thought I’d keep him at home with me on the Wednesday. Penny Pocock wasn’t pleased at my taking more time off – the first time being for my meeting with Dr Schlosser. I said I had made it quite clear, when I accepted the job, that I had family commitments, but if it would be helpful, I could work from home on proof-reading the long report that was due to go before the project committee later that week. ‘I suppose that will have to do,’ she said grudgingly. ‘I have no time to do it and Masha’s in the field.’ I could see that Pocock had a job to do
, but how a person so lacking in empathy could manage a project concerning vulnerable women was still a mystery to me. She had once remarked to Masha and me that HIV and AIDS would not be spreading the way they had been doing if women took sensible advice and used prophylactics. She had absolutely no sense of context; she just couldn’t see the bigger picture. Women like her were a fungus, pushing up like mushrooms into the fields of charity work and church committees and magistrates’ courts and social security tribunals. The NGOs would be full of them too, just like the UN. I didn’t need the job; I wasn’t in it for the money. But when Nicky dozed off, I dutifully opened my laptop and starting going over the press links I had been collating for the report.

  Nicky slept for most of the morning. I made him a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. He took a couple of bites, then said, ‘I don’t like Naomi anymore.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She was hurting daddy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She was hurting him, he was making a funny noise. I went to look for him and Naomi was there. She was hurting him. I saw her bottom.’ He ran round the table and clung to me. I felt like I was going to be sick, but managed to hold it down.

  I needed to get out of the apartment. Who came on to who, I wondered – Naomi or Androssoff? It wasn’t really his style, but then I didn’t know what he got up to when my back was turned. I was past caring what he got up to, but this, in front of Nicky, when Nicky was next door with only Firefighter Ted for consolation, was a signal that he had crossed the line.

  ‘What’s the matter, mummy?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I think we’ll go for a little drive. Maybe some fresh air will buck us up.’ I set him down. ‘You look better now you’ve had a long sleep.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to Kindergarten.’

  ‘No, I’ve told them you’re unwell today.’

  We went to collect the car from the private garage nearby, there being no parking for tenants’ cars at the villa. Rodolfo’s old Bugatti occupied the coach house. When we got to our parking space, the Citroen wasn’t there. I wondered if Androssoff had left it somewhere else when he used it at the week end. I had a good excuse to call him now, in the middle of the working day. We had a prearranged signal for emergencies – two rings on his mobile, then a hang up, then another two rings and he’d pick up. He left his phone on vibrate.

  ‘I’m in the middle of a consult, Louise. This doesn’t really qualify as an emergency. You’re sure it’s not been moved to another spot in the garage?’

  ‘I checked with the caretaker. He said no one could have got it past the barrier without the code.’

  ‘You need to report it to the police, for the insurance. If it was nicked from the garage, they’ll be liable.’

  ‘I need it today.’

  ‘What for? You hardly ever use it. Aren’t you at work?’

  ‘No. Nicky wasn’t well this morning so I kept him off.’’

  ‘Why do you need the car then? Call a doctor out if he’s sick.’

  ‘It’s nothing serious. He’s better now. I thought he needed a change of scene.’

  ‘Sorry. I can’t talk to you at the moment. Report the theft to the police. I’ll call you later.’ He was cutting me off, like he usually did. I was sick of playing second fiddle to that hospital. He was never there for Nicky and me. But I had ammunition now. I was going on the offensive.

  The police noted my details and said they would also notify the Sureté over the border since many cars stolen in Geneva were taken to France. There had been a spate of thefts from private garages recently; it wasn’t that difficult to deactivate the barriers. In England, I said, there would have been Closed Circuit TV. Here also, I was told, but that could be deactivated too. The recording officer was polite, but I could tell the theft of my unremarkable Citroen would have low priority. It was surprising the thieves hadn’t chosen something more fancy, like a bullet-proof Mercedes or Rodolfo’s Bugatti, stolen to order to be whisked abroad and sold to collectors. It would be easy for thieves who knew what they were doing to break into the coach house. Although the villa was live with security lights and alarms, Androssoff had spotted the control box near the gate. He said it was like putting up an umbrella with a hole in it.

  7

  Nicky was upset about the car and said he wanted to go and tell Mrs Kingsley, the head teacher at the Kindergarten. She said it was best to keep him at home if he was infectious, but I told her he had just been over-tired.

  ‘Well, he’s lively enough now,’ she said, as he ran towards the classroom. ‘Children do pick themselves up.’

  ‘Then they grow up and get man-flu.’

  She laughed. ‘He’s settled in really well. It’s a very good sign for infant school. I don’t think he’ll have any problems with the transfer.’

  ‘He’s talking a bit of French, too.’

  ‘Oh, it’s remarkable how quickly they tune in. This is the best age to learn another language. He’ll be fluent in a couple of months.’

  ‘It took me ages to learn French. I only managed some fluency when lived in Paris.’

  ‘Does his father talk to him in Russian?’

  ‘No. Chas doesn’t use Russian, although he learnt it from his grandparents when he was a boy.’

  ‘It’s a very useful language these days, like Chinese.’

  After I left Nicky, I walked around the park, debating whether to tell Rodolfo before I confronted Androssoff. Naomi was eighteen, but Rodolfo was meant to be looking out for her as her responsible, elderly cousin. If she was going about seducing the husbands of his tenants, then he needed to know he had a menace on the premises – a sex-pest. I had no qualms about shopping Naomi to her family, but what if Nicky had misunderstood the situation? He had seen her bottom, so she must have been in a state of undress. She had been on top of Androssoff, who was in his bathrobe when I got home. I hadn’t told Nicky about sex, believing he was far too young to learn about that, although he knew about the life-cycle of a frog, and he knew that male and female guinea pigs had babies if they were put in a cage together. He couldn’t have known more because he would have called a spade a spade to me, but he had known something was going on, and that something had disturbed him. It was a good thing Androssoff was in London, because I could have killed him. I would have slapped his face for sure.

  Rodolfo asked me in, but I intended to keep it brief.

  ‘Nicky is upset,’ I said, ‘Because he saw Naomi with my husband on Saturday.’

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘Nicky saw Naomi undressed and told me she was hurting his daddy. Draw your own conclusions from that. Naturally, he didn’t know what they were doing, but it has really troubled him. He’s been very down since the weekend.’

  Rodolfo lifted his hands and let them flop down at his sides. ‘Come in, please,’ he said. ‘Prego, Louise.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got to pick up Nicky.’

  ‘Five minutes, please.’

  I followed him into the salon and sat on the hard yellow sofa. He took the Rococo armchair that stood at right angles to it, a companion piece to the eighteenth century commode that stood by the door.

  ‘What you are telling me is shocking. Naomi is eighteen.’

  ‘That’s old enough to know what she was doing.’

  ‘Have you spoken to your husband?’

  ‘Not about this. I called him earlier because our car has gone missing. The police said there have been a lot of garage thefts recently. We’ll need to make an insurance claim.’

  ‘I will speak to the agent. This is unacceptable.’

  ‘I’m not concerned about the car. That’s just one of those things. But I don’t think I can go on living in the same house as a girl who had sex with my husband. She babysits for the people upstairs as well. The wife is pregnant.’

  Rodolfo clasped his hands to his head; he looked mortified.

  ‘I will speak to her,’ he said. ‘And you must speak to your husband.’r />
  ‘You can count on it,’ I told him. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  Androssoff called me later that evening: ‘What happened with the car?’

  ‘I reported it, like you said. I can’t talk now, I’m busy with Nicky.’

  Sooner or later, I told myself, sooner or later I would have to have it out with him, but where, when? Not in front of Nicky, who would surely pick up on it. The phone rang again. I stared at it electrified, waiting for the call to go to voicemail. It was Naomi’s father, demanding to speak to Androssoff because the family was going to lodge a case with the Questura about illegal sex with a minor. That, at least was what I got from my rusty Italian. This was just hot air, or course, the ranting of an angry Neopolitan father. I knew from my work at the women’s project that in Italy, the legal age of consent is fourteen, rising to sixteen if the partner was an influential adult like a teacher, or a social worker – or a doctor. But I also knew it was illegal in Italy to have sex in front of children under fourteen. I would have to check out the position in Switzerland. Then I thought about Nicky, a little boy of five, bewildered and frightened, with no one to comfort him. Naomi was hurting daddy. He had kept it to himself for three whole days. Androssoff had it coming to him.

  I tried to calm myself down by thinking about unrelated things, such as my meeting with Dr Schlosser. I had been wondering about that video in which Buz stated that he was taking his life of his own free will. Where had it got to? What had happened to the seven thousand euros he had paid for Charon’s services? It couldn’t all have been expenses, surely? Had the clinic profited from his death, and what could I do about it if they had? It was a matter for the Swiss authorities, nothing to do with me. Androssoff had told me to keep my nose out. Why did he always come into it? What could I do to get him out of my head, out of our lives? He was a self-centred bastard and a very bad father. Nicky didn’t need him and neither did I; still I called him back at four in the morning to tell him what Nicky had seen. I let the phone ring and ring and ring and ring until he awoke and picked it up. I then had the advantage of surprise. He admitted it straight away as a spur of the moment thing, completely unplanned and unexpected. Naomi had come down to see Nicky with a bar of Toblerone. Nicky had asked her to read him a bedtime story.