Fatal Choices

by Anne Morgellyn

‘There will not be any more procedures in cars.’ He sounded chastened.

  ‘What happened to your patient?’

  ‘He came first to the police station with me, and then he was released.’

  ‘You mean a vulnerable person was left to walk around Zurich, wondering where he could kill himself? What kind of final step is that, Dr Schlosser?’

  ‘He was taken to the hospital where I believe he saw a psychiatrist.’

  ‘Do you know if he still means to carry out his intention?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you. My connection to this patient is confidential.’

  ‘I know it’s completely illogical but I feel responsible in some way. I mean, it was my car.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Dr Schlosser – can you hear me?’

  ‘I am sorry, Frau Androssoff. I can’t help you.’

  Exasperated, I cut him off. Nicky shuffled in at that point. ‘Is Daddy back in London now?’

  ‘He’s working, sweetheart.’

  That was the second lie.

  9

  We walked the back way to the station to catch the tram for Carouge. Nicky insisted on carrying the birthday present which we had swaddled in tissue paper and tied with a pink cake ribbon – I hadn’t had time to go and buy wrapping paper. He had made the card himself. It was a picture of a brontosaurus – not that you could tell; it could have been a hippo, or a bull even. I hoped the birthday girl’s mother would appreciate the thought and not think me a cheapskate.

  Androssoff sent a text while we were on the tram: C u 9pm. Cx

  ‘Look,’ Nicky shouted, banging on the window: ‘It’s Daddy.’

  ‘Shh … it can’t be. Daddy’s gone back to London.’ I looked anxiously through the window and saw a stocky man with black hair down to his collar walking in our direction. He looked like Androssoff from the back, but as we passed, I saw to my relief it wasn’t him.

  ‘Can we go and stay with Daddy in London?’

  ‘You’ve got school, sweetheart. Press the bell, please, it’s our stop. Don’t bump your head.’

  I dropped him off at a pretty, creeper-covered house off Carouge’s main square, just round the corner from Masha’s apartment. She said she’d been waiting for me. She was wearing an old pair of dungarees over a skimpy vest and looked as though she’d been drinking.

  ‘Will you excuse me if I send a quick text?’ I said, as soon as I’d sat down. ‘It’s my husband. We’re splitting up and I don’t want to see him.’

  Masha went to the kitchen corner – it was an open plan apartment like Androssoff’s flat in London, and fetched two beers from the fridge.

  StA awA, I texted. cl u l8tr in wk.

  Masha handed me a bottle and sat down on the rocking chair at an angle to where I was sitting. The apartment was furnished in an eclectic mix of second hand stuff, bordering on junk, and modern pieces from Ikea or an equivalent Swiss store. ‘I’m sorry you have problems,’ she said. ‘For how long are you together?’

  ‘Fifteen years.’ It might have been a little more. I felt as though I had known Androssoff forever, and that made his betrayal all the worse.

  ‘He was my best friend,’ I blurted. ‘Nicky caught him in bed with the babysitter.’

  ‘Oh God.’ She wiped her mouth on her hand. ‘He plays around?’

  ‘I don’t care about that, but in front of Nicky.’

  ‘Yes, that’s awful.’

  ‘It was the night we went to see La Mome.’

  ‘You know, he wouldn’t be the only one,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘Fifteen years is a long time.’

  ‘What are you saying – that I should give him a second chance?’

  ‘Only a second one?’ She smiled. ‘What does your boy say about it?’

  ‘I haven’t told him we’re separating.’

  ‘Do you have to tell him anything? Can’t you give it some time, decide when you are calmer?’

  ‘No, I don’t think I can. He’s going to have to know sooner or later. I can’t keep telling him lies.’

  ‘You lied to him?’

  ‘I told him Chas had gone back to London. I said he was working.’

  ‘So isn’t he in London?’

  ‘I threw him out. He’s staying at the Beau Rivage ‘til Monday morning.’

  ‘Nice place.’ She tilted back her head and drained the bottle. ‘You want another?’

  I shook my head. I had hardly touched the beer.

  ‘Can’t you sort it out?’ she said, returning to her rocking chair.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. We’ve been growing apart for ages. I don’t care if he sees other women ... but not in front of Nicky. I can’t have that. I can’t trust him.’

  ‘Maybe he has learned his lesson.’

  I stared at her. ‘I’m surprised at you, Masha. I thought you’d be more sympathetic.’

  ‘I am on the side of little boy.’ When she got excited, she had a tendency to drop the article. She took a swig of beer. ‘My father was typical Ukrainian man. Worked, did nothing in house, did nothing with children, drank vodka. He died aged forty nine, then we had nothing. Your husband has good profession. He has flat in London, you have nice place in Geneva, little boy who is clever and happy. You have plenty of money. You don’t need job. You don’t need twenty tricks a day to get money for your pimp.’

  I had a nightmarish vision of what she had been, the dives she had lived in, the soiled mattresses, all the fat johns unzipping their flies.

  ‘I just keep seeing him, with Nicky watching.’

  ‘Sure, but he will forget it. He is what, three, four?’

  ‘He’s going on six. He knew it was wrong.’

  ‘You are very angry. If you didn’t care about your husband, you wouldn’t be so angry.’

  ‘Angry?’ I said. ‘I’m so angry I can’t stand the thought of being in the same room with him.’

  ‘If you didn’t care, you would just take your boy and leave.’

  ‘Leave and go where? It’s my apartment. He’s got his own place. I think anyone would be angry about a five year old witnessing a sex act.’

  ‘But if it was mistake?’

  ‘Mistake or not, he shouldn’t have done it when Nicky was around.’

  ‘But you have ideal situation. You have husband who stays in London all week, so you are free to do what you want, to spend his money. So he plays around one time – this time you know about. Who do you think goes out to look for sex? Husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers, they go out to look for sex. Sometimes wives too. Why don’t you find someone, to pay him back?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put Nicky in that situation. I don’t want another man, but if I did, I hope I’d be more responsible.’ I didn’t like the way this conversation was turning out. Was her bitterness due to the beers, or had I touched a raw nerve just by being me, Louise Androssoff Moon – what a mouthful, Androssoff had laughed– a bourgeois wife, in spite of my biker boots and my pixie hairstyle and a husband who looked like a Hell’s Angel? I could see exactly how I might look to someone of Masha’s background: secure, protected – flat in London, nice apartment in Geneva. She didn’t know the half of it, just as I didn’t know the half of what she had lived through. I looked at my watch: there was another hour to go before the party finished.

  ‘When’s Zonni coming back?’ I asked to change the subject.

  ‘Tomorrow night. She takes train from Lucerne. Her father drives her to station.’

  ‘My car was stolen,’ I said inconsequentially. ‘It turned up in Zurich. Someone was using it for an assisted suicide.’

  ‘Oh my God. How will you drive it now?’

  ‘I won’t be driving it. It’s been impounded while they carry out an enquiry. I won’t be driving it anyway. I don’t want it back.’

  She put her second bottle down on the table, next to the first. I wondered how many empties were stacked in the recycling box placed casually in front of the kitchen counter.

  �
��It was Zonni’s friend, Dr Schlosser – the contact she gave me.’

  ‘Wow. And the guy who died in your car, who was he?’

  ‘Some Englishman. He didn’t die. They took him to hospital.’

  ‘It’s crazy,’ she said. ‘The whole thing. It’s crazy and it’s wrong. It’s against being human, against life.’

  ‘Are you religious, Masha?’

  ‘I am believer, yes. If God did not exist, then everyone would go and kill themselves. It is God who decides when you die.’

  ‘That’s not what Zonni thinks.’

  ‘So what? It’s what I know. I don’t think – I know. God helps. In worse situations, God helps. Not church, God. Some people think too much.’

  ‘What would you do if Zonni was in a situation like with my husband, and you found out?’

  ‘It’s one time, one time.’ She took another swig and burped. ‘It’s your life, do what you want.’

  I sat there, consternated. I had expected at least a little commiseration here, but she seemed to have no empathy for me, let alone sympathy. I felt myself wanting to cry, foolishly and self-pityingly maybe, but I needed to let this out and I had no one else to talk to, except Rodolfo, and I couldn’t talk to him about this now. After his initial shocked reaction, he would maintain a polite reserve. Then, after a while, he might invite me to drink coffee with him again, although that was uncertain and for the present unlikely. I wondered how he had behaved when Androssoff went to see him. He was far too dignified to lose his cool, even with his very young cousin’s seducer.

  I got up, handing her my barely touched bottle: ‘I think I’ll be making tracks,’ I said. ‘I’ll get there early to help them hand out the cake.’ When I was a child, we had always been given a slice of birthday cake wrapped up in a paper napkin on leaving a birthday party, and that was it – no piñatas, no party bags, no parting gifts: just cake. I hoped that Nicky would not be given another wrapped surprise containing those horrible fluorescent sweets.

  10

  It was I who had the nasty surprise. Nicky had fallen off the trampoline and banged his head. The birthday girl’s mother, Rita Adewole, thought we should have it checked out. She offered to drive us to a local hospital. It was an awkward journey and I was sure she could smell beer on my breath, although I was sitting with Nicky in the back. He looked very subdued and there was a bump above his right eye which was turning purple. She wanted to wait with me while he was examined, but I said I could manage. I knew I should call Androssoff but thought I would see what the casualty doctor had to say first. She told me there was nothing to worry about, though I should keep an eye on Nicky over the next few hours, and if he grew unusually drowsy or started vomiting, I should go straight back so they could scan him. Funnily enough, the bump was on the same spot where I had a little scar, a two centimetre hollow on my right temple where I had smashed through a plate glass door while sliding down the hall on my push-along – a grey lamb on red metal wheels. I was only three at the time and had no memory of the accident itself; my mother had given me the picture years later when I asked her how I got the scar.

  We took a taxi home from the hospital. I put Nicky straight to bed and sat beside him after he fell asleep, not daring to take my eyes off him. What was I doing to him? Was keeping him away from his father a greater evil than what his father had done? It was Naomi who had frightened him, and she was now off the scene.

  Androssoff texted me to say he was outside the villa, I went into the hall and called him. I said he should go back to London for now but return to Geneva on Friday, as per, and we would try for now, for Nicky’s sake, to keep appearances up on future weekends when he could favour his son with his presence.

  ‘I’m here now,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want Nicky unsettled. He’s had a minor accident at the party – a bump on the head. The doctor said he should rest.’

  ‘Let me take a look at him. Why the hell didn’t you call me?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘So you’d let your beef with me compromise my relationship with my son – our son,’ he corrected. ‘This is going too far, Louise. We have joint responsibility for Nick. I have rights.’

  ‘And rights come with responsibilities.’ I was trying to keep my voice as low as possible because the last thing I wanted was for Nicky to wake up and hear me rowing with his daddy, who was supposed to be in London.

  ‘I have my key,’ Androssoff said. ‘I didn’t let myself in out of consideration for you, but this isn’t about you, Louise.’

  ‘I’ve put the deadlock on – and on the french windows. Please don’t try to come in. You’ll only confuse him; he thinks you’re in London.’

  ‘You told him I’d gone back?’ I heard him take a deep breath. ‘OK, you just lost the moral high ground. Now he’ll think I’ve left him again. It’s time to give ground, Louise – let me in.’

  ‘No – I can’t handle this now.’

  ‘What about tomorrow then?’

  ‘I don’t want to lie to him. I don’t want to pretend anymore. He has to know where things stand with us.’

  ‘They stand where they have always stood as far as I’m concerned – everything else is your psycho stuff. I don’t see why carrying on with this arrangement – your arrangement, me in London, you in Geneva can’t work out – for Nicky at least, and he’s the most important factor in this equation. I can handle the commute. I can sleep in the other room.’

  ‘He’ll pick up on that.’

  ‘I want to make this work, Louise. That’s what I want and it’s the responsible course. It’s you that’s destroying our marriage.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this. Come round at twelve thirty tomorrow. I’ll tell him you’re making a special effort to catch the morning flight so we can all eat the chicken together and spend the afternoon on the lake.’

  ‘That’s a good story. And try to keep a lid on it in front of him.’

  The delight on Nicky’s face when Androssoff turned up on his pretend-return from London was worth all my guilt and revulsion. Androssoff acted as though nothing had happened, though Nicky kept asking me what was wrong. I told Androssoff I hadn’t prepared any lunch because I had a headache and thought he could take Nicky to the fondue place.

  ‘Keep an eye on daddy,’ I said. ‘Make sure he doesn’t stray. I’ll expect a report about his behaviour when you come back.’

  After they’d gone out, I mooched about the apartment, feeling angry with myself for letting Androssoff back in. It may have been best for Nicky in the short term, but what about the long term? Would I have to swallow my feelings and settle for the status quo for the sake of my son? Androssoff would think I was weak, and I couldn’t live with that. So was I going to let my pride override my duty to Nicky? Things had been working out pretty well for all of us in Geneva up to this point – to the point when Androssoff had winged me. I had loved him so much: he was my best friend, as well as my husband and the father of my child, and in all three roles he had disappointed me.

  I knew it would be the nights that bothered me the most. Lack of sleep made me irritable and. Nicky, an early riser, would bear the brunt of that – and the shorter I was with him, the more he’d look forward to his daddy coming home on Friday evening. I went to bed early that night because I had nothing more to say to Androssoff. I could hear him and Nicky bonding before a wild-life DVD, and felt as though I’d been sidelined. Nicky came in to kiss me good night.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mummy?’

  ‘Nothing sweetheart, just my headache.’

  ‘Can you give Mummy some pills to make her better, Dad?’

  ‘Maybe she needs some pills to help her sleep.’

  ‘Will you take me to Kindergarten if she isn’t better?’

  ‘I’ve got to go to work, Nick. Your mother will be better in the morning. She’ll look after you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, sweetheart. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Promise?’

 
‘Pinky promise.’ I extended my little finger.

  ‘Have you brushed your teeth?’

  ‘We’re getting round to that,’ Androssoff said.

  I heard him put Nicky to bed and go into the salon to watch a satellite broadcast of Top Gear. He watched it in case they featured motorbikes, and because Jeremy Clarkson made him laugh – not because he thought Clarkson was witty or funny, but because he was so unbelievably crass. I didn’t let Nicky watch it because of the cruel teasing and silly pranks. It may have been a big boys’ thing, but Nicky wasn’t a big boy yet. I hoped he never would be. I hoped he wouldn’t ever ride a Harley-D.

  I pretended to be asleep when Androssoff came back into our room I could feel him gazing at me before he took off his clothes and got in beside me. There was a spare room in the apartment with a sofa-bed but the access to it was cluttered up with boxes, still unpacked since being shipped over from New Zealand. It would disturb Nicky if I sent Androssoff in there to shove it all around. I could have banished him to the sofa in the salon, but Nicky was sure to get up before he did and ask why he was sleeping there. I hadn’t the courage to explain to him. He wanted mummy and daddy to be OK.

  I slid as close to the edge of the bed as I could without risking falling out and banging my head on the night table.

  ‘Are you awake, Louise?’

  I ignored him. God knows why, but I wanted to burst out laughing – a hysterical impulse, no doubt.

  ‘Louise?’

  His phone alarm went off at seven. He reached for it, grouching, and cancelled it. I felt him leaning over me. If he touched me, I thought, I would kick him, but he didn’t. I heard him go out of the room. The shower ran and then he went into the kitchen. His flight left at quarter to nine, but he had priority boarding

  ‘Louise ...’ he whispered. ‘Louise. I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’

  I still said nothing.

  ‘I know you’re awake. I’ll be gone soon. Don’t spend the rest of the day chucking your toys out of the playpen. Kiss Nick for me and tell him I’ll see him on Friday.’

  ‘Not if I see you first,’ I muttered.