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He had no idea how to respond to this, so employed his silence tactic.
‘I took a really big one.’
He frowned. ‘A…doubloon?’ He had pirates on the brain.
‘And then we get to wear our own clothes for the day.’
‘Uh huh. So, let me just get this straight. I pay an exorbitant amount of money every year for your school fees, mostly, as far as I can see, for your uniform and not for any useful education you actually receive, and then I pay again for you tonotwear that uniform.’
She didn’t reply, which was a feature of a lot of their conversations, he reflected. She just stuck her legs out in much the same position as his were under the cover and regarded her trousers for a while, twisting her feet a little to see them from all angles.
‘Do you like them? Sarah says they’re hand embroiled.’
Aleksey thought about this for a moment. He sensed something wrong, but couldn’t say why. He wasn’t about to debate language with a three year old, however.
‘Flowers, yes. I know a lot about flowers.’
She looked like a miniature hippy with her flares, flower-power theme, and wild, tangled black hair. As he stroked his fingers through these silky strands, he had a sudden flashback to a summer holiday in Denmark. Nikolas had wanted to learn to play the guitar and dress like people in a Swedish band he was obsessed with. All filthy hippies as far as Aleksey could remember. He’d had no intention of wearing flares or headbands, or flowers come to that, but he’d also had no intention of being left behind or left out if a rare shopping trip was in the offering. When his twin had come to him many years later in Russia and told him of their grandfather’s legacy, the money that they had inherited, Aleksey had been genuinely shocked. He’d been wealthy through Sergei of course, and had lived, give or take a few less salubrious years in Siberia, the life of a pampered prince since coming to Russia, but in Denmark? He remembered being hungry all the time, cold seas, frozen beaches, unheated villas, madness, music, and passion. Money, not so much. So, Nika wanting new clothes might have led to something nice being bought for him too.
Nina, however, had snapped she wouldn’t have a son of hers dressing like a pansy, and that was that. Aleksey had felt Nika’s pain like a stab to his own heart, although he had not told him this. Instead, he’d let him wear the armour he was making out of old tin cans and allowed him to carry the sword and be the knight for once. Usually, he made him be the peasant.
‘Did you like flowers when you were three?’
‘Flowers weren’t invented then.’
‘Did you have clothes?’
‘Only those we made from skins. Who bought those trousers for you?’ Ben tended to buy his daughter clothes she could have competed in the Moab 240 Endurance run in. Sarah picked the occasional thing out of one of her church jumble sales, and Babushka’s offerings were always hand-knitted. This clearly expensive garment didn’t seem to fit.
He’d had the strangest notion that somehow Tim Watson might have gotten over-enthusiastic with some fabric samples.
‘Grandmother. Because I’m a good girl.’
Aleksey’s blood ran cold, a literal trickle of ice down his spine. His hand stilled, one ringlet still spiralling around his finger. He swallowed and controlled his voice. ‘Your grandmother? Gave you…? How did you know it was…? What did she…look like?’
Molly twisted her face around to regard him, something in his voice possibly breaking through her habitual papa-bullshit force field. ‘Like she always does. Why?’
Always. ‘How many times have you seen her,Moye Solnyshko?’
She screwed up her nose, clearly thinking hard and informed him knowledgably, ‘I don’t know.’
Aleksey bit his lip and glanced to the armchair by the window where Nina occasionally visited him.
‘Radulf doesn’t like her.’
‘What?’
‘Raddybum. He won’t go near her, and he growls. Not out loud, but like you do—inside where you think no one can hear you.’
‘Radulf…senses her too? Hears her?’
‘No, silly, he sees her. He says he can see just fine but not to tell you or daddy because PB might be taken away from him then.’
Normally, this would have been an interesting topic of conversation for Aleksey, something they could argue nicely over until one or other of them would come up with a splendid experiment to test their beliefs, which would then see Radulf engaged in tasks and challenges he could probably have done without. But he was more focused on the other things she had said.
‘Sarah will have your tea ready for you. Tell daddy that I want to see him as you go.’
She slipped out from under his arm and crawled off the bed.
