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