Page 67 of The Half Life of Valery K

Tatiana looked at Valery. ‘We can stay, right?’

‘Yes. I didn’t make that up for you,’ Valery said, nodding at the record sheet. ‘I’m terrible at drawing. If you don’t do it then it won’t get done.’

She beamed.

Some of the tightness eased from Shenkov’s shoulders, but not much. ‘You said a while ago – or I think you did, I was busy ignoring you … you said radiation could cause allergies. She’s allergic to everything. She’s ill all the time, she bruises like …’

‘I’m normal, Dad, you’re just hysterical.’ She looked at Valery. ‘The other doctors said that.’

Across from them, Shenkov folded his arms as if she’d pelted him with spilled plutonium.

Valery wondered which poor, scared doctor had had to look at their monthly quota for the diagnosis of radiation-related problems, look Shenkov right in the eye, and promise all was well. ‘Want to see your own blood under that microscope?’

She stuck her arm out, watched him take the blood sample, and then peeped into the microscope with him when he put a dot of it under a slide. ‘It’s moving.’

Valery had to force himself to smile, because he could see what was happening to her, even just in those cells. ‘Yes, it’s supposed to, don’t worry. That means you’re alive.’

‘Can I do you?’

‘Yes. Look, new syringe, and then …’ He showed her how to do it, and how to use the sample slide, and how to put it under the microscope. While Tatiana was drawing red blood cells, Valery nodded at Dr Resovskaya’s empty office. ‘Your dad and I are just going to get a cup of tea, do you want anything?’

‘I’m more of a coffee person,’ she said.

‘Okay.’

When they shut the office door, Shenkov put his back against it. ‘She doesn’t really like coffee, she’s just heard Anna say that, and …’

‘No, I know,’ Valery said over him, because it would have been cruel to make him speak more than necessary now. ‘It’s leukaemia. It’s a bone disorder. Bone marrow is where we generate white blood cells, which fight infection, but her marrow is generating too many white cells, too quickly; they’re not mature, so they can’t fight. Hence all the colds and the allergies.’

What was left of Shenkov’s calm fissured. ‘You can tell that just from one dot of blood on a slide? In two minutes?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve spent – years trying to get the doctors in town to look at her properly. They just say she’s …’ He couldn’t finish.

‘No. They have those quotas.’ Valery remembered why they were supposed to be there and put the kettle on. ‘Listen. I’m not a medical doctor, I can’t prescribe anything, but the quota cut-off is the fifteenth and it’s only the thirteenth today. I’ll give you the blood sample and the analysis to show the doctor here, and she’ll do the referral to Chelyabinsk. Leukaemia isn’t curable, but it is treatable.’

Shenkov was watching a flock of ducks fly across the black lake. ‘Is it this place?’

‘Leukaemia can be genetic, so perhaps not. But it is a known complication of radiation exposure. Foetal DNA is particularly affected. She was the baby Anna was pregnant with, when … ?’

‘That Christmas.’ Shenkov looked past him, at the window that faced into the lab. Tatiana was working on the slides still. ‘How long does she have? Just – be honest, please, don’t …’

Valery almost smiled, because usually if he had to give an ill person a life expectancy, it was measured in weeks. He was brilliant at it. He had never been hesitant about telling people they wouldn’t see Christmas. Dr Fischer had once pointed out, looking shocked, that maybe it wasn’t very good to tell a person dying of acute radiation sickness that she should probably do her best to enjoy Halloween.

‘About five years, I think, if we can keep her healthy.’

A long, long quiet. Through the glass, Valery could hear the squeak of the pencils as Tatiana coloured in, pressing too hard. Shenkov looked so absent from himself that Valery thought he might collapse. He moved a chair and put him in it.

‘Come and look at my drawing!’ Tatiana called.

Shenkov looked up and afraid. ‘She’s going to ask—’

‘It’s okay, I’ll talk to her. Do you want me to tell her, or stall?’

Shenkov didn’t say anything.

Valery bent a little to find his eyes again. ‘Did you hear me?’