‘I had a sandwich at Dover. Terrible crossing it was. And then to find you not at home was the last straw. The janitor said you were expected back this evening, so I’ve been sitting in the café round the corner waiting for you to put in an appearance.’
‘Serves you right for not letting me know.’ She led the way into the kitchen. ‘I’ll see what I can rustle up.’
‘No servants?’
‘Not here. There is no need. I am perfectly capable of producing a simple meal. Or we could go out to eat.’
‘No, let’s stay in.’
So she made them omelettes and opened a bottle of wine and they sat over it talking into the small hours, when it became too late for him to find a hotel. She made a bed up for him in the spare room. Whether that was what he had in mind, she did not allow herself to conjecture.
Kolya had made no arrangements about where he was going to stay, something she realised was typical of him. He seemed not to consider what the morrow might bring and took it for granted she would continue to house him. It was part of his charm and she was charmed. She had no idea what he did when she was at work, nor how he supported himself. Sometimes he was in funds and would take her out for a meal and a show and buy her costly presents, at other times he professed to be broke and borrowed off her. She supposed it was all to do with selling his poetry and, as money had never been an issue in her life, she did not mind it.
He had a great sense of fun and laughed a lot and swore he loved her to distraction, though she would not allow him to do anything more than kiss her. Even that was enough to set her pulse racing. She had been brought up to believe sex was for after you were married and had always held off any too amorous advances by the young men she knew. It had not been difficult because none had roused her to anything like passion. Her feelings for Kolya were different and entirely new to her and she was not sure how to deal with them. She wondered if she might be falling in love with him. She certainly said nothing to her parents and Kolya always managed to be absent on the few occasions when Sir Edward paid a visit. Her friends, to whom she introduced him, assumed they were living together. She had a feeling that it might end up that way, or he would tire of her continual refusal to let him make love to her and take himself off. Would she overcome her scruples to keep him or let him go? As the question had not yet arisen she let it lie.
The Civil War still raged in Spain and many of her friends were discussing joining the mercenaries, but Kolya, who had become part of the group, was against going himself. ‘Their cause is not our cause,’ he said, referring to himself and Lydia. ‘Our cause is in Russia.’
Stalin’s purge of those who opposed him in a great wave of show trials was reported in the papers Lydia translated. They were accused of being members of counter-revolutionary groups, or of acts designed to overthrow, undermine or weaken the authority of the workers’ and peasants’ soviets. She was shocked by the numbers, but as they had all confessed, she had no way of knowing how guilty they really were. She discussed it with Kolya, one warm evening in June when they were sitting on the balcony listening to a concert on the wireless. Below them the hum of traffic and the distant barking of a dog served as a backdrop.
‘Whether they are guilty or not is neither here nor there,’ he said. ‘It’s Stalin’s way of eliminating opposition. People who were once in favour are now not to be tolerated.’
‘Does it mean that those who executed my parents are themselves being executed?’
‘Possibly, but how can you be sure they were executed?’ he countered. ‘Have you ever been given proof?’
‘No, but Papa asked a Russian friend to make enquiries and he had access to information other people didn’t and he told us they had been shot.’
‘He might have been misinformed.’
She had never thought of that. ‘But if my parents had not died, they would have tried to trace me.’
‘How do you know they did not? They might be alive and believing you dead. Have you ever considered that?’
‘No.’ She was shocked. ‘Do you think it’s possible?’
‘The situation in 1920 was so confused it easily could be. After all, there are still stories going round that some of the tsar’s family survived, and if them, why not yours? They might have been sent to prison and not executed, and in that case they might have served their term and been released.’
She was thoughtful. Was that the reason for the slight uneasiness with her life? Was that why she had a feeling of incompleteness, as if she ought to be doing something, a kind of sin of omission? Was Kolya putting into words something that had been simmering in the back of her mind for years? ‘How can I find out for sure? Would the Russian authorities tell me?’
‘I doubt it. And if the count and countess are living incognito somewhere, they would not thank you for drawing attention to them, would they?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘So where would they go, if they were free?’
‘I don’t know. Probably Kirilhor. It was the last place we were all together, but it was such a long time ago and they would have been told what happened to me and Andrei.’
‘Not necessarily. Ivan Ivanovich might not have made it back to Kirilhor and he was the only one in Russia who knew you had escaped.’
‘I never thought of that.’
‘Had it ever occurred to you, sweetheart, that Sir Edward might have lied to you, taken advantage of the situation to get him a child, knowing his wife could never have one?’
‘No, of course not,’ she said hotly. ‘If they’d wanted to adopt a child, they could have had an English child through a proper adoption society. Why take a little Russian waif who was so shocked she could not speak?’
‘All the better. She wouldn’t have kicked up a fuss when he took her, especially if he told her he was taking her to be reunited with her parents.’
‘Kolya, that is a shocking thing to say.’ She was indignant, but she did remember everyone at the time – Ivan Ivanovich, Tonya’s father, Alex’s father and Sir Edward – saying just that. ‘Papa is an honourable man, he would never do such a thing.’
‘Papa! Papa!’ he mocked. ‘You have truly been indoctrinated, haven’t you? Sir Edward is not your father. Alive or dead, your father is in Russia and the only way to find out what happened to him is to go to Russia yourself.’
She laughed a little shakily because he was undermining all she had grown up to believe and it was an uncomfortable feeling. ‘They’d never let me in. I am, or was, Lydia Kirillova, the daughter of a count.’ It was the first time she had thought of herself in that way for years, not since becoming Lydia Stoneleigh. Perhaps she had been too complacent about it. Perhaps she should have remembered that more often.
‘I don’t see why not. You’ve got a British name and a British passport, haven’t you?’
‘You are joking,’ she said, laughing.
‘Perhaps, perhaps not. We could go as tourists. It might be fun.’
‘We?’
‘I couldn’t let you go alone and I wouldn’t mind seeing what the Bolsheviks have done to poor Mother Russia. So, what do you say?’
‘Kolya, it’s impossible. Tourists are escorted everywhere and have to have their itinerary vetted. It would be the sights of Moscow and Leningrad and then only what they want you to see.’
‘I know, but we could give our minders the slip and take a train to Kirilhor, couldn’t we?’
She stared at him. ‘You mean it, don’t you?’