‘Do you know the man who stabbed him? Or where to find this murderer?’
‘No.’
‘Then forget it. He’s just one of many dying on the streets of Junchow.’
‘That is harsh.’
‘These are harsh times.’
She knew he was right, but everything in her cried out against it. ‘It was for my coat. He wanted my coat. Tan Wah is dead for just a stupid hateful bloody coat…’
She threw off the eiderdown and leaped to her feet, tearing at the buttons of her Christmas coat, shaking the foul thing off her shoulders and hurling it to the floor. Alexei Serov rose, picked up the blue coat and very deliberately draped it over the chair he had been sitting in. Then he walked over to the small sink beside the stove and returned with an enamel bowl of water and a washcloth.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Wash your face.’
‘What?’
‘Your face.’ He put the wet cloth in her hand. ‘I must go now, but only if you’re sure you’re…’
Lydia gasped. She had moved over to the mirror on the wall by the door and looked at herself. It was a shock. No wonder he had stared at her oddly. Her skin was paper white except for a fine smattering of blood spray all over her face and neck like dark brown freckles. One cheek was swollen where the American had slapped her, and there was a long scratch just in front of her left ear, most likely from the dash through the undergrowth in the woods. But worse was her hair. One whole side of it was stiff with dried blood. Tan Wah’s blood.
She didn’t look at her eyes. She was frightened what she might see there.
Quickly she wiped the cloth over her face, then hurried over to the sink and stuck her head under the tap. The water was ice cold but immediately she felt better. Cleaner. Inside. When she stood up she expected Alexei Serov to be gone, but he was standing behind her holding a towel. She rubbed her hair and her skin with it, fiercely, as if she could rub the images from her mind, but when she dragged a brush through her hair so roughly it snapped the handle, she made herself stop. Took a breath. Forced a laugh. It wasn’t much of a laugh.
‘Thank you, Alexei Serov. You have been kind.’
For the first time he seemed awkward and ill-suited to the room as he clicked his heels and dipped his head in a formal bow. ‘I am pleased to assist.’ He marched over to the door and opened it. ‘I wish you a rapid recovery from your ordeal today.’
‘Tell me one thing.’
He waited. His green eyes grew wary.
‘Why do you have Kuomintang soldiers at your beck and call?’
‘I work with them.’
‘Oh.’
‘I am a military adviser. Trained in Japan.’
‘I see.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then good-bye, Lydia Ivanova.’
‘Spasibo do svidania, Alexei Serov. Thank you and good-bye.’
He nodded and left.
Before his footsteps had faded on the stairs there was a sharp exclamation on the lower landing. It was her mother’s voice. After a brief torrent of Russian that Lydia couldn’t catch, Valentina burst into the attic room.
‘Lydia, I don’t ever want to see that Russian here again, do you hear me? Never. I forbid it. Are you listening? Damn, it’s cold in this wretched room. I absolutely will not have that hateful family anywhere near… Lydia, I am talking to you.’
But Lydia had taken her eiderdown and curled up inside it on her bed. She closed her eyes and shut out the world.
Chang An Lo. I am sorry.
It was the middle of the night. Lydia was staring up into the darkness. A pain in her temples was thudding in rhythm with her heartbeat. She had worked it out. For Chang to send Tan Wah to Lizard Creek, he must be ill. Or wounded. It was the only explanation. Otherwise he would have come himself. She was sure of it. Sure as she was of her own life. And now because of her, Tan Wah was dead, which meant she had put Chang in greater danger. Without Tan Wah, Chang An Lo might die. Her throat ached with unshed tears.
‘Lydia?’
‘Yes, Mama?’
‘Tell me, dochenka, do you think I am a bad mother?’
The attic room was as dark as death except for a thin slice of moonlight that drew a silver line down the centre of the curtain that formed Lydia’s bedroom wall. Her mother had drunk steadily all evening and had been muttering to herself in her own bed for some time, never a good sign.
‘What is bad, Mama?’
‘Don’t be foolish. You know perfectly well what bad means.’
Lydia made the effort to talk. This would be their last night together in this room. ‘You have never cooked me plum pie. Nor sewn up holes in my clothes. Or bothered whether I brushed my teeth. Does that make you bad?’
‘No.’
‘Of course not. So there’s your answer.’
A wind rattled the window. To Lydia it sounded like Chang’s fingers on the pane. The noise of a distant car engine grew louder, then faded.
‘Tell me what I have done right, dochenka.’
Lydia chose her words with care. ‘You kept me. Though you could have abandoned me at any time in St Mary’s Children’s Mission. You’d have been free. To do whatever you wanted.’
Silence.
‘And you’ve given me music, all my life there’s been music. Oh Mama, you’ve given me kisses. And colourful scarves. And shown me how to use the tongue in my head, even if I’ve driven you crazy with it. Yes, you did,’ she insisted. ‘You taught me to think for myself and, best of all, you let me make my own mistakes.’
A cloud passed over the moon and the sliver of light died in the room.
Valentina still said nothing.
‘Mama, now it’s your turn. Tell me what I have done right.’ There was the sound of a deep intake of breath from the other end of the room and a low moan. It took a whole minute before Valentina spoke.
‘Just your being alive is right. It is everything.’
Her mother’s words seemed to burn up the darkness and set fire to something inside Lydia’s head. She shut her eyes.
‘Now go to sleep, dochenka. We have a big day tomorrow.’
But an hour later Valentina’s voice came again whispering through the darkness. ‘Be happy for me, darling.’
‘Happiness is hard.’
‘I know.’
Lydia pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes to scrub away the pictures of Chang, alone and sick, behind her eyelids. Happiness she could get by without. But she was determined to hold on to hope.
32
Achingly beautiful.
That’s how Theo thought Junchow looked this morning. It had snowed overnight and now the town dazzled. Its drab grey roofs had been transformed into sparkling white slopes with curling eaves like sledges, eager to slip and slide away. Even the solid British mansions were no more than fragile icing. The light from the sky was a strange muted pink that made everything glitter, including the school courtyard below, where the perfect imprint of the paw marks of a night creature trailed through the snow from one end to the other.
‘You go now, Tiyo, or you be late.’
Reluctantly he abandoned the window. Li Mei was standing behind him in a virginal white gown. A snowflake. He took her in his arms and kissed her soft lips but released her when he saw liquid trickle down her cheek. She was melting. He took the top hat she was holding in her hands. It was seal grey and appeared ridiculous to him. He was wearing a morning coat with absurd tails and a stiff white collar. Li Mei touched his cheek, smelled the flower in his lapel, and straightened the hat on his head.
‘You look very fine, Tiyo, my love.’
‘A very fine idiot,’ he laughed.
She laughed with him.
‘Come with me,’ he said.
‘No, my love.’
‘Why?’
‘It would not be fitting.’
‘Bugger fitting.’