‘Not that you weren’t always sexy. The years have dealt kindly with you.’ He had laid the kitchen table with cutlery and a bowl of salad and beckoned her to take her place.

‘Thank you. I’ve been lucky.’

He put a dish of spaghetti bolognese on the table and stuck two serving spoons in it, then sat down opposite her. ‘Help yourself.’

‘This is unreal,’ she said. She had no appetite, but as he had taken the trouble to cook for her, she put a small helping on her plate. ‘I can’t believe it. There was I seeing Robert off, thinking about the party my son wants to have and wondering whether letting him organise it himself might end in disaster, forgetting to fill the car with petrol before setting off, forgetting it was Sunday and half the shops would be shut, and then taking a wrong turn on a road I know like the back of my hand and here you are. It’s as if you were waiting for me.’

‘Perhaps I was,’ he said softly.

‘Tell me what happened to you,’ she said. ‘Everything. What were you doing in Minsk? Why did everyone say you were dead?’

‘I was looking for Yuri, among other things.’

‘Oh. Papa tried to find out where he was as soon as the war ended, but it had been too long. He said orphanages often changed children’s names when they took them in, always supposing they knew Yuri’s name in the first place. He couldn’t tell them, could he?’

‘No.’ He paused. Should he or shouldn’t he tell her? He had given no undertaking to Robert not to tell her himself. ‘I’m truly sorry.’

‘Not your fault. Go on. You were in Minsk. Then what?’

He told her while the food grew cold on their plates. He told her about the heroism of the ordinary Russian soldier in spite of the incompetence of most of their superiors; he told her of the German advance and being a prisoner in a concentration camp, of his life with Else in Germany and the betrayal that led to his years in Siberia. He spared her the more gruesome details, but what he did tell her was horrific enough to shock her, and he left out his visit to Kirilhor and ended with his escape from Germany and eventual return to England.

‘All that time,’ she said. ‘All that suffering and here was I safe in my own little corner of England. The war we experienced here was nothing compared to that, nor the austerity that followed. The only thing I had to be sad about was leaving you and Yuri in Russia, and that broke my heart, and then the loss of my mother and then my father.’ She paused. ‘It was you in the churchyard, wasn’t it? On the day of Papa’s funeral.’

‘Yes, I saw the notice of his death in the newspaper and wanted to pay my respects.’

‘I thought I’d seen a ghost.’

‘I’m sorry if I upset you, especially at that sad time. I didn’t mean you to see me.’

‘Why not? Why didn’t you join us? Why just creep away?’

‘I would have been out of place. And turning up suddenly would have distracted everyone from the purpose of the day, to mourn a truly good man.’

‘You could have written.’

‘I did consider it, but as I said, I had – have – no place in your life, not anymore.’

‘Alex, how can you say that? We have found each other again…’

‘Does that make a difference?’

‘You know it does.’

‘No, I don’t know. You tell me.’

She watched him filling a percolator, spooning coffee into the top if it and putting it on the stove. Then he took two mugs from a shelf, sugar from a cupboard and milk from the fridge. His movements were deliberate, controlled. He did not seem to be nearly as churned up as she was. ‘I thought you were dead and I learnt to live with that. I had to. I married Robert…’

‘Are you saying you would not have done that if you had known I was alive?’

‘I don’t know. I thought I loved him. I did love him.’ She told him about that journey from Murmansk and how good Robert had been to her, about Bobby and Tatty and how happy she had always been at Upstone Hall, though he knew that already. She told him about Margaret’s dreadful death and Sir Edward’s stroke and how Robert had supported her through it all.

‘Nothing has changed, Lidushka,’ he said gently.

She looked into his eyes, trying to read what was in them. There was evidence of deep suffering, of a stoicism she could never emulate. ‘Do you mean you are going to see me off and retreat into your own little world again, while I go to mine, and that’s the end of it?’

He poured out two mugs of coffee, added a little milk to each and put one in front of her, pushing the sugar bowl towards her. ‘It’s what ought to happen.’

She shook her head, not only to indicate she didn’t want the sugar, but in an effort to clear her brain, to think straight. ‘I can’t, Alex, nor can I believe that’s what you want. Have your experiences made you so cold you are unable to feel anymore? Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘No, it is not what I’m telling you.’ He took her hand and hauled her to her feet so that she was facing him, standing so close his warmth surrounded her like a comforting blanket. He put her hand over his heart and held it there. She felt it beating, a little erratically but nonetheless strongly. ‘Do you think that belongs to a man unable to feel?’

‘No.’

‘It was thinking of you that kept it going when other men succumbed to the conditions. When I was cold and hungry and exhausted, reduced to little more than a skeleton, that heart beat for you. It still does…’

‘Oh, Alex!’ She flung herself into his arms. ‘Tell me I’m not dreaming and I won’t wake up any moment and find myself in bed in Upstone Hall.’

‘If you are dreaming, then so am I,’ he said and kissed her gently on her closed lips. ‘And a pleasant dream it is, one I’ve had many and many a time.’

‘Then you won’t send me away, will you? Not yet.’

‘I won’t send you away.’ He kissed her forehead, then her cheeks one by one and then her lips. The pressure of his mouth on hers was exquisite torture and she clung to him, kissing him back all over his face. He could not stand against that onslaught.

He took her hand and almost ran with her up the stairs to his bed, where they made love in a frenzy of reawakened passion. It was glorious and frightening in its strength. Nothing could have stopped it. And when it was over, she slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted.


He lay beside her, his head propped on one arm and looked down at her. Their meeting and its likely consequence had an inevitability about it, for which fate, chance, destiny, call it what you will, had been responsible, not he. He had been living and working, going about his daily life half-alive, knowing there was something missing but unable to do anything about it. And when she turned up on his doorstep, he had not even been surprised. In spite of the years, she was still beautiful, still the lovely girl of twenty-one he had fallen in love with, but more than that, her maturity had brought out more of the woman. Her figure was slightly thicker, her hair was less luxuriant; there was even a grey hair or two, but she could still make love with the unbridled passion of youth. He would not have given back a moment of that for a king’s ransom.

She stirred, opened her eyes sleepily and reached out for him again. This time their lovemaking was slower, more relaxed, tender and yet still passionate. Guilt did not come into it, nor thoughts of the future. This was here and now and they were as much in love as ever they had been. His eyes had come alive again in the last few hours. He was more like the Alex she had known. But it had to end, if only because they were hungry and thirsty and it was growing dusk. He padded, naked, to the bathroom. She watched him go. How thin he was; there was hardly enough flesh on him to cover his ribs. But the muscles of his arms and thighs were strong; a man used to hard, physical work. Oh, how she loved him!

She did not think of Robert and home until they were once more in the kitchen and she was wearing her own clothes again and he had dressed in jeans and jumper. He had made fresh coffee and they sat opposite each other to drink it.

‘What now?’ she asked, holding her mug in both hands.

‘It’s up to you. Will you tell Robert?’

‘Do you think I should?’

‘That’s for you to decide, but I’d say no, not unless you intend to leave him.’

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. It would break his heart. And there’s the children…’

‘Then you know the answer.’

‘I suppose so.’ There was hopelessness in her voice. ‘I hate secrets and I can’t bear the thought of deceiving him, but neither can I bear saying goodbye to you again…’

‘Then we won’t say goodbye. You know where I am now. If you need me, I am here. I’ll give you my phone number, but you don’t need to ring. Just turn up.’

They both stood up, facing each other. She looked up into his face, wondering if he might persuade her to stay, but he said nothing. ‘Too late to go to Norwich now,’ she said in an effort to bring herself back to the real world. ‘I’ll have to go another day.’

‘You know the way back?’

She didn’t think he was asking if she knew the way home, but if she could find her way to the cottage again. ‘Yes.’

He accompanied her out to her car which stood in the yard. The gate was open ready for her to drive straight out. ‘Safe journey,’ he said, as she settled in her seat and switched on the engine. It sprang into life, almost drowning his softly spoken words. ‘I love you.’

She could hardly see to drive for the tears that filled her eyes. Impatiently she rubbed them away and resolutely set course for home. In the rear-view mirror she saw him watching her go, a lonely, rather gaunt figure with one hand raised in farewell. Alex.