The Russian Concubine

44

‘Do you know what the penalty is for harbouring a known fugitive? ’

‘Just one minute, what reason do you have for thinking he is a fugitive? He is a friend of mine who is wounded and needs help, that’s all.’

‘In a shed?’ Alexei Serov’s tone was sceptical.

‘I really don’t see that this is any business of yours,’ she said crossly.

They were standing in the middle of the drawing room, but she didn’t want to discuss things. She wanted him to leave. She had not invited him to sit, nor offered to take his immaculate grey overcoat and silk scarf.

‘Anyway, what were you doing snooping around my shed?’ Even as she said it, she had a feeling she could have put that better.

‘Snooping? Miss Ivanova, I regard that as an insult.’ He drew his shoulders back stiffly. His short hair bristled. ‘I called at your front door and it was your servant who informed me that you were in the shed with your rabbit. He was the one who suggested I go down there.’

Wai, the cook. Damn the lazy fool.

‘Then I apologise. I meant no insult. I just feel that you…’

‘Intruded?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at her with a cool questioning gaze and came a step closer, his hand tapping impatiently on the lapel of his coat. He spoke in a low voice. ‘I think you are taking a big risk. Yet again. These are violent times, Miss Ivanova, and you should take great care. The bombs that explode, the intrigues that cut the ground from under any agreements, the dangers to someone who doesn’t know what they are involved in – these are things you know nothing about. People get killed every day for doing less than you are doing.’

Some of her confidence evaporated, and it must have shown on her face because he said more pleasantly, ‘It’s all right, I don’t bite.’

She smiled and made it look easy. ‘Thank you for your advice, but it is of no concern to me.’

‘What are you saying?’

He knew damn well what she was saying. ‘That it’s all nothing to do with me. Of course I hear of what is going on here in Junchow, but…’

‘But you’re not involved?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘And that man in your shed is not a Communist?’

‘No.’

He laughed, tipped his head back, and made a soft mocking sound, blowing out air between his white teeth. ‘You are not a very good liar, Miss Ivanova.’

She was stung. She’d always been a bloody good liar.

‘What I’d like to know,’ she said curtly, ‘is what brought you over here in the first place. Why have you called on me?’

‘Ah yes.’ He tilted his head in a polite bow, reached into his coat pocket, and brought out a card. He held it out to her. ‘From my own dear mama, Countess Serova.’

Lydia accepted the card. It was ivory tinted, very thick, and embossed with a gold coat of arms at the top, an eagle with wings spread wide over a quartered shield. It wasn’t hard to guess that it was the Serov family crest. On the card was an invitation to an evening of dance and entertainment at the Serov villa on Rue Lamarque on Monday at eight.

Monday? Monday was an age away. Much too far ahead to think about. First she had to get herself and Chang An Lo through this weekend.

‘Just to make it official,’ he said amiably. But with that superior smile again.

‘Thank you. I shall think about it, but I’m not sure of my plans for next week until my mother returns tomorrow.’

A ripple of surprise crossed his face, as if he were not used to Serov invitations being refused, but he hid it smoothly. ‘Of course. I understand.’

She walked him to the front door. When he strode out onto the drive the wind snatched at his scarf, but he ignored it and turned back to face her. His green eyes met hers, and for a long moment he considered her in silence. ‘Don’t forget my advice, Miss Ivanova,’ was all he said at last.

But it was a step too far. ‘Alexei Serov, why don’t you just look after your own life and leave me to take care of mine?’

She shut the door. All things considered, that hadn’t gone very well.

‘Darling, surprise!’

Lydia froze. She was in her bedroom. She had just hurried upstairs to fetch an extra sweater before going down to the shed to tell Chang An Lo how things had gone with Alexei Serov.

‘Lydia, we’re home.’

‘Mama.’ She ran down the stairs.

They were in the hallway, surrounded by luggage and packages. Shaking off their coats, laughing and stamping their cold feet, stirring up the air, and filling the house that had been so silent all week with noise and bustle. Bringing in the outside world.

‘Darling.’ Her mother opened her arms wide and Lydia ran into them.

Something happened and Lydia was totally unprepared for it. Valentina wrapped her arms so tightly around Lydia it was as though she intended never to let go, and her elegant figure gave way to a deep tremor as she kissed her daughter’s cheek. Suddenly Lydia’s throat hurt, so much it felt like fishhooks caught there.

‘Did you miss me, darling?’

‘Oh really, have you been away? I didn’t even notice.’

‘You wicked child.’ Valentina laughed and squeezed Lydia hard.

Alfred came over and patted Lydia awkwardly on the back. ‘Good to see you looking well, my dear. But where is Deng?’

‘The houseboy?’ Still she held her mother. Drew the scent of her perfume deep into her lungs. ‘I gave him the week off.’

‘Why on earth…? Ah well, never mind. I’ll take the cases up myself. Good exercise anyway.’

She heard his footsteps tread heavily up the stairs, and she felt her mother’s quick breath on her ear.

‘Lydia,’ was all Valentina said. ‘Lydia.’

‘Mama.’

They stood alone in the hall. Neither willing to release the other.

‘You’d have loved it, Lydia.’ Alfred was beaming at her and took a contented puff on his pipe, sending blue smoke coiling to the ceiling.

Lydia preferred the aromatic scent of the tobacco to the harsh smell of her mother’s cigarettes. They were all seated in the drawing room after an excellent meal of fillet of pork followed by pineapple syllabub. Wai was showing off his wider menu now that his master had returned. Alfred had lit the fire in the drawing room, as there was no houseboy to do it for him, whistling the whole time, and Lydia noticed a marked change in him. No more nervous foot-shuffling silences. Lots of sounds coming from him. Humming or whistling or talking. As if the happiness inside kept flowing out of him in noise.

‘One day, Lydia,’ Alfred said as he tossed a match into the glowing coals, ‘I will take you to the Yungang cave temples as well. You must see for yourself how astonishing they are and what wonderful building skills the Chinese possessed nearly two thousand years ago. Good Lord, in England we have nothing to compare with them. Quite remarkable.’

‘I’d like that.’

‘Oh dochenka, you really must see the seated Buddha. It’s amazing. Sixty feet high and cut into a yellow cliff. I’ve never seen such a huge man.’ Valentina laughed and glanced teasingly at Alfred on the chesterfield beside her.

The radio was playing softly in the background, some new kind of syncopated jazz, and Alfred was humming again. Lydia was sipping a tumbler of lime juice with a handful of ice in it and trying hard to make conversation, but her mind was outside in the cold.

The hot-water bottle needed heating again. The poultices on the burns needed changing. The next dose of herb tea was overdue and…

‘Darling, do listen. You look as if you’re miles away. I was telling you about the system they have for their temples and tombs and things. It’s called feng shui. They’ve used it for more than two thousand years. It’s supposed to make sure the sites are… Oh, what was that word they used, my angel?’

‘Propitious?’ Alfred offered.

‘That’s it, propitiously sited.’

Valentina was very animated. She seemed to have shed the cloak of cultivated indifference she used to carry around with her and taken on an enthusiasm for everything. Lydia found it quite odd. She couldn’t decide whether it was something released from the inside or stuck on from the outside. But Alfred was clearly entranced.

‘I know about feng shui, Mama. The trouble is that the Europeans haven’t taken any notice of it at all. We drive railroads through their spiritual places, and missionaries build churches that throw shadows on ancient Chinese ancestral graveyards, disturbing their dead. Don’t laugh, Mama. It really matters to them. And they believe our church spires pierce the skies with their sharp points and prevent the good spirits returning to earth. Feng shui means wind and water.’

‘Does it? How clever of you, darling. Don’t I have a clever daughter, Alfred?’

‘Yes, very clever.’ He beamed at Lydia again.

But she knew that if Valentina had asked him if her daughter was bright green with pink spots he’d have said yes just as willingly. Lydia chose her moment. She stretched casually and stood up.

‘It’s good to have you home again but I think I’ll go to bed now, if you don’t mind.’

‘So soon?’

‘Mmm, I’m sleepy.’ She smiled at her stepfather. ‘It’s the heat from this wonderful fire. I think I’ll just pop out and check on Sun Yat-sen before I go up, though. He’s still a bit nervous in his new home, so…’

‘I don’t think so, Lydia,’ Alfred said firmly. ‘I don’t want you wandering around out there in the dark.’

‘But there’s a moon. It’s not too dark.’

‘No, you go to bed now, my dear. Leave the rabbit till tomorrow morning.’ He smiled at her but his eyes were serious, and suddenly she remembered the deal she’d made with him in exchange for the two hundred dollars.

Her heart sank. She looked to her mother for help, but Valentina was at the cocktail cabinet pouring a glass of vodka for herself and a snifter of brandy for her husband.

‘Please, Alfred,’ Lydia said coaxingly.

‘Not tonight, dear. You trot up to bed now and leave the bally rabbit till morning. There’s a good girl. Sleep well.’

Lydia nodded. ‘Good night, Mama,’ she said and gave her a light kiss. Then she did the same to Alfred, avoiding his spectacles.

Upstairs she drew a big letter A on a sheet of paper and stuck pins in it.

They lay among the blankets on the dusty floor. Gently, soothingly, he stroked her nipple with his thumb. Together they watched the moon travel slowly across the skylight above them. Lydia yearned for it to be a full moon, a complete magical disk, so that they could wish on it but it was at least a week too early, its perfection marred by reality. Her head rested on his shoulder, their limbs so entwined she no longer knew where hers ended and his began. His skin a part of hers. Her breath a part of his.

‘Lydia.’

‘Mmm?’

They had been silent a long time, wrapped comfortably around each other. The crisp rectangle of translucent light that the moon shed over them turned their naked skin silver and made shadows leap from one face to the other as their lips brushed. Earlier they had made love and it had been different. Fiercer. Hungrier. As if their bodies knew time was running out. Lydia had waited impatiently in her room until she was certain her mother and Alfred must be asleep, and then she’d crept downstairs and sped across the grass. Frost made it crunch underfoot. Trees lurched at her with spiky elongated shadows, and a bat flitted low over her head as she turned the key in the padlock.

‘Are you all right?’ he’d asked immediately. He was standing to one side of the doorway, a blanket over his shoulders.

‘No. I’m not all right. Not remotely all right.’

He kissed her mouth.

‘My mother came home early, just as you said she might, and so I’ve been stuck up there in the house worried sick about you and what you must be thinking Alexei Serov will get up to. Damn the man. Why did he have to call? But honestly I don’t think he’ll betray us. He’s helped me once before. I know he can be a real supercilious bastard at times, but he’s not so bad underneath. The danger is that he might feel a strong duty to the Kuomintang and…’

‘Hush, hush, my love.’

His dark eyes searched hers and the expression in them made all the words tumble straight out of her head. He drew her into his arms, enveloped her in his blanket, and for the first time in hours she felt safe again. In the middle of a rickety old shed, freezing to death and with every possible thing going wrong. Yet she felt safe. And happy. She only had to look at him and she felt happy. And when she wasn’t with him, she only had to think of him and her limbs turned liquid with desire.

‘I must leave tomorrow,’ he said.

‘No.’

He kissed her hair and she could hear him breathing in deeply, preparing himself. She knew she should make it easy for him. Already she could feel that his body was starting to burn up again. The exertion of the day had been too much for his fragile state, but he hadn’t allowed her to nurse him tonight, just drank the herb concoction for the fever. She mustn’t make it harder. Mustn’t.

‘To leave you, Lydia, will tear my heart into a thousand pieces. But I can stay no longer. It is dangerous for you. I love you too much to risk that.’

She held him close. Said nothing. She was frightened the wrong words would come out.

He caressed her ear with his fingertips. ‘I must leave Junchow…’

Everything inside her started to hurt.

‘… but it will be hard. Kuomintang troops check every road in or out. That means I must find somewhere else to hide…’

She breathed.

‘… until I’m strong enough to swim the river.’

She closed her eyes.

‘Kiss me,’ she whispered.

His lips came instantly to her mouth and his tongue found hers, soft and sensuous. His hand moved down between her legs, stroking the silky inner thigh. They didn’t hurry, just took their time. In the moonlight.

They agreed he would leave before dawn. She had brought what was left of the two hundred dollars and hidden part of it in his leather satchel, part bandaged to his thigh and part tucked inside his boot.

‘No rickshaw,’ he warned.

‘Why not?’

‘The pullers have loose tongues. They are in the pay of the tongs. Black Snakes could track me. And you. I’ll walk.’

‘I’ll get Liev,’ she said quickly.

‘No, my beloved. I want help from no one who leads to you. You see? I escaped from Po Chu. The loss of face will be worse than a blade in his belly and he will work to destroy anyone who…’

She put a finger to his lips and nestled close under the blankets. ‘Sleep,’ she murmured. ‘It’s not dawn yet. Sleep. Grow strong.’ Their bodies clung together.

But when the first hint of grey tinged the skylight, Lydia knew Chang An Lo would be going nowhere today. The fever was back.