The House of Special Purpose

1924

WE FOUND WORK easily in London; both Zoya and I were settled with respectable positions within a few weeks of our arrival from Paris, enough to keep food on our table, enough to keep our minds from dwelling too long on the past. My interview with Mr Trevors took place on the same morning that Zoya was offered employment at Newsom’s textiles factory, which specialized in the production of women’s undergarments and nightwear. The next morning, and every morning that followed it, she left our small flat in Holborn at seven o’clock, dressed in the grey, drab uniform of the shop floor, a similarly dowdy cloth cap covering her hair, not a strand or a stitch or a thread able to diminish her beauty by the slightest degree. Her tasks were monotonous and she rarely had an opportunity to use any of the skills she had perfected in Paris, but she took pride in her work nonetheless. A part of me felt that she was wasting her talents engaged in such menial work, but she seemed content with her position and sought no greater opportunities for now.

‘I like being in the factory,’ she said whenever I suggested this. ‘There are so many people there, it’s easy to become lost. Everyone has a single, simple task to undertake and everyone does it quietly and without fuss. No one pays any attention to me. I like that. I don’t want to stand out. I don’t want to be noticed.’

Sometimes when she came home, however, she complained about how hard it was to endure the chatter of the other women, for her station was situated at the centre of a long row of machinists who opened their mouths when the whistle blew in the morning and barely closed them again until they were safely back home at the end of the day. There were eight women to her left, a further six to her right, with five rows both behind and in front of her. The conversation of the workers was enough to give anyone a headache, but, if nothing else, at least it distracted from the incessant buzz and hum of the sewing machines.

There was a great deal more interest in our accents in England than there had been in France, where the presence of different nationalities had become the norm after the war. The fact that we had spent more than five years in the French capital meant that our enunciation had developed a curiously hybrid tone, located somewhere been St Petersburg and Paris. We were regularly asked where we came from and when we replied, truthfully, there was often a raised eyebrow and sometimes a cautious nod of the head. But we were treated civilly by most people for, after all, this was 1924 and we were between the wars.

Zoya became an object of interest for a young woman named Laura Highfield, who operated the machine next to hers. Laura was a dreamer and found the fact that Zoya had been born in Russia and had spent so many years of her life in France to be both romantic and exotic, and she quizzed her relentlessly on her past, with little satisfaction. On one particular evening in late spring, when a week’s worth of snowfall lay on the ground to remind me of home, I finished work early at the library and strolled towards the factory to meet Zoya and take her to dinner at one of the inexpensive cafés that lined her route home. As we were leaving, Laura caught sight of us together and called my wife’s name, waving her arms frantically at her as she ran towards us.

There must have been two or three hundred women emerging from the gates at that same moment, all lost in chatter and gossip, but the great sound from the factory horn that repeatedly signalled the end of the working day sent me into a peculiar reverie. It reminded me very much of the horn that would echo from the Imperial train as it traversed the Russian countryside, transporting the Tsar’s family on their endless pilgrimages throughout the year. It sounded once and I pictured Nicholas and Alexandra seated in their private salon, their gold crests emblazoned on the thick carpet as the train brought them from St Petersburg to the Palace of Livadia for their spring holiday; it sounded again and there was Olga studying her languages as we travelled to Peterhof in May; again, and I saw Tatiana lost in one of her romantic novels as the train roared onwards in June towards the Imperial yacht and the Finnish fjords; again, and I thought of Marie, staring out towards the hunting lodge in the Polish forest; once more, and there was Anastasia, desperately trying to attract her parents’ attention as they returned to the Crimea; one final time, and it is November now and the train is making its way at a snail’s pace towards Tsarskoe Selo for the winter, under strict instructions from the Empress not to exceed fifteen miles an hour, lest the Tsarevich Alexei suffer another of his traumas with the jostling of the buffers along the tracks. So many memories, all rushing towards me, every one reborn by the sound of a klaxon sending a group of workers home to their families.

‘You look distracted,’ Zoya said as she took my arm and rested her head against my shoulder for a moment. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Perfectly fine, Dusha,’ I said with a smile, kissing the top of her head lightly. ‘Just some silliness on my part, that’s all. I thought for a moment—’

‘Zoya!’

The voice calling from behind made us turn around to where Laura was dashing towards us, a group of women following her. They were going for a cup of tea, she told Zoya, looking me up and down judgementally as she spoke; did she want to join them?

‘I can’t,’ she said, failing to introduce me and rushing us along. ‘Sorry. Some other time, perhaps?’

‘Friends of yours?’ I asked, surprised by how quickly she was trying to get away from them.

‘They try to be,’ she said. ‘We just work together, that’s all.’

‘I can go home if you want to go for tea with them,’ I said. ‘We don’t know many people in London, after all. It might be nice to have—’

‘No,’ said Zoya quickly, interrupting me. ‘No, I don’t want that.’

‘But why not?’ I asked, surprised. ‘Don’t you like them?’

She hesitated and her face took on a certain anxiety before she replied. ‘We shouldn’t make friends,’ she said finally.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I shouldn’t make friends,’ she said, correcting herself. ‘They don’t need to be involved with me. That’s all.’

I frowned, unsure what she meant by this. ‘But I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What harm could it do, after all? Zoya, if you think that—’

‘It’s not safe, Georgy,’ she snapped, her words rushing out quickly as her temper flared. ‘It will do her no good to befriend me. I’m bad luck. You know that. If I get too close…’

I stopped in the middle of the street and stared at her in amazement. ‘Zoya!’ I cried, taking her by the arm and turning her round to face me. ‘You can’t mean it.’

‘Why can’t I?’

‘No one is bad luck,’ I said. ‘The idea is preposterous.’

‘To know me is to suffer,’ she replied, her voice deep and grave, her eyes darting back and forth as her forehead wrinkled into a painful furrow of lines. ‘It doesn’t make sense, Georgy, I know it doesn’t, but it’s true. You must see the truth of it. I don’t want to be close to Laura. I don’t want her to die.’

‘To die?’ I cried, turning to glare quickly at a man who had pushed past me, my sudden fury enough to make me want to chase after him and challenge him. I might have done it, too, had Zoya not grabbed my elbow tightly and forced me to look at her.

‘I am a person who should not be alive,’ she said, her words dissolving the crowds around us into dust so that there were only the two of us left alone in the world, my heart racing at the expression of utter belief and unhappiness on my wife’s face. ‘He saw it in me,’ she continued, looking away now and focussing on the tall banks of snow which were building behind us. I could hear the laughter of children as they kicked their way through the mounds and made snowballs to throw at each other, the shouts of dismay as they buried their small hands in the flurry to numb their fingers. ‘Poor child, he said. They all come to harm when they are near you, do they not?’

‘Zoya,’ I said, shocked, for she had never mentioned this to me before. ‘I don’t… how could you…’

‘I don’t want friends,’ she hissed. ‘I don’t need anyone. Only you. Think of it. Think of them all. Think of what I did. It never ends, does it? They’re the price that I pay for life. Even Leo—’

‘Leo!’ I could scarcely believe that she was mentioning his name. Neither of us had forgotten him, of course – we would never forget him – but, like everyone else, he was a part of the past. And Zoya and I, we buried the past, deep. We never spoke of it. It was how we survived. ‘What happened to Leo was nobody’s fault but his own.’

‘Oh Georgy,’ she said quietly, laughing a little and shaking her head. ‘To be as simple-minded as you. What a joy that must be.’

I opened my mouth to contradict her, not insulted by what she had said but devastated. For she was right. I was simple-minded, a virtual half-wit when it came to arguing this subject with her. I wanted to express my love for her but it seemed so empty, so trivial, compared to what she was saying. I had no words left.

‘But look!’ she cried a moment later, clapping her hands together in delight as she spotted her favourite café opening its doors along the street, her sudden enthusiasm, reflected in the darkening night, reminding me of the innocent girl with whom I had fallen in love. It was as if the last few minutes of our conversation had not even taken place. ‘Oh, they’re open again, I thought they had closed for ever. Let’s go in, Georgy, can we? We can have our dinner there.’

She ran out on to the road so quickly, without looking in either direction, that she just missed being hit by a bus that sounded its horn violently at her as she ran past. My heart jumped in horror as I pictured her being crushed under its wheels, but as it drove on I could see her stepping quickly into the warmth of the café, entirely oblivious to the just-avoided accident.

Five months later, she made her first suicide attempt.

The day started much like any other, except for the fact that I was suffering from a sick headache and complained of it over breakfast; it was an unfamiliar sensation to me for I almost never became ill. I had woken from a colourful and dramatic dream, the type you hope to retain in your memory for later consideration, but which quietly slips away and dissolves, like sugar in water. I decided that it must have involved a marching band or percussion orchestra, for the migraine, a dull pounding in my forehead that blurred my vision and sapped my energy, was present from the moment that I opened my eyes, and threatened to get worse as the morning progressed.

Zoya was still wearing her nightgown during breakfast, unusual in itself, for she typically dressed for work while I was taking my bath. Her boiled egg with toast was missing too and she sat opposite me with a distant expression on her face, ignoring the cup of tea that I’d placed before her.

‘Is everything all right?’ I asked her, almost resenting having to speak, for it only provoked the drum-beats behind my eyes. ‘You’re not feeling ill too, are you?’

‘No, I’m fine,’ she said quickly, offering a half-smile and shaking her head. ‘I’m just running late, that’s all. I feel quite tired this morning. I suppose I should get ready.’

She stood up and went into the bedroom to change. As I sat there, there was a part of me that recognized something different and awkward in her behaviour, but my head was pounding so badly that I didn’t feel able to ask her about it. The window was open and I could tell that it was a brisk, chilly morning; all I wanted was to go out on to the street and begin my walk to work, in the hope that the fresh air would clear my head by the time I reached Bloomsbury.

‘I’ll see you this evening,’ I said, walking into the bedroom to offer her a kiss goodbye. I was surprised to find her still sitting on the bed, staring at the blank wall before her. ‘Zoya?’ I asked, frowning, ‘what on earth’s the matter? Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘I’m fine, Georgy,’ she replied, standing up and reaching into the wardrobe to retrieve her uniform.

‘But you were just sitting there,’ I said. ‘Is there something on your mind?’

She turned to look at me and I could see her forehead wrinkling slightly as she struggled with something that she wanted to say. Her lips parted and she drew a breath, but then hesitated, shook her head and looked away.

‘I’m just tired, that’s all,’ she said finally, with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘It’s been a long week.’

‘But it’s only Wednesday,’ I said, smiling at her.

‘A long month, then.’

‘It’s the sixth.’

‘Georgy…’ she sighed, her tone growing irritable and frustrated.

‘All right, all right,’ I said. ‘But maybe you should get some rest. This isn’t to do with…’ It was my turn to hesitate now; the subject was a difficult one and not ideally suited to the early hour of the morning. ‘You’re not worried about…’

‘About what?’ she asked defensively.

‘I know you were disappointed on Sunday,’ I said. ‘On Sunday afternoon, I mean, when—’

‘It’s not that,’ she said quickly, looking a little flushed, I thought, as she turned away and smoothed down her uniform on its hanger. ‘Honestly, Georgy, not everything is to do with that. I knew it wouldn’t be this month anyway. I could tell.’

‘You seemed to think it might be.’

‘Then I was wrong. If we are to be blessed… then it will happen at the right time. I can’t continue to focus on it. It’s too much for me, Georgy, can’t you see that?’ I nodded. I didn’t want us to argue and even the effort of holding this conversation at all was affecting my headache so badly that I thought I might be sick. ‘What time is it anyway?’ she asked me a moment later.

‘A quarter past seven,’ I said, glancing at my watch. ‘You’ll be late if you don’t hurry up. We’ll both be late.’

She nodded and reached forward to kiss me, smiling a little as she did so. ‘Then I’d better hurry along,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you this evening. I hope your headache disappears soon.’

We parted and I went to the front door of the flat, but before I could open it, I heard her walking quickly through the kitchen towards me; as she grabbed me by the arm, I turned around and she threw herself into my arms. ‘I’m so sorry, Georgy,’ she said, the words muffled as she buried her face in my chest.

‘Sorry?’ I asked, pulling away from her a little and smiling in confusion. ‘Sorry for what?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, puzzling me even further. ‘But I do love you, Georgy. You know that, don’t you?’

I stared at her and laughed. ‘But of course I know it,’ I said. ‘I feel it every day. And you know that I love you too, don’t you?’

‘I’ve always known it,’ she replied. ‘At times, I don’t know what I ever did to deserve such kindness.’

On any other occasion I would have happily sat down with her and listed her attributes, the dozens of ways I loved her, the hundreds of reasons why, but the dead thumping behind my forehead was growing worse by the minute so I simply reached down, kissed her softly on either cheek, and said that I had better get some air quickly or I would collapse with the pain.

She watched me as I climbed the steps towards the street, but when I turned back to wave, the door was already closing behind me. I stood there and stared at the frosted glass, through which I could make her out as she stood pressed up against it, her head bowed slightly. She held that pose for five, perhaps ten seconds, then walked away.

Contrary to what I had hoped, I was feeling even more unsettled by the time I arrived at the library, but I made an effort to ignore my pain and continue with my duties. By eleven o’clock, however, the pain had spread to my stomach and limbs and I became convinced that I must have picked up a bug somewhere, which would not be cured by a long day of activity. It was not a busy day, though – we had no acquisitions to catalogue and the readers’ room was unusually quiet – so I knocked on Mr Trevors’ door and explained my situation. The combination of my pale, perspiration-tinged face and the fact that I had not taken a day’s sick leave in all the time that I had been employed there ensured that he sent me on my way without complaint.

Leaving the library, I couldn’t face the walk back to Holborn and took a bus instead. Its movement as it shuddered along Theobald’s Road towards our home made me feel even more ill and I worried that I might either vomit on the floor in front of me or be forced to jump off the moving bus to spare my disgrace. At the end of my journey, however, lay the only thing of any interest to me at that moment – my bed – and I focussed on it and tried to ignore the suffering which was threatening to overwhelm me.

Finally, at half past eleven, I walked carefully down the steps towards our flat and opened the door, letting myself in with a great sigh of relief. It felt strange to be in the flat alone – Zoya was almost always here when I was at home – but I poured myself a glass of water and sat at the table, thinking of nothing in particular as I took a few cautious sips, hoping that it might help to settle my stomach.

Taking that day’s Times from my briefcase, I glanced at the headlines for a moment and my eyes were taken by a report about the uprising in Georgia. The Mensheviks were battling the Bolsheviks for independence, but their struggle appeared to be failing. I was well aware of the numerous insurgencies and uprisings that were taking place throughout the various parts of the empire and of the number of states that were striking out for sovereignty. I usually read The Times during my tea break at the library and paid special interest to any story which related to my homeland, but I had paid particular attention to this one in recent weeks on account of the Menshevik leader, Colonel Cholokashvili, who had been part of a delegation sent to Tsarskoe Selo during 1917 to report to the Tsar on the progress of the Russian armies at the front. He was younger than the other representatives at the palace, and I had been fortunate to engage in a brief conversation with him when he was leaving and he had said to me that guarding the life of the Emperor and his heir was of as much importance as safeguarding our borders during the war. His words had been of particular importance to me at the time, for I had become worried that I was forsaking my true duties by remaining in the employ of the Imperial Family when tens of thousands of young men my own age were dying in the Carpathian mountains or on the battlefields of the Masurian Lakes.

By the time I finished the article, I found that both my headache and stomach upset had begun to subside a little, but I thought I would spend the day in bed nevertheless and hopefully wake up feeling fully restored.

I opened the door to the bedroom and stared.

Lying across the bed was Zoya, her eyes closed, her arms spread out from her sides, blood seeping from a pair of deep wounds which had been etched across her wrists, a reddish-black puddle blending into the blanket beneath her. I stood at the doorway, frozen, horrified, experiencing the most curious sensation of incomprehension and impotence. It was almost as if my brain could not fully assimilate the scene that was presented to it, and because of that was unable to offer instruction to my body as to how to respond. Finally, however, with a great animal roar that emerged from the pit of my stomach, I ran towards the bed and lifted her in my arms, tears streaming down my face as I looked into her eyes and shouted her name over and over in a desperate bid to revive her.

Within a few seconds, her eyelids flickered slightly; her pupils focussed on my own for a moment before she looked away and an exhausted sigh escaped her lips. She did not welcome my presence; she did not want to be saved. I ran to the wardrobe, grabbed a pair of scarves from a shelf and brought them back to the bed, locating the place on each arm where the knife had entered and binding the wounds tightly, cutting off the flow of blood. A deep cry was coming from Zoya’s mouth now as she begged me to leave her alone, to let her be, but I could not, I would not, and having secured her arms, I ran out on to the street and down to the end of our row of houses, where, to our good fortune, a doctor’s surgery was located. I must have looked like a lunatic as I ran inside, wild-eyed, my shirt, arms and face covered with Zoya’s blood, and a middle-aged woman sitting in the reception area let out a terrible scream, perhaps mistaking me for a crazed murderer intent on doing them harm. But I had enough wits about me to explain to the nurse what had happened and to ask for help, to demand it, and now, quickly, before it was too late.

In the days that followed, I often wondered about the headache and stomach bug which affected me on that day. It was so unusual for me to have suffered from them and yet, had I been in my usual good health, I would have remained at the library of the British Museum for the entire day and been widowed by the time I returned home. Considering the life that I have lived, the people I have known, the places I have seen, it is unusual for me to be intimidated by someone simply because he holds a position of authority, but Dr Hooper, who took care of Zoya while she was in hospital, awed me slightly and made me anxious of appearing foolish in his company. He was an elderly gentleman, cocooned inside an expensive tweed suit, with a neatly trimmed Romanov beard, piercing blue eyes and a trim athletic body unusual in a man of his age and rank. I suspected that he terrified the doctors and nurses under his charge and did not suffer fools gladly. It annoyed me that he did not see fit to talk to me during the weeks when my wife was recovering from her injuries at the hospital; whenever I passed him on the corridor and attempted to converse with him, he begged off on the grounds that he was too busy for me at that moment and referred me to one of his juniors instead, none of whom seemed any more informed about my wife’s condition than I was myself. The day before I was due to take her home, however, I phoned his secretary in advance and begged for a meeting with the doctor prior to his signing her out. And so, three weeks after I had discovered Zoya bleeding and dying on our bed, I found myself seated in a large, comfortable office on the top floor of the psychiatric wing, staring across at this most senior doctor as he examined my wife’s file carefully.

‘Mrs Jachmenev’s physical injuries have healed perfectly well,’ he announced finally, setting the file aside and looking across at me. ‘The wounds she inflicted on herself were not deep enough to lacerate the arteries. She was lucky with that. Most people don’t know how to finish the job correctly.’

‘There was an awful lot of blood,’ I said, hesitant to relive the experience but feeling that it was necessary that he know the full story. ‘I thought… when I found her, that is… well, she was very pale and—’

‘Mr Jachmenev,’ he said, holding up a hand to silence me, ‘you’ve been in here two, three times a day since your wife was admitted, have you not? I’ve been impressed by your attentiveness. You might be surprised by how few husbands bother to visit their wives, regardless of the reasons for their admission. But during that time you must have noticed an improvement in her condition. There’s really no need for you to worry about any of her physical problems any more. There might be a slight scarring on her arms, but it will fade in time and become barely noticeable.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, a sigh of relief escaping from me. ‘I must admit that when I found her, I immediately thought the worst.’

‘Of course you know my speciality, however, and I am more concerned with her mental scars than her physical ones. As you know, every attempted suicide must be thoroughly evaluated before we can allow the perpetrator to return home.’ The perpetrator. ‘For their sake as much as anything else. I’ve spoken quite extensively to your wife over the last few weeks in an attempt to find the root cause of her behaviour and I must be honest with you, Mr Jachmenev, she does give me cause for concern.’

‘You mean she might try this again?’

‘No, I don’t think that’s likely,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Most survivors of suicide attempts are too ashamed and shocked by their actions to try a second time. Most, you understand, don’t really mean it in the first place. It is, as they say, a cry for help.’

‘And you think that’s what it was?’ I asked hopefully.

‘If she meant it, she would have found a gun and shot herself,’ he replied, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘There’s no way back from that. People who survive want to. That’s in her favour to begin with.’

I wasn’t so convinced of this in Zoya’s case; after all, as far as she had been concerned I was not going to return home for another six hours at least. She would never have survived the bleeding for that long, regardless of which veins she had cut. And where, after all, would she have found a gun? Perhaps, I considered, Dr Hooper was judging us all by the standards of his own armoury. He looked for all the world like a man who spent his weekends rifle in hand, slaughtering all forms of wildlife in the company of minor royalty.

‘And in your wife’s case,’ he continued, ‘I think the shock of the attempt, coupled with her feelings towards you, might prevent such a recurrence anyway.’

‘Her feelings for me?’ I asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘She wasn’t thinking of me when she did this thing, though, was she?’

The words were unworthy of me, but, like Zoya’s, my own mood had swung from positive to hideously bleak over recent weeks. There were nights when I lay awake, thinking of nothing other than how close she had been to death and how I could possibly have survived without her. There were days when I berated myself for not recognizing her suffering and coming to her aid. There were times when I pressed my fists against my forehead in frustration, angry that she thought so little of me that she could cause me so much suffering.

‘You mustn’t think that this is about you,’ said Dr Hooper finally, seeming to read my mind as he stepped around from the desk now and sank into an armchair beside me. ‘It’s not about you at all. It’s about her. It’s about her mind. Her depression. Her unhappiness.’

I shook my head, unable to take it in. ‘Dr Hooper,’ I said, choosing my words carefully, ‘you must understand, Zoya and I have a very happy marriage. We rarely argue, we love each other very much.’

‘And you’ve been together…’

‘We met when we were teenagers. We married five years ago. They have been happy times.’

He nodded and made a church steeple out of his hands, pointing his fingers towards the heavens, and breathed heavily as he considered this.

‘You have no children, of course,’ he said.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘As you know, we have suffered a number of miscarriages.’

‘Yes, your wife has spoken to me of that. Three, is that correct?’

I hesitated for a moment at the memory of these three lost babies, but finally nodded my head. ‘Yes,’ I said, coughing to clear my throat. ‘Yes, it has happened three times.’

He leaned forward and looked me directly in the eye. ‘Mr Jachmenev, there are a number of things which I am not at liberty to discuss with you, things that Zoya and I have spoken about in confidence, under the auspices of doctor and patient, you understand?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said, frustrated at not being told exactly what was wrong with her when it was I, above all others, who wanted to help her. ‘But I am her husband, Dr Hooper. There are certain things—’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said quickly, dismissing this as he leaned back. I felt that he was examining me carefully – analysing me, even – as if he was trying to decide for himself how much he could permit me to know and how much he should leave out. ‘If I was to say that your wife is a very unhappy woman, Mr Jachmenev,’ he said finally, ‘you would no doubt understand.’

‘I would have thought that was obvious,’ I said, my voice low and angry, ‘considering what she did.’

‘You may even think that she is disturbed in her mind.’

‘You don’t think she is?’ I asked.

‘No, I don’t think that either explanation entirely covers what is wrong with Zoya. Such words are too simplistic, too facile. Her problems lie deeper, I think. In her history. In the things that she has witnessed. In the memories that she has repressed.’

It was my turn to stare at him now and I could feel myself growing a little more pale, unsure what he was getting at. I could not imagine for a moment that Zoya would have confided the details of our past – of her past – to him, even if she did trust him. It seemed like an entirely uncharacteristic gesture on her part. And I couldn’t help but wonder whether he knew that there was something he wasn’t seeing, and that I might tell him if guided along that path. Of course, he did not know me; he did not realize that I would never betray my wife.

‘Such as what?’ I asked finally.

‘I think we both know the answer to that, Mr Jachmenev, don’t you?’

I swallowed and set my jaw; I was not going to admit to this either way. ‘What I want to know,’ I said, a note of determination entering my tone, ‘is whether I should continue to be worried about her, whether I should be watching over her throughout the day. I want to know whether something like this might ever happen again. I have to work every day, of course. I cannot be with her constantly.’

‘It’s hard to say,’ he replied, ‘but on consideration, I don’t think you have very much to worry about. I will be undertaking further sessions with her, of course, on an out-patient basis. I think I can help her come to terms with the things that cause her suffering. Your wife labours under the illusion that the people closest to her are in danger, you realize that, don’t you?’

‘She’s mentioned it to me,’ I admitted. ‘Only briefly. It’s something that she keeps locked inside herself.’

‘She’s talked about these miscarriages, for example,’ he said. ‘And about your friend, Monsieur Raymer.’

I nodded and looked down for a moment, acknowledging the memory. Leo.

‘Your wife must be made to see that she is not responsible for any of these things,’ he said, standing up now to indicate that our interview was at an end. ‘That is down to me, of course, during our out-patient sessions. And down to you, in your life together.’

Zoya was already dressed and waiting for me when I entered the ward, sitting on the side of her bed, neat and prim in a simple cotton dress and overcoat that I had brought for her the day before. She looked up and smiled as she saw me walking towards her and I smiled too, taking her in my arms, pleased that the great bandages that covered the healing wounds on her arms were hidden to me by the sleeves of the coat.

‘Georgy,’ she said quietly, breaking down in tears as she saw what must have been a mixed expression on my face. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

‘It’s all right,’ I said – a curious choice of words, for of course it was anything but all right. ‘At least you can leave here now. Everything will be fine, I promise you that.’

She nodded and took my arm as we left the ward. ‘Are we going home?’ she asked me.

Home. Another strange word. Where was it, after all? Not here in London. Not Paris, either. Home was many hundreds of miles away, a place to which we could never return. I wasn’t going to lie to her by saying yes.

‘Back to our little flat,’ I said quietly. ‘To close the door behind us and be together, as we were always meant to be. Just the two of us. GeorgyandZoya.’