The Russian Concubine

9

‘Mama?’

Silence. Yet Lydia was sure her mother was awake. The attic room was pitch black and the street outside lay quiet, cooler after the storm. From under Lydia’s bed came a faint scratching sound that she knew meant a mouse or a cockroach was on its nightly prowl, so she drew her knees to her chin and curled up in a tight ball.

‘Mama?’

She had heard her mother tossing and turning for hours in her small white cell and once caught the soft sniffing that betrayed tears.

‘Mama?’ she whispered again into the blackness.

‘Mmm?’

‘Mama, if you had all the money in the world to buy yourself one present, what would it be?’

‘A grand piano.’ The words came out with no hesitation, as if they had been waiting on the tip of her tongue.

‘A shiny white one like you said they have in the American hotel on George Street?’

‘No. A black one. An Erard grand.’

‘Like you used to play in St Petersburg?’

‘Just like.’

‘It might not fit in here very well.’

Her mother laughed softly, the sound muffled by the curtains that divided the room. ‘If I could afford an Erard, darling, I could afford a drawing room to put it in. One with hand-woven carpets from Tientsin, beautiful candlesticks of English silver, and flowers on every table filling the room with so much perfume it would rid my nostrils of the filthy stench of poverty.’

Her words seemed to fill the room, making the air suddenly too heavy to breathe. The scratching under the bed ceased. In the silence, Lydia hid her face in her pillow.

‘And you?’ Valentina asked when the silence had lasted so long it seemed she had fallen asleep.

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. What present would you buy yourself?’

Lydia shut her eyes and pictured it. ‘A passport.’

‘Ah yes, of course, I should have guessed. And where would you travel with this passport of yours, little one?’

‘To England, to London first and then to somewhere called Oxford, which Polly says is so beautiful it makes you want to cry and then…’ her voice grew low and dreamy as if she were already elsewhere, ‘to America to see where they make the films and also to Denmark to find where…’

‘You dream too much, dochenka. It is bad for you.’

Lydia opened her eyes. ‘You brought me up as English, Mama, so of course I want to go to England. But tonight a Russian countess told me…’

‘Who?’

‘Countess Serova. She said…’

‘Pah! That woman is an evil witch. To hell with her and what she said. I don’t want you talking to her again. That world is gone.’

‘No, Mama, listen. She said it is disgraceful that I can’t speak my mother tongue.’

‘Your mother tongue is English, Lydia. Always remember that. Russia is finished, dead and buried. What use to you would learning Russian be? None. Forget it, like I have forgotten it. And forget that countess too. Forget Russia ever existed.’ She paused. ‘You will be happier that way.’

The words flowed out of the darkness, hard and passionate, and beat like hammers on Lydia’s brain, pounding her thoughts into confusion. Part of her longed to be proud of being Russian, the way Countess Serova was proud of her birthright and of her native tongue. But at the same time Lydia wanted so much to be English. As English as Polly. To have a mother who toasted you crumpets for tea and went around on an English bicycle and who gave you a puppy for your birthday and made you say your prayers and bless the king each night. One who sipped sherry instead of vodka.

She put a hand to her mouth. To stop any sounds coming out, in case they were sounds of pain.

‘Lydia.’

Lydia had no idea how long the silence had lasted this time, but she started to breathe heavily as if asleep.

‘Lydia, why did you lie?’

Her chest thumped. Which lie? When? To whom?

‘Don’t pretend you can’t hear me. You lied to the policeman tonight.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘You did.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

A sharp pinging of bedsprings from the other end of the room made Lydia fear that her mother was on her way over to confront her daughter face to face, but no, she was just shifting position impatiently in the darkness.

‘Don’t think I don’t know when you’re lying, Lydia. You tug at your hair. So what were you up to, spinning such a story to Police Commissioner Lacock? What is it you’re trying to hide?’

Lydia felt sick, not for the first time tonight. Her tongue seemed to swell and fill her mouth. The church clock struck three and something squealed at the end of the street. A pig? A dog? More likely a person. The wind had died down, but the stillness didn’t make her feel any better. She started counting backward from ten in her head, a trick she’d learned to ward off panic.

‘What story?’ she asked.

‘Chyort! You know perfectly well what story. The one about seeing a mystery man at the French window when you were in the reading room with Mr Willoughby tonight. Suggesting this strange person could be the thief who stole the rubies from the club.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes, that. A big bearded man with an eye patch and astrakhan hat and long patterned boots, that’s what you said.’

‘Yes.’ It came out more timid than she’d hoped.

‘Why tell such lies?’

‘I did see him.’

‘Lydia Ivanova, may your words scorch holes in your tongue.’

Lydia said nothing. Her cheeks were burning.

‘They’ll arrest him, you know,’ Valentina said fiercely.

No, how could they?

‘Your description marked him out clearly as a Russian. They’ll search around here in the Russian Quarter until they find a man that fits. Then what?’ Her mother’s voice wouldn’t let up.

Please don’t let them find him.

‘It was a foolish lie to tell, Lydia. It puts others at risk.’

Still Lydia didn’t open her mouth. She was afraid what words might creep out.

‘Pah! Go into one of your sulks, if you must.’ Valentina’s voice was heavy with annoyance. ‘Dear God, what a terrible night this has been. No concert, so no fee, searched by an insolent nurse, and now a daughter who not only ruins her beautiful dress by running around in the rain but also insults me with her lies and silence.’

No response.

‘Go on, go to sleep then, and I hope you dream of your bearded Russian phantom. Maybe he’ll come after you with a pitchfork to thank you for your lies.’

Lydia lay in her bed staring out into the darkness, too frightened to shut her eyes.

‘Hello, dear, you’re up bright and early this morning. Come to tell Polly all about the thrills of last night, have you? Goodness me, what a kerfuffle it was.’

Anthea Mason beamed with pleasure at Lydia, as if she could think of no better way to start a Sunday morning than having her daughter’s friend arrive on her doorstep before breakfast.

‘Come and join us on the terrace.’

This wasn’t exactly what Lydia had planned, because she needed to speak to Polly in private, but it was better than nothing, so she smiled a thank-you and followed Mrs Mason through the house. It was large and very modern, with pale beechwood floors, and always seemed filled with light as if it had somehow swallowed the sun, which danced off the plain cream-painted walls and caressed the shiny brass horn of the gramophone that Lydia coveted with a passion. No peeling wallpaper or dingy corners for cockroaches here. And Polly’s house always smelled so enticing. Of beeswax polish and flowers and something homemade baking in the oven. Today it was coffee and fresh rolls.

As she emerged onto the terrace with its view over a sun-dappled lawn and yellow tea roses, the image was idyllic. A table was covered in starched white linen and spread with teacups that had fragile little handles and gold rims, and a silver coffeepot was surrounded by perfectly matching silver bowls of sugar, butter, marmalade, and honey. Mr Mason was relaxing in his shirt-sleeves and riding boots at one end of the table, with a newspaper in one hand, a slice of toast in the other, and Achilles on his lap. Achilles was a fat cat with long grey fur and a voice like a foghorn.

‘Hi, Lyd.’ Polly smiled from the other side of the table and tried to hide her surprise.

‘Hello.’

‘Good morning, Lydia,’ said Mr Mason. ‘A bit too damned early for visitors, wouldn’t you say?’ His tone was one she’d heard him use to the boot boy. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Instead she stared at the delicate finger bowl beside him, and became curious about the slice of lemon floating in the water.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘Oh, Christopher,’ said Anthea Mason, ‘we’re always happy to see Lydia any time, aren’t we, Polly? Sit and have a bite to eat, dear.’

But Lydia would rather swallow her tongue than sit down at the same table with the man who last night had been molesting her mother. Both she and Valentina had carefully avoided mentioning the subject of what they both knew Lydia had seen, but the pictures were still vivid inside her head.

‘No, thank you,’ she said politely. ‘I just want a word with Polly, if I may.’

Mason leaned back in his chair and tossed the paper to the ground. ‘Now then, young lady,’ he said, ‘whatever you want to say to our daughter can be said in front of us. We have no secrets round here.’

The barefaced lie. It made Lydia blink, and she opened her mouth to utter a sharp retort, but Polly forestalled her. She jumped to her feet, grabbing the napkin from her lap. Lydia knew for a fact it had come from London, from a shop called Givan’s on New Bond Street, twenty-nine shillings and ninepence for a dozen, Polly had told her proudly, all fine Irish damask. Whatever that was.

‘Daddy, we’ll just find Toby and walk him down to the park.’

‘That’ll be fun for him. Take his ball and don’t forget to wear your hat,’ Anthea Mason said with a look at her husband.

He turned his face away from her and gave a smile to the cat draped across his lap, its yellow eyes watching him closely. ‘Don’t be long.’

‘No, just a quick run,’ Polly said.

‘Church at eleven sharp. I don’t want you making us late.’

‘We won’t, I promise.’

As she passed him, he reached up and ruffled her blond hair, but to Lydia the gesture looked awkward, as if it were something he’d once seen a father do and decided to copy it. Polly’s cheeks turned pink, but then she was always nervous around her father and never talked about him, not even in private. Lydia, knowing nothing about fathers, assumed this was normal.

‘Polly, I need a favour.’ Lydia clutched her friend’s arm.

‘What is it?’

‘A big favour.’

Polly’s eyes grew bluer and rounder. ‘I just knew it had to be something really important for you to barge in on Father so early. What is it? Quick, tell me.’ She twirled Toby’s lead in her hand.

They were sitting on a bench in the sunshine, throwing balls for Polly’s Tibetan spaniel. They had avoided Victoria Park with its No Dogs. No Chinese notices and opted for Alexandra Gardens, where Toby was allowed to race around, as long as he kept out of the canna flowerbeds and the koi fish pond, where frogs lurked under lily pads and taunted his insatiable nose.

‘It’s… well… you see… oh Polly, I need to get back into the club.’

‘What? The Ulysses Club?’

‘Yes.’

‘But why?’

‘I just do.’

‘That’s no answer.’ Polly twisted her pretty face into a scowl, but there was no conviction in it. She was never much good at being cross with Lydia, but tried to keep that fact a secret. ‘I thought that last night would have put you off that club for life. It would me. To be searched by a ghastly old nurse.’ She gave a dainty little shudder that rippled through her soft blond hair. ‘How perfectly disgusting.’ She leaned closer, eyes fixed on Lydia’s. ‘Was the search very, you know, very sort of… intimate? ’ She held her breath.

‘Oh God, yes.’

Polly’s mouth popped open and she gave a gasp. ‘Oh Lyd, that’s horrible. Poor you.’ She gave her friend a quick hug.

‘So?’

‘So what?’ Polly asked.

‘So will you speak to your father for me?’

‘Oh Lyd, I can’t.’

‘You can, you know you can. Please, Polly.’

‘But why do you want to go back to the club? They searched everyone and every room but didn’t find the stolen necklace. So what can you do?’ She glanced around quickly and lowered her voice to a bare whisper. ‘Did you see something? Do you know who took it?’

‘No, no, of course not, or I’d have told the police.’

‘Then why?’

‘Because… oh, all right, I’ll tell you, but you must promise to keep it secret.’

Polly nodded eagerly, licked a finger and drew a cross on her throat. ‘Hope to die.’

‘Remember the young man who rescued me in the alley on Friday? With his flying kung fu kicks…’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, he turned up at the club last night.’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he steal the necklace?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Lydia said quickly, ‘of course he didn’t. He had come especially to speak to me about something. He said it was important. But we were interrupted by all the police running around after they discovered the necklace had gone, so he asked me to come back today… I really owe it to him, Polly, and I don’t know where else to find him.’

To Lydia’s horror, she suddenly realised her fingers were tugging at a strand of hair just in front of her right ear. Oh damn. Her mother was right. She dropped it quickly, gave Polly a sideways glance to see if she’d noticed, and bent to pick up Toby’s ball.

‘But there’s something I don’t understand, Lyd.’

Lydia threw the ball for the dog.

‘You say your mother hardly ever scolds you, Lyd, just lets you do what you like. That’s why I’m green with envy, you know that. I wish I had the freedom she allows you.’ She turned and looked quizzically at her friend. ‘So why all the secrecy? Can’t your mother… or even her French friend with the Morgan… can’t they get you in?’

Lydia hated lying to Polly, the one person in the whole world she was honest with, but she had to get back inside the club today if she was to retrieve the rubies from their hiding place in the Reading Room. And now Polly was being stubborn.

Lydia leaped to her feet and tossed her head impatiently. ‘Neither my mother nor Antoine are members, as you well know. But if you’re too scared to ask your father to invite me in there, I’ll ask him myself.’

‘But he’ll want to know why.’

‘That’s okay, I’ll tell him I lost a brooch or something last night.’

‘He’ll only get annoyed and say if you can’t look after something properly, you don’t deserve it in the first place.’

‘Oh, Polly, you are such a baby,’ Lydia snapped and stalked off toward the park gates.

But Polly came running after her with Toby bouncing around her ankles. ‘Please, Lyd, don’t be angry.’

‘I’m not.’

But she was. Angry with herself. She turned and looked at Polly, at her lovely pale cornflower dress, at her smart patent leather shoes and at her wide blue eyes creased with worry, and hated herself. She had no right to drag this shiny new silver dollar of a person through the dirt. She was so used to it herself, she forgot that others found its smell distressing. She drew Polly’s arm through her own and gave her a shaky smile.

‘Sorry, Polly, I know I’m too hotheaded sometimes.’

‘It’s the red hair.’

They both laughed and felt the friendship slip back in place.

‘Okay, I’ll ask Father.’

‘Thanks.’

‘But it won’t work.’

‘Please try.’

‘On condition you tell me more about your mystery Chinese rescuer after you see him again.’ She paused, attached her puppy to the lead once more, ruffled his ears, and, while her face was averted, asked, ‘You don’t think it might be a bit dangerous? I mean, you know nothing about him, do you?’

‘Except that he saved me from slavery… or worse.’ Lydia laughed. ‘Don’t fret, you silly. I promise to tell you everything that happens.’

‘Describe him again to me. What’s he like?’

‘My flying hawk?’

‘Yes.’

Lydia was nervous. She was longing to talk about her Chinese protector, to give voice to the images that crowded her thoughts, to talk of the high arc of his eyebrow that rose like a bird’s wing and the way he angled his head when he was listening to you, his eyes stealing the thoughts behind your words. She could feel her eagerness to see him again like a hot stone in her chest and she didn’t know why. She told herself it was just that she needed to thank him again and to see if he was hurt. That was all. Just politeness.

But she was no better at telling lies to herself than she was at deceiving Polly. And it frightened her, this sudden sense of losing herself in a labyrinth of unknown paths. Frightened and excited her. Something fluttered in the back of her mind and she pushed it away. The barriers between his world and hers were so high, and yet somehow they vanished when she was with him. Polly wouldn’t understand.

She didn’t even understand it herself, and didn’t dare tell Polly the truth of last night.

‘Is he handsome?’ Polly prompted with a smile.

‘I didn’t notice much about him,’ Lydia lied. ‘His hair is cut short and his eyes are… I don’t know, they sort of…,’ They reach out and see under my skin. Can I say that? ‘… sort of watch you,’ she finished lamely.

‘And he’s strong?’

‘He moved fast in the fight, like… a hawk.’

‘Has he got a hawk nose as well?’

‘No, of course not. His nose is perfectly straight and when he’s not speaking his face is so still it looks like fine porcelain. And his hands are long with fingers that…’

‘I thought you said you didn’t notice much.’

Lydia blushed furiously and stuffed the words back down her throat. ‘Come on,’ she said and started to run toward the gate, ‘let’s ask your father.’

‘All right, but I warn you, he will say no.’

Christopher Mason did say no. In no uncertain terms. As Lydia dolloped a mound of mashed potato onto a plate in St Saviour’s Hall, her cheeks flushed at the memory of the words he used to say it. She had wanted, really wanted, to shut his pompous mouth with a casual mention of seeing it crawling over her mother’s breasts last night, to use that knowledge to open doors, but how could she? The thought of Anthea Mason’s unfailing kindness to her and of Polly’s trusting blue gaze was too much. She couldn’t. Just couldn’t. So she said nothing and escaped. But now she was desperate.

Another ladle of potato hit the next plate held out to her. She didn’t even look at the haggard face behind it as she doled out the food, or the one behind that, because she was too busy searching through the queue of people, seeking out one particular set of broad shoulders and pair of bright black eyes below eyebrows like wings.

‘Do pay attention, Lydia,’ Mrs Yeoman’s voice said cheerily beside her. ‘You’re being a bit overgenerous with the spuds, my dear, and though our good Lord managed to spread five loaves and three fishes among five thousand, we’re not quite so handy at it ourselves. I’d hate to run out sooner than we have to.’

A merry laugh rearranged the wrinkles on Mrs Yeoman’s face, making her look suddenly younger than her sixty-nine years. She had the leathery skin of a white person who has spent most of her life in the tropics and her eyes were almost colourless, but always smiling. They rested a moment longer on her young companion’s face, and then she patted Lydia’s arm before resuming the task of issuing bowls of rice gruel to the never-ending line of gaunt faces. It made no difference to Constance Yeoman their colour or their creed; all were equal and all were beloved in the sight of her Lord, and what was good enough for Him was good enough for her.

Lydia had been coming to St Saviour’s Hall every Sunday morning for almost a year now. It was a large barn of a place where even whispers echoed up to the high beamed ceiling, and dozens of trestle tables lined up in front of two steaming stoves. Mr Yeoman had come up one day from the flat below at Mrs Zarya’s and suggested with his usual missionary zeal that they might like to help out occasionally. Needless to say, Valentina had declined and said something about charity beginning at home. But later Lydia had crept downstairs, knocked on their door, breathed in the unique smell of camphor rub and Parma violets that permeated their rooms just as strongly as the hymns and the sad picture of Jesus at the door with a lamp in his hand and the crown of thorns on his head, and offered her services to their charity soup kitchen. At the very least, she reasoned, it meant she would receive one hot meal a week.

Sebastian Yeoman and his wife, Constance, might be retired from the church now, but they worked harder than ever. They begged, borrowed, and browbeat money out of the most unlikely pockets to keep their cauldrons simmering in the big hall behind St Saviour’s Church and every Sunday the poor, the sick, and even the criminal flocked through its open doors for a mouthful of food, a warm smile, and a few words of comfort offered in an astonishing variety of languages and dialects. To Lydia the Yeomans were the real version of Jesus’s lamp. A bright light in a dark world.

‘Thank you, missy. Xie xie. You kind.’

For once Lydia let herself look more closely at the young Chinese woman in front of her. She was all sharp bones and matted hair and was carrying an infant on her hip in a funny kind of sling, while two older children leaned listlessly against her. All were dressed in stinking rags and all had skin as grey and cracked as the dusty floor. The mother had the broad but fleshless face and thick brown fingers of a peasant who had been forced from her farm by starvation and thieving armies who stripped the land barer than a plague of locusts. Lydia had seen such faces over and over again; so many times they marched as skulls through her dreams and made her jerk awake in the middle of the night. So now she didn’t look at the faces.

With a quick check to see that the Yeomans were too busy with the stew and the yams to notice, she added an extra spoonful to the woman’s wooden bowl. The woman’s silent tears of gratitude just made her feel worse.

And then she saw him. Standing apart from the others, a lithe and vibrant creature in the midst of this room of death and despair. He was too proud to come begging.

He was waiting for her when she came out. She knew he would be. His back was toward her as he stood staring out at the small graveyard that lay behind the church, and yet he seemed to sense the moment she was there because he said without turning his head, ‘How do the spirits of your dead find their way home?’

‘What?’

He turned, smiled at her, and bowed. So polite. So correct. Lydia felt a sharp spike of disappointment. He was putting a distance between them that hadn’t been there before, his mouth unsmiling, as though she were a stranger in the street. Surely she was more than that. Wasn’t she?

She lifted her chin and gave him the kind of cool smile that Mr Theo gave to Polly when he was being sarcastic.

‘You came,’ she said and glanced casually away at St Saviour’s bell tower.

‘Of course I came.’

Something in his voice made her look back. He’d moved closer, so silent she’d heard no footsteps, yet here he was, near enough to touch. And his long black eyes were talking to her, even though his mouth was silent. His face was turned slightly away, but his gaze was fixed on hers. She smiled at him, a real smile this time, and saw him blink in that slow way a cat does when the sunlight is too bright.

‘How are you?’ she asked.

‘I am well.’

But the look he gave her said otherwise, and as though he were perched on a cliff edge, his nerves seemed to tighten, his muscles tense under the thin black tunic. It was as if he were about to jump off. Then he gave a strange little sigh, and with no more than a flicker of a shy smile he turned his head. For the first time she saw the right side of it.

‘Your face…,’ she gasped, then stopped. She knew that the Chinese regarded personal comments as rude. ‘Is it painful?’

‘No,’ he said.

But he had to be lying. That side of his head was split and swollen. A livid black bruise, shot through with dried blood, ran along his hairline from his forehead down to his ear. The sight of it made Lydia furious.

‘That policeman,’ she said angrily. ‘I’ll report him for…’

‘Doing his duty?’ He did not smile this time, his black eyes serious. ‘I think it would not be wise.’

‘But you need treatment,’ Lydia insisted. ‘I’ll fetch Mrs Yeoman, she’ll know what to do.’ She swung back in the direction of the hall, in a hurry to bring help.

‘Please, no.’ His voice was soft but insistent.

She stopped, looked at him. Looked at him hard, this figure she knew and yet didn’t know. He stood very still. Holding something in. What? What more was he keeping from her? His stillness was as elegant as his movements had been in the alley, his shoulders muscular but his hips narrower than her own. Horrible black rubber shoes on his feet.

In the hall earlier, and even when he greeted her, she had not seen the damaged side of his face, and she realised now that he had kept it turned away from her. What if her reaction was all wrong in his eyes? To him it implied… what? That he was weak? Or unable to care for himself? She shook her head, knowing this was a strange and delicate world she was entering, as unfamiliar to her as his language. She had to tread carefully. She nodded to indicate acceptance of his wishes, then turned her face toward the tombstones, neat and orderly with carnations in little vases. This world she understood.

‘Their spirits go straight to heaven,’ she said with a gesture at the rectangles of grass. ‘It doesn’t matter where they die, if they are Christians, but if they’re wicked, they go to hell. That’s what the priests tell us, anyway.’ She glanced over at him. Instead of looking at the graves, he was watching her. She stared right back at him and said, ‘As for me, I’ll be going straight to hell.’ And she laughed.

For a moment he looked shocked, and then he gave her his shy smile. ‘You are mocking me, I think.’

Oh God, she’d got it wrong again. How do you talk to someone so different? In all her life in Junchow the only Chinese people she’d ever spoken to were shopkeepers and servants, but conversations like ‘How much?’ and ‘A pound of soybeans, please,’ didn’t really count. Her dealings with Mr Liu at the pawnshop were the nearest she’d come to communicating properly with a Chinese native, and even those were spiced with danger. She must start again.

Very formally, hands together and eyes on the ground, she gave a little bow. ‘No, I’m not mocking you. I wish to thank you. You saved me in the alleyway and I am grateful. I owe you thanks.’

He did not move, not a muscle shifted in his face or his body, but something changed somewhere deep inside him and she could see it. Though she didn’t know exactly what it was. Just that it was as if a closed place had opened, and she felt a warmth flow from him that took her by surprise.

‘No,’ he said, eyes fixed intently on hers. ‘You do not owe me your thanks.’ He came one step closer to her, so close she could see tiny secret flecks of purple in his eyes. ‘They would have cut your throat when they were done with you. You owe me your life.’

‘My life is my own. It belongs to no one but me.’

‘And I owe you mine. Without you I would be dead. A bullet would be in my head now if you had not come out of the night when you did.’ He bowed once more, very low this time. ‘I owe you my life.’

‘Then we’re even.’ She laughed, uncertain how serious this was meant to be. ‘A life for a life.’

He looked at her, but she couldn’t fathom the emotion in his eyes this time, it was so still and dark. He said nothing and she wasn’t sure how much he’d understood, especially when he asked, ‘Does your Mrs Yeoman own a needle and thread?’

‘Oh, I expect so. Do you want me to fetch it?’

‘Yes, please. It would be kind.’

Her eyes scanned his clothes, a V-necked tunic and loose trousers, but could see no holes in them, so maybe it was for some sort of blood-brother ritual, to sew their lives together. The idea sent a flare of heat racing up her spine, and for the first time since she’d been herded into the concert room last night by Commissioner Lacock himself, the tight ball inside her lungs loosened and she could breathe.