The Russian Concubine

4

The gas lamp in the hallway wasn’t working, probably needed a new mantle, but Lydia didn’t even notice. She hurried down the gloomy passage from the front door, instinctively avoiding the holes in the linoleum, dumped her packages on the bottom of the stairs and knocked on Mrs Zarya’s sitting-room door.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me, Lydia.’

The door opened and a tall middle-aged woman looked out at Lydia suspiciously. ‘Kakaya sevodnya otgovorka?’

‘Please, Mrs Zarya, you know perfectly well I don’t speak Russian.’

The woman laughed as if she had scored a point, a great big laugh that shook the thin walls. She was a large woman with a broad fleshy face and a bosom like the great steppes of Russia. She frightened Lydia because her tongue could be as fierce as her hugs and it was important to stay on the right side of her. Olga Petrovna Zarya was their landlady and occupied the ground floor of her small terraced house. The rest she let out to tenants.

‘Come in, little sparrow, I want to speak to you.’

Lydia stepped inside the room. It smelt of borscht and onions, despite the window being open onto the narrow strip of flagstones she called her backyard, and was full of heavy furniture too large for the cramped space. In pride of place on an embroidered runner that hid the stains on the top of the mahogany piano stood a framed photograph. It was of General Zarya. In full White Army uniform, his arms folded, his gaze stern and accusing. Lydia always avoided his sepia eye if she could. There was just something about it that made her feel a failure.

‘My patience is over,’ Olga Zarya announced, planting herself firmly in front of Lydia. ‘Tell that lazy mother of yours that she has taken wicked advantage of me, of my good nature. You tell her. That next week I throw her out. Da, into the street. And what does she expect, if she doesn’t…’

‘Pay the rent?’ Lydia placed a neat pile of dollar bills on the table and stood back.

Mrs Zarya’s jaw dropped for a split second, and then she snatched up the money and flicked through it quickly, counting to herself in Russian.

‘Good. Spasibo. I thank you.’ The woman stepped closer, her long shapeless black dress wafting the smell of mothballs toward Lydia, and put her big face so close Lydia could see her mouth twitch with irritation as it said sharply, ‘But not before time.’

‘The two months we owe and this month. It’s all there.’

‘Da. It’s all here.’

‘I’m sorry it was so late.’

‘She’s been playing again? To earn this?’

‘Yes.’

The landlady nodded and reached out a well-padded arm as if she would enfold the girl in an embrace, but Lydia eyed the bosom with alarm and backed out the door.

‘Do svidania, Mrs Zarya.’

‘Good-bye, little sparrow. Tell that mother of yours that…’

But Lydia shut her ears. She scooped up her packages and dashed up the stairs. The treads were uncarpeted, the bare wood scuffed and dusty, so her feet made a clattering sound she knew her mother would hear from above.

‘Hello, Mrs Yeoman,’ she sang out as she shot past the second-floor rooms. They were rented by a retired Baptist missionary and his wife who had decided, inexplicably, in Lydia’s view, to eke out their pension in the country they had devoted their lives to.

‘Good afternoon, Lydia,’ Mr Yeoman called back in his usual cheery manner. ‘You sound as if you’re in a hurry.’

‘Is my mother home?’

There was a slight pause, but she was too excited to notice. ‘Yes, I do believe she is.’

Lydia took the last flight of narrow steps up to the attic room two at a time and burst through the door. ‘Mama, look what I’ve got for us, Mama, I’ve…’ She stopped. The smile died on her face.

Her foot kicked the door shut behind her. She felt all the happiness of the day drain from her body and trickle onto the floor alongside the broken crockery, the crushed flowers, and the thousands of cushion feathers that made the room look as if it had been attacked by a swan. At her feet lay the pieces of a shattered mirror. In the middle of the chaos lay the small figure of Valentina Ivanova, curled up on the carpet as neat as a cat. She was fast asleep, her breath coming in soft, regular little puffs. Under the table lay a vodka bottle. It was empty.

Lydia stood staring, struggling for control. Then she dropped her armful of parcels and brown paper bags carelessly on the floor and tiptoed over to her mother, as if she feared she might disturb her, though in reality she knew that only a bucket of water could wake Valentina now. She knelt down beside her.

‘Hello, Mama,’ she whispered. ‘I’m here. Don’t you worry, I’ll…’ But the words wouldn’t come. Her throat ached and her head felt as if it might burst.

She reached out a hand and brushed a dark strand of tousled hair from her mother’s face. Valentina usually wore it up in an elegant twist or sometimes tied back girlishly behind her head, like Lydia’s own, but today it lay spread out in long loose waves of dense colour on the drab carpet. Lydia stroked it. But Valentina did not move. Her cheeks were slightly flushed but even in a drunken stupor her beautiful features managed to look clean and fine. She was dressed only in an oyster-coloured silk chemise and a pair of stockings. Under one eye was a dried smear of mascara, as if she had been crying.

Lydia sat back on her heels but continued to stroke her mother’s hair, again and again, calming herself by the feel of it under her fingers. At the same time she told her in detail about her narrow escape in the old town today and about her Chinese protector and how terrified she’d been of the disgusting snake.

‘So you see, I might not have come home today, Mama. I might have fallen into the clutches of a white slave trader and been shipped down to Shanghai to become a Lady of Delight.’ She made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh. ‘Wouldn’t that have been funny? Don’t you think so, Mama? Really funny.’

Silence.

The place smelled sour. Of cigarette smoke and ash. The windows were closed and the heat was stifling. Lydia picked up the empty vodka bottle and hurled it with a cry of rage against the wall. It exploded into a thousand pieces.

It took Lydia more than an hour to clean the room. To sweep up the pieces of china, the glass, the petals, and the feathers. By far the worst were the feathers. They seemed to come to life and mock her efforts at capture as they floated teasingly just out of reach. By the end of it, she had a cut knee from where she’d knelt on a tiny stiletto of porcelain, an ache in her back from all the brushing, and a handful of feathers in her hair. On top of everything else, she was now unbearably hot, so she threw off her clothes and walked around in just her bodice and navy knickers.

Valentina slept through it all. At one point Lydia eased a pillow under her head on the floor and kissed her cheek. The windows were open but it made little difference, as all the heat of the house rose and gathered in their airless aerie under the roof. The attic was just one long room with slanted walls and two dormer windows, not improved by a smattering of down-at-the-heels furniture. A threadbare carpet, which might once have been colourful but was now a washed-out grey, covered the centre of the floorboards. Each end of the room was partitioned off by a curtain to form two windowless bedrooms, and though the curtains managed to give the illusion of privacy, sounds carried through them with ease. So both mother and daughter had learned the courtesy of silence.

Lydia unwrapped her packages. But the sudden abundance of good food did not tempt her now. Nor did she bother with the meal she had planned to cook. She had no heart for it. Nor stomach either. Automatically she rinsed the fruit and vegetables in cold water because the Chinese were disagreeably fond of using human manure in their fields, but then she left them discarded on the drain board, unchopped and uncooked.

She made herself a drink, a cup of milk with a spoonful of honey in it, and dragged a chair to the window to sit with her elbows on the sill, looking down on the street below. A dingy terrace. Narrow houses. With doors that opened straight onto the pavement. Nothing nice about it in Lydia’s eyes, nothing to lift her mood of despair. The Russian Quarter, they called it, packed with Russian refugees who were stuck here with no papers and no jobs. The lowly paid work went to the Chinese, so unless you could turn a trick at sword swallowing for coppers in the marketplace or had a wife willing to walk the streets, you starved. Simple as that.

Starved or stole.

But she kept looking, kept watching. The bald man with the white stick from next door, the two German sisters strolling arm in arm, the scrawny dog stalking a butterfly, the baby playing with a rattle in a doorway, the cars crawling past, the bicycles, even a grim-faced man with a pig in a wheelbarrow.

The only one to glance up in her direction was a big bear of a man, unmistakably Russian with his mass of oily curls sneaking out from under an astrakhan hat and a heavy beard that smothered the lower half of his face. A black eye patch gave him a gloomy, sinister appearance. Just like the picture of Bluebeard, the pirate in one of her library books, except this one didn’t carry a knife glinting between his teeth, and as he passed she noticed that his knee-high boots seemed to have a howling wolf tooled into the side. She felt like howling herself. But instead she continued to look at each person with interest, anything rather than look at what lay in the room behind her.

The sky was growing darker as the heavy clouds on the horizon marched nearer and the evening air began to smell of rain. To keep her mind off the one thing that was filling it, she wondered whether it was raining in England. Polly said it always rained in England but Lydia didn’t believe her. One day she was determined to go there and find out for herself. It was odd the way Europeans came to China by choice when, from what she’d read, there seemed to be everything that was beautiful and sophisticated and desirable in Europe already. In London, in Paris, in Berlin. Well, maybe not Berlin anymore. Not since the war. But London, yes. The Ritz. The Savoy. Buckingham Palace and the Albert Hall. And all the clubs and shops and theatres.

Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus. Everything. Just everything you could possibly ever want. So why leave them?

She gave a deep shuddering sigh, and a trickle of sweat crept from her ear to her chin like a tear. Oh God, she didn’t know what to do. What to say. Her heart was kicking like a mule in her chest and all she could think of was whether it was raining in England. That was so stupid. She dropped her head on her arms and lay quite still, until her breathing grew calmer.

‘Papa, what should I do for her? Please, Papa. Tell me. Help me.’

No one knew that Lydia whispered to the memory of her father when she was in trouble. Not even Polly. And certainly not her mother. Her mother never mentioned him, didn’t even use his surname anymore.

‘Papa,’ she whispered again, just to hear the sound of that word coming out of her mouth.

Finally she abandoned the window and turned back to the room. It was a grim place to live, with its low sloping ceiling, its moody little paraffin cooking stove and its chipped earthenware sink, but her mother had done everything she could to make it bearable. More than bearable. She’d made it colourful and flamboyant. The nasty brocade sofa and armchair, worn through at the arms, had vanished from sight under swathes of material in wonderful purples, ambers, and magentas that seemed to glow with life. Armfuls of cushions everywhere in gold and bronze gave the room an atmosphere of bohemian looseness, which her mother called risqué and which Olga Zarya called lascivious. A fringed shawl the colour of Lydia’s hair was draped over the pine table, and candles were gathered on a brass dish in the centre so that their flames flickered and reflected on the coppery silk.

To Lydia it was home. It was all she had. She went over to the sleeping figure once more. In the fading light of day she sat on the grey carpet and held her mother’s grey hand in hers.

‘Darling.’ Valentina lifted her head from the pillow on the floor and blinked slowly like a cat stirring itself. ‘Darling, I fell asleep. What time is it?’

‘The church clock just struck one.’ Lydia did not look up from the book in front of her on the table.

‘In the morning?’

‘It’s not this dark at one o’clock in the afternoon.’

‘Then you should be in bed. What are you doing?’

‘Homework.’ Still she refused to look at her mother.

Valentina stretched, easing the kinks out of her spine, sat up and noticed the pillow. She closed her eyes for a brief moment and shuddered.

‘Darling, I am sorry.’

Lydia shrugged indifferently and turned a page of her Outlines of English History, though the words in front of her eyes jumped around without meaning.

‘Don’t sulk, Lydia, it doesn’t suit you.’

‘Lying on the floor doesn’t suit you either.’

‘Maybe if I were lying under it, we would both be better pleased.’

‘Don’t, Mama.’

Valentina gave a soft laugh. ‘I apologise, my little one.’

‘I am not your little one.’

‘No, you’re right, I know.’ Her deep brown eyes skimmed over her daughter’s bent head and coltish naked legs. ‘You’re grown up now. Too grown up.’

She stood and stretched again, pointing each bare foot in turn like a ballet dancer, and shook out her long hair so that it shimmered around her shoulders, catching the candlelight in its rich dark folds. Lydia pretended not to notice. But instead of reading about the Riot Act of 1716, she was watching her mother’s every move through lowered lashes and found herself both relieved and infuriated by how calm and well-rested she looked. More than she had any right to be. Where were the ravages of all that pain? The elfin upsweep of Valentina’s eyebrows was even more pronounced than usual, as if the whole of life were just one silly joke, not to be taken seriously.

Valentina sat down on the sofa and patted the cushion beside her. ‘Come and sit with me, Lydia.’

‘I’m busy.’

‘It’s one o’clock in the morning. You can be busy tomorrow.’

Lydia shut her book with a sharp little snap and went over to the sofa. She sat there stiffly, maintaining a decent gap between her mother and herself, but Valentina reached across it and ruffled her daughter’s hair.

‘Relax, darling. Where’s the harm in a few drinks now and again? It keeps me sane. So please don’t sulk.’

‘I’m not sulking,’ Lydia said sulkily.

‘My God, I’m so thirsty, I…’

‘We only have one cup left and no saucers.’

Valentina burst out laughing, and despite herself Lydia sneaked a smile. Her mother looked around the floor and nodded. ‘You cleaned it all up for me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you. I bet Mr Yeoman downstairs thought the world was coming to an…’ She broke off and stared at the bare patch of wall by the door. ‘The mirror. It’s… ’

‘Broken. That means seven years bad luck.’

‘Oh God, Olga Petrovna Zarya will kill me and charge us twice what it was worth. But the next seven years can’t be any worse than the last seven, can they?’

Lydia said nothing.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ Valentina murmured, but Lydia had heard those words before. ‘At least the cups were ours. Anyway, I always hated that mirror. It was so ugly and it made me look so old.’

‘I’ve made a jug of lemonade. Would you like some?’

Valentina turned and stroked her daughter’s cheek. ‘That would be heavenly. My throat is parched.’

When she was sipping the cool liquid out of their one remaining teacup – any glasses had been pawned long ago – she placed a hand on top of her head each time she tipped it back, as if to hold it on.

‘Any aspirin?’ she asked hopefully.

‘No.’

‘I thought not.’

‘But I bought these for you.’ With a shy smile Lydia produced from behind her back a chocolate-filled croissant and a long silk scarf in a deep dramatic red. ‘I thought it would look good on you.’

Valentina put down the teacup on the carpet and took the croissant in one hand and the scarf in the other. ‘Darling,’ she said, drawing the word out like a caress. ‘You spoil me.’ She stared at both gifts for a long moment, then swirled the scarf around and around her throat with delight and took a huge bite out of the pastry. ‘Wonderful,’ she murmured with her mouth full. ‘From the French patisserie. Thank you, my sweet child.’ She leaned over and kissed Lydia’s cheek.

‘I’ve been doing some jobs to help Mr Willoughby at school and he paid me today,’ Lydia explained. The words came tumbling out a fraction too fast, but her mother didn’t seem to notice.

A tiny muscle that had been clenched tight in Lydia’s forehead relaxed for the first time that evening. Everything would be okay again now. Her mother would stop. No more craziness. No more tearing their fragile world apart. She picked up the cup from the floor and took a mouthful of lemonade for herself to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

‘Was it Antoine again?’ she asked in a casual voice with a side-long glance at Valentina.

Instantly she regretted it.

‘That filthy bastard, podliy ismennik!’ Valentina exploded.

‘Don’t even speak his name to me. He’s a lying French toad, a sneaky snake in the grass. I never ever want to see him again.’

Lydia felt a tug of sympathy for Antoine Fourget. He adored her mother. Would have married her tomorrow if he had not already been married to a French Catholic who refused to divorce him and by whom he had four children clamouring for attention and financial support. He always took Valentina dancing on a Friday night and stole a secret hour or two with her during the week whenever he could take a long lunch from his office while Lydia was at school. But she knew when he’d been there. The room smelled different, altogether more interesting, of cigarettes and brilliantine.

‘What did he do?’

Valentina jumped to her feet and started pacing the room, both hands clamped firmly to her head. ‘His wife. She is expecting another baby.’

‘Oh.’

‘The cheating bastard had sworn to me he never went near her bed anymore. How could he be so… so unfaithful?’

‘Mama, she is his wife.’

Valentina tossed her head angrily, then closed her eyes as if in pain. ‘In name only, he promised me.’

‘Maybe she loves him.’

Her eyes snapped open and in a challenging gesture she placed her hands on her hips. Lydia couldn’t help noticing how thin they were under the silk slip.

‘Does it occur to you, Lydia, that maybe I love him too?’

This time it was Lydia’s turn to laugh. ‘No, Mama, it does not occur to me. You are fond of him, you have fun with him, you dance with him, but no, you do not love him.’

Valentina opened her mouth to protest, but then shook her head skittishly and collapsed once more onto the sofa, lying back among the cushions. She draped one arm across her aching head.

‘I think I’m going to die, darling.’

‘Not today.’

‘I do love him a little bit, you know.’

‘I know you do, Mama.’

‘But…,’ Valentina looked out from under her arm, her eyes narrowed as she gazed up at her daughter’s face, at her strong straight nose, her high Scandinavian cheekbones, and the copper blaze of her hair, ‘… but the only man I’ve ever loved – or ever will love in this life – is your father.’ She shut her eyes firmly.

Silence settled on the room. Lydia felt her skin prickle with pleasure. A damp breeze carrying spots of rain slipped in through the open windows and cooled her cheeks, but nothing could cool the delicious warmth that drifted through her body, as seductive as opium.

‘Papa,’ she whispered and in her head she heard his rich deep laugh echo till it filled her young skull. She saw again the world swing in a crazy kaleidoscope as strong hands swept her up high in the air. If she tried harder still she could conjure up the masculine smell of him, an intoxicating mix of tobacco and hair oil and damp bristly scarves that tickled her chin.

Or was she making that up?

She was so frightened of losing the little scraps of him she had left. With a sigh she stood and blew out the candles, then curled up among the cushions again next to her mother and fell asleep as easily as a kitten.

The sound of a car klaxon in the street woke Lydia with a jolt. The pale yellow light that filtered through the partition curtains of her miniature bedroom told her it was morning and later than it should be. Saturday meant only a half day at school but she was still expected there at nine. She sat up and was surprised that her head felt disconnected and swirled away from her, but then remembered she’d had nothing to eat the day before. With a sinking heart she recalled why.

But today would be better. Today was her birthday.

The hooting in the street started up again. She jumped from her bed and leaned out of the nearest window to look at what was going on. The overnight rain had stopped, but everything was still wet and glistening, and the air was already showing signs of heating up again. The slates on the roof opposite were beginning to steam. Above her the sky was a dull and lifeless grey but down below on the street was a bright splash of colour that lifted her spirits. A little open sports car was parked right outside their door and in it sat a dark-haired man wearing a yellow polo shirt and clutching a vast bouquet of red roses. He looked up and waved the flowers at her.

‘’Allo, ma chérie,’ he called. ‘Is your maman up yet?’

‘Hello, Antoine.’ Lydia smiled and quickly put up a hand to cover her grubby bodice. ‘Is that your new car?’

‘This? Yes, I won her last night, at cards. Isn’t she adorable?’ He kissed his fingers in an extravagant French gesture and laughed, showing healthy white teeth.

Every time Lydia saw him she thought he was the most handsome man she’d ever met, not that she’d met that many of course, but it wasn’t hard to imagine how easy it would be to have fun with him. He was in his thirties, Mama said, but to Lydia he seemed younger, he was so full of boyish charm.

‘I’ll see if she’s awake,’ she shouted back and rushed across the room to peek behind her mother’s curtain.

In sharp contrast to the colours and sensuality of the sitting-room area, Valentina kept her sleeping section stark and plain. White unadorned walls, white bed linen, even a white-painted old wardrobe with doors that were warped and hard to open. The curtain had once been a pair of white bedsheets that were now discoloured with age. It was an unforgiving and soulless cell. Sometimes Lydia wondered what it was she was trying to atone for.

‘Mama?’

Valentina was lying in a tangle of sheets, her hair twisted into a dark muddle of misery on her pillow, and shadowy hollows bore witness under her eyes. Her eyelids were closed but not for one second did Lydia believe she was asleep. All the signs were of a restless, tormented night.

‘Mama, Antoine is here.’

The eyes did not open. ‘Tell him to go to hell.’

‘But he’s brought you flowers.’ Lydia sat down on the end of the bed, not something she normally did unless invited. ‘He looks very sorry and…,’ she thought quickly for something else to tempt her, ‘and he’s driving a sports car.’ She omitted to mention that it was very small and rather odd looking.

‘So it will be easy for him to drive himself straight into the river.’

‘You’re too cruel.’

Valentina’s eyes shot open at that and they were not pleased. ‘You’re too soft on him. Just because he’s a man.’

Lydia blushed and stood up. In her worn-out bodice and knickers she knew she lacked dignity, but she lifted her chin and said, ‘I shall go down and tell him you are asleep.’

‘If you really want to make yourself useful, tell him to bring me some vodka.’

Lydia swept out past the curtain and risked no comment. She splashed chilly water from the sink over her hands and face, rubbed her teeth with a finger dipped in salt, and scrubbed at her forehead with the heel of her hand to try to dislodge the tight band of fear that gripped it. It only took the word vodka to panic her. She pulled on her school uniform, grabbed her satchel, and picked up a couple of sugared dumplings. She was walking out the door when her mother’s voice called out. Softly this time.

‘Lydia.’

‘Yes?’

‘Come here, my sweet.’

Reluctantly Lydia entered the white bedroom. She stood just inside the curtain and stared down at her scuffed black shoes. She was used to them hurting, like she was used to her head hurting.

‘Lydia.’

She looked up. Her mother was lying languorously back against her pillows, her hair brushed out in a gleaming fan, and she was smiling, holding out one hand. Lydia was too cross to respond and stayed where she was.

‘Darling, I haven’t forgotten what day it is.’

Lydia stared at her shoes, hating them.

‘Happy birthday, sweetheart. S dniom rozhdenia, dochenka. I didn’t mean it about the vodka, honestly I didn’t. Come and give me a kiss, darling. A birthday kiss.’

Lydia did so, brushing her warm cheek against her mother’s cool one.

‘Sit down a minute, Lydia.’

‘But Antoine is…’

‘Damn Antoine.’ Valentina waved a hand dismissively. ‘I want to say something to you.’

Lydia sat down on the bed. Abruptly she realised she was hungry and took a bite out of the dumpling, her tongue chasing the sugary bits around her lips.

‘Darling, listen to me. I am glad to see you eating something nice on your birthday but sorry I was not the one to give it to you.’

Lydia stopped eating, the sweetness in her mouth suddenly soured by a vague sense of guilt. ‘That’s all right, Mama.’

‘No, it’s not all right. It makes me sad. I have no money to buy you a present, we both know that. So instead I invite you to come with me when I play at the Ulysses Club tonight. You can be my page turner.’

A cry of delight burst from Lydia and she threw her arms around her mother. ‘Oh, Mama, thank you, it’s the very best birthday present.’

‘Mind your dumpling in my hair.’

‘It’s what I’ve wanted for years.’

‘As if I didn’t know that. You’ve always pestered me to come to the recitals, but now at sixteen years old I think it is time. And it means I won’t have to wear myself out afterward telling you that Sir Edward said this or Colonel Mortimer argued that, and what all the ladies were wearing. Please, sweetheart, do take your sticky fingers away from me.’

Lydia jumped up and brushed her hands on the sides of her skirt. ‘I’ll make you proud of me, Mama. We can practise this afternoon on Mrs Zarya’s piano. You know how she likes to hear you play.’

‘Only if the miserable old dragon hasn’t thrown us out on the street by then.’

‘Oh no, I didn’t tell you, I’ve paid the rent we owed. And next month’s is in the blue bowl on the shelf. So don’t worry about Mrs Zarya any more.’

‘This work you do for Mr Willoughby must be extraordinarily well paid.’

Lydia nodded awkwardly. ‘Yes, it is. I’ve been marking the schoolwork of the children in the lower classes, you see. Almost like a teacher really.’ She scooped up her satchel. ‘Thanks again, Mama.’ She rushed for the door.

Her mother’s voice followed her. ‘And tell that lying rat in the car downstairs to stick his flowers alongside his promises, down in the sewer where they belong.’

Lydia shut the door quickly before Mr and Mrs Yeoman could hear.

‘But it’s only got three wheels,’ Lydia objected.

‘It’s a Morgan, so what do you expect?’ Antoine Fourget patted one of the car’s shiny black fenders. ‘She has won the races all over the world.’

‘Is it the same as the one Isadora Duncan was killed in last year?’

‘Non.’ He crossed himself quickly. ‘That was a Bugatti. But this is a magnifique little lady. I was lucky last night at cards.’ He turned hopeful eyes on Lydia. ‘But am I lucky today? Eh bien, what did your maman say?’

‘Not good.’

‘She won’t see me?’

‘Sorry, no.’

‘The flowers?’

She shook her head.

Antoine slumped into the driving seat and made a low rumbling sound in the back of his throat. Lydia felt an overwhelming urge to reach out and smooth his ruffled black hair, to feel how soft it was, to do something, anything to ease the misery her mother had inflicted. But she kept her hands to herself.

‘Can I have a ride, Antoine?’

He summoned up a smile, ‘Of course, chérie. A ride to school?’

‘Yes, please.’

He lifted the flowers off the passenger seat and she jumped in, clutching her hat on her lap. ‘It’s my birthday today,’ she said.

‘Ah, bonne anniversaire.’ He leaned across and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘You shall have the flowers instead. For your birthday, from me.’

He presented the bouquet to her with a flourish that made her blush and started the car. Lydia knew she was not the one he wanted seated beside him, but nevertheless she enjoyed the ride. What she didn’t tell her mother’s lover was that this was her first time in a car. She’d never even sat in one before. The constant movement of the gear stick and the fiddling with the controls fascinated her, as well as the distortion of the pavement flying past at full speed and the wind rushing into her face over the tiny windshield, tearing at her hair, making her blink and gasp for breath. When the Morgan hooted at a rickshaw, making it dive out of their way, she beamed with delight.

‘Lydia.’

‘Mmm?’

The roads were becoming wider now as they left the meaner beggar-ridden streets that made up the Russian Quarter and headed through the better part of town where the shops and cafés were already opening. Sikh policemen in turbans stood on little platforms at each major junction, flapping their white-gloved hands to direct the flow of traffic. Lydia leaned over the low door of the car and waved to one just for the fun of it.

‘Lydia,’ Antoine repeated more urgently.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you think she will forgive me?’

‘Oh Antoine, I don’t know. You know what she’s like.’

He uttered a faint groan, and she became frightened he might crash the car in a wild Gallic gesture of despair, so she hurried on, ‘But I expect she’ll get over it quickly. Just give her a few days.’

The grand Town Hall with its pillars and Union Jack shot past in a blur, then Victoria Park with a smattering of prams and nannies. Lydia felt her cheeks gripped by the wind as Antoine put his foot down.

‘I love her, you know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt her. I should never have mentioned the baby.’

‘Yes, maybe that was a mistake.’

‘Does she love me?’

‘Yes, of course she does.’

‘Really, chérie?’

‘Really.’

The glorious smile he gave her was worth the lie. It sent a tingle all down her spine, right to her fingertips, and it was then that an idea occurred to her.

‘Antoine, do you know what I think might help?’

‘What?’ He stuck out an arm and swung left up Wordsworth Avenue, the car’s motorbike engine growling as it launched itself at the incline.

‘If you gave Mama a present she really wanted, I think it might win her over.’

His dark eyes darted a look of alarm at her. ‘I’m not rich, you know. I cannot bestow her with jewels and perfumes like she deserves. And when I did once offer her a little money, you know, just to help, she refused it.’

Lydia looked at him in surprise. ‘But why?’

‘She shouted at me, threw a book at my head. Said she was not a whore to be bought.’

Lydia sighed. Oh Mama. Such pride came at a price.

At the top of the hill in the British Quarter the houses were large and elegant, built of pale stone and surrounded by well-tended lawns and neat hedges. The school was coming into sight. She must hurry.

‘No, I don’t mean anything expensive. I was thinking of something… to comfort her when you’re not there.’ She glanced at him warily. ‘When you’re with your wife.’

He frowned. ‘Like what do you mean?’

She swallowed and said it quickly. ‘A rabbit.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, a white rabbit with lovely long ears and sweet pink eyes.’

‘Un lapin?’

‘That’s right. She owned one when she was a little girl in St Petersburg and has always longed for another.’

He looked at her closely. ‘You surprise me.’

‘It’s true.’

‘I’ll ask her.’

‘No, no, don’t do that. You’ll spoil the surprise.’ She smiled at his profile encouragingly and thought what a beautiful Roman nose he had. ‘She’ll be reminded of you every time she runs her fingers through its soft white fur.’

She could see he was thinking about it. The corners of his mouth curled up and he shrugged in his eloquent French way that said so much more than English shrugs.

‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘c’est possible.’

‘A red ribbon would be nice too. On the rabbit, I mean.’

But she wasn’t sure he heard straight. He was manoeuvring around a large black Humber out of which three girls in Willoughby Academy uniforms were tumbling and staring at Lydia with envy. Clutching the bouquet of roses in her arms, she kissed her handsome companion’s cheek in full view of them and sauntered into school. The day was starting well.

It was only later, when dreaming out of the window in class, that she allowed herself to think about the lithe young figure she’d noticed half hidden in the shadow of the rickshaws across the road, of the pair of black Chinese eyes watching her as she entered the school gates.