The arrival of her husband and daughter provided the most perfect balm for Marianne’s distress. From Edward, there was nothing but love and sympathy. No mention was made of why she had been flying back from Georgia and Marianne never mentioned the consequences of her injuries. These conversations would have to take place, but that was for later. Mostly Edward held her hand and smiled at her, blinking away his own tears while Izzy gabbled on about their time in Cheltenham and Cambridge. How they had spent Easter with Granny and how she loved Granny’s two cats and how Granddad had arranged an Easter-egg hunt and how they had to rush to the airport to return to Moscow. ‘And… and… Mummy,’ she said, ‘our plane didn’t crash.’
That night, drugged with pain killers and the powerful narcotic of her family’s overwhelming love, she fell into a dreamless sleep.
Edward was with her again by noon the next day. This time he was alone and the anxiety in his eyes and slight frown hovering across his forehead told Marianne that he knew the worst about her condition. ‘The doctors said that they told you.’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean, that you won’t be able to have more children.’
‘Yes, they told me.’
‘Oh God, Marianne, I’m so desperately sorry – can you bear it? Thank heaven we have Izzy.’ Edward spent the next hour at her bedside trying to comfort her, and although it may well have been that his pain was greater than hers, he never gave the slightest sign of anger or resentment. Marianne felt humble at his selflessness; I am unworthy of his love, she thought. The subject of her trip was raised only obliquely: ‘You know, Aeroflot don’t have a very good safety record.’
‘Don’t they? Well, I wish to God I’d never taken the trip.’
‘You never mentioned that you were planning to fly down to Georgia.’
‘I wasn’t. At least, not then. But I was having a coffee with Larry on one of his visits to the university and he said he was going down there for a week and I rather foolishly said how much I wanted to visit the Caucasus. As a result, he offered to arrange a short trip for me… I’m sorry, Ed, I know you don’t like the guy, but it was kind of him and no one could expect the plane to crash.’
Edward frowned and shook his head, but said, ‘Well, I must say he was very efficient in tracking me down and telling me about the accident and sending a car to the airport. Even so…’
‘I know, and I’ve decided I won’t go on meeting him. You were right. I mustn’t get involved in politics. But when I’m better, I’d like for us to go down to Georgia together. I think perhaps by train this time – it was really fascinating, and I would love it if we could go together and see the Caucasus properly…’
Edward squeezed her hand: ‘Yes, that does sound like fun.’
Three days after his first visit, Larry came again to the hospital. ‘So they’ve moved you into the foreigners’ wing,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Not much privacy, though, with the toilet and bathtub in the middle of the room.’
‘Well, that’s not my greatest concern.’
Then he told her. He was being expelled from the Soviet Union. His diplomatic status had been revoked and he had to be on a plane out the next morning.
‘So I came to say goodbye.’
‘I’m sorry, Larry, and look… thank you for everything… I’m sorry if…’
‘Don’t try to explain, Marianne. We have always understood each other. I have never had any illusions that you would leave Edward. Whatever happens in the future, I will never forget you.’
‘What will happen to you now?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about me. It goes with the territory. Cultural attachés usually get expelled after a couple of years. We tend to mix too much with people the authorities regard as undesirable. But I should warn you, it is possible that they may try to ask you some questions. Don’t worry if they do; you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s just routine.’
Marianne was relieved that Larry hadn’t stayed long at the hospital and she was also comforted that his departure from Moscow would remove any temptation that she might have had to see him in the future – not that she could imagine ever having sex again with anyone. Needless-to-say, Edward felt entirely vindicated. ‘I knew he was a bloody spy,’ he said.
‘That’s not how he sees it.’
‘I doubt if you know the whole picture.’
‘Probably not. Anyway, now there’s no risk of my bumping into him again.’
‘Well, just make sure his replacement doesn’t try to contact you and carry on where he left off.’
‘I can assure you, that won’t happen,’ said Marianne, noting to herself that this was at least one question she could answer with complete honesty.
Marianne received visits every day from Edward and most days he brought Izzy with him. She also received a surprise visit from her sister Claire, now a nineteen-year-old, studying in Paris. With her long, untidy and presumably unwashed hair, and a coat which looked as if it had been retrieved from the trenches of the first world war, she was every inch the Sorbonne student, anxious to light up her Gitanes in the corridor whenever the opportunity arose.
‘Got an emergency visa,’ she said, speaking in French. ‘Maman insisted I come. I can only stay forty-eight hours.’
‘I’d prefer to speak in English,’ said Marianne.
‘Forgotten your French?’
‘Not at all, but…’
‘This way we won’t be so easily understood,’ said Claire, looking around and continuing to speak in French.
Marianne shrugged. ‘It was good of you to come.’
‘I want to know what’s going on. What were you doing in Georgia and who is the mysterious man you were with?’
Marianne had never been particularly close to Claire. The age gap of nearly ten years meant that she had always thought of Claire as a child. Part of her would have loved to have confided in her sister but she didn’t know her well enough and wasn’t sure she could trust her to keep her mouth shut. More importantly, however, she wanted to put the whole Larry episode behind her and wipe it from her memory. She therefore laughed off her sister’s suggestion of an affair, explaining he was just an acquaintance from the embassy – and a very dull one at that.
In the meantime, Marianne tried her best to be stoical. She longed to be able to telephone her mother but although there was a payphone in the hallway, to which she was wheeled on a couple of occasions to speak to Edward, it was impossible to make international calls so all she could do was rely on Edward or Claire to relay messages. She realised that she would have ugly scarring across her lower stomach and the top of her left thigh and this was not going to look pretty in a bikini. The Russian doctors had decided that she didn’t need surgery for the pelvic fracture, but they had fixed a metal frame on the outside of her body which made sleeping difficult; Edward told her she should get a second opinion as soon as she was well enough to fly to England.
The dominant topic, to which Edward reverted again and again – which had evoked sympathy even from her sister, and on which her parents had sent her a long and emotional letter – was one where Marianne recognised that she did not feel as distressed as perhaps she ought, or indeed as much as Edward or her parents expected. She covered up her feeling, but with a growing discomfort that she did not deserve this outpouring of sympathy. No more agonising about when to have more children; it was simply one less problem to figure out. It was a guilty secret now for Marianne to look at Izzy and know that she was content with this one child; a child who would never have to share her mother’s love with another sibling, who would not only be her most beloved daughter but also her best friend and life-long companion.