“Yes. I am okay.”
“You moved tables.”
“Yes, I moved the table—because now there is three of us and it seems a good idea.”
She looked over her shoulder. Gabriel was inside the door, looking around. She felt a sudden surge of loyalty as she motioned toward him.
He came over.
“Lovely place,” Gabriel said.
“Gabriel, this is Arkady. We met last week when I was helping you move.”
“Hi.” Gabriel offered his hand.
“Hello.” The Russian stood. And she watched the two very different men greet each other the way men do—serious, eye to eye, shaking as if to affirm some ancient rite that women could know nothing about.
“Oh Christ,” Gabriel said, sudden understanding declaring itself in his face. “Sorry. Your e-mail, last weekend—oh, sorry. I am so sorry. I wasn’t there. I completely forgot. I was… I was moving.”
“It is nothing.” The Russian seemed oddly cheered.
“But you ran into Is?” Gabriel asked.
She smiled.
Arkady appeared puzzled.
“You met Isabella—last weekend,” Gabriel said.
“Yes.”
“Thank God for that. I am so sorry.” Gabriel shook his head. “Various problems.”
“I understand.”
Gabriel asked, “Who wants a drink?”
“Arkady, do you want some more tea?” This from Isabella.
“You’re drinking tea?” This from Gabriel.
“Yes, we are. Arkady doesn’t drink.”
Arkady himself spoke. “Maybe once a year. Maybe tonight I drink.”
“You ever had a Guinness?” Gabriel asked.
“No.”
Gabriel grinned. “Well, this is a good time to start. Made for weather like this. When it’s not cold enough for vodka and too cold for normal beer. I’ll get you one. Is?”
“Vodka lime.”
He nodded.
“For Christ’s sake, hurry up, Gabs. Arkady has some important information.”
“And you are such a freak. Okay. I’m hurrying.”
She sat down with the Russian. She felt that she might chew through her own cheeks. She felt nervous and insane and serene all at the same time. Part of her was staggered afresh by how quickly Gabriel could interpret a situation. (Even though he had no idea what was to come, already he had gleaned that this was Arkady’s first time in London. He was putting the man at his ease as she never could.) And another part of her was attempting to be as normal as possible with Arkady and stop treating him like an endangered species from the most precious part of Russia.
Gabriel stood at the bar, conscious that Isabella was looking up at him and then back at Arkady, as if either one were about to die or give birth. He turned away to place his order.
The thought occurred that she was about to announce she was getting married—some hungry-looking Russian she had met two hours ago, and bang, they’d hurried straight to the nearest gastro-pub to seal the bond. He’s the one. Hates all forms of convention. Loves music and doing what he damn well pleases in any kind of company. After all these years, it had taken her only two hours to know… True love—despite everything that happened in the desperate burning world, you still had to factor it in.
He himself was recovering now. Glad to be out of that accursed room. Most of all, he was eager—desperate—to discover how well the man had known his mother. He must have spent a fair amount of time with her, for Isabella to come in person to his own pit of despair. He hoped that they would become friends. Arkady was roughly his own age.
He turned, carrying the drinks. And he felt that sudden warm feeling suffuse him—the feeling of being sheltered inside on a winter’s night, of cheer and good company. Yes, he was looking forward to a long evening, listening to Arkady’s stories from Petersburg, eating together, talking, real things. The snow too made him ache for Russia. He could see it falling now through the plain glass of the upper windows, still thin and wispy, but falling nonetheless.
He placed the drinks carefully on their table and sat down.
“Here you go.”
“Thank you,” Arkady said.
“Is.”
“Thanks.” His sister looked as though she were about to collapse from some kind of overwhelming excitement or pain or something.
“Is, are you all right? Do you need to take your medicine or go to the loo or something?”
Isabella could stand it no longer.
“Arkady. Do you have the letter? I would like my brother to read it.”
“Yes,” Arkady said.
He took out the letter from the inside pocket of his old jacket and gave it to Gabriel.
“This is true,” he said.
49
After Shock
Saturday, five days before Christmas, minus three outside, the coldest December on record, and they were running out of places to be. So they were now sitting in the kitchen of Susan’s house, back on Torriano Avenue. Arkady was at Gabriel’s new place on Grafton Terrace. Gabriel had moved into Larry’s spare room. Isabella was still the guest of Susan and Adam. And Susan and Adam had taken the children out to visit Santa Claus, who had set up unlikely shop on the Finchley Road.
The heating, presumably on some kind of a timer, had switched itself off, and Isabella didn’t know where the control was and didn’t dare fiddle with it in any case. It was absolutely freezing. They were hunched over on either side of the kitchen table, which was covered with coloring books, crayons, and children’s activity centers. Indeed, the whole room—with snow sitting on every cross-pane of the window frame, with the bright red plastic fire engine in the corner, the huge yellow rag doll, the piles of Lego on the high chair—the whole place had a faintly surreal, grottolike atmosphere.
Isabella was speaking animatedly: “Christ, yes, of course I’m angry. I’m probably in shock. I’m probably in worse than that.”
“Yeah, me too.” In contrast, Gabriel’s face wore a lugubrious expression. “Me too.”
“We have been lied to,” Isabella added.
“What’s worse than shock—what’s the next grade up, medically I mean? Trauma? Is it trauma?” Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “It is, isn’t it?” He nodded to himself. “I’m in trauma. That’s what I’m in. Make a note. I am definitely in trauma. Or is it disbelief? Or terror? What’s next? What comes after shock? What’s top of the scale?”
“All our lives.” Isabella shook her head with mild impatience. “All our lives, we have been lied to.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Okay, maybe not. No. But that’s why we have no choice but to go.”
Gabriel held up his palms. “I’ve said I’m not arguing with you.”
“So… right, then. Let’s go upstairs to the computer and I’ll book you a ticket for later this afternoon.”
“Was there anything back from this Henry?”
Isabella frowned at the diversion. “No. But I only e-mailed him this morning, and Arkady said he has to go to the café to check email. He may not get it for days.”
“Okay.” Gabriel eyed the olive-green Martians in the comic that was open by his elbow.
“And yes,” Isabella continued, “we can ask him to play the piano, but don’t you think that’s going to be just a bit awkward? ‘Excuse me, Arkady, thanks for coming all the way from Russia with no money and living in a shit hole for two weeks while we ignored you but could you just please play us the Goldberg Variations while we, experts that we are, check out your talent to our satisfaction?’”