‘Where is Elena?’ she asks.
‘Elena? No idea. She was here earlier, though. I know you weren’t sure about leaving her with Ivan, but she’s been a godsend while you’ve been ill. She’s taken the washing away, taken him for walks. Don’t worry – I’ve told her not to take him out on the balcony.’
‘It’s okay,’ says Rachel. ‘I don’t mind.’
Lucas is taken aback. ‘Really? I thought it would upset you!’ He doesn’t know about Mykola’s warning, or the gravity-invoking weight of her own fear and none of this matters to Rachel any more, because Elena has taken her baby out to the edge and proved them all wrong.
‘Look,’ continues Lucas. ‘I’ve been thinking. I said some stupid stuff before you got ill, and I’m sorry. I really am. But you do need to go back to England for a couple of weeks – nothing more, I swear – just a bit of time for a rest and some food that won’t poison you.’ He takes her hand. She doesn’t pull away. ‘Zoya’s been useless – I think a relative died and I’ve got behind with work. Not your fault, obviously. So I’ve booked you a ticket. For next week.’
Rachel blinks quickly, her old habit, the one she has always used to push away difficult thoughts.
‘Anyway,’ continues Lucas, ‘when you come back my story will be finished and we can take a holiday together, maybe down to Crimea like I promised at Christmas. I could get a feature out of it – make it pay for itself.’
‘I suppose.’ So many other things are stretching, twisting, re-forming into a way of thinking that is as yet unclear. For the first time in months Rachel peers out at a pressing, insistent future. England, and the fact of its continuing existence, is beginning to reassemble itself.
Chapter 24
ON THE MORNING of Rachel’s departure she wakes early and stands in the kitchen in her bare feet. The sun is already high above the river. She can feel its warmth on her face as she sips her tea. Her suitcases are packed. Ivan’s changing bag is ready. The cupboard is full of dried pasta and tinned tomatoes so that Lucas won’t starve. Soon she will wake Ivan, give him his morning milk and dress him for the journey, but she won’t move until she hears Lucas pull the light switch in the bathroom. Her own stillness calms her. In a few hours she will be in England, knocking on her mother’s door. She hasn’t told her mother she is coming. Neither has she mentioned this fact to Lucas. Baby steps, she thinks. First one foot, then the other.
Lucas, however, doesn’t go into the bathroom. Instead he steps in behind her and stands just an inch or two away. She can feel his bed heat between them. She can smell his morning breath. He can’t take her to the airport, he tells her. Lukyanenko has called a breakfast press conference. Lucas wasn’t given any warning; he has to go. He is sorry, but this is big. Soon he is dressed and gone, leaving only an awkward kiss next to her ear and a plea that she will call the office number from Heathrow when she lands.
Rachel watches from the window as he strides across the car park. Soon he is a tiny figure like the other tiny figures moving across the road, milling at the tram stop, combining and separating, impelled by some law of mutual proximity. She stows her copy of Jurassic Park in the bottom of Ivan’s changing bag and waits for Zoya.
When Zoya arrives, Rachel tells her how sorry she is to hear about her bereavement.
Zoya is wearing a green shirt today, tucked into the high waist of her jeans. She looks different – the outfit is more casual than her usual skirt and boots as if she was dressed for a stroll in the park.
‘My grandfather was old,’ she says, with a quick shake of her head. ‘Dying was all he had left.’ She spots Rachel’s suitcase. ‘Let’s go. You have your passport, your ticket, money?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Rachel clips Ivan into his pushchair and loops the changing bag over the handles. When she closes the front door behind them and rattles it to make sure it is locked a shiver passes through her, a sense of severance, as if the time she has spent here is shaking itself out. She will be back in two weeks, she tells herself. Nothing will have changed.
Downstairs in the foyer Elena is waiting to say goodbye. She bends forward to give Ivan a kiss and a squeeze. When she straightens up she is smiling, but her eyes are watery with tears. Zoya speaks to her quickly in Ukrainian and Elena bows her head.
‘What did you say to her?’ asks Rachel, as they exit through the door.
‘I told her to stay out of your flat.’
‘What?’ Rachel looks back at Elena, who is already retreating up the stairs.
Zoya sighs. ‘Your flat. She has a key. Lucas gave her one while you were ill.’
Rachel thinks about this for a moment. ‘I don’t mind if she lets herself in for a bit,’ she says. ‘Lucas wouldn’t like it, but he gave her the key. Imagine – he comes home, and Elena is sitting on the sofa watching Simplemente Maria!’ She starts laughing, surprising herself, while Zoya rolls her eyes to hide her smile.
Rachel’s mood changes as they drive out of the city. She sits on the back seat of the car with Ivan on her knee and winds down the window. Zoya glances in her mirror and tuts, but Rachel takes no notice. The day is calm and warm, with a high blue sky. The smells of scythed grass and tar compete with the exhaust fumes as they drive along the boulevards. The trees are in full leaf now and the sun is glancing off the empty windows of the shops announcing Khleb or Kneegi or Myaso, so that people walking past in the shade look blurry, like the figures in Victorian photographs who moved while the plate was exposed. Everything in Kiev is alien to Rachel – the cars, the people, the noises, the language, the smells – yet it feels more real to her than anywhere else.
‘I don’t want to go back to England,’ she says softly, to the back of Zoya’s head.
Zoya studies her in the rear view mirror.
‘Then don’t go.’
The wind is blowing Rachel’s hair across her face. She pushes it away. ‘What are you doing today? I mean, after you’ve dropped me at the airport. Are you going to the office?’
‘No.’
Rachel is used to Zoya’s curtness. She adjusts her son’s legs – he is falling asleep and she tries to make him comfortable. However, just as she resigns herself to silence, Zoya takes one hand off the wheel and winds down her own window a little way.
‘As a matter of fact,’ she says, ‘I am going to my grandfather’s place in the country.’
‘Oh.’ Rachel tries to imagine Zoya in the woods; she struggles to picture her anywhere but the city. ‘Do you grow things there? Can I come with you?’
Zoya snorts. ‘I have things I must do. You have a plane to catch.’
‘Well, you said, “Then don’t go,” and I don’t want to.’ Rachel leans forward, gripped by the possibility that she might be allowed to change her mind. ‘We could go back and fetch Elena. She’d love a day in the country – she must be missing her little house in Tsarskoye Selo!’
Zoya says nothing for a while. She drives around a pot hole, then pulls over beneath a hoarding and eases up the handbrake.