They had sailed from Ipswich, where the yacht was moored, round the coast to Mersea Island, where they had stopped for a pub meal before returning. He told himself it was all very innocent, but underneath he was aware of currents of sexual attraction and on the second occasion he had made some excuse about storms brewing and they had stayed at the pub all night. A year later, she was as good as living at Balfour Place. He felt guilty about it but he assuaged it by telling himself, and Pamela, that he was not Lydia’s first love and that she still hankered for the old one. It had been nearly six years since his meeting with Alex, and as Lydia had long since ceased to talk about Yuri, there had been no occasion when he could have said anything. Or so he told himself. And the longer he delayed the more impossible it became.
Sometimes he wondered if Lydia had guessed about Pamela. Just lately she had been acting a little strangely – subdued, almost in a dream some of the time, at other times overanimated, as if she had a lot of excess energy she needed to expend. And their lovemaking, never very passionate or frequent, had become almost non-existent. It could, of course, be her time of life. He began to wonder what would happen if his affair came out into the open. It was a question he did not like to ask himself and he pushed it out of his mind in the hope it would never happen. He did not want to give Pamela up; she fulfilled a need in him that he had not even been aware existed before he met her. Neither did he want his marriage to break up; that was like a comfortable pair of slippers, worn but still too good to throw away. And at the moment he was enjoying the best of both worlds.
Lydia found Alex feeding the pigs, who snorted and squealed and nudged each other out of the way to get at the trough. He was wearing an old pullover, with holes in the elbows and grubby jeans tucked into wellington boots. She stood a little way off, not wanting to go any closer for fear of dirtying her shoes, but drinking in the sight of him, feeding her hunger for him just by watching him doing the mundane tasks he did every day.
He emptied the bucket and turned, seeing her for the first time. ‘Lydia, I didn’t hear you arrive.’
‘You did say “just turn up”. You meant it, didn’t you?’
‘Of course I did.’ He put the bucket down and came towards her. ‘I’m filthy.’
‘I don’t care.’ She reached up and pulled his head down to kiss him.
He stood with his arms held out sideways so he didn’t dirty her jacket. ‘Go indoors,’ he said when she stopped to draw breath. ‘I’ll finish up out here and then I’ll be with you.’
She went back to the car, fetched her overnight bag and went in by the kitchen door. The dog left his basket by the hearth and came towards her, wagging his tail. She stooped to fondle it. ‘You might look ferocious, but you’re not much good as a guard dog, are you?’ she said.
The remains of Alex’s breakfast stood on the table: a box of cornflakes, a pot of cold coffee, a mug, a plate and a bowl, milk in a bottle, a packet of sugar, a toast rack with one cold piece of toast in it. She took off her jacket, cleared it away and washed up. He came in just as she finished. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’
‘I wanted to.’
‘I’ll go and clean up and then I’ll be with you. Put the percolator on again, we’ll have fresh coffee.’ It was then he noticed her bag on a chair. ‘You’ve come to stay?’
‘Just for tonight. If you’ll have me.’
‘Have you? My God, do you need to ask?’ He left the room and she heard him galloping up the stairs and moving about above her. She picked up her bag and followed him. He was crossing the landing to the bathroom, wearing only his underpants. She dropped her bag and stopped him. ‘Since you seem stripped for action…’ she murmured, pressing herself close to him and nuzzling her lips along his collar bone to his throat.
‘Lidushka, have you no shame?’ he asked, laughing.
‘None at all where you are concerned.’
He walked backwards into his bedroom, taking her with him, and fell back on the bed with her on top of him.
‘Now,’ he said some time later, as they lay naked side by side. ‘Tell me what brought you here today. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Has something happened?’
‘You happened. Oh, Alex, I don’t know how I’ve endured the last three weeks, thinking about you all the time, unable to sleep and then dreaming in the daytime, trying to act normally and not being able to…’
‘Has Robert guessed?’
‘I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. We were supposed to be going away for the weekend to keep out of the way of Bobby’s party, but Robert said he had to work. He’s never done that on a weekend before. He has a nine-to-five desk job which I know he hates, so it surprised me. I said I was going to stay with an old friend from wartime who has recently moved to East Dereham from abroad.’
‘Why East Dereham? It’s only half a dozen miles from here.’
‘I know, but I’m not a very good liar, so I thought it best to stick to the truth as far as I could. You are a wartime friend and you have moved here from abroad, and if anyone who knows me saw and recognised my car, it wouldn’t cause comment.’
He laughed. ‘You devious little minx!’
‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Mind? How could I mind when you are all I want, all I’ve ever wanted. I wish I had you all the time.’
‘Don’t let’s think of that,’ she said, stirring in his arms to take his hand and kiss the palm. ‘Let’s just enjoy the weekend. I’ll help you feed the animals and we can go for long walks and eat and sleep and wake up in the morning side by side.’
‘The last time we did that was in Moscow,’ he said. ‘So much water under the bridge since then, so much to regret, so many memories…’
She put her fingers over his lips. ‘No, no more of that. I don’t want to be sad. Let’s get up and have that coffee and decide what we’re going to do.’
They bathed and dressed and drank coffee, sitting over it talking, remembering times in the past they had been together, relating events that had happened when they were apart. He told her about how he had set up the smallholding with his back pay. Then he showed her round. She inspected the pigsties, the chicken runs, the vegetables growing in long straight rows, all neatly hoed free of weeds. ‘You are tidier outdoors than in,’ she said as they returned to the kitchen.
‘I suppose I am, but this brings in money and the house doesn’t. And there’s only me.’
‘It’s very different from being a diplomat.’
‘That’s why I did it. I needed peace and quiet to recoup.’
‘You are still too thin.’
He laughed. ‘You should have seen me when I first came out of the gulag – skin and bone I was. Now, at least I’m strong and healthy.’
‘And as handsome as ever,’ she said, smiling.
He ignored that. ‘What would you like to do now?’
‘Let’s go for a walk.’
He stood up. ‘A walk it is. Old Patch could do with a run and I know a good pub where we can eat.’
The heath was covered with heather and bracken and scrubby little trees. A kestrel hovered overhead and then swooped on its prey, a rabbit bobbed up out of a hole and seeing them disappeared down it again. A handful of people walked in the opposite direction and they said good morning and went on, coming out onto another country lane which led to a village and a pub. It was crowded with people out enjoying a Saturday evening meal. They found seats in the corner and ordered fish and chips and peas. The food, if a little uninspiring, was substantial and well cooked. Returning to the cottage, tired and content, they made cocoa and went to bed, though it was still only just dusk.