‘Oh, I am. When shall I see him?’
‘I have arranged for him to be given some leave. You are to meet him at Kirilhor the day after tomorrow.’
‘Kirilhor!’
He grinned. ‘I thought you might like to see it again.’
‘Oh, I shall, but how…?’
‘We fly to Kiev tomorrow and must attend the first session of the conference for appearance’s sake,’ he explained. ‘Then I will keep your minder busy so you can slip away and catch the train to Petrovsk. I have some Russian clothes for you. You will be less conspicuous in those.’ It was said with an appreciative look at her evening dress.
‘You seem to have thought of everything and I am truly grateful,’ Lydia said. She rose to her feet. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I think I shall go to bed.’
Both men rose and kissed her cheek. She hugged Katya and was gone, to lay in bed too excited to sleep. She was going to see Yuri and it was Alex who had brought it about. Dearest, devoted Alex…
Petrovsk had changed little since Lydia had last been there. The paint on the wooden houses was still flaking, the windows were still cracked, the hotel even more sleazy. The church and the school had not changed, not even their paint by the look of it. The tarmac on the roads was cracked and broken and full of potholes.
It did not fill Lydia with confidence and she expected Kirilhor to be even more of a ruin than it had been when she last saw it; instead she found a substantial house, its roof the dark green of the forest, its wooden walls painted white, its many windows reflecting the low sun of a winter morning. Its garden was well kept, its gravel drive free of weeds. ‘It’s been restored,’ she murmured in surprise. ‘Are you sure Yuri is here?’
He smiled. ‘We might find out if we knock on the door.’ He took her arm because she seemed to be holding back. ‘Come on, sweetheart, what is there to be afraid of?’
The door was opened by Yuri himself, who had been warned by Leo to expect them. Lydia stood and drank in the sight of him. If she felt like throwing herself into his arms, she was constrained, not only by shyness but by his expression. It was wooden. ‘Do you know who I am?’ she asked.
‘My mother.’ It was said without inflexion, a mere statement of fact engendering no emotion.
This was not what Lydia had expected. But what had she expected? Hugs and kisses? Wasn’t that asking too much? She looked despairingly at Alex, who reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently.
‘You had better come in.’ Yuri led the way into the drawing room. The dilapidated room she remembered had been nothing like this. It was well furnished with two huge well-padded sofas – not like the one she remembered whose stuffing had been coming out – bookcases and ornaments. Here they were introduced to Sophie, whom Yuri had recently married. Sophie shyly bade them welcome and then left them to prepare a meal.
There was an uncomfortable silence after she had left. ‘Why didn’t you answer my letters?’ Lydia asked, because that question was in the forefront of her mind. ‘I only wanted to know you were safe and happy.’
‘I had no letters. And I did not know you existed until last year. My mother – I mean Olga Nahmova naturally – told me when she was dying.’
‘That must have been a shock.’
‘It was. I wished she had not told me. It was her conscience troubling her and she wanted to confess before she died. I don’t know who I hated most at that time: Olga for not being my mother and keeping it from me, or you, Lydia Andropova, for abandoning me and condemning me to the orphanage.’
‘I didn’t abandon you. You were taken from me. I searched for you, Alex will bear me out, but we could not find you and then the war came to Russia and everything was chaotic.’
‘I made her leave,’ Alex said. ‘It was too dangerous for her to stay. Believe me, it wasn’t easy. She was heartbroken about it. Surely you want to know this or why did you change your mind about seeing her?’
‘Curiosity.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Comrade Orlov persuaded me it could do no harm.’
Lydia fumbled in her handbag and produced the brown envelope which she emptied onto the table. ‘These are my letters, all returned to me.’
He sat and looked at them as if mesmerised, making no move to pick them up. ‘Shall we leave you to read them?’ she asked. ‘You will want to do that in private.’
‘Yes, yes; have a walk round the grounds. Sophie will call you when the meal is ready.’
They left the house by the front door and walked round to the back, past a fir tree which had recently been cut down. The garden was not extensive, being close to the forest, and there was little to see – everything was covered in snow, except the paths, which had been cleared.
‘I can’t believe I’ve actually seen him and spoken to him,’ Lydia said as they walked hand in hand. ‘If he didn’t know about his connection with the Kirilov family, how does he come to be living in the family home? Does he know he was born here? There are so many questions I want to ask.’
‘I’ve no doubt he’ll have questions for you too.’ He paused. ‘Now he’s found, what do you expect to happen? What do you want to happen?’
‘I don’t know. I’m still too confused. It would be wonderful if he could come to England, but I don’t suppose that’s feasible, although we could still write to each other, keep in touch. Perhaps, one day, things will improve between East and West and travelling will be easier.’
They stopped when they were confronted by what Lydia afterwards described as Father Time, a bent old man with a long white beard and a weather-beaten face. He lifted a gnarled hand. ‘Lydia Kirillova,’ he said in a quaking voice. ‘Is it you?’
‘Yes. It’s me.’ She took his hand and kissed his cheek. ‘I am so glad to see you, Ivan Ivanovich. I never thought to find you still here.’
‘Where else would I be? I’ve served this estate all my life. I shall be here the day I die. The Reds, the Whites, Bolsheviks, war and famine have come and gone and still I survive. Yuri Nahmov is good to me.’
‘Do you know who he is?’
‘Of course I know who he is. He is your son, grandson of Count Kirilov, though that counts for nothing these days.’
‘He says he didn’t know himself. Why didn’t you tell him?’
‘Some things are dangerous to know. Better to be ignorant. But I watched over him. When Olga Nahmova brought him back here after the war ended, I watched him growing up. Now he watches over me. He’s a good boy.’
‘No longer a boy,’ Alex said. ‘He’s matured since I last spoke to him, mellowed, you might say.’
‘He’s had a lot to contend with. Olga Denisovna wasn’t easy to deal with. Her brain had been affected.’
‘The dacha looks lovely,’ Lydia said. ‘Who owns it now?’
‘Leonid Orlov. He lets Yuri stay here when he wants.’
Lydia turned to Alex in surprise. ‘Did you know this?’
‘No, I didn’t, but it’s typical of Leo.’
Lydia was blinking back tears as they bade the old man dosvidaniya and returned to the house.
Yuri had carefully arranged the opened letters in chronological order and had just finished reading the last one. He looked up as they entered. ‘I never knew,’ he said, his voice rough with emotion. ‘I never knew.’
It was not until after they had eaten the meal Sophie had prepared that he felt ready to talk to Lydia about his life.
‘My earliest memory is of being in an orphanage in Solikamsk when I was about three or four. There were thousands of children there, all with shaved heads. We had a hard time of it. I remember always feeling hungry, but if we stole food we were severely punished. I still have the scars on my back.’