The Kirilov Star (9 page)

She knew she ought to discourage him, but she wanted to learn more about the Russians who had been forced to
leave their mother country and how they had survived. She had always known she had been lucky, but as he talked, slipping into Russian, she realised just how lucky. Some of her countrymen had been destitute when they arrived in the West, and because there were so many of them, they were not welcomed. The native Parisians, as many English people had been, were suspicious of them, believing there were Bolshevik spies among them. He was still talking when they reached the hotel.

She turned to shake hands with him again. He took it and squeezed her fingers with a gentle pressure that shocked and excited her. ‘Do you go to the park often?’ he asked.

‘Sometimes in the afternoon when my mother is having a nap. She is not strong. Papa is a diplomat and is combining our holiday with meetings at the embassy.’

‘Then go again tomorrow. I will be there.’

It was after their third meeting that she plucked up courage to tell her parents about him. They were horrified. ‘But darling, you don’t know a thing about him,’ Margaret said. ‘He could be anyone. You do not know he is telling the truth. He might be a Bolshevik spy.’

‘But he isn’t,’ she said. ‘His father was killed just as mine was. And I could not refuse to speak to him when he had rescued my shoe, could I?’

‘I think we had better meet him,’ Edward said. ‘Bring him back to tea tomorrow.’

And so Kolya came to tea. He behaved impeccably, answered all Edward’s questions openly and without hesitation, and at the end of the visit bowed stiffly to them all and asked if he might take Lydia to the ballet the next evening.

‘I think we will all go,’ Edward said, unwilling to let her go unchaperoned.

It was only after he had left and Lydia had gone up to her room to change for dinner that Edward told his wife he was not at all happy about this turn of events. ‘I must check up on him,’ he said. ‘I have no idea how he makes a living but I am prepared to bet it isn’t writing poetry.’

‘You cannot fault his manners,’ she said.

‘Manners can be learnt and I have no doubt he is clever enough to realise what we would expect of any young man making friends with our daughter. She would be quite a trophy for him, wouldn’t she?’

‘She is going to meet young men, Edward, you cannot stop that. And she is very sensible.’

‘I hope so. I had hoped Alex …’

She laughed. ‘Oh, Edward, you cannot make something happen if it is not destined.’

‘No, I know.’

In the event it was Edward who paid for the tickets for the ballet and the supper afterwards. Kolya, in white tie and tails, behaved with just the right amount of diffidence and assurance. Lydia, who had wanted to impress him, wore her cream silk with the train taken off, and the Kirilov Star. She did not notice him staring at it, nor the stiffness in Edward’s conversation. At the end of the evening, they delivered him back to his lodgings in La Ruche, a collection of small apartments and studios arranged round an octagonal wine hall where many Russian émigrés made their home. She only saw him once more before they returned to England.

‘I wish you were staying longer,’ he said when they met
in a small bistro near his home. ‘I am only just beginning to get to know you.’

‘I know. I am sorry too, but all good things must come to an end. Papa has to work and I have to find a job.’

‘You have to work? Surely not. Sir Edward is loaded. I should think those rocks you had round your neck last night would keep you in comfort for years.’

‘I could never sell that. It is a Kirilov heirloom.’

‘Oh. Sir Edward didn’t give it to you, then?’

‘No, I brought it out of Russia sewn in my petticoat. We all had jewels sewn into our clothes. That was the reason my parents were executed, because they were trying to get assets out of the country, or so I was told.’

He did not comment, but kissed her, firmly and expertly, setting up a quivering in her body that she had never experienced before. She had been kissed by boyfriends in an experimental way while at Cambridge, but had never reacted like that. It was frightening and exciting at the same time. ‘Will you write to me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want this to be goodbye.’

‘Yes, if you like.’

They returned home next day and a couple of weeks later Edward secured a post for Lydia as a translator at the Foreign Office. She was at the very bottom of the hierarchy and nothing she was given to translate was in any way secret, simply translating articles in
Pravda
, the Soviet newspaper, and others like it. Edward warned her not to speak about her work, however mundane it seemed to be.

She lived at their Balfour Place apartment just off Mount Street, looking after herself. The housekeeper had left and Edward had not thought it necessary to hire another; he rarely came to London since he had retired. When not at
work, she enjoyed a busy social life. At Cambridge she had joined several groups and societies and had made many friends, some whose heads were filled with ideological nonsense, but they were good fun and she had kept in touch with them, meeting those who had gravitated to the capital for visits to the theatre or the ballet, or simply for coffee in one of the cafés. She enjoyed the cut and thrust of their debate.

There was plenty to debate about: the progress of the Spanish Civil War; Japan’s attack on China; the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Germany, where they were made welcome by Hitler. It did not go down well with the British public at a time when everyone was worrying about a war with Germany. Lydia worried about that because she knew Alex was in Germany.

He did not join them at Upstone Hall that Christmas, but sent her a huge card and a lovely multicoloured evening shawl in a soft gauze. She missed him, as did Edward and Margaret, who had come to look on him as one of the family. They went to church, sang carols, exchanged presents, ate and drank too much. The day after Boxing Day Lydia returned to London and her job.

She had hardly got in the door and taken off her coat when the doorbell rang. She went to answer it to find Kolya standing on the landing with a suitcase at his feet. ‘Kolya, what on earth are you doing here?’ she asked in surprise.

‘That’s a fine greeting, when I have thrown caution to the winds to come and see you,’ he said, pretending to be aggrieved. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me?’

‘Of course I am. But why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’

‘It was a sudden decision, one of those
spur-of-the-moment
things.’ He picked up his case and followed her into the apartment where he stood looking round him. ‘Wow! This beats La Ruche into a cocked hat. Is it yours?’

‘My father’s.’

‘Is he here now?’

‘No, he’s at Upstone Hall. He’s retired so he doesn’t come to town so often now.’

He seemed to relax visibly, put his case down and took off his overcoat, shaking off a few flakes of snow on the carpet. She took it from him to hang it up. ‘Sheer luxury,’ he said. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’

She had never taken much notice of the flat but now she saw it with his eyes. The thick carpets, heavy curtains, fine furniture and beautiful ornaments screamed wealth. ‘On the contrary, I do know,’ she said. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘I had a sandwich at Dover. Terrible crossing it was. And then to find you not at home was the last straw. The janitor said you were expected back this evening, so I’ve been sitting in the café round the corner waiting for you to put in an appearance.’

‘Serves you right for not letting me know.’ She led the way into the kitchen. ‘I’ll see what I can rustle up.’

‘No servants?’

‘Not here. There is no need. I am perfectly capable of producing a simple meal. Or we could go out to eat.’

‘No, let’s stay in.’

So she made them omelettes and opened a bottle of wine and they sat over it talking into the small hours, when it became too late for him to find a hotel. She made a bed up for him in the spare room. Whether that was what he had in mind, she did not allow herself to conjecture.

Kolya had made no arrangements about where he was going to stay, something she realised was typical of him. He seemed not to consider what the morrow might bring and took it for granted she would continue to house him. It was part of his charm and she was charmed. She had no idea what he did when she was at work, nor how he supported himself. Sometimes he was in funds and would take her out for a meal and a show and buy her costly presents, at other times he professed to be broke and borrowed off her. She supposed it was all to do with selling his poetry and, as money had never been an issue in her life, she did not mind it.

He had a great sense of fun and laughed a lot and swore he loved her to distraction, though she would not allow him to do anything more than kiss her. Even that was enough to set her pulse racing. She had been brought up to believe sex was for after you were married and had always held off any too amorous advances by the young men she knew. It had not been difficult because none had roused her to anything like passion. Her feelings for Kolya were different and entirely new to her and she was not sure how to deal with them. She wondered if she might be falling in love with him. She certainly said nothing to her parents and Kolya always managed to be absent on the few occasions when Sir Edward paid a visit. Her friends, to whom she introduced him, assumed they were living together. She had a feeling that it might end up that way, or he would tire of her continual refusal to let him make love to her and take himself off. Would she overcome her scruples to keep him or let him go? As the question had not yet arisen she let it lie.

The Civil War still raged in Spain and many of her friends
were discussing joining the mercenaries, but Kolya, who had become part of the group, was against going himself. ‘Their cause is not our cause,’ he said, referring to himself and Lydia. ‘Our cause is in Russia.’

Stalin’s purge of those who opposed him in a great wave of show trials was reported in the papers Lydia translated. They were accused of being members of
counter-revolutionary
groups, or of acts designed to overthrow, undermine or weaken the authority of the workers’ and peasants’ soviets. She was shocked by the numbers, but as they had all confessed, she had no way of knowing how guilty they really were. She discussed it with Kolya, one warm evening in June when they were sitting on the balcony listening to a concert on the wireless. Below them the hum of traffic and the distant barking of a dog served as a backdrop.

‘Whether they are guilty or not is neither here nor there,’ he said. ‘It’s Stalin’s way of eliminating opposition. People who were once in favour are now not to be tolerated.’

‘Does it mean that those who executed my parents are themselves being executed?’

‘Possibly, but how can you be sure they were executed?’ he countered. ‘Have you ever been given proof?’

‘No, but Papa asked a Russian friend to make enquiries and he had access to information other people didn’t and he told us they had been shot.’

‘He might have been misinformed.’

She had never thought of that. ‘But if my parents had not died, they would have tried to trace me.’

‘How do you know they did not? They might be alive and believing you dead. Have you ever considered that?’

‘No.’ She was shocked. ‘Do you think it’s possible?’

‘The situation in 1920 was so confused it easily could be. After all, there are still stories going round that some of the tsar’s family survived, and if them, why not yours? They might have been sent to prison and not executed, and in that case they might have served their term and been released.’

She was thoughtful. Was that the reason for the slight uneasiness with her life? Was that why she had a feeling of incompleteness, as if she ought to be doing something, a kind of sin of omission? Was Kolya putting into words something that had been simmering in the back of her mind for years? ‘How can I find out for sure? Would the Russian authorities tell me?’

‘I doubt it. And if the count and countess are living incognito somewhere, they would not thank you for drawing attention to them, would they?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘So where would they go, if they were free?’

‘I don’t know. Probably Kirilhor. It was the last place we were all together, but it was such a long time ago and they would have been told what happened to me and Andrei.’

‘Not necessarily. Ivan Ivanovich might not have made it back to Kirilhor and he was the only one in Russia who knew you had escaped.’

‘I never thought of that.’

‘Had it ever occurred to you, sweetheart, that Sir Edward might have lied to you, taken advantage of the situation to get him a child, knowing his wife could never have one?’

‘No, of course not,’ she said hotly. ‘If they’d wanted to adopt a child, they could have had an English child through a proper adoption society. Why take a little Russian waif who was so shocked she could not speak?’

‘All the better. She wouldn’t have kicked up a fuss when he took her, especially if he told her he was taking her to be reunited with her parents.’

‘Kolya, that is a shocking thing to say.’ She was indignant, but she did remember everyone at the time – Ivan Ivanovich, Tonya’s father, Alex’s father and Sir Edward – saying just that. ‘Papa is an honourable man, he would never do such a thing.’

‘Papa! Papa!’ he mocked. ‘You have truly been indoctrinated, haven’t you? Sir Edward is not your father. Alive or dead, your father is in Russia and the only way to find out what happened to him is to go to Russia yourself.’

She laughed a little shakily because he was undermining all she had grown up to believe and it was an uncomfortable feeling. ‘They’d never let me in. I am, or was, Lydia Kirillova, the daughter of a count.’ It was the first time she had thought of herself in that way for years, not since becoming Lydia Stoneleigh. Perhaps she had been too complacent about it. Perhaps she should have remembered that more often.

‘I don’t see why not. You’ve got a British name and a British passport, haven’t you?’