The Tides of Change

by Joanna Rees

  Emma clasped her gloves over her mouth and yelped. ‘Oh, Julian!’

  They left their skis and boots at the door. Julian smiled at her. ‘I think I should carry you over the threshold, don’t you?’ he said, making her giggle, as he lifted her into his arms. ‘For old times’ sake.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Emma gasped, still unable to take in the magnitude of his romantic gesture.

  More memories. Of the orange seventies décor and pine log finish. Of how they’d made love on the shag-pile rug by the fire. And how they’d drunk too much and had run out naked into the snow for dares. And how they’d played cards by candlelight and danced to cheesy records on the stereo.

  But it had all changed. Emma spotted straight away that Julian had had someone in. And not just anyone. Unless the seller had exquisite taste, Emma wouldn’t mind betting that Julian had hired in Rodriguez, Emma’s favourite interior designer. The clues lay in the tell-tale minimalism. The way the modern fireplace had been moulded into the slate-clad walls, and the high tongue-and-groove pine ceiling painted a tasteful grey-white, so that the space had a light and airy feel. She walked over to the picture window and looked out at the hot tub on the terrace and the sauna and steam room. A bucket of iced champagne was on the table outside, with two glasses; their luggage stood in a neat pile by the door.

  Emma laughed, incredulous, as she ran her hand over the fur throw on the sofa, glancing through the open door to the vast kitchen decked out with every appliance imaginable. Everything was perfect. She couldn’t have done it better herself.

  ‘What do you think?’ Julian asked, taking off his gloves. He was staring at her nervously.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Emma said. ‘I love it. I love it. I absolutely love it,’ she gushed, turning towards him.

  ‘Well, it’s all yours. In your name. Your hideaway.’

  ‘But this is our place. I only ever want to come here with you,’ she said. She ran over to him and kissed him.

  He smiled down at her and she saw more wrinkles around his eyes than she’d noticed before.

  ‘OK, if you insist,’ he said. ‘But it’s good to know you’ve got a refuge. Next year we’ll be entertaining so much at Wrentham – your new mate Natalya Khordinsky for starters. And all those places we’ll go for the charity. I thought you deserved a present for being so fabulous.’

  Emma laughed and pushed him back over the sofa, falling on top of him and kissing him. ‘Come here, you gorgeous, unstoppable man, you,’ she said.

  Julian laughed. ‘So I take it you like your surprise?’

  ‘You are too much!’ she said. ‘I can’t take any more.’

  She kissed him again, feeling just as she had as a new bride. As if she could burst for loving him so much.

  ‘Hey. I made sure they got a new rug for the fire-place,’ Julian whispered.

  Emma kissed him again, nuzzling his cold cheeks. ‘Then what are we waiting for?’ she said.

  She wished that she could capture this moment for ever. Surely she was the luckiest woman alive.

  ‘My darling,’ she breathed. ‘I love you so much.’

  ‘I love you too, my Emma,’ he said, pushing her hair back from her face. ‘Do you know, you’re even more beautiful now than you were when we first stayed here.’

  ‘Oh, Julian. Whatever would I do without you?’ she whispered.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The grimy state cab crawled along in the beeping traffic beneath the grey Moscow sky. In the back, Peaches chewed her nails and wished she still smoked. But it had been ten years since she’d cleaned up her act, cutting out nicotine and drugs in favour of health-food shakes and exercise. She’d promised herself never to turn back, and Peaches took her promises very seriously, especially the ones she made to herself.

  Because she’d seen enough people do it: lapse back into old habits with disastrous consequences. Peaches knew she wouldn’t let herself. In her line of business she had to look fantastic. For a while, youth made that possible. Hell, you could get away with anything when you were young. But the moment she’d hit twenty-five, Peaches realized that enough was enough and had changed her ways for good.

  Yet at certain times, like now, she craved her old crutches. Because if she could just light up now, then maybe the thick cloud of acrid smoke from the Russian cab driver might stop bothering her so much. It might calm her nerves too.

  High above the wide strip of rutted road, the only thing that seemed familiar was the huge cheery hoardings advertising Coca-Cola and Gap. Behind them were bleak grey Moscow apartment blocks stretching towards the white sky. The cab’s radio crackled with static before giving out a loud-pitched whine. The cab driver banged the receiver roughly on the dashboard and swore in Russian.

  Her mother tongue.

  Mother. Everything led to her mother. Just the thought of having a mother had obsessed Peaches since her meeting with Mikhail Gorsky. And Peaches hated it.

  Why did all this family shit have to happen now, just when things were going so well? What with the lingerie line and the party to organize, she really couldn’t afford the time to be away from LA.

  It wasn’t even as if she needed a mother. Hell, she’d survived perfectly well without one all her life. So why was she here in this grim, godforsaken suburb of Moscow? Why did it matter whether her real mother was dead or alive?

  Peaches knew the answer. Because the memory of Gorsky’s face had kept her awake at night. She’d met a man who’d done so many bad things he was going to be lynched even before his trial. But in this evil scumbag’s own book, the worst thing he’d ever done was selling Peaches. And what he’d done to her mother.

  Whatever that was . . .

  Usually, Peaches loved travelling and seeing new places. She always flew first class, drinking champagne and, depending on who she was with, either chatting and watching movies, or sleeping with the help of a homeopathic cocktail cooked up by Massimo, her LA diet guru.

  But the twelve-hour flight from LA to Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow had involved neither sociability nor sleep. Instead, she’d spent the whole damn journey going over and over the different scenarios in her mind, playing each one out.

  There was no getting over the fact that her visit to Moscow was a huge risk. Her mother might not even want to see her. Or believe that Peaches was her daughter. And what if this woman Angela had tracked down to the nursing home Peaches was now crawling towards in the cab wasn’t her mother at all? What if it was all a hoax of Gorsky’s?

  And even if this Irena Cheripaska woman was her mother, then what if she was now too ill to communicate with Peaches? When Peaches had called the nursing home last week and managed to speak to her mother’s nurse – a sweet woman called Yana, who mercifully spoke good English – she’d discovered that Irena was suffering from cancer and didn’t have long to live.

  So what was Peaches hoping to gain from a reunion with a sick old woman? Any kind of long-term relationship was out of the question. Even in the best-case scenario they would never be able to share any kind of life together.

  And now she was here, Peaches worried that she was about to inflict terrible emotional pain on an ill old woman. What if raking up the past proved too much for her mother?

  What exactly had Gorsky done to her?

  Peaches couldn’t imagine what could be worse for a mother than having her child stolen. But Gorsky had seemed to imply there was.

  Peaches sighed. Was she doing the right thing? She’d always followed her gut instincts, but for once in her life she felt swamped with conflicting emotions. One half of her brain was telling her to get the hell away, to return to LA and forget all about it. But the other half knew she couldn’t. She needed some hard facts to help her get over her anger, because no matter how much sympathy she might feel for the woman she was about to meet, it didn’t alter the fact that her mother hadn’t come to find her. According to Gorsky, she’d known all along that her daughter had been sold to a paedophile. So, goddammit, why hadn
’t she rescued her from the Rockbines? Why hadn’t she been there when Peaches needed her most?

  Peaches knew that getting out of Russia back then would have been difficult, but surely not impossible? Nothing was impossible if it mattered that much. Peaches had learnt that the hard way.

  If the situation had been reversed and someone had snatched Peaches’ little girl, she would have found a way to get her back. Whatever it took.

  So maybe this Irena woman, Peaches’ mother, simply hadn’t cared enough. Maybe that was it. She’d moved on with her life. Forgotten all about Peaches. Remarried. Had more children.

  My God! Did Peaches have siblings?

  The cab hung a sharp left off the main drag at a set of traffic lights and pulled to a stop outside an austere grey-brick building. The cab driver turned and nodded to Peaches. They were here. She handed over a stack of dollar bills and he looked impressed.

  Peaches stepped out of the back of the scruffy cab into the fresh wind. Reality bit home right away. It had been all very well to imagine a Russian nursing home and the suffering of an unknown woman from the comfort of her beach house in LA. Actually being here was entirely different.

  Peaches shivered. ‘Jesus,’ she muttered out loud. The cold wind cut into her skin so she turned up the collar on her Burberry mac, wishing she’d worn something thicker. She pulled a strand of her long chestnut hair away from her face.

  The captain on the plane had assured the passengers that it was warm by Moscow standards: ten degrees. But Peaches was used to LA. God only knew what it must be like here in the winter, when the temperature plummeted to minus twelve.

  As Peaches put her hands in her pockets and stared up at the high barred windows, it suddenly occurred to her that she might be too late. Irena Cheripaska might already be dead. It looked like the kind of place where people died.

  She heard a wheel spin on the road and turned to see the cab driving away, the driver’s glowing cigarette butt spiralling out of the window. She had to fight the urge to run after the cab and beg the driver to wait for her, but it had been hard enough communicating with him as it was, and he wouldn’t have understood.

  She wished more than anything that her driver Paul was here with the limo. He always made her feel safe with him; no matter where she went, she knew that she always had back-up. But Paul was thousands of miles away. Peaches was alone. And, she suddenly realized, possibly way out of her depth.

  Still, it was too late to turn back now. She took a deep breath, then exhaled, trying to force the fear from her body.

  Show time, she told herself, quickly walking up the steps into the building.

  It had probably once been an apartment block, or a government office building, Peaches concluded as she stepped into the cavernous lobby area. The walls were yellow and chipped with age. It was freezing in here, and the building itself seemed to be groaning with cold. The iron radiators along the wall clanked sporadically and, somewhere high above, up the stairwell, came the distant sound of an elevator grate being opened.

  Peaches walked towards a perfunctory wooden reception area with a chipped Formica counter and old-fashioned beige dial phone. To her left, a door opened, giving Peaches a glimpse of a lounge area beyond, with lino flooring and old people sitting in chairs. A radio playing violin music echoed eerily. Peaches caught a waft of something that smelt of cabbage or maybe sauerkraut – something unpalatable, as far as she was concerned.

  She cleared her throat and pulled the piece of paper out of her purse. It had Yana’s name on it, the woman she’d talked to on the phone – her mother’s carer and the person who’d agreed to translate. She realized that her hands were shaking.

  Keep your shit together, she told herself. Be cool. Don’t go losing it now.

  She had to keep alert. And think clearly. This was one of those moments, she could sense it, when her life was about to change.

  Down the corridor, underneath the stairs, a man with a serial number tattooed on his neck and a dirty set of blue overalls pushed a clanking metal trolley full of buckets and mops. He stopped and stared at Peaches, his mouth lolling open.

  Peaches somehow doubted that it was her scarf that was magnetizing his attention, and she hurriedly fastened another button of her coat to conceal her cleavage. She wished she’d looked up the translation for ‘Get lost, creep!’ from her Russian phrase book, but it was too late now. She had to settle for glaring at the goon instead, unblinking. Like whenever she told a client it was time to pay up. It did the trick now. The janitor, or house psycho, or whoever the hell he was, trundled off down a corridor, mumbling.

  As tiny a triumph as it was, it gave Peaches the boost of confidence she needed. She could handle this. No matter what.

  She leant over the desk to see if there was a bell to summon help. She could see herself as a grainy black and white image on the small monitor behind the desk. She looked up to see a small camera above the desk. She’d walked in here easily enough, so why the CCTV? Maybe it was just for show. It probably wasn’t even set to record.

  But even so, for a second, she didn’t recognize herself. She felt so strange being here, so divorced from her natural environment. She’d devoted her whole life to having fun, to gratifying her – and others’ – needs. And that didn’t involve thinking about the consequences, or thinking too much about the future. In Peaches’ world, people stayed young and lived life to the full, consuming, having sex, making life one big party. They didn’t get old, or ill, or . . . real, like this.

  ‘You must be Miss Gold?’

  Peaches jumped. She turned round quickly to see a young woman wearing a white nurse’s coat, thick-soled white slip-on shoes and brown tights walking towards her, staring at Peaches as if admiring her clothes.

  ‘Welcome to Moscow,’ she said in perfect English, revealing a set of fixed braces as she extended her hand. ‘We spoke on the phone. I’m Yana.’

  Peaches shook the woman’s hand, relieved by her smile and surprised by how young Yana was. She’d sounded so serious and old on the phone. But she was pretty, Peaches noticed, apart from her badly dyed hair; with some restyling she could be a real beauty.

  ‘Irena will be so glad you came,’ Yana said. ‘She never has visitors.’

  Peaches stared at the young woman, feeling an unexpected stab of guilt and something else too – shock, perhaps, that two of her questions had been so instantly answered. Firstly, she wasn’t too late and Irena was still alive. And secondly, Peaches didn’t have any siblings. Not ones who gave a shit. Not ones who cared to visit their mother. And, all of a sudden, she could understand the huge weight of responsibility that came with having a family.

  ‘I haven’t told her about you,’ Yana continued. ‘Just in case you couldn’t make it.’

  Peaches searched Yana’s eyes for signs that the nurse reproached her for neglecting the woman in her care. For turning up like this, out of the blue.

  But Yana smiled and Peaches found herself wanting to confide in her how nervous she was. She hadn’t told Yana on the phone that she was possibly Irena’s daughter. Just an old friend, she’d said. Someone who had some news.

  Talk about an understatement.

  Would Yana be shocked, she wondered, when she discovered the real reason that Peaches was here? Or had Irena told this kind young woman stories about her daughter being stolen from her all those years ago?

  ‘Your English is very good,’ Peaches heard herself saying instead. It was a reflex of hers, always to pay a compliment when she didn’t know what to say. To switch the attention on to the other person, away from herself. To make them like her more.

  ‘You think so?’ Yana said, obviously pleased. ‘I have a degree in English language, as well as nursing.’

  Two degrees, thought Peaches, and she’d ended up working in this dump. Peaches was lucky she’d been born in the States.

  But then she remembered. She hadn’t been. She’d been born here in Russia. Just like Yana. And that was why Peaches had come
. To find out what had happened next.

  Yana smiled and laid her hand lightly on Peaches’ arm. ‘Come, follow me. We’ll take the stairs. Only the service lift works. And trust me, you don’t want to go in there.’

  Having already had the dubious pleasure of meeting the janitor, Peaches didn’t need any fuller explanation. But with each flight of stairs, she felt her earlier resolve to keep cool wavering. Her calf muscles tightened and began to ache. An image popped into her head of the seat on the plane. Then her bed at home. Suddenly, she felt so tired, like a child who needed cradling and comforting. She wished there was someone else who could take care of all this for her. Or make it go away.

  But there was no one else. The buck stopped with her. And the only way this situation was going to be resolved was if she resolved it herself.

  She forced herself onwards, listening to Yana, who was carefully explaining that Irena was very sick and that the treatment for her type of cancer hadn’t stopped it spreading. But Irena was lucky to be here, Yana told Peaches, reaching the top floor and pushing open the swing doors. This was one of the best care homes in Moscow.

  Thank God it’s not me, thought Peaches selfishly. Thank God I’ll have other options when I’m old. But as she followed Yana along the bleak grey corridor, Peaches thought of the woman who might be her mother. Left here to rot. Dying alone with no visitors. Cared for by strangers. It filled Peaches with pity.

  And fear.

  Suddenly Yana stopped and pushed open a side door. ‘Irena’s in here,’ she said.

  The room was sparse, more like a cell than a bedroom, with greyish-green lino on the floor and halfway up the walls. There was one window with dirty opaque glass. A single bed stood along one wall covered in a striped woollen blanket. A tourist poster of the Winter Palace at night hung at an angle above it.

  Next to the bed, an old woman was sitting in an armchair. She was wearing a blue nylon nightgown and a pink knitted shawl over her shoulders. She was asleep, judging from the way her head lolled on to her chest, her face mostly covered by a large pair of sixties-style dark glasses. Her head was bald, except for a few straggly tufts of white hair. A drip stand was next to her, its line terminating in a needle going into the back of her hand. The door suddenly swung back, forcing Peaches into the room and sealing her in.