The Starlings of Bucharest
Page 25
Would I need that?
At the weekend I would find the address of the London School of Journalism and work out how to apply. After I got my extra two pounds in the morning and paid my rent, I would have twenty-six pounds and no debts. Maybe I would go to the British Museum.
I lay back on the bed and thought of the women who now had a say in my life. Eva Mann and Mrs Constance Macfarlane. I tried to think about what it was about one that reminded me of the other, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. Two women who both felt they knew what was best for me. It was a relief to hand over responsibility, in a way.
Ursula’s letter stayed sealed on the mantelpiece. One day, when I was ready to say no to all of this, I would open it and find out what she needed me to know. I would remember Ingrid’s shaking hands. I would think clearly about why that Barry died in that place at that time. Until then, I didn’t want to know.
Days after I got back, I opened my final packet of duty free cigarettes. There was a piece of paper curled up inside, covered with tiny pencilled words.
‘If you find out anything about this person, tell me directly. Wait until you know how.’ And a name and address. Hunstanon. I knew I’d been there. The place on the east coast that looked west.
KGB First Chief Directorate
Information Service (Special Service I).
‘FISHERMAN’ INTERIM REPORT:
FOR ADDITION TO WALKER FILE
Letter from Ursula Koskinen to Walker – no stamp, hand delivered by Hughes. Koskinen was observed to handwrite this in the lobby of the Rossiya hotel on the morning of the 22 July. The letter is not dated.
‘If you have agreed to anything, run. Break with them now and you might get away with it.
Be careful, please, but don’t approach me if you see me again.’
As of 5th August, this remained unopened by Walker.
CHAPTER 40
One last thing to do, the man had said. Well, two.
The previous day I hadn’t seen anyone else at breakfast before I went to work. I didn’t mind. On Saturday I again breakfasted alone, then I finished my application to the London School of Journalism. I was excited about it, but I was waiting until I heard back to say anything to Mr Benstrup. Suzanne was still looking at me strangely, but she handed me my extra pay and said nothing.
I got ready to go out, and posted the application. I took the tube at Holborn, and changed at Notting Hill Gate. At Paddington I consulted my new London A to Z. I’d been flicking through it, recognising museum names and streets. I hadn’t been to Parliament yet, or the palace. It had all seemed too far away in Plumstead. I felt the money in my pocket and wondered where I would go later. Maybe I could find out how to join the nearest library and spend the afternoon reading in a pub. Or maybe I should start thinking bigger.
I reached the right street, full of large houses with driveways. I searched for the right number, no car on this driveway, and knocked on the door. It was a big house, double fronted, the front garden neatly tended with bedding plants. Now that I was near the net curtains, I could see the room on the left was full of books. The room on the right had a dining table with flowers in a vase. A young woman with short black hair answered the door. I could hear music in the background, and I noticed the hallway contained two suitcases, airplane tags attached. One was open, its contents spilling out. I forced my eyes up. The woman was smiling.
‘Hello.’
I swallowed. I didn’t know what had made me nervous. ‘Mrs Hughes?’
‘No. There’s no Mrs Hughes here.’
I took the envelope from my pocket and checked the name and address. She read it.
‘Oh.’ She went back inside and shouted, ‘Martha! It’s for you!’
Something was odd. Why didn’t she know Martha’s last name? I read the envelope as I listened to a quick tread on the stairs. Mrs Martha Hughes.
Another woman appeared in the doorway, her brown hair pulled back into a towel on top of her head, her feet bare.
‘Hello,’ Martha said. ‘I’m sorry about the mess, I needed to wash my hair. We’re just back from Paris.’
That name, Martha. I had heard it recently. I played for time.
‘What’s that song?’
She laughed. ‘Young Americans. Harriet’s new favourite.’
I nodded and her smile faded. I held onto the letter, but she held her hand out.
‘Is that for me?’
I let it go and she read the envelope.
She laughed. ‘Is it from Kit? He’s the only one who would call me that.’
‘Kit?’
‘Sorry, Christopher, I mean. No one else uses my married name. I changed it back. Well, I hadn’t changed it at all really, being out of the country when people were calling me that.’ Frowning, she turned the envelope and sniffed it. ‘It smells of papirosy. It is from him, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know.’
I took a step back. This didn’t feel right. She wasn’t supposed to know Christopher from the embassy. She was supposed to know an Alexander.
‘Have you brought it from Russia?’ Her voice trembled and she cleared her throat. ‘From Moscow?’
I stepped forward again and reached for the envelope, ‘I don’t think—’
She held it away from me, and I retreated.
‘Who are you?’
‘No one.’
She took a step towards me. ‘What is your name? Do you know Christopher? Why were you in Russia? Why do you have this?’
I couldn’t say anything. I knew now. That was the question I should have asked Eva: do you have a son called Alexander? But would I have done this anyway, if she’d said, ‘no’? I think I would have.
The woman, Martha, was trembling all over now. The more she tried to hide it, lifting her chin up and pressing her lips together, the younger she looked. She pulled the towel from her head, let it drop and pushed her hair back.
‘Is Kit all right? Who is this from?’
I took another step backward, towards the gate. She ripped the envelope open and I could see it was a postcard of the Kremlin. She read it aloud, her voice shaking. ‘You look like an angel. I just can’t help falling in love with you. I’m caught in a trap.’ She sobbed, and turned inside. ‘Harriet! Harriet, come here!’
They sounded like Elvis quotations but it made no sense to me. It did to her.
She staggered and held onto the door frame, crumpling the envelope. ‘Who gave you this? Have you seen Ivan? Where is he?’
Harriet ran through the hall and put an arm around Martha’s shoulders. She stared at me too.
‘I don’t know an Ivan. I’m sorry.’ I fumbled the catch on the gate and opened it.
‘You don’t know an Ivan?’
She was shouting now, her tone desperate, and I was running as if she was chasing me.
‘Do you know an Eva?’
I paused and turned around. They were still standing in the road, watching me. I kept running.
KGB First Chief Directorate
Information Service (Special Service I)
‘WOLFCUB’ INTERIM REPORT:
FOR ADDITION TO REYNOLDS FILE
For cross-referencing with ‘Fisherman’ file
Letter to Martha Reynolds delivered by Ted Walker on 7th August.
Everything now in place.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This novel has depended on the helpfulness of many people. I am always grateful to Sue Dawes who takes my early drafts and gives them a good shake. Thanks also to Mark Hardie who read an early draft, and Bieke Dutoit who again shared her knowledge of Moscow and the Russian language (any errors are my own). I am also grateful to Moira Forsyth, whose sensitive editing adds depth and clarity, and to all those behind the scenes at Sandstone Press who work so hard on getting books out into the world.
I read so many interesting and useful texts when writing this novel, but I am particularly grateful to have read Elena Razlogova’s articles on simultaneous translation and Soviet cinema
. I have started to gather a collection of 1970s travel guides to Moscow to get a sense of tourism in the Cold War and have drawn on Smith’s Moscow, among others. In thinking about how to represent the voices of the people who watched and noted everything, I was influenced by Gilles Perrault’s novel, Dossier 51, as well as the two memoirs written by Katherine Verdery, My Life as a Spy and Secrets and Truths, which draw on her experience of reading through the secret files which had been kept about her time in Romania.
Now read Martha’s story…
Rebellious Martha escapes bleak 1970s England for a fresh start in Moscow. She falls in love with the city but ignores the rules – dangerous, when every move is monitored and one mistake can cost everything.
‘Armstrong evokes a Moscow that is both magical and oppressive, and has created a young heroine who is foolish, inquisitive and achingly lonely.’
Heather Richardson
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