Lisa wasn’t used to running. Her thighs rubbed together when she hurried and her breasts took on a life of their own. Despite the cold day she was sweating like a Labrador and not in the least delighted to be confronted by the deliciously hunky Andrei Kovalevsky.
‘Lisa!’
She gaped at him, noting through her amazement that he was not his usual cool, devil-may-care self but seemed to be extremely overwrought and the dark tragedy of his eyes was enough to make her mistake her own name. Her mouth opened, her eyes drinking in every detail of the incredibly handsome man who was accosting her in the full view of the neighbours.
‘I can’t find Sasha. Do you know where she is?
Lisa, still speechless, shook her head. She envied Sasha having a man like Andrei half out of his mind trying to find her. It was the most romantic thing she had ever seen in her life.
She swallowed, at last finding her voice. ‘Did you try the flat?’
He shook his head. ‘She is not there. Think, Lisa, think where she might go, if she were upset about something.’
The way he said her name, Lisa, made it sound wonderfully exotic, it was as if she had never heard it spoken before.
‘Home, to her mum’s, I suppose,’ she said, and then bit her lip, remembering the very good reason that Sasha would not want Andrei to follow her there. ‘Have you two had a row? I doubt if she has gone home, actually, come to think of it.’ She shook her head, pulled a self-depreciating face. ‘It’s the last place she’d go if she was upset.’
Andrei sensed the lie and jumped on it, seizing it as his lifeline.
‘Thank you, Lisa, you have been a great help.’ He planted a kiss on her cheek. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell her it was you who told me where to look.’
And he was gone, speeding up the wrong side of the road, tooting his horn, a hand raised in fare well.
Lisa stood for a long time after he had driven away, a dreamy expression on her face and one hand pressed to her cheek where his lips had been. Then she climbed the steps and let herself into her flat and plumped down upon the sofa.
‘Andrei Kovalevsky…’ she murmured, kicking off her shoes.
Chapter Eight
‘Mum?’ Sasha let herself into her parent’s house and called up the stairs. Instantly, her mother, clutching a pile of laundry, appeared at the top and, catching sight of her daughter’s face, she let go of the bundle, scattering knickers and t-shirts down the stairs.
‘Whatever is the matter?’
Skimming down the stairs like a woman half her age, she gripped Sasha’s arm, her face furrowed with concern. Sasha tried to speak but her face crumpled and her mouth went out of shape as her chest cavity constricted so much that she thought she’d never breathe freely again. In the end her mother’s concerned face was too much for her and the knot in Sasha’s throat burst as she gave in to the tears. She flung her arms around her mother’s neck, glad to be somewhere safe, somewhere solid and reliable. Mum would make it better, she always did.
Mrs Johnson patted her back and crooned in her ear as if she were a baby. When her husband appeared in the doorway, he took one look at his weeping women, turned on his heel and escaped to the garden shed.
‘Come on, Love. Come into the other room.’
Keeping her arm draped around Sasha’s shoulders she walked her to the sitting room and settled her onto the sofa, plumping the cushions behind her back. ‘You wipe your eyes and calm down and I will just put the kettle on, and then you can tell me all about it.’
Sasha nodded and dabbed the end of her nose with the remains of a tattered pink tissue. There was something about her mother’s house that helped things settle back a little into perspective. She looked around at the familiar chairs, the thick red curtains that had hung in this room since she was a child and listened to the soothing tick of the clock on the mantelpiece. Within five minutes her mum was back with a tray of teacups and a plate of Sasha’s favourite biscuits. ‘Now,’ she said, dribbling a little milk into each cup. ‘Tell me what its all about.’
Sasha’s down-turned mouth struggled to spit the word out. ‘Andrei,’ she said at last, accepting the cup and saucer her mother was holding out.
Instantly her mother’s lips tightened into a straight line. ‘I knew it. As soon as I found out they’d partnered you with him, I said to your father, ‘it will all end in tears, you mark my words.’
‘Mum, maybe now isn’t the time for, ‘I told you so.’ Her last word ended on a sob and Mrs Johnson was immediately contrite.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, dear, but you know how it is when someone upsets your little girl.’
Sasha sniffed. ‘Where is Yana?’
‘Her friend’s mum has taken a few of them to the park. Little children are a handful this time of year, what with all the hype over Christmas. I don’t know why they let them finish school as early as they do. She will be back shortly …if you are still here then.’
‘I’m not going back. I can’t.’
‘Why ever not? Don’t be silly.’
Sasha came as close to glaring at her mother as she dared. ‘Mum, I’m not silly. I’m just in a lot of trouble. I can’t work with Andrei any more, it’s driving me nuts.’
‘Here, have a biscuit.’ Mrs Johnson held out her plate of cure-alls and, although she didn’t really want it, Sasha took a garibaldi and began to nibble the edge. Mum leaned forward in her chair, her clasped hands on her knees. ‘So what has he done?’
For a long moment Sasha stared at the fire screen. It was an Edwardian tapestry worked by some long dead relative. When she was a child she had loved the cheerful birds and animals that peered from among the slightly faded trunks of the stylised trees. She sighed and blew out her cheeks.
‘Andrei and I …’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, we sort of took things up where we left off.’
‘I see.’ Her mum put down her teacup, her face pinched with disapproval.
‘I couldn’t help it, Mum, I tried not to but I couldn’t help myself, and neither could he. You wouldn’t understand.’
‘No, well what would I know about sex and all that? I haven’t lived have I?’
She looked out the window to where her husband, well wrapped up against the cold, was pruning the naked rose bushes. A smile teased the edges of her lips. He was a good, steady man. Admittedly she had bumped into handsomer, sexier men in her time but there was more to a good man than a nice bottom and it’s time Sasha learned that.
It was Sasha’s turn to apologise. ‘You know I didn’t mean that. Andrei and I could have something really special, he is the only man I’ve ever been with, you do know that don’t you? I don’t want anyone else, I never have.’
Her mother remembered the posters that had adorned Sasha’s bedroom wall as a teenager; every one of them of Andrei. Maybe she was one of those ‘one man women’ you read about in novels.
‘If you say so, dear.’
‘Well, he is and the last few days have been fantastic, out of this world. He makes me really, really happy but …he wants more. He wants it to be for keeps but I – he doesn’t know …’
‘…about Yana.’ Mrs Johnson finished for her. ‘Well, you will have to tell him then, won’t you?’
‘I know that!’ Sasha wondered what planet her mother was living on. She always spoke her mind, said things just as she saw them, everything written clear in black and white but sometimes life just wasn’t that simple. Sasha turned her sore eyes toward her mother, who was sitting, as prim and as well turned out as royalty. When it came down to it, she was always supportive. Sasha knew that her own life would have been very different if Mum hadn’t been there for her when she fell for Yana. She tried to calm down and stop snapping at her; she only wanted to help.
‘The thing is, I’m terrified. Andrei will be so angry. What I have done is awful. I have concealed his daughter from him for almost six years! At first, I was convinced it was the right thing to do. I knew the last thing a playboy li
ke him would want was a baby with a girl he hardly knew. But now, now I know him better and things are so different between us, I’m afraid he will be mad at me for depriving him of his child.’ Sasha stood up and began to pace the floor. ‘I’m the bloody loser, either way. However he takes it, he will be livid and walk out on me. I’ve never felt such a coward about anything before in my life!’
‘Well, you can’t not tell him. You will have to bolster your courage, go back to town and confront him with it. There is no point putting it off. And, Sasha, have you considered the possibility that he might actually be pleased?’
After thinking through that possibility, Sasha shook her head. ‘He might be ok about it if I fell pregnant right now, he would no doubt be delighted. It’s the fact I’ve lied to him.’
‘You didn’t lie, Dear.’
‘Yes, yes I did. I should have told him at the beginning, before she was born or even been brave enough to ‘fess up on the first day of rehearsals. I should never have let anything happen between us again until I told him the truth. I have lied by omission.’
She began to cry again, huge wrenching sobs that wracked her body. Mrs Johnson moved to sit beside her on the sofa and Sasha fell onto her bosom and let her helpless tears fall.
They sat together for a long time; Sasha snivelling while her mum stroked her shoulder and listened to the silent hum of the sitting room. And, after a while, Sasha sat up and smiled a watery smile. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she whispered, her mouth dry and her throat feeling scratchy and sore.
‘Another cuppa?’ Mum rose from the sofa and began to collect the tea things together. ‘Why don’t you have a nice shower before Yana sees you in such a state? She will be so pleased to see you. Why not stay over and go back tomorrow evening? You can ring the studio and tell them you are poorly, it won’t hurt to have a day off.’
The long drive back to London in the dark was not a tempting prospect. Sasha weighed up the possibilities. She could stay here, enjoy a rare weekday evening with her daughter and be back by tomorrow afternoon. It would do Andrei good to wonder where she was, as well as giving her the time she needed to think. As always Mum was right, there was only one thing she could do. She would have to tell him but she would pick her moment carefully. If she broke it to him at the right time, in the right place, the thing might be so much easier …for both of them.
‘Maybe, I might have a long bath instead of a shower, if that’s ok.’ She stood up and climbed the stairs to the family bathroom and began to run the hot water.
***
Andrei only had a rough idea where Sasha’s parents lived and it took him several hours to leave the streets of suburbia behind and enter the countryside. As he motored through an expanse of fields where the limbs of the trees stood stark against the winter sky, his mind soothed a little and some of the tension drained from his body. Lessening the pressure of his foot on the accelerator, he knew now that he would find her and couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t thought of it before. Of course, she would go home to her parents, she had told him how close and supportive they were.
The small town where the Johnson’s lived could have been taken from the lid of a luxury box of chocolates. He drove around the lanes for a while, passing pretty thatched cottages, a pond with ducks splashing in brackish water, but he was unable to find any sign of River Gardens where he knew they lived.
Eventually he encircled the village green, pulled in and beckoned some children toward the car. The boys, well wrapped against the cold, clustered around, exclaiming over the luxury of the convertible, daubing the paintwork with sticky fingers.
‘Can you tell me how to get to River Gardens?’ he asked and one of the boys stepped forward, quickly telling Andrei the quickest way there, embellishing his verbal directions with a dirty hand.
‘Cheers!’ Andrei waved as she drove off again. He followed the lane for about a mile to a small hamlet where a row of Victorian villas backed onto the river. He examined each one in turn, deciding which was most likely be the Johnson home. Then, behind a clump of Rhododendrons, he spied Sasha’s Golf parked outside the house furthest from him. He drew up quietly behind it and, surprised to find his hands trembling, unfolded his body from the car and sauntered up the drive, for all the world as if his life’s happiness didn’t hang on the next few minutes.
A Christmas wreath hung on the solid door, which was probably original, the wood carefully maintained and the furniture brightly polished. He reached out and lifted the brass knocker and heard his summons reverberating through the house. There was no answer and, afraid that she would elude him yet again, he knocked again, harder this time. A cat appeared from the shrubbery and began to wind itself around his ankles, its tail held stiffly in the air and its yellow eyes unblinking.
After a few moments he heard a sound from inside, as if someone were dragging a chair across the floor. Then the letterbox opened and three tiny pink fingers peeped out.
‘Hello?’ said a child’s voice. ‘ I had to stand on a chair to reach the handle. Hang on.’
After a struggle the door opened a crack, he heard the chair being dragged away again and a little girl pulled the door wider and looked up at him.
Sasha’s sister, he thought.
She smiled at him. The fat cheeked welcome of a contented child. ‘Yes?’ she asked.
He squatted down so their faces were level. ‘I’d like to speak to Sasha Johnson, if that’s all right. Is she here?’
‘Everybody is in the garden, come with me.’ Andrei took her proffered hand and allowed her to guide him through the house to the garden. She was wearing a scarf and mittens, a knitted hat, as if she was just going out or had just come in. At the kitchen door he waited while she slid her feet into a pair of pink wellies. Then she took his hand again and they passed along the garden path, the child maintaining a constant chatter as they went.
She is a chatterbox like her sister, Andrei thought. As soon as he had seen her he’d had the idea that they had met somewhere before and he guessed that Sasha had been just like this when she was small.
A vast lawn ran down to the river’s edge where the family were gathered about a small bonfire.
‘Do you like potatoes?’ the child asked, ‘we are cooking some at the bottom of the fire but I don’t think they are ready yet.’
Mr Johnson was feeding sticks into the bonfire and, someway off, Andrei saw Sasha raking leaves into a pile. The little girl led him across the grass and beneath the trees so that Andrei had to duck beneath yellow fronds of willow, bare at this time of year. When he straightened up he found himself face to face with a middle-aged woman, Sasha’s mother. The woman half smiled, a hand shielding her eyes, not immediately realising the identity of the stranger.
Her eyes flicked to the girl.
‘Yana?’ she asked, her mouth stretching into a smile that was a replica of Sasha’s. ‘Who is your friend?’
Andrei looked down at the child, the world suddenly blazingly vivid around him. He swayed on his feet, his hand tightening on hers, his face blanching of all colour as everything fell neatly, and staggeringly, into place.
With a cry, Sasha dropped the rake and backed away, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.
‘Andrei,’ she whispered. ‘No.’
Her father straightened up, a bundle of twigs in one hand and looked from his daughter to Andrei who stood apart, holding Yana by the hand. Sasha’s face was bone white, her nose pink from the cold, her eyes stark with shock. Mr Johnson narrowed his eyes as he tried to surmise the situation. Unfortunately he came up with the wrong conclusion. He threw down the bundle of kindling.
‘What’s going on? You let go of my granddaughter’s hand.’
He marched belligerently across the garden, prepared to defend his women and rescue his granddaughter. He stopped a short distance from where Andrei held Yana at his side.
Andrei didn’t move. He kept his sad eyes fastened on Sasha’s face. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Andrei swallowed, his A
dam’s apple bobbing painfully.
‘Your granddaughter?’
Then he lowered his eyes to Yana with a glimmer of a smile and the suggestion of a wink.
‘Is that your Mama,’ he jerked his head in Sasha’s direction and the child nodded and tried to pull him forward.
‘Come and talk to her, you said you wanted to.’
Sasha seemed to be rooted to the spot. She felt she was in some sort of a nightmare as she stared across the garden at Andrei, knowing that the truth was out, that she had hurt him terribly and the repercussions would be horrendous. She was terrified of what would happen next. Andrei cleared his throat but, when he spoke, his voice was husky. He turned politely to Sasha’s mother.
‘Mrs Johnson, I am sorry to spoil your afternoon but I need to speak to Sasha. Is there somewhere quiet where we can be alone, just for a while? I am sure you know that what I have to say is for her ears only.’
Mrs Johnson began to tug at the fingers of her gardening gloves, revealing long slim hands.
‘Yes, yes of course, Mr Kovalevsky. I didn’t quite recognise you at first, not without your sequins. Sasha, come dear, take him into the lounge. I will make a hot drink for everyone. Yana, you be a good girl and stay here with Grandpa.’
Taking charge of the situation she began to bustle them indoors, a hand on Sasha’s back. ‘And you behave,’ she hissed at her husband as she passed where he still stood defensively on the path.
Reluctantly, Andrei released Yana’s hand and followed Sasha and her mother toward the house. Sasha walked before him as if she were going to the guillotine. He fixed his eyes on her swinging ponytail, his mind in a whirl, his life turned upside down. When they reached the back door Mrs Johnson stopped and pointed at his feet. ‘Shoes,’ she said, her order not one to be ignored, and Sasha and Andrei obediently began to remove their shoes.
Come, Dance With Me Page 12