Dmitri sighed and played the scales again, this time in lightning fast semiquavers that leapt from his fingers like showering sparks.
Had he kept to his career path as a pianist, he would potentially be at his peak now. His days would be spent rehearsing for concerts, making recordings, teaching the best and brightest students, and, of course, spending many hours alone in a small room practising. And each time he stepped out on stage, as he’d done so many times in his mind, it would all be worth it. What a joy it would be, performing in packed concert halls, sharing his love of music with a knowledgeable and appreciative audience…
His fingers stumbled and he crashed a series of chords, hoping to drive these stupid, pointless thoughts from his head.
I want to achieve my doctorate in choral music, because I love working with young singers to help them reach their vocal potential. He picked up the notebook and wrote the words down in Russian. He’d translate it later, then get Phil or Carole-Ann to check it, but it was important to get the sense of it right. I believe it is the role of a choral conductor to both inspire and to be open to inspiration from the musicians in his charge. It is through this interaction that the music comes to life, and the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
God, he wanted to cross out the whole thing, but he had to write something. For once in his life, could he please just stop letting people down? Write the essay, send it in. Finish something, for fuck’s sake. Make his mother proud – though she would never see it. And, his father…
He lay his arms and head down on the keys.
Christmas Eve. His mother had spent the day cooking, but the fear in her eyes made him sick; he couldn’t look at her face. His father had gone off – Dmitri didn’t know where to. Tanya was two floors down at the flat of her friend who had a TV. Dmitri unpacked his suitcase, took out Sasha’s leaving present to him. A bottle of vodka. And God, he drank it down, waiting for the slow burn in his throat to become the blessed relief of nothingness. He went outside, not even bothering with his coat, just a scarf around his neck, his shirt and woollen trousers. Fresh snow had fallen earlier, and a few stray flakes were whirling in the currents of the air. The moon was out, bright and full, hanging just above the dark line of the pine trees. Beyond the block of flats, a fire was lit in a large steel drum, near the edge of the forest. There was a man on the other side of the fire, his eyes glittering orange and gold. His father. He was sitting on a log, smoking a cigarette. Next to the log was a vodka bottle cooling in the snow. Dmitri hefted his own bottle and took another drink. Perhaps oblivion was the one thing they could still share.
In the end, he’d left the letter on the table the previous night. Gone to bed, spent all night worrying about what to say. But what on earth was there to say? And then, this morning, his mother had bustled around the flat, trying to talk of hope, looking on the bright side, and the future. It had seemed as though he were watching the scene through someone else’s eyes as his father stood up from the table, wrenched her arms above her head and punched her in the face. Then he left the flat.
One of her teeth had gone and her nose was broken. She had tried so hard not to cry as Dmitri held a wet cloth to her face to try and stop the bleeding. He couldn’t cry, he was too numb.
And before he’d got out the vodka, she had begged him to go to a friend’s, even though it was Christmas Eve and all that food was already made. Begged him to stay away for now – a few days – until the shock had worn off. If only he had not lost his place, if only he had listened to his mother. But instead he went outside, walked over to the fire. What was he planning to do? Sit on the log? Try to say he was sorry? Try to say nothing? He barely even saw his father stand up and approach him. It was all so hazy. His eyes stung from the heat of the flames, the smoke, the dire chill of the air. And then the blow had come. Well, he supposed he had been expecting it. And he deserved it too. He’d ruined his prospects, pissed away the thing he’d been working towards his whole life. The one thing that meant something to his father, his family. His jaw stung and he fell back against the log and hit his head. Fuck, could he even move?
And then, his father had held the bottle over his chest and poured the freezing liquid over him. It smelled of something – not vodka. Lighter fluid. The cigarette dropped…
And he shall purify the sons of Levi. Dmitri mumbled the words inside his head. Trying to drown out the smell of burning flesh, the sound of his own screams. And the pain. In only a few seconds, the fire accelerant had done its work, ripping through the layers of flesh. But he’d been lucky, the doctors said. Lucky to be alive. Though he didn’t remember it, though it was like moving through water, he had managed to roll over in the snow, they said. The burns to his face, and those below the waist would heal in time.
He remembered those weeks in the burn bed. Screaming for morphine. The hatred he felt towards those doctors and nurses. The hatred he felt towards his mother, who sat by his bedside and prattled on about leaving – going somewhere where they would be safe and happy. To the west, where they would have a new life. He’d wanted his father to come to see him, that much he remembered. More than anything in his whole life. And vodka. He’d wanted that too.
The burns on his chest had got infected, and eventually, he was too weak even to feel the hatred. He’d come very close to death. He’d sunk down to an unreachable place, where there was sunlight, and music, and he could relive that day long ago, when he had first boarded the train for Moscow. And he’d seen the pride on his father’s face, and the love. He’d wanted to stay there, in that place of memories; to live there, give himself up. There was no pain there, no guilt or loss. There were no tears: not those of his mother when she came to tell him that his father had been found dead in the woods with a shotgun bullet through his head. He gladly would have traded his life, the music, the future – anything – to stay there. But in the end, he was powerless. Powerless against his body slowly healing. Powerless against the relentless will of his mother to make him survive. Powerless to get off the train on that endless journey to the west, still bound in compression bandages. And, ultimately, powerless to escape the shadow that followed him every day of his life. He had forgiven his father years ago for what he did, if he had ever blamed him at all. But he had never been able to forgive himself.
Dmitri lifted up his head. Tears fell on to the page as he picked up the pen and began to write.
26
11th December
When Nicola woke up on Friday morning, her head hurt. She blamed it in part on the wine she’d drunk after Jules left. But she knew it was more than that. Ollie had a wife and kids, just like her sister did. He was a husband and a father. Just because she’d managed somehow to compartmentalise what they’d been doing, and just because Ollie seemed to feel no guilt whatsoever, didn’t change anything. Above all, it must not change the fact that it was over.
She’d have to speak to him again, unfortunately. Tell him to delete those texts and all trace of her from his phone. Whether he did so or not would be up to him, but at least she would have tried to do the right thing.
Nicola forced herself to get up and dress for work. Walking out yesterday at a crucial time was unprofessional and might be detrimental to closing the deal. Before leaving the house, she gathered up the Care accounts and shoved them in her satchel. There were definitely a few red flags, though not enough to lodge a complaint with a charity watchdog. The accounts had been signed off by a firm of independent auditors. Was it pure financial ineptitude, normal practice or sheer laziness?
There was one person she knew who might, or might not, have some insight.
When she arrived at work, she closed the door to her office and did a quick internet search as she drank her morning coffee. For the phone number of the Central Connection homeless shelter. Nicola dialled the number and spoke with the harried employee who answered. Yes, Nicolai, the man she knew as Kolya, would be in after lunch. Did she want to leave her name?
No.
At lunchtime, Nicola forwarded her phone to Chrissie’s desk and made her way out of the building. She got the Tube to London Bridge, and then got a taxi across the river. By the time she reached the shelter, it was half one. There were a few people milling around outside, but as she walked down the steps and inside the door, the place seemed less busy than it had been on the Saturday of the Christmas Lunch. As before, her first reaction was the smell – hot food, disinfectant – but she had to acknowledge that most of the shelter refugees looked like they’d had a shower and clean clothes. Nonetheless, the place made her feel uncomfortable and nauseous – and above all, guilty for her own reactions.
A clean-shaven male worker came up to her. ‘Can I help you?’ he said.
‘I’m here to see Nicolai,’ she answered.
‘I’ll need you to sign in.’ He handed her a clipboard and she scribbled her name. ‘I’ll see if he’s available,’ the man said. He looked down at the scribble. ‘What name shall I give?’
‘Nicola Taylor.’
‘And you want to see him because?’
‘Look, I’m a friend of Dmitri, OK?’ she said. Getting into this place was almost more difficult than getting past her office reception.
‘Of course.’ The man reacted instantly. ‘Come this way.’
She followed him across the main hall. At the food service window there were trays of stew and vegetables. Steam rose up from a vat of soup that actually smelled good. She scanned the room looking for Francesca. There was no sign of her. Two young children were playing in the hall; one of them opened the piano and plunked out a few notes.
They went through a door to a corridor with a shower room, TV lounge and a children’s playroom. At the end of the corridor was a door marked ‘office’. Inside were three cluttered desks staffed by two men and a woman. The man knocked on another door opposite the photocopier. ‘Yes,’ the deep voice rumbled from inside.
Nicola felt unexpectedly nervous. The accounts – yes, she had some questions about charities in general and the Care accounts. But Kolya was a counsellor, not an accountant and this homeless shelter had nothing to do with Care. No – as soon as he saw her, he’d know why she was here.
The man opened the door. ‘There’s a woman here to see you,’ he said. ‘Her name is —’
‘Nicola,’ Kolya said, his huge frame suddenly filling the doorway. ‘Hello again.’ If he was surprised to see her, he showed no sign.
‘Hi,’ she said, sounding hoarse. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have an appointment.’
‘Never mind,’ Kolya said. He turned to the man who had brought her. ‘Thanks, Tom. I’ll take it from here. Would you like some tea, Nicola?’
‘Yes, please.’
She went inside and Kolya went to get the tea. The room was clean and bland like a police interview room, though someone had made an effort to put a leafy plant in the corner of the room, and the chairs and sofa were padded, if very worn.
Nicola sat down on one of the chairs and put her satchel on her lap. Kolya returned with a pot of tea and two cups on a tray. He set it down on the coffee table.
‘When you phoned earlier, I hoped you would come at a time when I could see you,’ he said. ‘And here you are – your timing is perfect.’
‘I didn’t leave my name earlier.’
He laughed. ‘I know.’
He wasn’t going to make this easy – that much she could tell. And now that she was here, Nicola had no idea where to begin. It was the room that was throwing her off. There was no desk to sit behind; she was out in the open. A room with no place to hide.
Kolya sat down in a chair facing her. He was wearing a blue jumper, jeans and brown leather boots. His black beard was neatly trimmed. Something about him made her feel… safe. He poured tea into both of the cups and she declined milk or sugar. He handed one cup to her and put three sugars in his. She was aware of him watching her as she took the papers out of her bag.
‘Is that an application to volunteer with us?’ he said. ‘That is what we usually require, you know, before accepting a volunteer.’
‘I can’t believe you expect people who are giving up their time to fill out paperwork.’
‘We work with very vulnerable people here, Nicola,’ he said. ‘Our volunteers receive safeguarding and other training. This is the modern way of charity work.’
‘Really?’
He raised a black, bushy eyebrow. ‘Yes, Nicola. We are talking about people’s lives.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She acknowledged the rebuke. ‘I don’t want to take too much of your time.’
‘Yes.’
‘Anyway…’ she continued, ‘since volunteering last week at your shelter, I’ve taken an interest in another charity.’ She explained briefly about the mismanaged charity shop and the anomalies she’d spotted in the accounts. He listened, peering intently, not at the papers she tried to show him, but at her. By the time she ended her spiel, she was breathless and felt like she was talking in circles. Once again, she had the sense that he could see right through her.
She fell silent, and Kolya nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can see that I was right about you. You are a very intelligent woman, and, I must say, wasted washing dishes.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘And while I am not an accountant, perhaps I can put you in touch with someone who can answer your questions.’
‘OK… thanks.’
‘But really,’ he said, ‘you don’t need me to discuss accounts.’ He fiddled with a gold ring on his left hand. She hadn’t noticed it before now. It was a gesture she’d seen many times. At hotel bars, before a man invited her up to his room. But, oddly, she didn’t get that vibe from Kolya.
‘You’re married?’ she said without thinking.
‘I am married to Nigel.’ He paused to let this sink in.
‘Oh, so you’re…’
‘Gay. Yes.’
‘Is that why you came here?’
He laughed. ‘I’m afraid that in my time, Mother Russia – or perhaps it was Grandfather Lenin – did not like her queer sons. From the moment it became possible to leave, I did anything – sold everything – to get the money to come here and stay here. You understand?’
‘Yes,’ she said, not really wanting to imagine the obstacles that this man, like Dmitri, might have had to overcome. ‘I think so. Is that why you became a counsellor?’
‘I suppose. I was lucky to meet Nigel. He pulled me out of the gutter, literally. The rest is, as you say, “water under the bridge”. Now we have two children. Orphans from Russia.’
‘That’s… good,’ Nicola said.
‘Yes.’ He gave her a kindly smile. ‘But now, Nicola, it’s your turn. You didn’t come here to talk about accounts or hear about my life. So I think you should tell me why you’re here. Then, we can talk.’
For a long moment, she didn’t speak. She stared down at her nails, neatly trimmed and polished with clear gloss. ‘You know why I’m here.’
Kolya sat back, steepling his fingers. He was going to make her come out and say it.
‘You’ve known Dmitri for a long time,’ she began.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head, frustration and hopelessness bubbling to the surface. ‘This i
s complete madness. I shouldn’t have come. It’s clear he doesn’t want to see me or know me. And if that’s the case, I can live with it. I mean, for all I know, he might spend every Saturday with a different woman, taking them to silly places around London. But for me, it was more than that – or, it could have been.’ She sighed. ‘I guess I’m just… trying to understand.’
Kolya nodded. ‘You are an intelligent, beautiful woman, and much more besides. You want to know why Dmitri walked away.’
She swallowed hard. ‘Yes.’
Kolya sat back and put his hand to his forehead, rubbing the lines there. ‘You ask a lot. You ask me to break bonds formed over many years. Possibly lose my friend.’
‘Then I’m wasting my time.’ Nicola began shoving the papers back into her bag. This was pointless and embarrassing. She’d already said so much more than she’d intended. She closed the clasp on her satchel and made to stand up.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Stay. Drink your tea. You have taken a big risk coming here.’
‘I don’t want tea,’ she said. ‘I want answers. If you won’t tell me outright, then at least will you answer my questions? You’ve told me that he’s a decent person. So I’m assuming that he’s not a rapist or a murderer. Please do correct me if I’m wrong.’
‘He is not any of those things.’
‘OK, great, we’re getting somewhere.’ She sat forward. ‘So is he gay? In a relationship? Married?’ She rattled off the various possibilities. ‘Or is it something to do with the fiancée he mentioned? Or is he just a player and I happened not to be his type? Because I’ve already embarrassed myself enough, and I don’t have time to play games. Say the word, and I’ll walk away right now.’
Nicola was even more annoyed when Kolya barely seemed to react to her outburst. He sat there calmly, watching her, assessing her. Finally, he spoke again. ‘I think that what I would propose is a trade.’
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