The Russian Concubine Part 50

'They're not new, I'm afraid, but they're good.'

She held them up. She was right, they were good. He was touched that she must have gone especially to the Chinese market in the old town because they were not Western clothes. A pair of loose peasant trousers, a quilted tunic, and a thick padded jacket, and in a separate parcel a pair of stout hide boots. A leather satchel, scratched and battered but still intact, pleased him most because it reminded him oddly of himself. Except he was no longer intact.

'Thank you. For these gifts.'

'Your hand.' She frowned. 'What have you been doing? It's bleeding again. Let me bind it up.'

'One twist of bandage. No more.'

Again she gave him that look.

'In the English market where I found the satchel, I heard talk. About the bombs. Two more last night.' She dug out the antiseptic boric acid and the pot of sulphur paste from the pillowcase. 'Planning on going somewhere?' she asked lightly.

'No.'

She nodded.

But it was an uneasy movement. 'They say it's the Communists planting the bombs. Eight people were killed outside a nightclub and there's talk of scouring the district for union members. Everyone is angry.'

'They're afraid,' Chang murmured. He dismissed the pain as she dabbed at the wound on his left hand.

'Is it the Communists, do you think?'

'No. It is Po Chu. He is clever.'

'But surely he gains nothing by-'

The door swung open and a brisk wind s.n.a.t.c.hed at her hair. A strand of it swept across Chang's face, but he saw the tall figure standing in the doorway. Chang didn't move. Just his right hand. It picked up the knife.

Lydia leaped to her feet with an exclamation of surprise.

'Alexei Serov! What on earth are you doing here?'

She stepped right in front of the figure, blocking his view, but not before Chang had seen his sharp green eyes take in the rough bed, Chang's hands, and the dried bloodstain on the wooden floor.

'Come up to the house,' Lydia said firmly and stalked out of the shed, forcing the Russian to retreat. She closed the door and clicked the padlock shut.

44.

'Do you know what the penalty is for harbouring a known fugitive? '

'Just one minute, what reason do you have for thinking he is a fugitive? He is a friend of mine who is wounded and needs help, that's all.'

'In a shed?' Alexei Serov's tone was sceptical.

'I really don't see that this is any business of yours,' she said crossly.

They were standing in the middle of the drawing room, but she didn't want to discuss things. She wanted him to leave. She had not invited him to sit, nor offered to take his immaculate grey overcoat and silk scarf.

'Anyway, what were you doing snooping around my shed?' Even as she said it, she had a feeling she could have put that better.

'Snooping? Miss Ivanova, I regard that as an insult.' He drew his shoulders back stiffly. His short hair bristled. 'I called at your front door and it was your servant who informed me that you were in the shed with your rabbit. He was the one who suggested I go down there.'

Wai, the cook. d.a.m.n the lazy fool.

'Then I apologise. I meant no insult. I just feel that you . . .'

'Intruded?'

'Yes.'

He looked at her with a cool questioning gaze and came a step closer, his hand tapping impatiently on the lapel of his coat. He spoke in a low voice. 'I think you are taking a big risk. Yet again. These are violent times, Miss Ivanova, and you should take great care. The bombs that explode, the intrigues that cut the ground from under any agreements, the dangers to someone who doesn't know what they are involved in - these are things you know nothing about. People get killed every day for doing less than you are doing.'

Some of her confidence evaporated, and it must have shown on her face because he said more pleasantly, 'It's all right, I don't bite.'

She smiled and made it look easy. 'Thank you for your advice, but it is of no concern to me.'

'What are you saying?'

He knew d.a.m.n well what she was saying. 'That it's all nothing to do with me. Of course I hear of what is going on here in Junchow, but . . .'

'But you're not involved?'

'No, I'm not.'

'And that man in your shed is not a Communist?'

'No.'

He laughed, tipped his head back, and made a soft mocking sound, blowing out air between his white teeth. 'You are not a very good liar, Miss Ivanova.'

She was stung. She'd always been a b.l.o.o.d.y good liar.

'What I'd like to know,' she said curtly, 'is what brought you over here in the first place. Why have you called on me?'

'Ah yes.' He tilted his head in a polite bow, reached into his coat pocket, and brought out a card. He held it out to her. 'From my own dear mama, Countess Serova.'

Lydia accepted the card. It was ivory tinted, very thick, and embossed with a gold coat of arms at the top, an eagle with wings spread wide over a quartered shield. It wasn't hard to guess that it was the Serov family crest. On the card was an invitation to an evening of dance and entertainment at the Serov villa on Rue Lamarque on Monday at eight.

Monday? Monday was an age away. Much too far ahead to think about. First she had to get herself and Chang An Lo through this weekend.

'Just to make it official,' he said amiably. But with that superior smile again.

'Thank you. I shall think about it, but I'm not sure of my plans for next week until my mother returns tomorrow.'

A ripple of surprise crossed his face, as if he were not used to Serov invitations being refused, but he hid it smoothly. 'Of course. I understand.'

She walked him to the front door. When he strode out onto the drive the wind s.n.a.t.c.hed at his scarf, but he ignored it and turned back to face her. His green eyes met hers, and for a long moment he considered her in silence. 'Don't forget my advice, Miss Ivanova,' was all he said at last.

But it was a step too far. 'Alexei Serov, why don't you just look after your own life and leave me to take care of mine?'

She shut the door. All things considered, that hadn't gone very well.

'Darling, surprise!'

Lydia froze. She was in her bedroom. She had just hurried upstairs to fetch an extra sweater before going down to the shed to tell Chang An Lo how things had gone with Alexei Serov.

'Lydia, we're home.'

'Mama.' She ran down the stairs.

They were in the hallway, surrounded by luggage and packages. Shaking off their coats, laughing and stamping their cold feet, stirring up the air, and filling the house that had been so silent all week with noise and bustle. Bringing in the outside world.

'Darling.' Her mother opened her arms wide and Lydia ran into them.

Something happened and Lydia was totally unprepared for it. Valentina wrapped her arms so tightly around Lydia it was as though she intended never to let go, and her elegant figure gave way to a deep tremor as she kissed her daughter's cheek. Suddenly Lydia's throat hurt, so much it felt like fishhooks caught there.

'Did you miss me, darling?'

'Oh really, have you been away? I didn't even notice.'

'You wicked child.' Valentina laughed and squeezed Lydia hard.

Alfred came over and patted Lydia awkwardly on the back. 'Good to see you looking well, my dear. But where is Deng?'

'The houseboy?' Still she held her mother. Drew the scent of her perfume deep into her lungs. 'I gave him the week off.'

'Why on earth . . . ? Ah well, never mind. I'll take the cases up myself. Good exercise anyway.'

She heard his footsteps tread heavily up the stairs, and she felt her mother's quick breath on her ear.

'Lydia,' was all Valentina said. 'Lydia.'

'Mama.'

They stood alone in the hall. Neither willing to release the other.

'You'd have loved it, Lydia.' Alfred was beaming at her and took a contented puff on his pipe, sending blue smoke coiling to the ceiling.

Lydia preferred the aromatic scent of the tobacco to the harsh smell of her mother's cigarettes. They were all seated in the drawing room after an excellent meal of fillet of pork followed by pineapple syllabub. Wai was showing off his wider menu now that his master had returned. Alfred had lit the fire in the drawing room, as there was no houseboy to do it for him, whistling the whole time, and Lydia noticed a marked change in him. No more nervous foot-shuffling silences. Lots of sounds coming from him. Humming or whistling or talking. As if the happiness inside kept flowing out of him in noise.

'One day, Lydia,' Alfred said as he tossed a match into the glowing coals, 'I will take you to the Yungang cave temples as well. You must see for yourself how astonishing they are and what wonderful building skills the Chinese possessed nearly two thousand years ago. Good Lord, in England we have nothing to compare with them. Quite remarkable.'

'I'd like that.'

'Oh dochenka dochenka, you really must see the seated Buddha. It's amazing. Sixty feet high and cut into a yellow cliff. I've never seen such a huge man.' Valentina laughed and glanced teasingly at Alfred on the chesterfield beside her.

The radio was playing softly in the background, some new kind of syncopated jazz, and Alfred was humming again. Lydia was sipping a tumbler of lime juice with a handful of ice in it and trying hard to make conversation, but her mind was outside in the cold.

The hot-water bottle needed heating again. The poultices on the burns needed changing. The next dose of herb tea was overdue and . . .

'Darling, do listen. You look as if you're miles away. I was telling you about the system they have for their temples and tombs and things. It's called feng shui. feng shui. They've used it for more than two thousand years. It's supposed to make sure the sites are . . . Oh, what was that word they used, my angel?' They've used it for more than two thousand years. It's supposed to make sure the sites are . . . Oh, what was that word they used, my angel?'

'Propitious?' Alfred offered.

'That's it, propitiously sited.'

Valentina was very animated. She seemed to have shed the cloak of cultivated indifference she used to carry around with her and taken on an enthusiasm for everything. Lydia found it quite odd. She couldn't decide whether it was something released from the inside or stuck on from the outside. But Alfred was clearly entranced.

'I know about feng shui feng shui, Mama. The trouble is that the Europeans haven't taken any notice of it at all. We drive railroads through their spiritual places, and missionaries build churches that throw shadows on ancient Chinese ancestral graveyards, disturbing their dead. Don't laugh, Mama. It really matters to them. And they believe our church spires pierce the skies with their sharp points and prevent the good spirits returning to earth. Feng shui Feng shui means means wind and water wind and water.'

'Does it? How clever of you, darling. Don't I have a clever daughter, Alfred?'

'Yes, very clever.' He beamed at Lydia again.

But she knew that if Valentina had asked him if her daughter was bright green with pink spots he'd have said yes just as willingly. Lydia chose her moment. She stretched casually and stood up.

'It's good to have you home again but I think I'll go to bed now, if you don't mind.'

'So soon?'

'Mmm, I'm sleepy.' She smiled at her stepfather. 'It's the heat from this wonderful fire. I think I'll just pop out and check on Sun Yat-sen before I go up, though. He's still a bit nervous in his new home, so . . .'

'I don't think so, Lydia,' Alfred said firmly. 'I don't want you wandering around out there in the dark.'

'But there's a moon. It's not too dark.'

'No, you go to bed now, my dear. Leave the rabbit till tomorrow morning.' He smiled at her but his eyes were serious, and suddenly she remembered the deal she'd made with him in exchange for the two hundred dollars.

Her heart sank. She looked to her mother for help, but Valentina was at the c.o.c.ktail cabinet pouring a gla.s.s of vodka for herself and a snifter of brandy for her husband.

'Please, Alfred,' Lydia said coaxingly.

'Not tonight, dear. You trot up to bed now and leave the bally rabbit till morning. There's a good girl. Sleep well.'