‘Never.’ She shuddered. ‘No.’
‘And I still have the waistcoat you knitted for me that Christmas,’ he told her, ‘but it is a little snug around my middle.’
‘I have done a lot of knitting since then,’ she said, ‘and made my own wool too. We kept sheep.’
She let slip odd facts from time to time and he stored them up, putting the pieces together. Still there was much she wouldn’t talk about – the night she disappeared from the cottage, how she got back to Czechoslovakia, her dead son Jaroslev – but he would never push her. Frankly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, at least not for a while. He was still trying to find his balance in this strange seesaw life he had created.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
London, 15th October 2016
London was drizzly and overcast when Kitty arrived at Heathrow. She shivered and wrapped her green cardigan tightly around herself. There wasn’t a chink of sunlight, just solid grey cloud cover, like a lid closed over the city. She missed the colours of Lake Akanabee. Even in wild weather it had been like an artist’s palette of pinks, purples, greens, reds, gold, and every shade of blue.
She caught a train into the centre of town then took a taxi to Crouch End, fumbling in the bottom of her case for door keys. There was a moment of panic: Tom wouldn’t have changed the locks, would he? What if he hadn’t gone to work yet but was sitting at the kitchen table – or upstairs, still in bed?
The door opened and the first thing she saw was a neat pile of post addressed to her on the hall table. It felt as though she was an intruder. Everything was clean and orderly, and the air smelled of furniture polish. It was as if the house had been uninhabited since she left.
She went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea, glancing into the fridge as she took out the milk. There wasn’t much fresh food, but the freezer was full of ready meals and that made her sad. Poor Tom.
She dozed on the sofa for a couple of hours then began to unpack the clothes she’d taken to America and lay out the ones she would take to Brno. As six o’clock approached she had butterflies at the thought of meeting Tom, and smiled at herself. Would they make love that night?
She arrived at the park early and stood beneath the shelter of an oak tree, wanting to watch Tom as he approached the bandstand. Even from a distance she could tell he had lost weight. His jacket hung loose and he’d forgotten to bring a raincoat or umbrella so was getting soaked in the drizzle, but he was valiantly carrying two takeaway coffees as well as his briefcase. She felt a pang of love for him.
When she stepped out to say hello, she saw his eyes were rimmed by shadows. There was a moment when they both held back then she leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek before taking one of the coffees.
‘You look tired,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’ She had done this to him; it was her fault he was so thin and grey. And then she remembered what he had done to her by sleeping with Karren. Suddenly it seemed like ancient history, something that had happened in another lifetime.
‘It’s good to see you looking all tanned and beautiful, Kitty-kat. Your summer on the lake obviously suited you.’
‘The cabin is gorgeous. You’ll have to …’ She stopped. They weren’t there yet.
They sat on the wrought-iron bench inside the bandstand, where Hula-Hoop packets and Irn-Bru cans littered the ground, and she took a sip of her coffee: a soya latte. He knew what she liked.
‘You were right,’ she began. ‘There was a lot of work to do. It was covered in creepers and had a tree growing through the steps when I arrived, but it’s all fixed up now.’ She showed him some photos she’d taken on her phone. ‘I had to rebuild the porch and the jetty from scratch. I made that swing seat as well.’
‘What a beautiful spot.’ He scrolled through the pictures. ‘So is that what you’ve been doing all summer? Working on the cabin?’
‘I’ve also been finding out about the great-grandfather who left it to me. There are lots of gaps in his story but I’m flying to the Czech Republic tomorrow to meet someone who can tell me more.’ Tom looked alarmed so she added quickly: ‘Just for the weekend.’
‘Will you come back to our house tonight?’ She had never heard him sound so unsure of himself.
‘I took my bags there this morning. Was that all right?’
‘Of course.’
They were like strangers. Kitty decided to cut through the formality. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. I needed space to think. Not just about us; I needed to try and work out what I’m doing with my life.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘I suppose I want to find a sense of purpose. Other people have children and that gives them a focus but we decided against them. Now I want to find a way for my life to mean something. Does that make sense?’
He was listening closely. ‘If you want to put the children issue back on the table we can discuss it.’
‘No, not really.’ She looked into his eyes, trying to read his expression. ‘Unless you do?’
‘I thought about it this summer, but mainly because if we’d had kids you wouldn’t have been able to leave me for three months without any communication. It’s been horrible, Kitty. I felt as if I was emailing into a black hole but I couldn’t stop because it was the only slender hope I had of getting through to you. Were you reading my mails?’
She gave a guilty shake of the head. ‘I read your letter. It made sense.’ Suddenly she badly wanted to kiss him. It felt too soon, though. ‘Are you still looking for a new job?’
‘I had an interview last week with a company that raises funding for the arts and I just heard two days ago that I’ve got the job.’ He looked boyish in his excitement. ‘They’re based in Shoreditch in a converted factory. I love the atmosphere and the people there.’
‘That sounds brilliant! Congratulations!’ She grinned at him. ‘What will you have to do?’
He described the role, and Kitty thought how perfect it sounded for him to become an enabler for artists, someone who would help them achieve their dreams.
‘Did you do any writing over the summer?’ he asked.
She sighed. ‘Not a word. I’m beginning to realise I’m not cut out to be a writer. Sure, I can string a sentence together but I don’t have anything I passionately want to say. That’s why I keep abandoning everything I start. My great-grandfather, on the other hand … he was a famous novelist in his day. His books are powerful insights into human emotion.’
He was regarding her affectionately. ‘You never mentioned having a writer in the family.’
‘No one ever told me. I can’t think why Mum never said.’
‘It seems odd, but I remember her saying she never met any of her grandparents: all four died before she was born …’
‘Did she?’ Kitty screwed up her forehead trying to remember. ‘But that’s not true. Dmitri only died in 1986. It seems there was some big falling out between them. That’s why Dmitri’s inheritance eventually came to me; they couldn’t find any family members when he died.’
‘Is this why you are flying to the Czech Republic? So you can solve the mystery?’ He smiled indulgently.
‘I’ll tell you more about it over dinner. Can we go and eat now? I’m starving.’
They walked to their favourite restaurant, a tiny French bistro two streets from home, and first she told him what she had learned about Dmitri Yakovlevich. They ordered their usual – French onion soup, pepper steaks and a bottle of Burgundy – and never stopped talking throughout the meal. There was so much to say.
‘If you have decided that you don’t want to be a writer any more, then what?’ Tom asked.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t get that far.’
‘If you want to develop another property, we could easily raise money against the house.’
Kitty wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t know. It’s stressful, and there are tedious problems. Besides, I’m not sure the market is going in the right direction. There could be a crash on the way.’