The Secret Wife(27)
She tried several other searches but with no more success. She couldn’t find where Dmitri and Rosa had lived on arrival in the US, what schools the children had attended, or where he had worked.
She closed the computer and drove to Indian Lake for some pots of varnish. She wanted to cover the entire cabin with a weatherproof coating while the weather was dry. The man in Lakeside Country Stores recommended the type he said was most effective against the cold, snowy winters in these parts. He was respectful now, as if he’d accepted she knew what she was talking about.
While she worked on the front wall that afternoon, she heard an outboard motor on the lake and turned to see a mahogany-skinned, silver-haired fisherman close to the shore. She waved and walked down to the broken jetty to greet him.
‘Y’all bought the cabin, have you?’ he called, squinting up at it.
‘I inherited it,’ she explained. ‘My great-grandfather used to live here.’
‘Well, I’ll be!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re Dmitri’s kin? I thought that cabin was a write-off but he would be happy to see you doing it up all nice.’
Kitty blinked. This man had known Dmitri. Rather than spend an hour on the internet, why had she not thought to ask around locally? ‘Can I offer you a beer? Or a coffee?’ she asked.
‘A beer’d be nice.’ He tied his boat to one of the broken struts of jetty and leapt to shore. ‘Name’s Bob. I live over the far side.’ He gestured.
Kitty fetched two Buds and a bottle opener and they sat on the grass facing the water. He offered her a Marlboro and lit up himself when she refused.
‘It’s funny you should come along because I’ve been trying to find out about Dmitri,’ she began. ‘Were you two friends?’
Bob shook his head. ‘We said hi when we bumped into each other at the store, but he never invited me here and I never invited him to mine. We lived our own lives.’
‘Did his wife stay here with him?’
Bob frowned. ‘I never saw a woman. Just him padding around on his own, with his dog at his heel. He was a writer so I guess the solitude suited him.’
‘I read one of his books yesterday. Until recently I had no idea we had a writer in the family.’
‘Yeah, I’ve got all his books. He gave them to Sue and me as a wedding present. My wife likes reading but I’ve no time for it.’
‘That’s amazing!’ Kitty was delighted. ‘Have you still got them? Do you think Sue would mind lending them to me?’
‘I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’ He glanced over towards his home and chuckled. ‘See that glint in the trees over yonder? It’s probably her looking out for me with the binoculars. She’ll be wondering what I’m doing drinking beer with a pirtty lady.’
Kitty saw a dancing point of light in the direction he indicated. She hadn’t considered anyone might be watching through binoculars and flushed to think they could have seen her wandering around naked.
‘You not lonely here?’ Bob asked. ‘Is your boyfriend coming over?’
‘My husband’s back in England,’ she said. ‘I’m keeping myself busy, as you can see.’ She waved an arm at the half-finished coat of varnish.
‘Let me give you my cell,’ Bob said. He scribbled the number on the back of the foil in his cigarette pack with a pen from his shirt pocket. ‘You call if you need anything. It’s a remote spot for a young girl like you.’
She was touched by his concern. She felt completely safe in the cabin but it was good to have a neighbour’s number in case of an emergency. When he left, he promised to return in a day or so with Dmitri’s books.
She went back to her varnishing, annoyed to see that the stretch she had already coated was now covered in dead and dying flies, like the bloody aftermath of some miniature battle.
Chapter Sixteen
Moldavia, December 1916
By the time Dmitri arrived in Moldavia, a hilly country squeezed between the Russian Empire to the East and the Austrian Empire to the West, winter was closing in. There could be no fighting while mountain passes were closed due to thick snow and the ground was too hard to dig trenches, so all sides hunkered down. Dmitri was furious to find he had travelled hundreds of miles south simply to spend the next few months living on meagre rations in an army bunker when he could have been in Tsarskoe Selo, close to his beloved wife. It was characteristic of the complete lack of foresight amongst the Russian high command.
Looking back, his wedding seemed like a dream. He still could not believe that he was married to the most beautiful, most talented of the Romanov grand duchesses. Tatiana’s letters came regularly, and there was a new air of intimacy about them. She confided in him about family matters that she would have considered disloyal to discuss before their marriage:
Olga finds it too hard to continue working in the hospital: she does not have the stomach for watching operations or cleaning wounds. Her nerves are suffering from the prolonged absence of our father and brother, and she has transferred all her attention to Mitya (yes, he’s here again). I swear she talks of nothing but him and I am fed up hearing of his every word and breath! Meanwhile, she never asks about you, sweet Malama. I think she is jalouse of our closeness and prefers not to hear of it.