The Secret Wife(89)
She bought Dmitri some smart new suits and shirts, shiny black shoes and a pale grey raincoat and fedora hat, and helped him to pack. He felt a pang as the taxi arrived to take him to the station. He would miss Rosa. Life was better when she was around.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Lake Akanabee, New York State, October 2016
Immediately after the detective left, Kitty grabbed her laptop and went to the coffeehouse to use their wi-fi. Once again she was the only customer, and they were no longer serving food as they had cleared the stores ready to close for winter.
She opened her laptop and googled ‘In the Pale Light of Dawn’ and immediately a listing for the movie came up. It had starred William Holden and Ann Blyth, and premiered in 1948. A still showed him sitting on a rock by the seaside looking serious and moody while she posed in a flouncy tropical-print skirt, a coconut-shell bra and a huge floppy sunhat.
The movie of Toward the Sunset had come out in 1950 starring the same pair, this time pictured in camping gear, although Ann Blyth would have struggled to clamber into a tent wearing that skin-tight plaid skirt and sweater, all in clashing shades of shocking pink, lime green and purple. She must try to find copies of the films and watch them, although she suspected they would not stand the test of time.
Next she opened her email account and winced at the volume of emails that flooded in from Tom. She should write and suggest a meeting on her return. She’d punished him enough.
First, she wrote to the editor at Random House, asking if they had any records concerning Irena Markova, her great-grandfather’s translator. Could they shed light on those monthly payments? Next she went into the genealogy website she used and asked how she would track down someone in Brno in the Czech Republic, giving all the details she had. In her experience people on genealogy forums went to great lengths to help each other.
She sat back to sip her coffee, wondering if there was anything else she could do to find out about Irena Markova. She noticed that her Random House email wasn’t getting through but was sitting in the out-folder while the rainbow circle span round and round, implying the connection wasn’t working. She pressed the ‘Send and Receive All’ button and instantly something shifted. The Random House one went through, and then another, the one from her drafts folder, the angry one to Tom.
‘No!’ she cried, trying too late to click to stop it as it disappeared into the ether. A second later it popped up in her ‘Sent’ folder. Oh Christ, what have I done? Kitty thought. Now she would have to write to apologise for her sarcasm.
Her flight left on the 14th of October, the following Wednesday, and arrived in London at dawn on the 15th so she supposed she could meet Tom that evening. She would be jetlagged though. Maybe she should stay with a friend and wait till the weekend.
As she hesitated an email arrived. It was from Tom and the header read ‘If you don’t love me any more, please just tell me …’
There was no text inside. Her eyes filled with tears. It wasn’t fair to punish him like this. She typed a brief reply: ‘I’m arriving back next Thursday. Meet me at 6 p.m, in the bandstand.’
It was a spot in their local park where they used to meet back in the days before they lived together. She would rush there, stomach fluttery with excitement, desperate to see him again even if they had only parted that morning. Suddenly, thinking about the forthcoming meeting, she felt that same buzz of anticipation.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Europe, autumn 1947
Dmitri was ashamed on arrival in London to realise how much Americans had been cushioned from the impact of the war. Back home they had suffered no physical hardships but here there were gaping holes between buildings where rockets had destroyed people’s homes, leaving whole streets looking like mouths with missing teeth. The central London hotel in which he was accommodated was shabby and faded, with unreliable electricity and strictly limited hot water. The food was terrible: greasy stews with meat of indeterminate origin that got stuck between his teeth, served with watery boiled potatoes. The smell of cabbage permeated the hallways. He was glad he had brought his own coffee, although it did not taste the same with the milk powder he was offered in lieu of fresh.
In Paris people were starving. Women offered themselves on street corners, while ragged children clung to their legs. When they called out their fees Dmitri realised he could have hired a prostitute for the equivalent of less than a dollar had he been so inclined. Instead he handed out cash to those he passed, and they mumbled their thanks without meeting his eyes. Who was he to think he could write about depression? These people knew far more than him.
In each city he gave a short speech to a crowd, usually around fifty souls, then answered their questions. What did he think of the movie of In the Pale Light of Dawn? ‘No comment,’ he said to general laughter. Had The Boot That Kicked really been an anti-fascist book, as was thought at the time? ‘That was absolutely my intention,’ he said, ‘but I hope it can be read as a diatribe against any form of oppressive state control.’ ‘How did he feel when reviewers compared him to his compatriot Vladimir Nabokov?’ ‘I wasn’t aware they did, but would be immensely flattered if that were the case.’
A few copies of his books were sold, then he was usually taken to dinner by his local publisher plus wife. Dmitri had never been comfortable talking to strangers, despite all the lessons he had learned from Rosa over the years. He struggled with these foreign publishers, all of them speaking a language that was not their native tongue, talking about books he had not read, and he wished Rosa was there because she would have made the conversation flow smoothly.