Mary Nichols - The Kirilov Star

He reached out and put his hands over hers on the table. ‘It’s Alex. He’s…’ He stumbled, then collected himself. ‘I’m afraid he’s dead.’

‘Dead?’ She stared at him. ‘He can’t be.’ But even as she denied it, she realised she had been half expecting it, but refusing to acknowledge it, as if by even thinking of such a possibility she would bring it about. ‘Are you sure?’

He nodded. ‘He was in Minsk when it was overrun by the Germans. He had apparently been acting with immense courage during the battle, single-handedly disabling a gun which had been shelling a convent being used to house children orphaned by the war, but it cost him his life. The action was reported by a senior officer in the Red Army who had witnessed it and recommended Major Alexei Petrovich Simenov for a posthumous medal. And then it came to light there was no such person serving in the Red Army, and enquiries revealed who he really was. Unfortunately the government in London has had to deny he was anything to do with them and he was acting off his own bat.’

She hardly heard what he said. She was back in Russia, in that squalid room in Moscow, loving and being loved by Alex. An Alex who was no more. He had declared he would always love her however long or short his life. Had he known how short it would be? Had he said he would rejoin her and bring Yuri to her, simply to get her safely away? He had saved her life, but lost his own. She sat looking at her father’s hands covering hers and could not take it in. ‘I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it.’

‘I know. I didn’t want to believe it either. I looked on him as a son, especially after his parents died. I had hoped you and he might…’ He stopped and took his handkerchief from his pocket, pretending to blow his nose. It was enough to set her off and she put her head into her arms on the table and wept, huge gulping sobs. He stood up and went round behind her and laid a hand on her shaking shoulders. He did not speak. There was nothing he could say that would in any way mitigate her misery. They stayed that way for a long time, not speaking, a little tableau that epitomised the war and all it was doing to ordinary men and women.

She lifted her head at last and sat up. ‘I suppose I knew, in my heart of hearts, that it was the end when we said goodbye in Moscow. I have been living on hope, but now hope is gone, not only for Alex, but for Yuri too. There’s no one left to look for him, you see, and it’s been too long…’

‘I know.’ It was said quietly. It was the easiest thing in the world for people to disappear in Russia, especially children who were more often than not given new names when they arrived in the orphanages.

‘But when the war is over, perhaps we can try again…’ He did not know how to go on giving her more hope when it would be better for her to accept her loss.

She stood up, dry-eyed now, as if every single ounce of moisture had been sucked out of her, as if she were the withered shell of the person she had been. ‘We had better have our dinner before it’s all dried up.’

But neither could eat.

Theirs was not the only tragedy; it was being enacted all round them every day and, like everyone else, they pulled themselves together and got on with their lives, more than ever determined to defeat Hitler and all he stood for. Lydia stopped looking for Alex’s name in the documents she had to translate, and slowly, as the weeks and months passed, she found she could look back in gratitude for what time they had had together and not yearn for what she could not have. Not that she could forget – that was impossible – but her time in Russia was becoming unreal; Yuri and Alex were ghosts who haunted her dreams but had no place in reality.

They celebrated Christmas Day 1941 at Upstone Hall, though ‘celebrate’ was perhaps the wrong word. Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese on that day, and that was followed in February 1942 by the fall of Singapore. And still the Allied ships were being sunk. But the Russians were rallying and the RAF was hitting back and hitting hard.

‘They’re getting a taste of their own medicine,’ Robert said when he had leave at the end of May 1942, which coincided with Lydia’s own leave and they were spending it at Upstone Hall with Margaret. The night before there had been a huge raid on Cologne involving over a thousand bombers. They had heard wave after wave of them droning overhead as they lay sleepless in their beds.

The Hall had been gradually modernised over the years, but externally it was exactly the same as it had been in 1920 when Lydia had first arrived there, a bewildered, traumatised four-year-old, crying for her parents. The servant situation was very different; except for Mrs Selby, a daily woman and Claudia, they had all left for the armed services or more lucrative employment and it was impossible to recruit more, so Margaret lived in one wing and shut the rest of the house.

It was a peaceful island surrounded by noisy airfields. The Japanese had bombed the US fleet at Pearl Harbor the previous December, which had brought the Americans into the war, and they had arrived in large numbers and parked their flying fortresses on the airfields, filled the pubs, smoked fat cigars and flirted with the local girls – much to the chagrin of the local young men. They were generous to a fault, especially to the village children, whom they plied with what they called candy, and oranges. Some of the little ones had never seen oranges and were not quite sure what to do with them. The soldiers sliced them in half and showed the children how to suck the juice out of them.

None of this impinged on Lydia and Robert, who wanted to make the most of their leave, going for long walks in the countryside, taking picnics to local beauty spots and shopping in Norwich or Cambridge, using up their precious clothing coupons on utility clothes.

‘What about you? Are things any easier for you?’ she asked him. They were walking alongside the river, hand in hand.

‘Oh, not so bad,’ he said dismissively.

‘I worry about you.’

‘Do you?’

‘Of course.’

‘And I worry about you,’ he said, raising the hand he held and kissing the back of it. ‘I wish you could be here at Upstone Hall all the time. It’s safer than London.’

‘London is where my work is, just as the sea is where your work is and we have to do it. In any case, the Blitz has moved on from London. Nowhere is any safer than anywhere else these days.’

‘No, I suppose not.’ He paused, took a deep breath and then went on as if he had to summon up the courage to say what he had to say. ‘Lydia, do you still think of him?’ He paused. ‘Alex, I mean.’

‘Sometimes,’ she answered slowly. ‘It happens when I least expect it, but I have learnt to accept that he has gone, a victim of war, as so many other young men were, dragged into more danger than he should have been because of me and Yuri. Yuri will be three now, you know.’ Counting the birthdays she had missed was still heartbreaking. She would not even consider that he, too, might have died, in spite of her nightmares.

‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘I just wanted to know because there is something I want to ask you.’

‘Oh.’ She half-knew what was coming.

‘I know I’m not Alex…’

‘No, but that doesn’t mean you are not a lovely man. I have been fortunate to have both of you.’

‘That’s what I wanted to ask. Will you have me? Marry me, I mean. You know how much I love you. You are everything to me and it will make me the happiest man alive if you would.’

She smiled. ‘You haven’t asked me if I love you.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes, I think I do.’

His blue eyes lit up. ‘Then you will marry me?’

‘Yes.’

He stopped walking, twisted round and gathered her into his arms. ‘Oh, my darling, you have no idea how happy that makes me. I promise I’ll be good to you…’

‘But Robert, you already are good to me.’

‘It will be better.’ He kissed her long and hard, and others on the towpath passed them with a smile. ‘Oh, thank you, my darling, thank you.’

She laughed. ‘I ought to thank you, for being so patient with me, for being my friend when I needed one most and putting up with my bouts of despair…’

‘That’s what love is all about,’ he said. ‘And it works both ways. Knowing you were waiting here for me helped me get through the worst. I had your picture in my pocket next to my heart, keeping me safe.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, Robert, that’s nothing but superstition.’

‘So what, if it works?’

They turned, arms linked, and went back to tell Margaret their good news.

Margaret had initially been angry with Lydia over the way she had disappeared and left Edward desperately worried. ‘You’ve put years on him, you ungrateful child,’ she had said when Lydia reappeared. ‘You have no idea what it’s been like here, not knowing whether you were alive or dead. And Alex going after you. Heaven knows what will happen to him. I suppose you expect to walk back in here as if nothing has happened.’

It had made Lydia feel terribly guilty, and she would have left again, if Papa had not said Mama did not mean to sound so unforgiving, it was just her way of saying she was relieved and pleased to have her home again. Alex’s death had brought them together again, and though she was often in London, they became almost as close as they had been before. Robert’s visits were welcomed and encouraged and, with the news of their engagement, the last of the resentment disappeared. Robert’s father, Henry, had been a lifelong friend of Sir Edward’s and would surely have applauded their decision if he had still been alive.

They were married in St Mary’s Church in Upstone six weeks later. It was an austerity wedding; few people were free to travel and many were in the forces and could not get leave. Robert was in uniform and Lydia wore Margaret’s wedding dress, which fitted her surprisingly well. They had flowers from the garden, but rationing meant catering was a problem. But somehow Margaret coped and even managed a small cake.

Edward, who was giving her away, had questioned her closely on her reasons for wanting to marry Robert. ‘He’s a good man,’ he had said. ‘None better. But are you sure you’re not marrying him out of gratitude? It wouldn’t be fair on him if you were.’

‘No, Papa. I really love him. Alex belongs in the past and that has become a kind of dream. It’s not real anymore. Today is real and Robert is real, and I must get on with a life that is real.’

‘So long as you are sure.’

‘I am sure.’

They had a short honeymoon in the Lake District and then it was back to their wartime jobs, long weeks apart, punctuated by leaves that were all too short and rarely coincided.

In 1943 the tide of war seemed to turn. The Russian army drove the Germans out of Stalingrad, the city which symbolised the Russian character in its determination not to surrender. It was a city in ruins where thousands upon thousands had died. And that was only the beginning. Russian troops were victorious all along the line and the Germans were retreating. The Battle of El Alamein had been the turning point in the West; Italy was invaded, surrendered and changed sides, and the Royal Air Force used bouncing bombs to destroy the Möhne and Eder dams in the Ruhr, causing massive flooding and destruction. In November Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt and Stalin met at Teheran to talk about the second front, something the Russians had long been lobbying for.

Lydia and Robert’s marriage was a calm and peaceful oasis in the midst of noise and confusion, death and destruction. They had no marital home, having decided to leave looking for a house until after the war. Whenever they could get a few hours off together, they spent it either in London at Balfour Place or at Upstone Hall. It was here that Bobby was born in May 1943, ten months after they were married. His birth had not been planned but he was welcomed all the same. He was nothing like Yuri to look at, being more like Robert, after whom he was named. Robert was at sea, but as soon as he docked, he managed a forty-eight hour pass and came home to see his month-old son. He was ecstatic and kept going into the nursery to look at him, a wide grin on his face.

Margaret and Edward were equally pleased. ‘Our first grandchild,’ Margaret said, walking about with him in her arms to shush his crying. She seemed to have forgotten that Lydia was not her flesh and blood. And Claudia suddenly found she had a use after all. She had looked after Lydia as a child and now she could help look after Bobby, who was the apple of her eye, and she spoilt him dreadfully.