The Firebird

He looked at the book in my hands, and said, ‘I would have got rid of that long ago, but it would have made your mother sad. Is good you need it now. You keep it, Nicola.’

I thanked him. ‘It will come in handy.’

‘Why do you want to go back to that place? I don’t know. You should go to Miami. Is warm in Miami.’

‘I’m going for work.’

‘Work.’ His face told me just what he thought of my job, but we’d had that discussion enough times he didn’t seem keen to revisit it now. All he asked was, ‘Are you staying long in St Petersburg?’

‘Only till Monday.’

‘You don’t drink the water.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You don’t forget. It makes you sick, that water.’

‘I promise,’ I said. ‘I won’t drink it. But speaking of drink, shall I bring you back vodka?’ The one thing he hadn’t renounced, of his heritage. ‘What flavour, this time?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe if you can find the blackcurrant. And one without flavour.’

‘All right.’

When he walked me back out, he again looked at Rob with suspicion. ‘He looks,’ he said, ‘like a policeman.’

‘He is a policeman.’

My grandfather frowned. ‘Then you don’t bring him back again, Nicola. Is not good, to have a policeman out there where my neighbours can see.’ He glared at Rob, who raised his head and met the glare with perfect calm.

For one unsettling moment, I imagined that I saw a flash of recognition play across my grandfather’s stern features, and thought perhaps that he and Rob were speaking to each other with their thoughts, but then I realised how ridiculous that was.

‘He never talks to me that way,’ I’d said to Rob, when we were driving down to Ypres.

‘He likely hears you, though,’ had been Rob’s comment.

I kissed my grandfather goodbye, and tried. Goodbye, Granddad.

I could feel his mind shove mine back, even as his arms embraced me. ‘Be well, Nicola. Come home safe.’

And then, as it had always been, the door was closed between us.

I was quiet on the drive to Heathrow. I wanted to think it was only because I was tired and a little distracted, and not because Rob would be dropping me off and then leaving, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

I had thought of and discarded several speeches by the time I realised Rob had parked the car, and since I hadn’t been expecting that, it threw me momentarily off balance so that I could only come around and stand beside him while he took my suitcase from the boot, my mind still searching for the proper words to say.

I started with, ‘You didn’t have to park, you know. It costs too much.’

He set my suitcase on its wheels and reached back into the boot as I carried on, ‘And anyway, this is the long-stay car park, Rob. It’s not—’ I broke off when he hefted out a duffle bag and slung it on his shoulder before slamming shut the boot. And then I asked, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Coming with you.’

‘Rob, you can’t.’

He took my suitcase in his other hand and motioned me to go ahead. ‘Try walking and arguing at the same time, or the courtesy coach will be leaving us here.’

I stayed right where I was. ‘But you can’t come.’

His broad shoulders lifted and fell again in what I took for a brief, resigned sigh as he faced me with patience. ‘You did say you wished I would come to St Petersburg, did ye not?’

‘Yes, but—’

He started to walk while I tried to keep up with him.

Tried to explain. ‘But it isn’t that easy to travel to Russia, Rob. Even if you somehow managed to get a seat on the flight, you’d still need a visa. I told you last night.’

‘Aye, you did.’ Unconcerned, he slowed slightly to keep between me and a car that was passing. I caught at his arm.

‘Rob, you can’t get a visa the same day you travel.’

‘Well then, it’s a good thing I got mine a month ago.’

‘What?’ Letting go of his arm, I stared after him as he walked on with our luggage. ‘What?’

He was already several steps further ahead, and he didn’t turn back to explain. But when we were riding the courtesy coach to the terminal, he slid a hand in his pocket and pulled out his passport and handed it to me, as proof.

It was actually there, pasted in. A real visa.

‘But how did you … ?’ I didn’t bother to finish the question, because there was only one possible answer. ‘You knew.’ There were people around us, we weren’t on our own, so I gathered my thoughts with an effort, and told him, You knew I would come up to Eyemouth to find you.

Rob didn’t reply. With his head angled slightly away, he appeared to be watching something through the window.

Rob.

A wall of static blocked me out, which might have made me irritated if I hadn’t noticed that he looked a bit uncomfortable, as though this weren’t a conversation he was keen to have.

He didn’t ask to have his passport back. I waited until we were in the terminal and standing in the queue to get our boarding passes. Then I held his passport up and open to the visa page, and said, ‘The thing is, that you have to know the dates to get a tourist visa.’

‘Really.’ He was fishing in the zippered outside pocket of his duffle bag for something.