‘Lyd?’ Polly’s voice was closer.

She slammed the diary shut and made it to the door just as Polly was pushing it farther open.

‘What are you doing in here?’ The blue eyes were horrified. ‘No one is allowed in here, not even Mother.’

Lydia shrugged but didn’t reply. Her mouth was too dry.

Both girls were standing in the kitchen blowing steam off their cocoa and Polly was laughing as Lydia told her about the way Alfred Parker’s spectacles slid down his pink nose when Valentina invited him to remove a wayward crumb from her neck. There was the sound of a key in the front door. Polly froze. But Lydia moved fast. She tossed the last of her drink down the sink, pushed the cup inside a cupboard, and slipped behind the open kitchen door, where she was hidden from sight. She had no time for more than a glance at her friend, who was looking panicked. Please, please, Polly, use your head.

‘So I really don’t think the old boy should…’ Christopher Mason stopped in midflow. His footsteps rang out crisply on the wooden floor, nearer now. ‘Polly? Is that you in there?’

For a sickening moment Lydia feared Polly was going to stand there like a rabbit pinned in speeding headlamps, but just in time she got her feet moving and walked out into the hall to greet him.

‘Hello, Father. Did you have a nice time at the party?’

‘Never mind that. What in blazes are you doing up at this hour?’

‘Couldn’t sleep. It’s so hot and I was thirsty.’

To Lydia her friend’s voice sounded distinctly odd, but Mason didn’t seem to notice. She could hear the evening’s brandies blurring the edge of his words.

‘Oh, my poor girl,’ Anthea Mason murmured. ‘Let me fetch you some cool lemonade. That will help to…’

‘No, thanks, I’ve had a drink.’

‘Well, I’ll fetch some for myself anyway. I have a splitting headache.’ The click of high heels heading Lydia’s way.

‘Mummy.’

‘Yes?’

‘Let’s sit down in the drawing room. I want you to tell me all about the party and what Mrs Lieberstein wore this time. Did she…?’

‘It’s much too late for that kind of nonsense now.’ It was Mason again. ‘You should be in bed, my girl.’

‘Oh, please.’

‘No. I won’t say it twice. Upstairs with you.’

‘But…’

‘Do as your father says, Polly, there’s a good girl. We’ll chat about the party tomorrow, I promise.’

A pause. Then the sound of bare feet scampering across the hall.

Lydia held her breath.

Polly’s door closed upstairs and the sound of it was like a signal to the pair standing in the hall.

‘You’re too soft on that girl, Anthea.’

‘No, I…’

‘You are. You’d let her get away with bloody murder if I weren’t here. I won’t stand for it. You’re letting me down, don’t you realise that? It’s your job to see she learns how to behave properly.’

‘Like you did tonight, you mean?’

‘What exactly are you implying by that?’

A silence.

‘Come on, I demand to know what you’re implying?’

For a moment there was no answer, then a long sigh filled the silence. ‘You know precisely what I’m talking about, Christopher.’

‘Good God, woman, I’m not a damned mind reader.’

‘The American woman. Tonight at the party. Is that the way you’d like Polly to behave?’

‘For Christ’s sake, is that what this is all about and the reason you made me come home early? Don’t be so absurd, Anthea. She was just being friendly and so was I, that’s all. Her husband is a business contact of mine and if only you would be a bit more outgoing, a bit more fun at these…’

‘I saw you both being friendly on the terrace.’

It was said quietly. But the slap that followed it echoed around the hall, and Anthea’s sharp gasp of pain drew Lydia from her hiding place. She stepped forward into the kitchen doorway, but the couple in the hall were too intent on each other to notice her. Mason was hunched forward like a bull, his neck sunk into the shoulders of his rumpled dinner jacket, one arm outstretched and ready to swing again. His wife was leaning back, away from him, one hand to her cheek where a red mark was flaring outward to her ear. The earring was missing.

Her blue eyes were huge and round, just like Polly’s, but full of such despair that Lydia could hold back no longer. She darted forward but too late. Another slap sent Anthea Mason spinning around. She staggered, caught herself on the umbrella stand, and ran into the drawing room, slamming the door after her. Mason stormed into the dining room, where Lydia knew the brandy was kept, and kicked the door shut behind him. Lydia stood there in the middle of the hall, shaking with fury. From inside the drawing room she could hear the muffled sound of crying and she longed to rush in there, but she had enough sense to know she would not be welcome. So she walked back up the stairs, indifferent to how much noise she made, and returned to Polly’s room.

One glance at her friend’s face and Lydia knew Polly had heard enough of what had gone on downstairs. More than enough. Her mouth was pulled so tight it was almost bloodless, and she wouldn’t look at Lydia. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, a doll clutched fiercely against her chest, her breath coming in quick little puffs. Lydia went over, sat down beside her and took one of Polly’s hands in her own. She held it tight. Polly leaned against her and said nothing.

17

Chang was still there when the fox girl came back into the burned-out house. He’d waited for her alone in the darkness, knowing she’d return before she knew it herself. The rain had stopped and a thin sliver of moon shimmered on the wet bricks around him and caught the edge of one of the coins she had discarded so readily. He knew how much money meant to her, but he also knew it would not be the money that drew her back. As soon as she stepped over the threshold, he could see she no longer carried her anger with her or wanted to drive a sword through his heart. He thanked the gods for that. But her limbs seemed to weigh heavy on her and the line of her shoulders was curved down like a camel’s back. It pained him to see it.

She stood by the empty doorway, letting her eyes adjust. ‘Chang An Lo,’ she called out. ‘I can’t see you but I know you are here.’

How did she know? Could she sense his presence as keenly as he sensed hers? He moved away from the wall and into the moonlight.

‘I am honoured by your return, Lydia Ivanova.’ He gave a deep bow to show her that he wanted no more harsh words between them.

‘Why a Communist?’ she asked and slumped down onto a block of concrete that had once been part of a chimney. ‘What makes you crazy enough to want to be a Communist?’

‘Because I believe in equality.’

‘That makes it sound so simple.’

‘It is simple. It is only men with their greed who make it complicated. ’

She gave a strange snort of scorn that took him by surprise. No Chinese woman would ever make such a noise in front of a man.

‘Nothing is ever that simple,’ she said.

‘It can be.’

The mandarins in her Western world had crowded her mind with untruths and blinded her eyes with the mist of deceit, so that she was seeing what they told her to see instead of what was in front of her. Her tongue was quick, but it tasted only the salt of lies. She knew nothing of China, nothing that was true. He moved around to squat down beside the wall again, the bricks solid at his back, and leaned forward to see her face more clearly. He had never known her so still or heard her voice so empty.

‘Do you know,’ he asked in a gentle tone not meant to anger her, ‘that women and children are still sold as slaves? That absent landlords rob the peasants of the food on their tables and the crops in their fields? That villages are stripped of men, seized by the army, leaving the weak and the old to starve in the streets? Do you know these things?’