Page 98 of The Half Life of Valery K

The call this morning had raked up all his hope again, and now he was shaking with it.

And with fear. He had wrenched Shenkov out of City 40 without giving him any choice. Life and death it might have been, but Valery had taken him away from his children and made him leave them in an irradiated city with nothing but the hope Anna was clever enough to get them out some other way. It was possible Shenkov had boarded this plane and agreed to come out here not because he wanted to live here, but because he wanted the anorexic closure of smashing Valery’s head into a wall.

When the boards changed to say that the plane had landed, he straightened and wondered if it was just automatic or if the tower really had seen it come in. He forced himself to sit still for another ten minutes, then went to the arrivals barrier to wait with the bored-looking people holding name cards. It must have been a diplomatic flight; he couldn’t think of many people who would be allowed to travel between Moscow and here.

He leaned forward against the rail and shut his eyes, almost certain he was going to hear a gunshot, or see paramedics sprint past. The KGB just would not let one of their own land here safely to defect, they wouldn’t; they weren’t as omniscient as people thought, but they were still pretty fucking effective. All it took was one man with one poisoned needle, and maybe people wouldn’t even call foul play. Shenkov was fifty-one. A heart attack wouldn’t sound mad unless you knew him.

A few men in suits filtered out. If Shenkov was coming, it would take ages. The border officers would hate Soviet papers.

‘Valera.’

He looked up slowly.

Shenkov pulled him close, which was just as well, because Valery cried. Very gently, Shenkov touched his jaw to angle his head up and rub some of the tears away. Valery couldn’t even get together a hello. Around them, a few people gave them curious glances, but he had a feeling they both looked foreign enough for it not to be as strange. Shenkov, for sure, could never have been English. They didn’t make people like Shenkov in England. Valery still looked like he’d recently been in prison and no one looked like that here. Shenkov kissed his forehead. It felt like a benediction. Thank Christ, he was crying too. Maybe; maybe it was just possible that he didn’t blame Valery for what had happened, or at least, not for now. Maybe they could put it off for a little while.

‘Car’s outside,’ Valery managed at last. ‘Can I take anything?’

‘No, it’s just this.’

‘How was the journey, was it … ?’

‘Amazingly smooth. I really thought the plane would be shot down.’

‘So did I.’ Valery swallowed. ‘Right, so I don’t know if George explained, but the cover story is we’re brothers. We need to get our details straight, because – people have been asking. You know, the neighbours, and … everyone’s – very curious.’ He tried to think how to describe English curiosity. It wasn’t like normal curiosity. People didn’t just come up to you and say, well mate, so where are you from? They circled the idea and asked questions designed to make you say without asking, and if you accused them of wanting to ask, they were offended.

Shenkov smiled. ‘Probably they just want to make sure you’re not German.’

‘Officially we’re Polish. English people think Polish sounds like Russian.’

‘Lovely,’ Shenkov said.

‘Someone’s invited us to dinner tomorrow night,’ Valery confessed. ‘I said you don’t speak English, but he was – very insistent and I got nervous and now we’re bringing the wine.’

Shenkov laughed. ‘It’s okay. I won’t learn unless I hear it. Who is he?’

‘Someone from work, an engineer. There’s a lab near a nuclear plant. Nothing like ours. They’re working on the use of radiation in cancer therapies.’

‘How is it?’

‘Boring,’ Valery said, and smiled. ‘Brilliant.’ He hesitated. ‘Did they tell you anything about … what you could do?’

‘Well, English, to start with. There are classes at the university.’ He had been watching people coming and going, not Valery, but as they went over the second level crossing, out past the taxi rank, he seemed to see the different layers to Valery’s skittishness and took the top one away. ‘Do you mind if I drive?’

‘Are you sure?’ Valery said, trying not to sound too grateful. ‘It’s all on the wrong side, and …’

‘I like driving,’ Shenkov promised. ‘Anyway, you’ll make me feel useless if you do everything.’

So Valery gave him the keys and it was a huge relief to just look at the map and navigate. Shenkov, of course, didn’t hesitate to find everything on the opposite side, even on the roundabout from hell just outside Durham.

The house looked different now that there was someone else to see it with. Valery had a stab of anxiety as the engine quietened; he saw how wild the long garden was, how isolated the house; the next nearest was way at the far end of the field. Shenkov came inside quietly. The stove was still going, so it was warm and wood-smoky, and he just had time to turn back and start to say he had some vodka when Shenkov caught his hips and pinned him to the wall under a deep urgent kiss that was still desperately careful.

‘Are you okay?’ Shenkov whispered.

Valery nodded and leaned forward a little to kiss their chests together. Shenkov stroked his back slowly, right from the nape of his neck to his tailbone. He hadn’t known he’d been holding himself tense for the last two months, but it all drained now, and the dull ache of too-tight ligaments went off. He didn’t want to move again.

The following evening, they drove into town, with the promised bottle of wine. Valery was nearly embarrassed to introduce Shenkov, who was luminous; it felt too close to patriotic bragging. The engineer, who was as rubbish as Valery at disguising what he really thought, let out a surprised little ‘oh’, and looked nervous when he shook Shenkov’s hand.

‘Gosh – you don’t look alike, do you?’