‘Oh, Mum. That’s a book. By Pushkin.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes. So … was he Russian, then?’
‘Yeah. You didn’t see a lot of Russians in those days. The Berlin Wall was still up. He was exotic to me.’
‘I’m half Russian! You could have told me.’
‘I didn’t see the point. When you were born I looked at you and thought, for the first time in my life here’s something that’s all mine, all for me. I didn’t want you breaking your heart looking for him, when he wouldn’t be interested anyway. I didn’t want you to be rejected.’
‘I’m half Russian,’ I repeated, still curiously entranced by the idea.
‘Perhaps that’s why you were always so keen to go east,’ Mum suggested. ‘You were so fascinated by those countries, the bit behind the old Iron Curtain. I thought it must be something in your blood.’
‘Didn’t you ever want to mention it?’
‘All the time. Once you started growing up, I could see that you needed to know about the other half of yourself, to make sense of who you were. It hurt me to have to keep quiet about it.’
‘You didn’t have to, did you? You could have at least said what you knew.’
She was silent for a moment. We watched brightly coloured people stream into the venue.
‘I had to keep quiet,’ she said. ‘He made me sign something.’
‘What? How could he make you sign something if you couldn’t track him down? It doesn’t make sense. Talk sense! Who is he?’
‘When you were about ten years old,’ she said carefully, ‘I saw him. On TV.’
‘On TV?’
‘On the news. A feature about the new Russia and its billionaires. He was one of them.’
‘Fuck.’ Something had occurred to me. ‘And he’s here in Tylney now, you say?
She nodded. ‘He came to my stall.’
‘I think I know who he is.’
‘Do you?’ She looked at me fearfully.
‘Arkady Voronov?’
She nodded, looking afraid of my reaction.
‘When I saw him on the news,’ she said, ‘I had a name at last. So I wrote to him, told him about you, with photographs and all. About a week later, a man came to the caravan – not him. One of his lawyers. Asked me to sign this disclaimer. Frightened me, he did, came out with all kinds of veiled threats. So I signed and he gave me a bit of money. Do you remember, that was when I took driving lessons and bought that car?’
‘That you wrote off within six months,’ I recalled.
‘Yeah, I wasn’t one of nature’s drivers. But we got to go on that little holiday first, didn’t we, round Wales. That was nice.’
‘Only holiday we ever had. And he paid for it?’
‘Pathetic, how easily I was bought. I’m sorry.’
‘He scared you, Mum. I know you didn’t do it for the money. You never cared about money that much.’
‘No, I never have.’