Elena arrives:
Tightest jeans (Primark)
Black and white scoop jumper (market stall)
Stilettos (market stall)
Lucky gold letter necklace (ex-boyfriend)
Total est. cost: £35
‘Well, you certainly have plenty, don’t you?’
Svetlana spent several long, shaken moments just looking at the girl. She searched her face thoroughly; saw the shape of the nose, the determined set of the mouth and the glassy clearness of the eyes and knew that what the girl said was true.
Not all of the features were hers; some were unmistakably those of Elena’s father.
‘You need to come back later,’ was the first thing Svetlana asked of her daughter, in her native Ukrainian.
‘No,’ Elena replied coolly and crossed her thin arms over her chest, ‘you’ll have called a guard by then, or the police.’
‘No,’ Svetlana said as the conversation continued in their native language. ‘There’s someone here in the house now. A visitor. I need to see you alone.’
‘Then I’ll wait on your doorstep,’ Elena replied fiercely.
‘No!’ Svetlana felt panic rising in her chest. Harry was not to see this girl. Harry was not to know anything about her. Nothing. And not Igor. Never Igor!
At the thought of the documents she’d had to sign to get her divorce, her boys, her house and her allowance, Svetlana felt sick. She’d promised no future scandals and no past secrets. She had promised! She had to get Harry out of the house and Elena as far away from her as possible. Before there was a terrible disaster.
‘Maria will show you to the kitchen,’ Svetlana said, making a snap decision. ‘Please go quietly downstairs and wait there for me.’
An unexpected smile broke out across Elena’s face and, grabbing her two bags, she bundled them in through the front door then followed Maria down to the basement.
‘What was that all about?’ Harry wanted to know as soon as Svetlana came back into the sitting room.
‘Very determined Ukrainian girl look for job,’ Svetlana breezed as casually as she could. ‘I decide Maria can give her cup of coffee and take her details.’
‘Are all Ukrainian girls very determined?’ Harry asked.
‘All the ones who’ve come over here, yes,’ Svetlana confirmed with a throaty laugh.
‘My darling, darling girl…’ Harry began, ‘please say we going to get married?’ It was the question he’d been burning to ask ever since he’d arrived at the house.
He put his arms around her and she looked into his kind eyes. With Harry she felt safe.
Svetlana’s life had been one long struggle with powerful, overbearing personalities and when Harry looked at her like this, she remembered why she’d been so determined to marry him in the first place. When Igor had tried to take everything away from her, including her children, Harry was the one who had come to her rescue. He had fought for her in the courts.
‘Fair and square,’ was how he’d described the victory.
And when he’d fallen in love with her, he’d been the first man to ever, ever think about what she wanted.
‘Yes,’ she told him confidently, ‘we get married, Harry.’
Immediately her mind turned back to Elena. There was a time bomb down in the kitchen just waiting to go off. How would Harry ever forgive her for keeping such a dark secret when so much was at risk?
‘Maybe we bring wedding forward?’ Svetlana asked with her most charming, winning smile.
‘Well, well,’ he laughed, ‘that might prove to be a bit tricky. People have invitations, the venue has to be booked in advance. I’m not sure we can just move the whole show forward.’
‘You try for me, Harry,’ Svetlana wheedled. ‘I must be your wife as soon as possible.’
He planted a long and loving kiss on her mouth. But Svetlana pulled away telling him, ‘You need to go now, my love.’ She glanced at her watch and effortlessly lied, ‘I have hairdresser in fifteen minutes.’
Harry just smiled and shook his head as if to tell her that there was absolutely not one hair out of place on her lovely head and why should she need a hairdresser now?
‘We go out for dinner later?’ Svetlana asked, ‘then you come back and stay night with me.’ The request was accompanied by a hand that slid between Harry’s legs and gave a playful squeeze.
Once she’d seen him to the front door, Svetlana shut it firmly behind him, then, taking a deep, steadying breath, she braced herself and began to walk downstairs to the basement kitchen.
In the large, well-equipped room she saw Elena at the table with a cup of coffee in front of her, while Maria stood at the cooker stirring at food she was preparing for the children.
The women were in silence, although Svetlana could not believe that Elena didn’t speak English. Everyone in Eastern Europe spoke some English. It was not possible to even think of travelling abroad without at least a basic knowledge.
‘Do you speak English?’ Svetlana asked her in English.
‘Yes,’ came the reply; then, in Ukrainian, ‘but I prefer to speak to you in private.’
‘OK,’ Svetlana agreed, also in her native tongue, ‘follow me, we’ll go to my office.’
The small room was also down on the basement level. Svetlana had no real use for an office. She had dabbled with thoughts of a business venture but had never followed any idea through. Still, in this neat room she had a desk, a computer, space to answer letters and a table with two chairs. She directed Elena to sit down.
As soon as Elena had pulled up a chair, Svetlana’s mind raced with all the questions she wanted to ask this girl: How had she found her? How had she got her address? Where had she been living for the past four years? What did she want?
And perhaps most importantly: How much money would it take to make her go away?
But before Svetlana could say a word, Elena looked up and began her story.
‘I live in Kiev now, I’m studying engineering at the university,’ she said, still in Ukrainian. Maria was well out of earshot, but maybe she just wanted to tell her story fluently.
‘How do you have money to study?’ Svetlana asked immediately.
‘I’m clever,’ Elena replied, ‘I got a scholarship. I have a little job too. I work at the records office and help people find out more about their families.’
She let this piece of information settle on Svetlana.
This is how she had found the mother who thought she had carefully covered her tracks, the mother who thought she would never hear from this girl unless she chose to initiate contact.
‘I found all my original documents and I managed to make contact with other relatives who weren’t so scared to tell me who my parents are, and why they don’t want to have anything to do with me.’
Elena paused and turned her clear grey eyes directly towards her mother’s clear grey eyes.
‘The famous ex-Mrs Igor Wisneski began to fascinate important men from an early age, huh?’ Elena asked.
‘I paid for you to be well looked after until you were eighteen,’ Svetlana said, in a low voice: ‘your father paid nothing and it was hard to get the money to your carers without anyone else finding out.’
Elena just laughed at this. ‘One hundred pounds a month! You think that’s a lot of money? You probably spend that on… on… your fingernails!’ she exclaimed.
Now that was frightening. Svetlana had indeed always accounted for the hundred pounds per month as ‘manicure services’ and very privately looked after her nails herself. It would be a lie to say that she hadn’t thought about this girl. Whenever she’d sent the money, Svetlana had wondered how the girl was doing. Whenever she met girls of the same age, she’d also wondered. Elena’s birthday was painfully engraved on Svetlana’s heart and every year when the date came round, she had privately acknowledged that her unknown child had become another year older.
Svetlana looked closely and couldn’t deny that there was something of a thrill in finally meeting this person. Scanning Elena’s face, Svetlana could read the story of her past mistake in the features there.
‘Why have you come to London?’ she asked. ‘What do you want from me? Is this just about money?’
‘Well, you certainly have plenty, don’t you?’ Elena glanced disdainfully around the room.
‘I’ve worked hard for it,’ Svetlana defended herself.
Elena just laughed before exclaiming, ‘By marrying rich men?’
Svetlana replied with a tight smile. Elena obviously had no idea what was involved in being married to a rich man. ‘Believe me, I worked very, very hard for all this.’
‘Ha!’ was the disgusted comment, ‘and how much plastic surgery have you had to look like this at the age of forty-five?’
‘Ah!’ Svetlana gasped as sharply as if she’d been plunged into icy water, and almost automatically began her usual defence: ‘I’m only…’ But then she remembered that there was no point lying to this girl. Elena knew. Elena had seen her own birth certificate, and Elena had probably seen Svetlana’s.
She had to go. She had to be out of this house. Elena and all the best-kept secrets of Svetlana’s past had to be dealt with as soon as possible.
‘What do you want from me!?’ Svetlana cried. ‘I’ll get my cheque book and we can come to an arrangement,’ but she said these words with a heavy heart: she knew this was blackmail, and it would only get worse.
‘Keep the money you earned in the bedroom,’ was Elena’s contemptuous reply, ‘I only wanted to get to know you. Don’t I deserve to know my own mother?’
There was silence in the room. Svetlana sat very still and looked into eyes as serious, as intelligent and as defiant as her own.
Elena wanted to know her. Of course, this was so much, much better than money. Elena wanted someone to welcome her with open arms, someone to take her in, someone to help her make all the right connections, someone to take her into their hearts, where she would be for ever, right in the bosom of her new-found family.
And if Svetlana said no, where would Elena go?
Maybe to the press… maybe to Harry? Or to Igor?!
If Elena knew so much about her, she must already know about Svetlana’s husbands and lovers, past and much further past.
Svetlana would have to agree… but carefully, in stages, keeping Elena at a distance from herself and from everyone else until she had time to break the news, tell the story in her own way.
Elena would have to be kept safely away until she was Mrs Roscoff. There was no doubt about that.
‘I need somewhere to stay,’ Elena said.
She looked up at Svetlana, and for a moment the older woman thought she saw a glimpse of vulnerability. Maybe Elena wasn’t nearly as scary and ballsy as she was trying to make out.
‘You can’t stay here,’ Svetlana informed her. She had her sons, Harry and all of Igor’s terms and conditions to think of.
‘You must know somewhere I can stay,’ Elena insisted. ‘I have no money to pay for somewhere myself. I’ve spent all my money travelling to find you!’
Svetlana may have been wealthy, but she didn’t want to start bankrolling a daughter she barely knew in a hotel or a nice flat. She needed temporary accommodation, and she needed a friend who would do her this favour.
The problem was women like Svetlana didn’t really have friends. There was no one in her circle of glamorous wives and divorcees that Svetlana could really count on. A nugget of information like this – Svetlana Wisneski’s secret love child – would whip round the circle like an angry wasp and before she knew it, it would have buzzed into the ears of her future husband and the past husband who currently feathered her nest so well.
For a moment, Svetlana’s mind raced but could come up with no answer, no possible solution.
Then she thought, all of a sudden, about the one woman who already knew some of her secrets.
‘I make a call,’ she told Elena and with that she stepped out of the office and went in search of her mobile.
As soon as it was in her hand, she pressed speed dial.
‘Yes?!’ came an exasperated voice from the other end of the line.
‘Annah,’ Svetlana began, ‘something terrible has happened.’