Chapter Eleven The Almost Revelation
James spent the night at Anastasia’s flat; it had taken longer than might be expected, as Anastasia had always found reasons to be at his place instead.
Her flat was small, she said, it was inconvenient, being painted, or having the boiler serviced, or hosting a family of mice that she was in the process of evicting through humane means.
James, being James, had accepted all of these explanations without question.
It hadn’t occurred to him that someone might not want him to see where they lived.
His own home was permanently open to visitors, unexpected guests and on one memorable occasion a family of ducks that Freddie had somehow acquired and needed to house temporarily.
The concept of private space was somewhat foreign to him.
But eventually, the excuses ran out. They had been to dinner in Shoreditch, near Anastasia’s office and it was late and her flat was close and it seemed absurd to trek back across London when there was a perfectly good bed five minutes away.
‘It’s nothing special,’ she warned him, as they climbed the stairs. ‘I haven’t really decorated. I’m not there much.’
She wasn’t lying. The flat was modern, minimal and oddly impersonal, more like a hotel than a home.
The walls were white and bare. The furniture was functional but anonymous, the kind of things you might order online without much thought.
There were no photographs, no artwork, no accumulated detritus of a life being lived.
‘It’s very... clean,’ James said, which was the politest observation he could manage.
‘I told you. I’m not here much.’
‘But you’ve lived here two years?’
‘Nearly two years. Yes.’
‘And you haven’t... put up pictures? Or bought cushions? Freddie’s flat looks like a bomb went off and he’s only been there six months.’
‘I’m not Freddie.’
‘No. No, you’re definitely not Freddie, thank god for that!’ He looked around again, taking in the empty shelves, the bare surfaces, the complete absence of anything that might suggest who lived here. ‘It’s just... it doesn’t look like you live here. It looks like you’re passing through.’
Anastasia was quiet for a moment. Then she said, carefully: ‘Maybe I am.’
‘Passing through?’
‘I’ve learned not to get too attached to places. Things can change quickly. It’s easier if you can leave without looking back.’
James didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. But something shifted in the room, some acknowledgment that there were depths here he hadn’t suspected, currents running beneath the surface that he couldn’t see.
They went to bed. It was fine. More than fine, it was wonderful, comfortable, easy in the way things had become between them.
Anastasia fell asleep first, which was unusual; normally James was unconscious within minutes while she lay awake beside him, her mind still running through problems he couldn’t imagine.
He was almost asleep himself when the screaming started.
It wasn’t really screaming, more a kind of strangled cry, urgent and terrified and entirely unlike any sound he had heard Anastasia make before. She was sitting up in bed, eyes open but unseeing, speaking rapidly in a language he didn’t understand.
Ukrainian, he realised after a moment. She was speaking Ukrainian.
‘Anastasia.’ He reached for her, gently. ‘Anastasia, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.’
She flinched away from his touch and for a moment, just a moment, there was something in her eyes that he had never seen before. Something hard and dangerous and utterly foreign.
Then she blinked and it was gone.
‘James?’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘What... what happened?’
‘You were having a nightmare. You were talking in your sleep. Ukrainian, I think.’
She looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time, orienting herself to time and place. Her breathing was rapid, shallow.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘Don’t apologise. Are you all right?’
She didn’t answer immediately. She was still breathing too fast, her hands clenched in the sheets, her whole body rigid with tension that was only slowly beginning to ease.
‘Bad dreams,’ she said finally. ‘I get them sometimes. Since the war. Since... before the war, actually. They’re not usually this bad.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No.’ The word came too quickly, too sharply. She softened. ‘I mean... no, thank you. I don’t... I don’t talk about it. It doesn’t help.’
James didn’t push. He had learned, over the months they had been together, that Anastasia had boundaries that couldn’t be crossed, topics that were simply off-limits.
Her childhood. Her family. The years between leaving university and starting her company.
Whenever the conversation drifted too close to these areas, she would deflect, redirect, change the subject with a skill that spoke of long practice.
He had assumed, because he was James and therefore assumed the best of everyone, that she was simply private. That the war had been traumatic, that her family was complicated, that some wounds were too fresh to discuss.
He hadn’t considered that there might be more. That the gaps in her story might be deliberate. That the woman sleeping beside him might be carrying secrets that would terrify him if he knew.
But in that moment, in the dark of her empty flat, with her nightmare still echoing in the silence, he saw something. A glimpse. The barest hint of depths he couldn’t fathom.
‘It was hard,’ she said quietly, not looking at him. ‘Growing up. Leaving. All of it. I did things I’m not proud of. Made choices I can’t explain. And sometimes, at night, it comes back. The things I tried to forget.’
‘You don’t have to explain anything.’
‘I know. But I want you to understand... I’m not just who you think I am, a normal woman with a flat and a company and a life. That’s real, but it’s also... a construction. A version of myself I built because I needed to become someone new.’
‘We all do that,’ James said. ‘Build versions of ourselves. I’m basically several versions stacked on top of each other in a trench coat.’
He reached out and took her hand. ‘I don’t care who you were. I care who you are. And who you are is a woman who makes me happier than I’ve ever been. Everything else is just... backstory.’
‘What if the backstory is worse than you think?’
‘Then I’ll deal with it.’
‘You’re very trusting.’
‘It’s my defining characteristic. That and an inability to match socks.’
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder and he felt the tension finally begin to drain from her body.
‘I don’t deserve you,’ she said.
‘Probably not. I’m very impressive. All those lunches I’ve had, all that art history I’ve forgotten, it adds up to quite a package.’
She laughed again and she relaxed a little more.
They stayed like that until dawn, not sleeping, just existing together in the quiet. At some point, she almost told him. He could feel it, the words gathering, the confession building.
But then the sun came up and the moment passed and they got up and made coffee and the night receded into something that could be swept under the carpet.