Chapter Fifteen The Inquisition #2
It was the kind of question that could have been offensive, but Granny delivered it with such matter-of-fact directness that it demanded an equally direct answer.
Anastasia was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was softer than it had been.
‘Because he doesn’t want anything from me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Everyone I’ve met since I came to this country has wanted something.
Investors want returns. Clients want solutions.
Business partners want advantages. Men want.
..’ She paused. ‘Various things. But James doesn’t want anything except to be with me.
He doesn’t care about my company or my connections or what I can do for him.
He just likes being in my presence. Do you know how rare that is?
To find someone who wants you, not what you can provide? ’
Granny was silent.
‘I’ve spent my whole life being useful,’ Anastasia continued. ‘Being valuable. Being an asset. James is the first person who’s ever made me feel like I could just... be. Like I could stop performing and still be enough.’ She met Granny’s eyes. ‘That’s why James. That’s the only answer I have.’
The silence stretched.
Then Granny nodded, once, decisively.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘That’s an excellent answer.’
???
The rest of the evening went better than James had any right to expect.
Elizabeth remained reserved but polite and having asked all her difficult questions settled on being a charming conversationalist. Gerald, James’s stepfather, was his usual affable self and only got kicked on the ankle a couple of times for his off-colour stories in front of Elizabeth’s friends.
He was fascinated to meet Anastasia and asked about Ukraine with genuine interest.
But it was Granny’s approval, grudging, provisional, but unmistakable, that mattered most.
‘She’s sharp,’ Granny said to James, in a brief moment when they found themselves alone near the drinks table. ‘And she sees you clearly, which is the more important of the two’
‘You approve?’
‘I reserve judgment. But I don’t disapprove, which is more than I expected.’ She patted his arm, a rare gesture of affection. ‘Don’t mess this up, James.’
‘I’ll try not to.’
‘Do more than try.’ She looked across the room to where Anastasia was talking with Elizabeth. ‘She’s been through enough. Don’t add to it.’
‘I won’t.’
‘See that you don’t.’
???
Later, after the guests had left and the house had grown quiet, James and Anastasia walked through the London night down the Kings Road toward his flat.
The night was cool but pleasant, the streets lamp-lit and peaceful. Anastasia had linked her arm through his and they walked in comfortable silence for several blocks.
‘Your grandmother is terrifying,’ Anastasia said eventually.
‘I warned you.’
‘You did. I didn’t believe you. I thought you were exaggerating.’ She shook her head. ‘She asked me questions I haven’t been asked since...’ She trailed off.
‘Since when?’
‘Since I was being vetted for some cyber work for a big company. She has the same technique. The same way of watching your reactions as much as listening to your answers.’
‘She worked for the Foreign Office, back in the day. No one’s ever told me exactly what she did, which rather answers the question of how covert it was.’
‘I have more than suspicions.’ Anastasia glanced at him. ‘She knew things about my company that aren’t public. She’d done research. Serious research.’
‘She said she’d made enquiries. I didn’t realise how thorough.’
‘I’m not surprised. If I had a grandson, I’d do the same thing.’ She was quiet for a moment.
‘Did she find anything that worried you?’
‘Should she have?’
Anastasia didn’t answer immediately. They walked past a row of white Georgian townhouses, their windows glowing with warm light.
‘There are things about my past that I haven’t told you,’ she said finally. ‘Not because I’m hiding them, but because they don’t matter anymore. They’re part of a life I left behind.’
‘Do you want to tell me?’
‘Eventually. When the time is right.’ She looked up at him. ‘Is that enough? For now?’
James considered this. He thought about what Granny had said, about love and ambition, about knowing what someone chose to tell you versus knowing the truth. He thought about the gaps in Anastasia’s story, the questions she deflected, the careful way she talked about her life before England.
And then he thought about the way she looked at him. The way she laughed at his jokes. The way she had answered Granny’s question about why him, with such simple, devastating honesty.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s enough. For now.’
She squeezed his arm. ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For not pushing. For trusting me.’
‘I love you. Trust comes with the territory.’
‘Not always. Not for everyone.’
‘Well.’ He smiled. ‘I’m not everyone.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘You’re definitely not.’
They walked on through the quiet streets, arm in arm, while London settled into sleep around them.
And if there were shadows in Anastasia’s past, for now, they remained hidden and the night remained peaceful and two people who had chosen each other continued to walk toward a future neither of them could quite predict.
???
The morning after the engagement party, Cordelia rang her daughter.
‘She’s hiding something,’ she announced, without preamble.
‘Of course she’s hiding something, Mother. She’s from Eastern Europe. They’re all hiding something. It’s cultural.’
‘That’s not what I mean.’ Granny stirred her tea with the precision of someone who had learned, long ago, that every gesture communicated information. ‘I mean she’s hiding something specific. She looks, well, I can’t think of any other word: trained.’
‘Trained?’
‘She positions herself in rooms. Did you notice? At the party. She always had her back to the wall and her eyes on the doors. That’s not anxiety. That’s protocol.’
Elizabeth, who had noticed nothing of the sort because she had been too busy cataloguing Anastasia’s other deficiencies, waved a dismissive hand. ‘You see spies everywhere, Mother. Not everyone with good posture is a secret agent.’
‘I didn’t say she was a spy. I said she was trained. There’s a difference.’
‘What sort of training? Finishing school? Deportment classes?’
Granny smiled the smile of someone who knew far more than she intended to share. ‘I’m making some enquiries. None of your wishy-washy private detective nonsense. Proper enquiries.’
And she did. But that, as they say, is a story for later.