The Man in the Shed (26 page)

The Old Country, as they’ve come to call it. ‘My little bird … My golubchik …’ The Owens joke among themselves. ‘And one for my pet golubchik,’ Neil will say when pouring a glass of wine for Judith.

But there are other times, like at fundraising dances for the local play centre (the Owens have a pair of daughters now), after dancing with the mad, grinning plumber and tolerating the bank clerk pushing his groin into her, that Judith misses Mikhail, and recalls a night in Kishinev when he expertly made use of the entire garden and they danced on air for hours. Or on those days when rain has completely obscured the view out the window and there is nothing to do but stand before it with folded arms, her thoughts wander back to Russia. She remembers when Mikhail bathed her and how he renamed her landscape.

She also remembers what it is to fall out of love and into love, and how, sometimes, the two things can happen concurrently, like departure and arrival, or the shifting status of two countries called ‘home’.