“Milan.” Lydia’s cheeks were wet with tears now.
“You can still make the plane, you know. You can go back to London. Do it. Go.”
“Stop it, Milan! I’m not going anywhere while you’re in this state!”
“I will call you a taxi.” He climbed over her, went to find his phone from his jacket pocket on the back of the door. “You still have time. You still have a chance at life.”
“So do you!”
“Me? Don’t worry about me. I’ll survive. I’ll get work here. But you can’t stay. You don’t speak the language. You have nothing to stay for.”
“You! I have you!”
“Then you really have nothing.”
He retrieved the phone and began punching in numbers.
Lydia launched herself off the bed before he could start speaking and tried to wrest the instrument from his hands, but he prised her off so that she landed in a heap on the pile of luggage and violin cases.
He’d begun giving instructions in Czech before she could struggle back to her feet. She tried to reach out, but he sidestepped her.
He took her travelling bag, took her violin case and left the flat, heading downstairs with them.
“You don’t want your violin stolen, you better go down,” he said on his return, holding the door open for her.
“I’m not leaving you. Sod the violin.”
He sighed, took her by the elbow and manhandled her out to the landing.
“I don’t want us to part like this,” he said, dragging her down the stairs. “You know I care about you. It’s why I’m sending you away.”
“Why can’t I care about you? Why won’t you let me?”
“Because I can’t. That’s all. Now be good. Good to yourself.”
They had reached the foot of the stairs and Milan came to stand with Lydia in the gloomy doorway of the dilapidated building.
“The taxi will be here soon. You have money?”
“I’m not going.”
“Here, I’ll pay.” He took some notes from his trouser pocket and stuffed them into Lydia’s hand.
She let them fall to the floor.
“Okay,” he said, shrugging. “Up to you. I’m going.” He took hold of her, a final hold, and kissed her cheek so gently she barely felt it. “Be happy,” he said.
Then he turned and ran upstairs. She heard the door bang, then the smashing of broken glass.
When the taxi came, she was crouching against the door jamb, sobbing into the bundle of kroner notes.
At least she had missed the flight the orchestra were taking. Having to sit there, to explain herself, to talk, to just be around them, would have been too much.
Instead, she had to take the next flight. It didn’t help that the Czech airline played Má Vlast over the speaker system all the way back to London.
The events of the preceding forty-eight hours turned over and over in Lydia’s head without cease. The happiness, the emotion, the hope, followed by the despair and the collapse of everything. She searched her recollections for any sign that there might be a way out of this miserable ending to her great love, but she could find none.
Time to grow up, Lydia. Time to stop expecting life to be a big romance and accept it for what it is. Milan doesn’t want you. Evgeny is dead. You have only yourself to fall back on now.