For a while Tom seemed confused by her focus on the job, unsure how to deal with it. But, to his credit, he always encouraged her; his belief in his girlfriend was absolute. Other women complained that their male partners felt threatened by their successes, as if a woman’s progress outside of the home was an inherent form of emasculation, but Tom was nothing like that. Once he understood it was the job, not another man, that had piqued her interest, he basked unquestioningly in her rise through the ranks. Fundamentally, she thought, Tom understood that the more space he gave her, the less likely she was to bolt.

Chapter 9

Gabriela

One Year Later

‘Where are you taking me? I’m cold.’

It was 6.30p.m. and the streetlights cast reflections like puddles of liquid amber over the pavements leading across the bridge to Primrose Hill. The last time she had been here was five months earlier, a fleeting London visit for Saoirse and Jim’s wedding: a quick exchange of vows followed by pub-hopping through Camden, past the Princess of Wales, ending up at a lock-in at the Steeles in Belsize Park.

If it was anyone else, he might have felt hurt by her sulky tone as they made their way into the gates of the park, but Tom was built with an extra layer of resilience. Clearly, he had a plan in mind, a sweeping gesture, and already, as he guided her up the hill towards the bench looking out across London, she could hazard a guess as to what it was.

‘Cold? You came back from Moscow twenty-four hours ago, you’re supposed to be able to handle a British attempt at winter in a bikini by now,’ he goaded.

It was true, the weather had reached minus 26 degrees the day she’d left. On the drive to the airport, the snow stretched on for miles, an abandoned blanket, impossibly white, suffocating the endless pine forests which seemed would never end until, without warning, they disappeared and in their place sprawling industrial sites suddenly blighted the horizon, buildings like metal insects lying dead amidst the snow.

Moscow had grabbed her with a force she could never have expected, given the relentless cold and the mistrust that permeated every exchange: there were so many reasons why she should have found it inhospitable – but, like the most unlikely of lovers, the city had her gripped. The harder it pushed her away, the tighter she had held on. Now she was back in London with Tom, she didn’t know which aspect of her two lives felt more foreign, or which place less like home.