‘No,’ he said, ‘not the Russians, though I did see Yevtushenko perform a few years ago.’ There was a pause, so drawn out she was thinking the poetry conversation might be over, when he began again. ‘My favourite poet when I was young was Wordsworth. Because of The Prelude.’ And more quietly, as if it had just occurred to him, ‘I suppose he’s still my favourite poet, though I’ve not read him in years.’ He leaned forward, and in his normal voice asked if she knew The Prelude.

She’d heard of this poem and intended to read it. But with so much else to read for her Australianisation program, it was not a priority. ‘It’s on my long-term reading list,’ she said.

‘The Prelude provided me with a vision of utopia when I was growing up in Perth,’ Leonard said, a vague smile hovering over his face.

Like all Russians, Galina knew all about utopia. Soviet dogma thrived on utopian promises, how it was necessary to suffer now for the glorious future to come. And while you learned through bitter experience that utopia never came, that it was truly a ‘no-place’, an imaginary place, how much worse daily life would have been without its possibility dangled before you.

She’d long wondered whether for every utopia there was a dystopia lurking in the background. She now suggested this to Leonard. ‘And perhaps not in the background; it might actually be your ordinary daily life.’

He nodded, thoughtfully, it seemed to her, so she went ahead with a more personal question. ‘In your case, what dystopia was Wordsworth’s Prelude working against?’

She saw him hesitate, and silently encouraged him. But he must have thought better of it. ‘We can return to utopia another time,’ he said in a businesslike manner, and gestured to the waiter for more coffee.

‘Now then,’ he said, once again the urbane older man, ‘Andrew tells me that Soviet citizens aren’t as enamoured of Gorbachev as we Westerners are.’

She didn’t want to change the topic, but Leonard, the adult, the person paying for lunch, had the greater authority. But still she was annoyed. Well, if he wanted Gorbachev, she’d give him Gorbachev.

‘I think the West is blinded by what it regards as Gorbachev’s Westernness. If he is not so different from you, then it is easier to relate to him. And if he is not so different, then you assume that his freeing-up of the Soviet system is spelling the end of communism and a transition to democracy.’ She sounded as if she were giving a lecture. But Leonard had asked for it. ‘Because Gorbachev wears Italian suits and has an elegant wife does not mean he is not a committed communist whose primary allegiance is to a strong and enduring Soviet Union.’