The man pointed out two sitting rooms at the end of the hall, a library and events room about halfway down on one side, and a kitchen on the other; he invited them to look around, he’d be in the office if they had any questions. There was a special pinboard for church news (the Russian Orthodox church was just a short distance away), and a large ‘what’s on’ noticeboard in the passageway. Her uncle glanced at these and moved on to the library. From the doorway, he saw two women in their middle years chatting together. Galina could feel him bristling: he wasn’t about to spend his time with women, no matter how Russian they were. And when the first of the sitting rooms contained more women, younger and with toddlers, he turned on her, accusing her of wasting his time. Fuelled by desperation, Galina drew on her last reserves of courage, and persuaded him to stay a little longer. And it was fortunate they did, for in the second sitting room was a group of men playing cards, as well as an elderly man seated in an armchair reading a newspaper.

Her uncle headed straight for an array of periodicals spread over a low table; they were a few weeks old, but it didn’t seem to matter to Mikhail, who shuffled through them and then pounced on one.

‘This,’ he said, ‘this newspaper I used to read every week.’

The old man in the armchair raised his head. His face was red and round, his body filled the chair; he was one of those jolly plump men who would make an excellent Grandfather Frost. He nodded at the newspaper in Mikhail’s hands. ‘It’s a favourite of mine, too.’

The man introduced himself as Alexei Lebedev, and invited them to join him. After a few pleasantries, he told them he was from Moscow, that he’d arrived in Australia with his family more than twenty years ago.

‘So you left when Khrushchev was general secretary?’ Mikhail said.

Alexei smiled, one of those smiles loaded with meaning. ‘Khrushchev’s thaw was not so good for me,’ he said.

‘In the end it was not so good for him either,’ Mikhail said.

Both men found this hilarious.

Their conversation quickly gathered pace. It was one of those exchanges that skipped from here to there as the men placed each other in the Soviet network, and established points of common interest. After a while, Galina slipped out to the kitchen to make coffee. When she handed the cups to the men, even Mikhail thanked her.

Alexei was a widower. ‘My children look after me, and they visit often with the grandchildren. But they are not my wife.’ His fat face crumpled, and his eyes filled with tears.