“I want to help you,” Semyon explained. “I’ve lived in this world for a long time, after all, and I’ve seen a lot. It was hard to make everything fit together at first, right? You and Sveta are both strong individuals, it’s hard for you to adjust to suit someone else, even if you want to. And then somehow it all came together after all. You had a daughter and everything was really good, right? But afterwards, when she grew up a bit—everything got a bit messy again. Comradely.”

“So?” I asked, taking a greedy drag.

“You need shaking up a bit,” Semyon said imperturbably. “For instance, you need a good row about something, the real thing, with smashed plates, or a fight. Separate for a while, get really miffed with each other. But that’s hard for you, because of your daughter . . . And it would be good if you were unfaithful to her. You’ve never been unfaithful to Svetlana, have you?”

“Listen, you, sod off . . .” I said, starting to get really wound up. “When you were a kid, didn’t your mum tell you not to poke your nose into other people’s family business?”

“No, my mum just loved sticking her nose into other people’s squabbles,” Semyon replied. “Anton, don’t go taking offense, there’s no one else who’ll tell you this. But I love you and Sveta very much. And I really want everything to be fine for you.”

“So you advise us to have a fight or be unfaithful to each other!”

“Well, I’m a simple soul and my methods are simple,” Semyon chuckled. “You could turn to a therapist for help instead, go to sessions for a year or two, spend a bit of time on the couch, talk about life . . .”

“Screw you,” I said crudely, flicking my cigarette out of the window.

“Anton, there’s something big brewing,” said Semyon. “Trust my intuition on that. Hard times are on the way and it would be good if we can all be in good shape to meet them. With no discord in our hearts or our families . . .”

“You get married then, set up a durable social unit of your own . . .”

“My love was a human being. She died,” Semyon replied simply. “I told you about that. And it seems like I’m the one-woman kind. Like yourself. Okay, don’t go getting upset, don’t make a big thing of it.”

“Oh, sure, first you lay all this on me, then it’s ‘don’t make a big thing of it,’ ” I muttered. “Shall I bring you something from London? Whisky . . .”

“I can buy whisky here,” Semyon said dismissively. “You know what, drop into Fortnum and Mason, that’s on Piccadilly. Buy me a jar of Yorkshire honey, I really love it and you can’t get it here.”