A small, red sign proclaiming TAIGA glowed faintly above a battered wooden door. If you hadn’t known what the place was you’d never have given it a second glance. But inside it was like a forest growing in a cave: real tree-trunks, some birch, some pine, divided up little cubicles from each other, and the ceiling was a riot of branches. The air was warm and full of a wonderfully rich, meaty smell.

The waiters were dressed in forest green. From the way one of them sprang forward to take Anna’s coat, I saw that she was a star guest. Another man showed us straight to a table in a corner cubicle: he ushered Anna into her chair and held a brief conversation as he poured out two glasses of vodka from a bottle already sitting in an ice-bucket on the table. That was apparently all the ordering she needed to do: no question of menu or wine list.

She raised her glass and said, ‘Poyekhali!’

‘What’s that?’

‘It means “Bottoms up” when you’re drinking vodka. It’s what Gagarin said when he was about to go into space – “Let’s get moving.”’

‘Poyekhali, then.’ I clinked my glass on hers, and we both drank. Now I saw that her suit was made of turquoise shot-silk, and that she was wearing a pearl necklace. For the first time since I’d met her, she’d put on visible make-up – not much, but enough to accentuate her good features. She had darkened her eyebrows slightly, which made her eyes look bigger, and a touch of lipstick made her mouth seem more generous. She’d washed her hair, too, and done it so that it stood up in a shiny black curve above her forehead.

‘Have some caviar,’ she said. ‘It’s the best thing with vodka.’

She took the lid off a white pot cradled in a bed of ice, revealing a nest of shiny black eggs underneath. At that moment a waiter arrived with a dish of hot toast wrapped in a napkin.

‘Please!’ she said. ‘Dig in. Is that the right expression?’

‘Spot on!’ I dug deep with a teaspoon, and heaped caviar on to the toast – the best mouthful I’d ever eaten. More vodka, more caviar. She too seemed hungry, eating and drinking level with me. I don’t usually pay much attention to food, but the salty fish eggs and ice-cold spirit were such a combination that for a few minutes I really had to concentrate on my taste buds.

‘Don’t overdo it,’ Anna said presently, again with that amused glint in her eyes. ‘There are other things coming – Siberian specialities.’

‘Why all this Siberia suddenly?’

‘That’s where I come from.’

‘Really!’ I looked at her with new interest. ‘Tell me.’