Tomas slotted his hand into Laure’s and their fingers entwined. ‘Then, he has accepted,’ she spoke carefully, ‘to behave in a certain way in exchange for peace and he tolerates the State’s proscribed message.’ She looked across to the trees. ‘That guarantees he can get on with his life.’

‘Good girl. You see, opinions come in many shades.’

Manicki reached for his guitar and struck a chord. ‘Does that happen in England?’

‘Sometimes, I suppose.’ She shook her head. ‘No, the State doesn’t operate in that way. Not even for the criminal.’

Leo sat up abruptly and said something in Czech, spitting out the last few words.

Tomas bent down to retie the lace of his plimsoll. ‘My vegetable seller is reproduced millions of times all over the country and we are a nation of zombies as a result. There’s no choice.’

Manicki struck another chord, a melancholy one, and Tomas sang, ‘Darling my promise to you was a good life. Where did it go wrong?’

In this country politics seemed to get into everything and Laure didn’t want to think about them. She wanted to think about love and when she would next see Tomas. ‘Hadn’t I better go?’

‘See you.’ Leo kissed her on the cheek goodbye, which surprised her, but Manicki avoided any physical contact.

‘Is Manicki suspicious of me?’ she asked as they walked to the station.

‘Not of you so much, but of your situation. He thinks you could cause trouble.’

The blood surged into her cheeks. ‘I would never betray you. Or, say anything about you.’

If she had hoped for reassurance, it was not forthcoming. ‘None of us ever know,’ said Tomas.

When the station came into sight, he stopped. ‘Shall we make a promise?’ he said.

She searched his face. ‘If you like’.

‘Let us promise to be what we are. No politics between us. Just ourselves, enjoying this time. Yes?’

Her voice trembled. ‘Oh yes.’

He saw her onto the crowded train, kissed her lingeringly goodbye but said nothing about their next meeting.

She watched the countryside slide past and slowly change from the pastoral to the Prague suburbs where the twelve-storey paneláks, or housing units, some three hundred metres long, rose drearily above the plain.

Was anyone watching her? The woman in the headscarf, the teenager with a bruise on his cheek? The man sitting next to her smelt of garlic and could not have been less interested in Laure. Or, was that the impression he gave?

The habit of suspicion had taken root in Laure. It was, she reflected, irrelevant as to whether it was a good or a bad thing to have evolved. It had happened.

CHAPTER 19

BACK IN THE KOBES’ APARTMENT, LAURE UNPACKED HER rucksack and struggled to control her tears. She wanted to be at the chata, getting drunk, smelling the summer, listening to the birds. Most of all, she longed to be lying beside Tomas.