‘Thank you,’ says Viktor. ‘Your country is so cold.’
‘So is yours,’ says Elizabeth, and Viktor concedes the point.
Time to quit all this nonsense? Elizabeth laughs to herself. What is there in life other than nonsense?
‘Perhaps,’ says Elizabeth, ‘a little winter sunshine would do us some good?’
‘Perhaps,’ agrees Viktor. ‘Any suggestions?’
‘I hear Dubai is very temperate this time of year.’
‘I hear that too,’ says Viktor. ‘And they say the shopping is very good. There are even art galleries.’
‘Well, we could have a poke around the art galleries, couldn’t we?’
‘Spot of shopping,’ says Viktor. ‘Soak up the sun?’
‘Wouldn’t do any harm, would it?’ says Elizabeth. She may be old, but she knows she will find something there. The missing piece.
‘You know,’ says Viktor, ‘I remember being at the bottom of that hole, having all that earth shovelled over me. I remember looking up at everybody, and wondering if this might be the life for me. Coopers Chase. The tea, and the cake, and the birds and the dogs, and the friends. If it might be where I belong. You will understand that.’
‘Only too well,’ says Elizabeth.
‘I was lonely,’ says Viktor. ‘You fixed that for me. You and your friends. My friends. They are quite something, aren’t they?’
‘They are quite something,’ agrees Elizabeth.
‘Did I tell you I’m going to get a snooker table?’
‘Ron spoke of little else in the car up here,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I had to feign sleep.’
‘It’s the people, in the end, isn’t it?’ says Viktor. ‘It’s always the people. You can move halfway around the world to find your perfect life, move to Australia if you like, but it always comes down to the people you meet.’
Elizabeth looks over to the swimming pool, suspended in the sky. There is Joyce swimming laps, her head above water so as not to get her hair wet. The boys, Ron and Ibrahim, are by the side of the pool, wearing overcoats on daybeds. Ibrahim is struggling to read the Financial Times in the wind. Ron is trying to work out how the lid goes back on his coffee cup.
It is far too cold to swim, but Joyce would not be dissuaded. Elizabeth had told her not to be so silly, and that the pool would still be here in the summer.
‘Ah, but we may not be,’ Joyce had replied, and she was right. It was best to grab everything while you could. Who knows when your final swim might come, your final walk, your final kiss? Elizabeth has an idea what secret Bogdan is keeping from her. So be it.
Joyce sees Elizabeth looking, and gives her a wave. Elizabeth waves back. You keep swimming, Joyce. You keep swimming, my beautiful friend. You keep your head above the water for as long as you can.