Lehrter Station Read Online Free PDF Page B

And the past was not for changing.
    He took the seat beyond Shchepkin, beside a burly blond Russian in a shiny new suit.
    ‘This is Comrade Nemedin,’ Shchepkin announced, in a tone which left no doubt of the man’s importance.
    ‘Major Nemedin,’ the man corrected him. His blue eyes were a definite contender for the coldest that Russell had ever seen. ‘Mister Russell,’ the Russian said in acknowledgement, before turning his attention back to the pitch.
    ‘We will talk business at half-time,’ Shchepkin told Russell.
    ‘Right.’
    ‘How do you like living in London?’ Shchepkin asked him in Russian. Nemedin, Russell guessed, did not speak English.
    ‘I’ve been in better places,’ Russell replied in the same language. ‘It’ll take a lot more than six months to make up for the last six years.’
    ‘Did you grow up here?’
    ‘No, in Guildford. It’s about thirty miles away. To the southwest. But my father worked in London, and we used to come up quite often. Before the First War.’ He had been thinking about those visits lately. On one occasion he and his parents had been caught up in a suffragette rally. To his father’s chagrin and his mother’s great amusement.
    Down below them the Dynamos were leaving the pitch. The crowd was now over the inner fence of the greyhound track, and, despite the best efforts of the police, creeping towards the touch and goal lines. On the far side a woman was being lifted across a sea of heads towards a posse of waiting St John Ambulancemen.
    ‘How are your family?’ Russell asked Shchepkin.
    ‘Oh.’ The Russian looked disconcerted for a moment, but soon recovered. ‘They are in good health, thank you. Natasha is training to be a teacher.’
    ‘Good,’ Russell said. They both knew that Nemedin was listening to every word, but Russell felt childishly intent on not being cowed into silence. ‘And how long have you been in London?’
    ‘Since the Sunday before last. We came with the team.’
    ‘Of course.’ Russell shifted his attention to Nemedin. ‘And how do you like it here, Major?’ he asked.
    ‘No,’ Nemedin replied, as if he’d heard a different question. ‘Are they going to force them back?’ he asked, indicating the crowds below.
    ‘I think they’ll be happy with keeping them off the pitch,’ Russell told him.
    ‘But… is this normal? There is no control.’
    Russell shrugged. Where the English were concerned, the controls were internal. ‘Do you like football?’ he asked the Russian.
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Will the Dynamos do well, do you think?’
    ‘Yes, I think so. If the referee is fair.’
    There was a sound of breaking glass away to their right. Someone had fallen through the grandstand roof, and presumably landed in someone else’s lap. It wasn’t a long drop, so Russell doubted that anyone had died.
    The two teams were filing out now: Chelsea in a change strip of red, the Dynamos carrying bouquets of flowers. They lined up facing each other, and those in the seats rose to their feet as the Royal Marines band launched into the Soviet national anthem. The crowd was respectful to a fault, and the wave of emotion which rolled across the stadium was almost palpable, as minds went back to those months when their two nations were all that stood between the Nazis and global domination. The Americans and their economy had certainly played crucial roles in the Allied victory, but if Britain had broken in 1940, or the Soviet Union in 1941, all their efforts might well have been in vain.
    ‘God Save The King’ followed, and the moment it died away the eleven Dynamo players stepped forward and presented the bouquets to their blushing Chelsea counterparts. A storm of laughter engulfed the stadium, leaving most of the Russell’s immediate neighbours looking bemused. In the seats below one man shouted that it must be Chelsea’s funeral.
    A minute later the game was underway, and it was looking as if he’d been right. Far from being ‘so