Sometimes dreams had to be sacrificed. Sometimes keeping hold of them was absolutely selfish. And selfish was one thing he refused to be.
The print shop was only open half the day on Monday. Vera’s heart-wrenching admission, “I can’t remember the last time I had a friend,” had sat as a painful weight on his heart. She said she’d found friendship in the characters she read about. She enjoyed discussing them, but worried about doing so too much while her father was nearby.
An idea had occurred to Brogan, and he’d not been able to empty his mind of it.
He knocked at the locked shop door, his excitement growing as he waited for her to answer. Not only did he sincerely believe she’d enjoy what he’d come to propose, but if she agreed to it, he’d be granted an entire afternoon of her company. He would treasure that.
Vera opened the door. The surprise in her expression was delightful. “Ganor. This isn’t one of your work days. We ain’t even open.”
“I know.” He was well aware his grin was unrepentant. “I’ve come to suggest an outing.”
“Of what sort?”
He leaned a shoulder against the door frame, hooking one boot around the other. “I know how much you enjoy discussing the penny dreadfuls but doing so here is something of a walk in a snake pit.”
She smiled a bit crookedly. “Are you calling my papa a snake?”
“It isn’t the pit I’m calling him.”
She laughed almost silently but with every indication of sincerity.
A couple stepped up behind him.
Vera shifted her attention. “May I help you?”
“You are a print shop, yes?” To Brogan’s untrained ear, the man sounded Russian.
“We are, yeah,” Vera said. “But we’re closed just now.”
The two looked inarguably disappointed.
“We’ll be open first thing in the morning,” Vera said. “You’re welcome to—”
“Let them in, kotik.” Mr. Sorokin had arrived at some point.
Vera stepped aside and motioned the new arrivals in. Mr. Sorokin showed them to the table near the back where he discussed printing jobs with customers. He did so fairly often, though the shop was still struggling. He likely wasn’t taking on terribly profitable jobs.
For a moment, Brogan was distracted watching the couple. The man kept an arm about his wife, keeping her tucked up tenderly beside him. She glanced up at her husband, and not a soul seeing her expression would doubt the love that existed between them.
Móirín’s voice echoed in his thoughts. “Reclaiming some dreams isn’t selfish.”
But dreams were a distraction, especially ones that were out of reach. He’d do far better to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground.
“I thought you didn’t have a lot of connections with the Russian community.” Brogan motioned to the couple.
“We don’t,” Vera said, “though we do have customers who’re Russian.”
Ah.
“What is it that brought you to the shop today? You mentioned an outing of some sort?” she asked.
“I know an older gentleman, lonely but sharp as a freshly made nail, who reads the penny dreadfuls as faithfully as you do,” Brogan said. “He longs for company, but doesn’t ever leave his home, so he has little of it. You’d get to discuss the stories you love while doing a world of good for a very lonely man.”
“Truly?” She stood taller, her attention fully captured. Her lips parted in small circle of interest.
“He has a daughter about your age, though I don’t know if she’ll be there. And he has a soon-to-be son-in-law who is there now and then. But it might land as only the two of us visiting with him.”
Her expression was both compassionate and intrigued. “I would like that.”
“I’d hoped you would.”
A quick moment later, she had the shop locked up, and they were walking down Old Compton Street side-by-side.
“Where does this man live?” Vera asked.
She’d agreed to go with him without knowing their destination. ’Twas a fine thing being trusted that much.
“Warwick Square,” he said.
Vera looked abruptly at him. “Warwick Square? That’s a rum-bung area of Town.”
“Rum-bung?” He laughed. “I thought I knew London cant. Then I met you and found I don’t understand a word of it.”
“You might know London,” she said. “That don’t mean you know South London.”
“’Tis that different, is it?”
Her smile remained. “Likely not, actually. But my papa is convinced I speak a language other than English.”
“You mean Russian?”
“I don’t speak Russian as well as he does.” She hooked her arm through his. He liked that far more than he probably should. “It frustrates Papa. He mentions now and then how unRussian I am. But I’ve not had much connection to Russia growing up here. I only know a bit of the language because, when my mum still lived with us, the two of them spoke it. We don’t spend time with many others from our home country, not even with the few who stop by the shop.”
“Does he not have friends from his homeland here?” Their conversation had veered directly into the topic he needed to cover: Mr. Sorokin’s connection to Russians in London. She’d mentioned it vaguely before, but he needed a few details.
She nodded. “There’re plenty in London who hail from Russia, but he has hardly anything to do with any of them. Adamant about it, in fact.”
So, Russians and writers were on his list of people he intentionally avoided. “I tremble to think what he’d do if he crossed paths with a Russian writer.”
He actually felt her stiffen.
“What do you mean by that?”
Not only had his jest fallen flat, he’d somehow managed to worry her. “I’d meant to be funny. You’ve said he doesn’t like writers, and now you’re saying he doesn’t care to rub elbows with his fellow Russians. I hadn’t meant any insult.”
She nodded. “I’m sensitive about it, I guess. Papa is sad that I’m so much London and so little Russian. But he’s the reason I’m not. It’s a weight I can’t seem to shake off.”
They walked along in silence for a while. He had hit upon something, there was no denying that. Her father’s distance from his homeland community was connected in some way to his distaste for writers. But what, if anything did that have to do with him lingering near the Russian embassy? And why was it such a point of contradiction with his daughter?