Edinburgh, August 25, 2012 The first thing Kate Mosley discovered about Scotland, and the first thing that her husband Doug complained about, was that it was cold.
“It should not feel like this in August!” He said more than once. Kate personally thought he’d been off the ice a little too long. But then, what could he have done? He’d really only learned what he’d had to about figure skating to toss her around in three competitions; becoming a coach had never been an option for him. Nor would he have had the patience.
As they approached Anton Pamchenko’s door, he added, “That old man had better have turned on the heat in his house. I don’t care if it’s even colder in Russia.”
“No doubt you’ll care when we go there next,” Kate retorted, and rang the doorbell.
Pamchenko may have grown up in Russia, but when he opened the door, Kate’s first thought was that the cold had aged him. She’d last seen her old coach four years ago, just before he’d moved here with his latest protege, and he’d been old then, but he hadn’t looked nearly this old. Well, he was about to retire, leaving his current students to her.
Yet his energy was undiminished. With a laugh and a greeting of “Katia!” he pulled her into a bear hug, then glanced over at Doug and said, amused, “We go inside now, before your husband freeze to death.”
He did have the heat on. As soon as Kate stepped over the threshold, she was blasted with it. Doug theatrically sighed his relief.
“Sit down, sit down.” Pamchenko urged them into his living room and towards the sofa. “Have some tea.” It steamed from his coffee table.
Kate momentarily worried that Doug would turn up his nose, but he drank readily, and appeared to like it. After taking a sip herself, she didn’t find that at all surprising; it was wonderfully hot. Pamchenko must have just finished preparing it for his two old weather-spoilt American students.
“So,” she said, “tell me about what I’m getting into with these three students of yours.”
“Four,” replied Pamchenko. “I found partner for Rudy three days ago. You two not checking your email?”
“We haven’t had a chance for nearly a week,” Kate answered. “Moving across an ocean can be crazy business, as I’m sure you know.”
“Even with so many people doing it now?” he asked in surprise.
“Are there really more people doing it now?” she countered. “Sure, there are a lot of people leaving America now, but there used to be just as many coming in. And they’re making it more difficult to leave now. I thought more than once that Doug and I were getting out just in time. You and Sheila were smart, coming here.”
“Sheila and I not come here because America have problems,” Pamchenko reminded her. “Sheila and I come here-”
“Yes, we know,” Kate cut him off. “Sheila and you come here because Sheila need partner, meet Scottish boy named Diamond MacAddie, join hands with him on ice and BOOM!” On the last word both men joined in, and all three clapped their hands. “But even so, if she’d done so ten years ago, he would’ve moved to America. I don’t think even his being gay would have deterred anyone at that point. Not as much as Sheila having medalled that year, and USFSA rules at the time having a four year waiting period. He insisted on staying here and having Sheila move because of the direction the country was already going in.”
“Oh yes, speaking of which, you should know, Diamond falling in love with ice dancer.”
“Ice dancer?” repeated Kate. Weren’t they usually straight? “Not a Russian I hope, no offence meant.”
“None taken.” Of course none was taken. He knew what she meant. Relationships were all well and good, but not with rivals. “No, fellow Scottish boy.” Of course. She should’ve known. The British did ice dancing better than they did any other discipline, and ice dancing had more gotten popular in recent thanks to the Kerrs. “Train in same facility. George Fiddleson.”
“Fiddleson? Not as in, Alice and Roddy Fiddleson? I never heard of either having a son...”
It was Doug who answered this time. “You never paid much attention to the ice dancing scene, did you Kate? Not only did Roddy Fiddleson have a son, but his sister had a daughter. Ross and Fiddleson came in second at Junior Worlds in 2009, and I’m fairly certain they moved up to the seniors the next year. They might just headline the British Olympic team in two years time, last I heard anyway.”
“Ah yes, you were doing well Doug, were you not?” Pamchenko noted. “You find job here yet?”
“I’ve got an interview with Eurosport. Of course my wife coaching some of the competitors can make things interesting, but they always love my backstory.”
“Good. Though about your concern, Katia, you should know also, there is Russian team in facility also. Markova and Rubinstein.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Kate noted. “They finished tenth in Vancouver, and split from Oleg Vasiliev last March. Came hear with his old assistant, I believe. They’re only a little older than Sheila and Diamond too, aren’t they? It can’t be easy, having them around.”
“A year older than Diamond, both, and yes, is hard, sometimes.” Pamchenko admitted. “Yet they are all good friends, the young people.”
Young people. Kate was approaching her fifties now, but she’d never felt that old. Sitting with Pamchenko, she certainly couldn’t now. “So,” she continued, “Tell me about your second pair. I’ve heard of Rudy Klukov, and I competed against his parents, but what Scottish girl have you found for him?”
“Scottish girl?” Pamchenko laughed. “Katia, few enough figure skaters in this country as is! They all ice dance! No, girl I found is French. Dual citizen. Camille du Fayin.”
“French?” Doug asked the obvious. “What would a French girl be doing all the way up here in Edinburgh?”
“Doug, you assume he found her here in Edinburgh. Didn’t you take Rudy down to London in hopes of pairing him with someone there? And if she’s a dual citizen, she must have some family somewhere on this island.”
“Britih mother,” Pamchenko explained. “And she came to London to audition. Now is going to live with grandparents here, so can train with Rudy.”
“I thought British parents-or grandparents-weren't like American parents. Must have been another explosion when they joined hands then,” Doug guessed. They’d run into too many examples, Sheila and Diamond included, to deny its existence, but neither he nor Kate entirely understood this phenomenon about the “right” partner. Kate had gone through more than her fair share of them, but if there was a “right” figure skating partner for her destined by Fate, to be revealed at first meeting, then Fate had forgotten to introduce them to each other. She thought with Doug what had been going on with them off the ice had provided some sort of chemical vibe, but it didn’t seem to be the same thing.
“Close to it. When they finished skating together for first time, he run excitedly up to his parents and cry out, ‘I found her! I found her!’”
“Can you tell me practical facts?” Kate cut him off. “How old is she? How long has she been doing this? Obviously Rudy’s been competing for the US so they’ll have to sit out the amounts of time for changing countries, but did either of them ever medal?”
“Was just getting to that,” Pamchenko insisted. “Rudy medal very early last year, do badly at other event, so he will get release early in September 2013. Camille is 14, though just now-birthday after July 1st, and has never competed internationally.”
“So at least a year on the junior circuit...and that means school besides, at least for a bit, doesn’t it? Though didn’t you say Rudy’s going to finish his last year too?”
“He feels he must. He is very American. More so than Sheila ever was.”
“I’ve heard the story, yes.” It had spilled out into the news in the ugliest way earlier that year, when Rudy Klukov had confided to his then-partner Leslie Ferrier that his parents had been having conversations late at night talking about possibly leaving the country; no more, Kate supposed, than many people were doing, she and Doug included, and she’d gone onto the latest right-wing talk show and loudly denounced him, which, of course, had made the Klukov family’s decision much easier.
It had been watching the reaction to that unfold that had finally convinced Kate and Doug, too, that it was time to get out. What else could one think when half the country was calling for the deportation of the whole family to Russia, when both mother and son were native-born, and not only was Oleg Klukov long naturalized-he’d skated for America at Lillehammer-but he was famous for his love of his new country? Kate knew him, and knew how fervently he had believed in America the way most of the inhabitants no longer bothered to, and how he’d induced the same spirit in his wife, and she had no doubt they’d raised their son the same way. As far as she was concerned, that they’d driven the Klukovs out was a black mark against the United States. She didn’t regret leaving at all.
“Speaking of Sheila,” Pamchenko continues, “Unfortunatly, I leave you task I think you think long done. Her anorexia.”
“What?” He was right to think she’d assumed that part of the past. “But surely-you’ve been training her for-what, six years? You had me over mine in one!”
“I caught you early. And you not have bad parents. Her father make trouble. Had to send her to treament for three months in the end, and have really had only two years. Two years good, they help, but Sheila not clear of danger, Katia. Remember that.”
“I can understand that,” said Kate softly. There were many things in her life which she wanted to forget, but amoung them there strongly stood out the first two years after her disastrous 1988 performance. Both the year down before she’d finally shown Rick Tuttle the exit sign, and the long struggle back up.
“Sheila remembers you. She admires you as idol, but you know that already. She very glad to have you. Diamond too, and Rudy. Camille mostly indifferent.”