Season of Mists
Marina, a forty-year-old Russian woman, lives in a small village in South Leicestershire in England. Seven years ago she married Gregory, a village garage owner, a collector of Morris Minor cars and an Ipswich Town supporter. Marina met Gregory when he came to Russia to see Ipswich Town playing against Torpedo Moscow, and moved to England with her then five-year-old daughter in the hope of happiness and a secure future for her child. A journalist and a writer in her previous life, she now works as a local hairdresser and in her spare time writes for the parish magazine. Gregory loves her, and her daughter seems to flourish in a private school, but Marina doesn't feel happy and satisfied with her life - and can't really explain why. The feeling increases when she goes to London to meet Valentina, an old friend who is visiting from Moscow. Valentina has become a successful writer and Marina asks herself whether maybe she could also write books in Russian, her native language which nobody seems to need in England. A chance encounter with a touring baroque quartet from Moscow throws her out of her daily routine, and unexpected love opens up all the questions which Marina has been hiding deep inside. Marina falls in love with the second violinist, Sasha, who is the same age and like her has become dissatisfied with his life. After the concert he goes back to Moscow. Marina tries to forget him, but she cannot continue living her routine life. When she gets a phone call from Valentina in Moscow, who says that maybe she has found a publisher for Marina's fairy tales, she goes there immediately. It's a story about love. It's a story about people who are moving from place to place in search of home, and can't find it anywhere. It's also a story about middle age - the age when one has already (or not) achieved something in life, but when there is still time to start everything anew. And it's a story about a Standing Stone on the outskirts of a small English village where, some of the villagers believe, aliens might land one day...
