22 Britannia Road Part 2

'Tell that to the Germans.'

Around him, men swore and women and children shrieked and cried. Doors were flung open and people stumbled and pushed to get out, jumping onto the bramble-lined railway track, running into the surrounding fields to hide in ditches and woodland.

Ja.n.u.sz dropped down from the train and ran after a group of men into an open ditch. There he crawled into a clump of tall reeds and squatted on his haunches, breathing rapidly. His uniform was heavy and he could feel sweat running down his face, stinging his eyes. As the planes flew over, he covered his head with his arms. There was a feeling of heat across his back and a roar of engine noise, high-pitched and threatening. Then, when he felt as though the noise would deafen him completely, the planes pa.s.sed overhead, rising higher in the sky and banking away towards the horizon.

'They're playing with us,' said a man near him as the planes disappeared into the clouds.

'Where have they gone?'

'They'll be back. You wait. They've been doing this for the last few weeks, air attacks like this. No bombs, just machine-guns opening fire on villages and train stations, picking off civilians. Scare tactics.'

Ja.n.u.sz looked over the edge of the ditch, trying to work out where the planes had gone. In a gra.s.sy meadow, far off, he saw a peasant girl. Something in the way she moved, a certain toughness, more like a young boy than a girl, reminded him of his sister Eve and his heart gave a lurch. The girl stood in the middle of a flock of geese that began to rise up around her. Four planes came out of the clouds then and looped towards the train, dipping low over the fields. Ja.n.u.sz saw the girl raise a hand as if to shield her eyes. He called to her, but she was too far off to hear him. There came a sound like the hammering of hailstones on a tin roof, and he realized it was machine-gun fire. The last thing he saw as he stumbled back into the ditch was the goose-girl falling.

Murder was the word that flashed into his mind. He began to run along the muddy stream that lined the ditch, away from the train and the group of men who were crouched together, hands over their heads. Away from the image of the girl falling. was the word that flashed into his mind. He began to run along the muddy stream that lined the ditch, away from the train and the group of men who were crouched together, hands over their heads. Away from the image of the girl falling.

The ground around him shook as the machine-gunners opened fire again.

Ja.n.u.sz heard himself cry out. And then there were no words, just red behind his screwed-up eyelids and splinters of noise like firecrackers exploding in his eardrums. He stumbled and tripped, falling forwards, hitting his head as he landed, face down in the ditch. Pain surged through him. Silver stars dazzled and died in his vision. He felt a pressure on his chest as if his lungs were being squeezed. He couldn't catch his breath. There was blackness.

He came to, lying on his belly. Coughing and choking, he rose onto all fours, gulping the air. The planes had gone, leaving blue smoke drifting in their wake, carrying the smell of engine oil and burning. He realized he was quite some way from the train now and the ditch was deep, its sides hiding him from view. He put his hand to his head and felt blood. Had he been shot? Then he saw what had hurt him: a stone sticking out of the shallow ditch-water. His blood was on its flint edge. He must have been knocked unconscious when he fell. He tried to get up, but his legs felt incapable of supporting him. I'll get up, he thought. I must get up.

He was aware of soldiers nearby, and once or twice he saw them above him on the gra.s.s verges. Too weak to call out to them, he stayed silent and hidden in the tall reeds. Exhaustion hit him and he fell into a trembling sleep. Within his foggy dreams he heard the sound of the train pulling away, but his limbs were too heavy to move and he let sleep overcome him again.

At the end of the day, in the dimming light, he crawled out of the ditch and lay on his back staring up at the sky. What was he going to do now? With cautious fingers he prodded and felt the swelling above his eye. The blood had dried. He sat up and then slowly got to his feet. The sound of geese honking in the distance made him think again of the girl, and he set off, walking stiffly across the fields towards the noisy birds.

The geese stood in a group around her, hissing and snaking their necks at him as he approached. He couldn't bring himself to touch the body, so he sat down and wept beside it. What kind of a soldier was he? He had lain in a ditch while all around him people had needed help. He punished himself with these thoughts until finally he took the dead girl by the shoulders and turned her over.

A wrinkled face framed by long white hair stared blankly past him. She was a tiny old woman the size of a child. He couldn't get his thoughts straight. Who was this? Where had the girl gone? Had he been mistaken? He touched her cheek. It was cold. His own face was burning hot. How could he have thought she was a young woman?

He picked up the body and carried it to the edge of the field, laying it down under a tree. He removed her bloodstained birch-bark sandals, tidied her clothes and closed her eyes.

He was twenty-two years old and he had lost his regiment before he'd even joined it. Thunder rumbled in the sky. The storms that had been threatening for days finally broke. The sky turned dark and the rain came pelting down, needle-sharp and carried horizontally by strong winds. Ja.n.u.sz turned up his collar and started walking. He hoped he was heading in the right direction for Warsaw. He didn't know where else to go.

Ipswich

So far, what Silvana has seen of Britain is a country as worn down as her own. Signs of the war are everywhere, in the fire-damaged buildings they pa.s.s, the queues outside shops and the blank faces of the people. She thought she might have been able to leave her dark sadnesses behind in Poland, but here loss squats in every corner, persistent and obstinate, calling up the past when it is obvious to her that forgetting is what everybody needs to do. But then who is she to think like this? Her own memories threaten her constantly, and forgetting doesn't come easily.

And yet, as she walks briskly behind Ja.n.u.sz up the steep cobbled hill past more of the red-brick houses that crowd these suburban streets, she feels determined, if not a tiny bit hopeful. The way Ja.n.u.sz had looked at the boy when he met them at the station had been loving. Accepting.

She wants to thank him, but he's walking so fast she has to keep encouraging Aurek to run beside her to keep up. Just as she is thinking it is warm enough to take off her coat and walk with it over her arm, Ja.n.u.sz stops outside the last house in a terrace.

'We're here,' he says, smiling. 'Here's the key. Welcome home.'

She turns the key over in her hand. Aurek reaches out and touches it, and she holds it out to show it to him.

'Go on,' says Ja.n.u.sz. 'I've oiled the lock and fixed the hinges. The door was stiff but... well, go on. Put the key in and try it.'

She slips it into the lock and it turns easily, the door swinging open onto a narrow hallway with a door leading off to the left, a staircase to the right and another door at the end of the hall.

'Perhaps I should carry you in,' says Ja.n.u.sz. 'Carry you over the threshold. Do things properly?'

Silvana begins to protest, but he wraps a hand around her waist, scooping her into his arms, holding her tightly. She catches her breath at the sudden sensation of being lifted off her feet.

'Do you remember,' he asks, his mouth brushing against her ear, 'when we got our first flat and I wanted to carry you in, but you were '

'I was pregnant,' Silvana says, finishing his sentence.

Ja.n.u.sz staggers slightly as he tries to manoeuvre them both through the door, and a fragment of laughter escapes her lips, surprising her with its lightness.

For a moment she remembers the girl she once was. She thinks of her usherette's uniform, the burgundy colour of it, the gold braid on collar and cuffs. Of the apple orchard behind her parents' house and the way Ja.n.u.sz waited there for her at dusk. The kind of useless thoughts that make her too aware of the lies she has brought with her from Poland. When he puts her down in the hallway she has barely a moment to straighten her coat before Aurek launches himself into her arms, burying his face in her collar.

'Don't be scared,' she tells him. 'He's your father.'

Aurek whispers to her frantically, 'Nie. No. No.' No. No.'

'He won't hurt us.'

'Of course I won't,' says Ja.n.u.sz, and she looks up into his frowning face.

She gives him an apologetic smile, untangles herself from her son's tight embrace and looks around. The house feels cold and smells of new paint. The sound of their footsteps echoes as they walk through the narrow hallway into the kitchen at the back of the house. It's a nice little room with a wooden table and three pale-yellow chairs. There is a cooker, a dented-looking kettle sitting on its hob. Ragged lace curtains at the window.

'I washed the curtains,' says Ja.n.u.sz. 'I know they're old and a bit worn, but once you've settled in we can get some new ones.'

Silvana notices how other hands have polished the doork.n.o.bs smooth and other feet have worn a small dip in the stone floor by the sink.

'Who lived here before?'

Ja.n.u.sz looks surprised by her question.

'I don't know. Does it matter?'

Silvana shakes her head. She knows she is the interloper here. And she is afraid the house knows it too.

Ja.n.u.sz picks up a package from the kitchen table. 'A present. It's an ap.r.o.n.'

She tries it on. A red cotton skirt with a blue band at the waist. In Poland every new wife was given an ap.r.o.n. Maybe it's the same custom in England. Whatever it is, she thanks him several times. Ja.n.u.sz runs a finger around his collar, as if it is a little too tight, a gesture she remembers, one of the shy habits of his youth.

'I want you to see the garden,' he says, unlocking the back door and throwing it open. 'It's a bit wild, but I've cut the gra.s.s and dug some beds for roses over there. And I've got a vegetable garden started. I want a real English garden for us.'

Silvana nods, although she doesn't know why an English garden should be different from any other kind of garden. The long lawn is tidy and the flower beds are freshly dug, the earth dark and rich as coffee grounds. Aurek darts past her and runs across the gra.s.s, crashing back and forth haphazardly, like a fly caught in a jar.

Ja.n.u.sz leans against the door watching him, a wide-shouldered man with a tired face and strong blue eyes. The suit he is wearing creases across his back. He looks foreign in it; a bit English. He looks older too. But what did she expect? They are both older. She wonders if he knows how much hope she has invested in him, in this new life, this rented house. It seems unfair to ask so much of him after all this time apart, but what choice does she have? Her loyalty is with the boy. He needs a proper home. She has to see to it that Ja.n.u.sz understands this.

Ja.n.u.sz turns and looks at her. 'So you never saw my family after I left?'

Silvana feels the blood rush to her face. Was this why he had found her and brought her here? So that she could give him news of his family?

'No,' she says, looking at her feet. 'I'm sorry. I don't know about my own parents either. I don't know what happened to them.'

She unties the ap.r.o.n and lays it on the kitchen table as Aurek runs inside with a broken doll in his hands, a pink, armless, naked thing with rolling eyes and matted black hair. He grins and holds it up triumphantly in front of Ja.n.u.sz.

'Let's have a look.'

Ja.n.u.sz reaches out to take the doll, but Aurek ducks behind his mother, making growling sounds. Silvana acts before she thinks, pushing Ja.n.u.sz back, protecting her son. She sees the bewilderment on Ja.n.u.sz's face and instantly regrets her quick movements.

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... He's not used to sharing. We've been on our own for a long time... He...'

Silvana is searching for a way to explain when a woman's voice makes them all turn round.

'h.e.l.lo there, anyone home?'

The woman stands in the hallway, a cigarette in her hand. Silvana guesses she must be in her fifties. She has a middle-aged, matronly look about her. She's a tall redhead, big-shouldered for a woman, and just the size of her makes Silvana feel small and out of place. The woman wears a tweed skirt and white blouse covered by yards of ap.r.o.n, a big messy design of faded pansies and pink roses that flower right over her hips and across the broad acres of her bosom.

'Ah,' she says. 'I thought I heard voices. I'm Mrs Holborn from next door.'

Silvana lets go of Aurek and he backs away and runs into the garden, the doll clutched in his arms. Ja.n.u.sz bends slightly at the waist as he greets the woman. For a moment it looks as though he is going to kiss her hand like a good Polish gentleman. Instead he straightens up and shakes hands.

'Mrs Holborn, did you say? Well, we're pleased to meet you. How do you do.'

Silvana sees Ja.n.u.sz's eyes upon her and realizes she is meant to say something. She remembers the English the soldiers taught her, the cla.s.ses she attended in the camp.

'Good afternoon,' she says carefully. 'Good afternoon to you, madam.'

'Charmed,' says Mrs Holborn. She takes a step towards the back door and Silvana sees her gaze settle on Aurek in the garden.

'And is that your boy?'

'Yes, he's my son,' says Ja.n.u.sz, and Silvana hears the pride in his voice. 'His name is Aurek.'

'Aw what? Sorry, I didn't get that. Can you say it again?'

'Aurek,' says Ja.n.u.sz slowly.

'Oh, that's a hard one to get your chops around. Can't say I've heard that one before.'

'In Polish it means golden-haired.'

Silvana watches Aurek throwing the doll in the air and catching it. There's nothing golden about his shorn dark hair.

'He was blond when he was a baby,' Ja.n.u.sz says, and Silvana realizes he has been thinking the same thing as her.

'Like his father,' Silvana says, nodding.

'They change so much, don't they?' says Mrs Holborn, waving a hand in Aurek's direction, a gesture Silvana finds comforting, as if the woman is already familiar with their son.

'My daughter was the same,' she continues. 'Born with a mop of ginger curls. You'd have thought she was the milkman's kid. If you saw her now she's grown up and left home, mind you'd say I was a liar, 'cus she's a brunette. Not a ginger hair on her head. But look, we don't stand on ceremony around here. You must call me Doris.'

Ja.n.u.sz smiles. 'Doris. And I am Ja.n.u.sz Nowak. You can call me Jan if you find it easier. My wife's name is Silvana.'

'Right. Well, I'll do my best, but I'm hopeless with foreign names. You'll have to forgive me if I get them wrong. I've seen you coming and going and I thought you must be moving in. You'll have to meet my Gilbert when he's back from work. You might know him already. You work together at Burtons, don't you?'

Silvana looks out of the window. The sun is turning red in the sky, casting a rosy light across the clouds. There is a chiming of birdsong through the open door, and at the end of the garden Aurek is scrambling up the lowers branches of the oak tree. She thinks of the forest where she and the boy lived. Their hideout will be filling up with soil and leaves. Animals will be taking it over, the tree roots breaking through the earth walls. The forest will already be covering over her past.

Ja.n.u.sz touches her lightly on the shoulder and she jumps. She tries to compose her face into a smile.

'What is it?'

'She's agreed to take our photo. Come on, get Aurek.'

Doris is waving a camera at her and grinning.

'I'm not very good with machinery. I hope I won't break it.'

Outside the front door, Silvana stands next to Ja.n.u.sz. She fiddles with her headscarf, pulling it tight under her chin, and tries to relax as she feels his hand on her waist, drawing her closer to him. There is a moment of stillness when the three of them are waiting, posed, staring into the camera's eye. Frozen already into the image they expect the camera to see. Ja.n.u.sz is straight-backed and serious. Silvana holds her headscarf in place. Aurek is clinging to Silvana's legs.

When the photo is developed, Ja.n.u.sz puts it in a frame and Silvana stands it on the mantelpiece in the front parlour. Proof Proof, she thinks. She breathes on the frame and rubs the gla.s.s clean with her sleeve, polishing the image. There they are in black and white, a father, a mother and their son reunited. Her family. n.o.body can take this from her. Not now.

Silvana is in the bathroom rubbing soap on her hands until they are covered with a thick layer of foam. It feels luxurious to have a whole bar of soap to herself. She looks in the mirror and wonders whether to wash her hair. Her short, grey hair. Tears come to her eyes every time she sees herself. So ugly So ugly, she thinks.

How can Ja.n.u.sz want her when she looks like this? A convict. That's what she looks like. Someone guilty of a crime. A bearer of bad news. That's what she had read in Ja.n.u.sz's face when she told him she had never gone to see his parents after he'd left Warsaw. The hurt showed clearly in his eyes. She'd disappointed him.

She scrubs the bar of soap all over her head, fingernails catching against her scalp, suds dripping into her eyes, the smell of the soap so sweet and clean and renewing she is tempted to slip the whole thing into her mouth and let the suds rinse her inside as well as out.

'Are you all right?' calls Ja.n.u.sz, and she hears him knock on the door. The soap pops out of her hand and falls somewhere under the sink. She searches for it, water running down her face, eyes tight shut.

'Yes, yes. I'll be finished soon.'

'Only you've been running the taps for a long time.'

'Sorry.' Silvana fishes the soap out from behind the pipes. She grabs a towel and wipes her face dry, turns the tap off and listens to the sound of Ja.n.u.sz padding away across the landing. She takes off her clothes and climbs into the warm water, ducking her head under, her limbs b.u.mping against the bath.

Will Ja.n.u.sz want to know what happened to her during the war? Will he want to know how she ended up living in a forest? And what about him? Will he have secrets too? She won't ask him.

He has already explained to her how he arrived in Britain in 1940, though the way he told it, in short, brief sentences, like a speech he has used many times, left her none the wiser as to exactly how he did it. He's explained about his soldiering, described the country he has brought her to, the cherry orchards in the south, the purple flush of the moors in the north. He hasn't asked her a single question about herself or the boy yet. It's better that way. She looks down, running her hands over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and down towards her hollow belly, where they come to rest, cupped together. What a pitiful body to offer him. Will Ja.n.u.sz still find her attractive after all these years?

Ja.n.u.sz is about to knock on the bathroom door again when Silvana finally emerges. She looks clean and scrubbed. Her cheeks glow pink, but there is something sad and small about her, like a wet cat, as though the bath water has shrunk her. He takes her arm and leads her into the bedroom. This is the moment he has dreamed of and feared. Their first night together.

In the main bedroom are two single beds. Silvana climbs into one and Ja.n.u.sz draws the covers up over her. He sits beside her, perched on the edge of the bed, and watches her fiddle with the ribbons on the front of her nightgown.

'Do you like it?' he asks. 'The house? It's a miracle, isn't it? Us, being together again? You'll like England. It's a beautiful country.'

He looks down and notices her left hand. She wears no wedding ring.