The Walk Home Part 9

But he wasn't lost; he only thought he was. Graham got them to Victoria Park, and then Lindsey knew they were right.

"We're fine, you'll see. It's just over that way."

She pointed, and then she put a hand to Graham's knee while he drove them round the roundabout.

They took Dumbarton Road at a crawl, looking for the turning. The streetlamps were coming on by this stage, and Lindsey peered out through the windscreen, thinking it was mostly council places round here, by the look of the too-small windows and all that pebble dash, grey render. Plus, she'd never had a house to clean round here.

But it wasn't a scheme, it was proper streets, a proper place; on the way to somewhere from somewhere else. And their flat would be brand new in any case.

It was nearly dark by the time they found it: a big red-brick box with stickers still on the double glazing, and site tape across the street doors. Graham parked up out front while Lindsey unplugged her seatbelt; she was out fast and on the pavement. Except not as excited as she was before, because she could feel Graham stalling, slow getting out of the van.

He came and stood by her, looking up at the windows, and he didn't like it, this new place, she could see that. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets, and his shoulders up, like he was cold. Lindsey said: "Looks good, I reckon."

"Aye."

Didn't sound like he meant it. Lindsey told him: "We have to tell them yes by the end of next week."

But she got no answer, so then she pressed him: "We'll be telling them yes, though. Won't we?"

Graham shrugged.

She hadn't bargained on this. Lindsey had geared herself up for the place being poky, or on a bad street maybe, a long walk from the bus stop or the shops. She knew they still could do better, in good time, so she'd figured on another move a year or two down the line. But looking up at the new build just now, she couldn't see why Graham would turn his nose up.

"What's wrong with it?"

He didn't say, he just started talking about his brother.

"Malky Jnr. He's in line for wan ae they new terraces, planned for the top ae the scheme. We could put our names down for wan ae those."

"On Drumchapel?"

"Aye on Drumchapel. They'll be nice, they new houses."

Lindsey didn't believe that for a minute. Only from the way Graham looked at her, it seemed like he did. So she shook her head: "No way. They won't be built for years yet."

If ever. Lindsey thought they were nothing more than a rumour, spun to keep scheme life ticking over. Stevie could end up grown in the meantime; grown on that h.e.l.lhole. It wasn't the houses, anyhow, it was the place Lindsey wanted out of.

"You want us to stop where we are?"

Graham shrugged again. And then it started to get to Lindsey, the way he wouldn't give her a proper answer. How many years had she been going up to that housing office? All that time, and he'd never even thought it through: if it was Drumchapel he wanted, or somewhere else, like she did. He wouldn't even look her in the eye now, he just kept looking up and down the road, at all the pavements and the houses, like he just didn't know. Graham said: "I dinnae know emdy that lives round here."

What did that have to do with anything?

Lindsey couldn't think what to say to him, all the way back to the scheme. Graham drove them back in silence.

They had to fetch Stevie, so Graham waited outside while she climbed the stairs to Brenda's; they did all that without a word pa.s.sing between them.

Stevie was asleep in the spare room, and Brenda stopped Lindsey in the doorway. She could see there was something amiss, because she said: "Just leave him tae sleep, hen. Come an sit a minute."

Only Lindsey wanted her boy then, the comfort of his weight. So she carried him down the close, with a blanket wrapped around him, his sleeping head heavy on her shoulder. But when she got out to the street, and saw Graham standing there, Lindsey thought she couldn't bear this.

She was going to cry, or shout. So Graham stepped forward and lifted Stevie from her arms, and then with her boy gone, there was nothing to hold her.

"Where's my Maw?"

Stevie didn't wake up, not properly, not until they got home, and it was just his Dad there, putting him to bed.

"Where is she?"

"She's at your Gran's."

His Dad said it short, tucking the bedcovers tight. Only Stevie was awake then, and sitting up, because his Mum had always been here before now.

"Is she comin?"

"Lie down, wid you?" Stevie's Dad let out his breath. "She'll come back. She'll be here in the mornin, you'll see. Quicker you get tae sleep, quicker it'll be."

But Stevie couldn't sleep for waiting.

He just listened to his Dad, putting on the telly and then shoving the dishes into the sink, crashing them about, like it didn't matter if they broke. He ran the hot tap hard, so Stevie got up then, even if he was scared his Dad might shout; the fathers in Eric's stories did all sorts when they got angry. Stevie's Dad was looking in the cupboards when he got to the kitchen, at the shelf where he kept his beers: nothing there. He opened the fridge, and slammed it shut again.

"f.u.c.k's sake."

Then he saw Stevie watching.

"Can we no go an fetch her, please, Da?"

His Dad said nothing, he just took him back to his bedroom, and sat on his bed for what felt like ages, all silent and heavy. Then he stood up and told Stevie to be quick then, if he was coming.

Stevie had to trot to keep up with his father's stride once they got outside. He didn't know what time it was, but it was dark, and he was a bit muddled then, from being out so late; being asleep first, and now awake. Stevie was just glad of his Dad next to him, the size of him, walking down the empty streets. He thought they were going to his Gran's place, only then they cut across the waste ground where the flats had been razed last year, so he reckoned they must be going to buy beer first.

He saw puddles in among the foundations, all rippled in the wind, and then the cold air got in through his tracksuit. He'd pulled it on over his pyjamas, because his Dad had said to hurry, and all the bed-warmth was out of him, before they'd even got to the corner.

Stevie was still cold in the snooker club, standing, chittering next to his father, while the barman bagged up the carry-out. Still dazed too, Stevie gazed about the long, dim room and empty tables; at the pictures on the walls, of red lions and Rangers and the Queen. There were more pictures behind the bar: a long line of photos in frames, all of a flute band in full uniform with Pride of Drumchapel painted across the big skin of the ba.s.s drum.

Stevie had never been in here before, but he knew his Dad came to watch away games on that big screen above the bar. Stevie had heard his Mum grumbling about it to his Gran; how she had a good mind sometimes to come down here and haul him out. All his brothers have Sky, so why can't he go to theirs? The bag of cans was paid for, and Stevie tugged his sleeves down over his palms, thinking they should be going. Only then the barman poured his Dad a pint, and threw in a packet of crisps: "You can stop here for one. Let your wee boy there warm up a bit."

They sat down at one of the tables by the wall, and Stevie's Dad didn't seem in a hurry now. So Stevie ate half the crisps, and then he shuffled along the bench, closer to his father's warm legs. He didn't much like this half-lit place, and he couldn't think what they were doing here in the middle of the night; maybe they were waiting for his Mum to haul them home. Stevie wanted her to come, but he hoped she wouldn't shout when she did.

His Dad shifted a bit when Stevie climbed up onto his lap; he put down his pint. But he didn't stop him, didn't shove him away, or shout, or anything, and Stevie was glad he wasn't so angry any more. They sat there like that, alone at the table and quiet, his Dad with one hand on his gla.s.s, the other next to him on the seat, a fist. Stevie got warm there after a bit, and drowsy, even if his Mum hadn't turned up yet. Maybe if he went to sleep, just like his Dad said. He put his head under his father's chin, a neat fit. His Dad still had his parka on, unzipped, and Stevie had his eyes shut by that time, but he felt him, pulling it around them both.

Other men came in and joined them. Stevie couldn't tell how much later, and he couldn't wake up enough to make out their faces, but they knew his Dad anyhow. The bell went and they bought him pints, and Stevie saw more red lions on their T-shirts, and red hands this time too. Pride of Drumchapel. But none of them had their sons with them, under their coats, so Stevie thought maybe they hadn't seen him; his small face the only part of him showing, just under his father's collar, dozing; thinking his Mum would come and they could go home.

Eric was not long out of bed when Lindsey buzzed. He watched her climbing slow up the close, and he saw the washed-out look about her too, like she'd hardly slept.

"I've been at Brenda's."

She looked like she'd been crying. So Eric read between the lines: there'd been a falling out.

"Does my sister know you're here now?"

Lindsey shook her head.

"What about Graham?"

"I've not been home yet."

Eric made Lindsey tea, black and sweet, and then he sat with her, quiet in the kitchen. Not a day for dreams of elsewhere, or for looking at drawings: tea and sympathy was what the girl needed.

The phone rang, out in the hall.

"That'll be for you." Eric nodded to Lindsey, while he got up to answer. He never got phone calls himself. "They've tracked you down, hen." He tried a smile. "You want to speak to him if it's Graham?"

Lindsey shook her head again, but it turned out to be Brenda in any case: all hoa.r.s.e with concern.

"Is she with you? She's at yours now, isn't she?"

She'd thought Lindsey had gone home when she saw the bed was empty, only then Graham came calling.

"He got Stevie tae school, an then he came lookin for Lindsey. Tail between his legs."

Eric watched Lindsey blink while he relayed the news, verbatim, her face softening a little as she heard about Graham repentant. She called out from the kitchen: "Ask Brenda if he's okay. And where he is now."

Brenda heard her anyhow: "I tellt him tae go tae work, hen."

She said it loud, and then Eric held the receiver out, so both of them could hear her.

"I said tae him I'd find you, Lin. An I'd be tellin you tae keep at him."

Lindsey smiled at that, even if she was still teary with it. Brenda told her: "You keep tryin, aye? You'll find another flat. Graham just needs pushed sometimes, so he does."

Lindsey nodded, she came out of the kitchen and took the receiver. The two women talked, and Eric only caught half of what was said, but even so, he thought they'd make some united front, Brenda and the girl.

He made Lindsey breakfast, and after she got off the phone, she told him about the flat she'd found; just a little, but enough for him to see the disappointment. Lindsey stayed sitting for ages after she'd finished eating, chin in hand, her eyes turned inward. Until Eric asked her: "What you gonnae do, then?"

"Go home." She sighed. And then she smiled, resigned. "Fetch my boy from school. Put the tea on for when Graham gets in."

She was going to keep trying.

15.

Ewa's phone call had Jozef fretting. He shouldn't have been so short with her: how was that going to help?

They were into the last few days of June now, time to start on the ground floor, so Jozef got himself up early to keep from brooding, packing up his clothes and his paperwork, ready to move upstairs.

He'd moved to wherever the work was for however long now, he couldn't count. Jozef had grown up thinking he'd build ships like his father, and shift the world on its axis, but he ended up building houses. The strikes had wrought change, but not enough jobs to go round, so he'd learned his trade, needs must, back and forth across the German border, and he'd been doing that a decade before Ewa came to join him. She was twenty-three then, and that seemed so young now to Jozef; she'd be thirty-two in just a few weeks.

They'd gone from house-sits to bedsits and flats, in Hamburg, Berlin, then Birmingham and London. Ewa finding cleaning jobs that were well beneath her station, and Jozef making plans. He was going to buy or build them their own place, back in Gda"sk: nothing grand or world-shaking, but enough to count for something. He'd secure a good life in the new freedom, for him and for Ewa. But he wouldn't do it like they did in the West, he decided, with debts above their heads: he'd told her if they had to work like this, then they would save hard too, while they were young, so they wouldn't have to work so much later on. They'd have a family, and enjoy life properly then. He worked with enough men who only saw their children when they'd sc.r.a.ped enough together for a week or two back in Poland; his own father had been a photo on the mantelpiece for so many years of his boyhood, it was something he didn't want to emulate.

It had felt right, and it had seemed as though Ewa felt that too, for all that she cried sometimes about her jobs, and about being so far from all her sisters. She'd cried hardest every time one of them had another baby.

Jozef would go out for wine then, or Belvedere vodka; Ewa always knew the Polish shops that sold the right stuff to toast a new life. They'd sit up late and talk it out, through Ewa's tears: what they were doing here. And where next. And how much longer. They'd talk and talk, until at some stage in the small hours, he'd persuade her into his arms.

That was the way it had always been with them: work and tears and then tenderness to make good. They could have the biggest rows, and then still carry on, finding jobs and the next new place to go to. That was the life they made together, and Jozef had trusted it.

He didn't know now: Ewa was so young when they'd left, maybe she'd trusted it at first. But then all that hard work had made her grow up. She'd come away with him thinking it would be for three years, or four at the outside. Ewa had just got to grips with German when she had to start learning English. She'd taken cla.s.ses, found friends among the Walworth Road Polish, even a Warsaw couple rich enough to have her as a nanny. Much better than cleaning, those twin girls; Ewa taught them all the Polish songs she didn't get to sing to her nieces.

It was their seventh year away when London jobs began to run dry. Friends were moving on, some were even going home, following the turning tide of work, and Jozef had felt that pull too, but couldn't trust it. He hadn't secured them that house yet, hadn't worked his way high enough up the pay grade. What if they bought a place, only to have to leave again to afford it? It was a job half done, so when Ewa asked, he'd told her: "Not now. Soon, soon."

Jozef had been so intent, on work and the bringing in of funds, he'd not seen the change when it came, until it was upon them. Ewa didn't shout or cry when he landed his first job in Glasgow. It was his first in charge, but she told him: "Don't you open your arms to me."

She stood and counted on two hands all the people they knew who'd gone back to Poland, and she was quiet and resolved, refusing to pack up.

"Not unless it's to go home."

Her sisters all had children, all her school friends, and Ewa told him: "Look around you, even the London Polish have kids, they don't put off their lives."

She said: "This is a half-life we're living. It's not worth it."

Jozef shifted his boxes alone this time. Early on Friday, to have it done for when the men arrived. So he was on his own and feeling low in the ground floor when Marek turned up.

His nephew surprised him, coming in ahead of the others, and lending a hand with the last of his cases, unasked, up the stairs to the first floor.

"Is this what I'm paid for?"

Jozef was in no mood to respond. But Marek was a distraction at least. And Jozef remembered it had given him hope, when Ewa had asked if he'd take him on; another one of her phone calls, seemingly out of nowhere. She could have turned to Romek, or any number of other friends in London and Berlin, so it had felt as though a door was being kept open, maybe. You watch out for yourself, too. Okay?

"Is this all?"

Marek looked around Jozef's new room when they'd finished, surprised that there wasn't more for him to fetch. Or perhaps that these few boxes were all his uncle had to show for all those years of work. It looked pitiful to Jozef as well: so provisional, this stop-gap room and single bed, and scant belongings stored in cardboard. He had his savings, of course, and life hadn't been quite as bare when Ewa was with him; she'd been the one who bought things, made each new place look lived-in. But it still threw him. Jozef had reckoned on putting things in storage before he went to Gda"sk, only looking about himself now, taking stock, he saw it would all fit in his van; not much more than what he'd come with. It was a relief when his mobile rang with the first of the day's deliveries.

Most of the materials for the ground floor were due that morning, and Jozef went outside to meet the truck with the new boiler on board. Tomas was due to do the fitting, but he wasn't there yet to check through the order, so Jozef handed Marek the delivery notes.

"I am paying you to learn."

Marek squinted at them while the driver unloaded, laughing at Tomas's cramped script.

"Is that a two or a seven, do you think?"

Jozef didn't rise to the bait. But then his nephew picked up on some parts that weren't right; a set of thermostats.