22 Britannia Road Part 19

He looked into her eyes. She smiled, shrugged her shoulders and kissed him.

'Don't look so worried,' she said when she pulled apart from him. 'I know I can't keep you.'

Ja.n.u.sz allowed himself to think of being lost. Of being forgotten up there on the hill. Weeks pa.s.sed. Helene told him love was something that n.o.body could guard themselves against, and he liked to believe her. She visited him at night, slipping naked between his sheets.

'We should be careful,' he whispered, though the thought of her carrying his child was pleasurable to him.

Helene sighed and stroked his forehead. 'Don't worry about that. I can look after myself.'

She climbed across him the next morning. He lay in bed and watched her go into a small back room, fingers of sunlight reaching in through the half-opened shutters and playing patterns across her long back, her short strong legs. She left the door slightly ajar so he could see her bent over, one foot up on a tin bath, talking to him about vinegar and lemon-juice douches. He'd never met a woman like her.

Ipswich

'Bellissima' is the first word Tony says when Silvana opens her front door. She blinks at the sound of his voice, as if someone has shone a dazzling light in her eyes.

Tony lifts his hat and smiles.

'Silvana, it's wonderful to see you. What a lovely dress. You're a woman made to wear beautiful clothes. If only you could have met Lucy. She loved fas.h.i.+on. But how are you? Doris told me you had the flu a while back? I hope you're better now. You certainly look radiant.'

She'd forgotten how broad he was, taking up the door frame with his size. Her first instinct is to throw her arms around his neck. Then, when he mentions his dead wife, she folds her arms across her chest instead. He steps back and Peter comes into view, carrying paper bags in his fists.

'I've got sweets,' he says. 'Liquorice wheels and humbugs.'

Tony laughs. 'We bought out the sweet shop, didn't we, Peter?'

She smiles at the plump, red-faced child. 'Why don't you go up, Peter? Aurek is waiting for you in his bedroom.'

'I'm sorry I haven't seen you for so long,' says Tony as they watch Peter climb the stairs. 'I have a house in Felixstowe by the sea, and I've been there. Peter's grandparents got him into private day school, so I'm afraid he hasn't seen Aurek for a while, has he? Anyway, here.' He lifts up a string shopping bag. 'I brought you a birthday present. A bottle of Tokaji and a fresh rabbit.'

'Tokaji?' It's been years since she saw a bottle of Hungarian wine. 'We had Tokaji at our wedding party,' she says, turning the bottle over in her hands. 'It's very generous of you. And rabbit will make a change from horse meat. I find I can get nothing else at the moment. It's a lovely present. Thank you.'

'A pleasure.' Tony lowers his voice. 'How are you? I mean, really?'

'I'm sorry,' says Silvana, desperate to change the subject. 'I haven't asked to take your coat. Here, let me help you.'

She almost cries out when his hand brushes against her wrist, and she is glad she has put the wine down because she would surely have dropped it.

'Oh, it's heavy,' she says, taking a handful of coat. Was it an accident, that touch, the way his fingers rested on her skin? Is she imagining things?

'This is wool, no? It's the quality of cloth that is important.' She can hear herself babbling like an idiot, but silence would be worse. 'So, here is your coat and I... I haven't seen you since... since...'

'The park?'

'Yes, that's it.' She sighs. It is remarkable, she thinks, how this man can always finish a sentence for her.

Tony leans towards her. 'I didn't want to make your life more complicated so I '

'h.e.l.lo, Tony!'

Gilbert is standing at the parlour door.

'Gilbert, good to see you.'

'Well, are you coming in for a drink?' says Gilbert, laughing. 'Or are you having a top-secret chinwag out here?'

'We were just coming,' says Silvana, and she follows Gilbert into the front parlour, Tony close behind her.

'Tony,' says Doris through a haze of cigarette smoke. 'We haven't seen much of you for a while. You up to no good again? What're you selling under the counter today? Snow to the Eskimos?'

'h.e.l.lo, Doris. No, I don't think they're rationing snow yet. Ja.n.u.sz, I was just saying to Silvana, I have brought you a rabbit. And a bottle of wine to go with it.'

Silvana watches Ja.n.u.sz's face crease with pleasure as he takes the bottle in his hands. 'Tokaji? Silvana, have you seen this?'

'Wine, is it?' says Gilbert. 'Very posh. I prefer a pint myself.'

'Or a nice gla.s.s of cider,' says Doris.

'You might prefer vodka,' says Tony. 'Next time. I have contacts at the docks. The sailors bring things in to sell. I'm sure I can get you vodka.'

Ja.n.u.sz holds the bottle out to let Gilbert and Doris look at it.

'No, no. I like this wine very much. We'll keep it for a special occasion. We're drinking sherry tonight. Would you like one?'

'Better not get the babysitter drunk,' laughs Doris.

'I'll put these things in the kitchen,' says Ja.n.u.sz. 'Silvana, can you pour our friend here a drink?'

'No, not for me,' says Tony. 'Doris is right. If I'm babysitting, I had better keep a clear head.'

'Oh, a cup of tea perhaps?' Ja.n.u.sz says. 'With a currant bun?'

'No, nothing. Thank you.'

Silvana watches the way Tony smiles at them all. He should be a politician. He has all of them eating out of his hand. And her, too. He leaves and then comes back into her life as if she is a doll he can pick up and put down at will.

'I'll have a top-up,' says Gilbert. 'Rabbit, eh? I haven't had rabbit for quite a while. Doris, you used to do a lovely rabbit ca.s.serole. Do you remember?'

'Gilbert, sometimes I wonder if you look at what you eat. We had rabbit just last month. Got it from a lad that works over at Chantry Park.'

'How could I forget? You had any luck getting potatoes lately? Doris queued outside the Co-op for hours the other day.'

'Hours, I stood. Doesn't it craze you? We fought Hitler for six years and had all the spuds we wanted. End of the war comes and not a spud in sight. We've not even got proper fish for fish and chips. I tell you, things can't get worse.'

'How do you manage to run that car of yours, Tony?' Gilbert asks. 'You still getting your petrol on the black?'

It is always the same talk. The shortages of this and that and the government letting people down. Sometimes Silvana imagines herself telling them to shut up. To put a sock in it, as Doris would say. To belt up good and proper.

'Liverpool are at the top of the first division,' says Tony, who appears not to have heard Gilbert's question. Silvana notices how carefully he changes the subject. Ja.n.u.sz comes back into the room.

'What do you think?' Tony asks him. 'Do you support them?'

'I prefer cricket,' says Ja.n.u.sz.

'I'm an Ipswich Town fan myself,' says Gilbert enthusiastically. 'Got to support our local lads. They're the middle of the third division and climbing. They'll give Liverpool a run for their money one day.'

Tony laughs. 'I won't hold my breath.'

'Ah, you wait. When I win the football pools I'll buy Ipswich and train them myself.'

Doris looks at her watch. 'We should go. No more football talk, please, gentlemen. We don't want to miss the beginning of the film.'

And then they are all gathering up coats and out of the door, an icy wind hitting them full in the face. Silvana turns to look at Tony. He doesn't meet her gaze. Ja.n.u.sz steps up beside her.

'It's very decent of you, Tony. We appreciate it.'

'Yes, yes we do,' Silvana says.

'Have fun, children,' says Tony jovially, waving them away.

Silvana looks up at the bedroom window. Aurek has pressed his face to the gla.s.s.

'I think Aurek wants something,' she begins to say, but Doris takes her arm firmly.

'Come on, Sylvia. You've got to leave him sometime. Let him grow up.'

A night out without Aurek. The first since they arrived in Britain. She doesn't know if it is leaving the boy or the way Tony brushed his hand against hers, but even in all her splendour, her new dress and gloves, she feels exposed and vulnerable.

Ja.n.u.sz is wearing his demob suit, the one he was wearing when he met her at the train station, a single-breasted jacket and trousers with turn-ups. He looks handsome. A good man, solid and respectable.

'Smile,' he says. 'You look as though you are in pain.'

'I don't like leaving Aurek.'

'Why? What could happen? This is a good town. We're safe here.'

'Sometimes I don't feel safe.'

'Well, you should. I'll get a promotion at work soon. There's a man retiring and I'm in line for his job. I've worked overtime and extra hours to make sure I get it.'

'Think you will?' asks Gilbert, coming up alongside them. 'Sorry, couldn't help overhearing. Think you'll get it then?'

'I don't see why not. I work hard. I deserve it.'

'That's just it, isn't it? You foreigners work too b.l.o.o.d.y hard.'

'We finish when the work is done.'

'That's why you're unpopular. It upsets the system.'

'In the mood for a film?' says Doris loudly, and Silvana sees the way she jabs Gilbert in the ribs with her elbow. 'And I want to watch it all, Gilbert Holborn, so don't even try to get me to sit at the back with you.'

'Me?'

'Yes, you,' says Doris. 'You won't get me sitting with the courting couples. I'm too old for all that.'

They are going to see Top Hat Top Hat. It's an old Fred Astaire musical, and Silvana's choice. Gilbert says he'd rather see a war film, but Doris reminds him it is Silvana's birthday treat, not his. The four of them walk through town, past Woolworths and Lipton's with its pretty green-tiled shopfront, Smith's the butcher's, the dry cleaner's and the chemist, towards the Odeon cinema.

'There was a dirty great crater here,' says Doris as they pick their way along a temporary path of gravel with muddy earth either side of it. 'A parachute mine right at the end of the war. They filled the hole in pretty quick. It looked like someone was trying to build a tunnel right through to Australia. A ruddy great hole. It was a miracle n.o.body was hurt.'

The Odeon is a grand-looking building with long windows like a church and lots of peeling pink paint. Gilbert tells them all how he was one of the workers that built it back in '29. Doris shows them shrapnel damage on the front steps, and Ja.n.u.sz and Gilbert follow the pockmarks on the stone, bent over like doctors examining old scar tissue. Silvana just wants to get inside. It has been years, too many years, since she was last in a cinema.

Inside, a blue neon light glows and thick velvet curtains drape over ribbed plasterwork. An usherette in a neat-fitting navy suit with white piping and a hat to match takes their tickets and shows them to their seats.

'I was one of those,' Silvana whispers to Doris.

'What?'

'An usherette. In Poland. That was my job before I married.'

'Really? Not a big cinema like this though?'

'A beautiful cinema,' says Silvana. 'And the usherette uniforms were smarter. You see that girl? She has holes in her stockings and her jacket is too tight.'

Doris purses her lips. 'Give her a chance. We had a war here, you know. Mend and make do...'

'Do you remember my uniform?' Silvana asks Ja.n.u.sz, whispering to him in Polish.

He answers her in their mother tongue. 'Burgundy with gold ribbons on the sleeves. You looked wonderful in it.'

'The uniforms were much better in Poland.'

Ja.n.u.sz is quiet for a moment. 'Yes,' he says. 'I think you are right.'

'So you had cinemas all over Poland?' Doris asks.

'Everywhere,' says Ja.n.u.sz. 'Much bigger than this one.'

Silvana is grateful to him for defending her memories. She can't stand the way the English think everything they have is bigger and better. If you listened to Doris, you'd think wild bears ran through the ruined streets of Europe.

The moment the red curtains part and the screen comes to life, Silvana is entranced. The story is simple. Fred and Ginger are in love. Anyone can see it except for them. Every word that falls from their lips is the wrong one, and they argue their way through the first two-thirds of the film. Finally, just when it seems they have really lost each other, the right words come to them and the truth tumbles out.

'I love you,' says Fred Astaire. 'Despite everything.'