22 Britannia Road Part 4

Franek sniffed. 'And full of szkops szkops. Overrun by Germans.'

Ja.n.u.sz turned to Bruno. Already he preferred the older man to this boy with his hurried speech and uncoordinated limbs.

'But how did it all happen so quickly? What date is it?'

'October 8th,' said Franek. 'My mother's birthday. I wanted to send her a postcard, but Bruno says we'll have to do it when we get to France.' He nodded at the freshly turned earth behind them. 'What are you doing up there? What're you digging for?'

Ja.n.u.sz looked at the old woman's grave. He had no wish to tell them the truth.

'I was burying a dead dog. If you're hungry you'd better come this way. I can find you something to eat.'

He led them to the cottage, thinking about what they'd said. Had he really spent over a month here? He glanced back at the mound of earth. A ma.s.s of flies still buzzed above it. How he hated those insects. If it was already October, the coming Polish winter would soon kill them, and he'd be glad. The old woman would be able to rest in peace. Then she might finally stop haunting his dreams.

'Come in,' he said to the men, holding the door open. As they entered he realized he was glad they were there. He'd been alone too long.

Ipswich

Aurek has his own room. His mother told him it was just for him, and he wonders what he's going to do with it. He doesn't understand why he can't share with her, why she has to sleep in another room where he is not allowed. He pulls his sheets into a ball, drags his eiderdown up to the headboard of his rickety iron bed and makes a nest. He'd rather sleep under the trees. He misses the feel of the shelter he and his mother squeezed into for so long.

With his knuckled spine pressed hard against the wall, sheets twisted around him, his eyes follow the upward tilt of hundreds of small grey aeroplanes flying in formation across the b.u.mpy walls. There is a dark wardrobe he won't open in case a man with an axe is hiding in it, and a bookshelf with heavy-looking English books stacked on it. The one thing he likes is the picture on the wall; a black-and-white print of puppies crowded into a basket with ribbons around their necks. That's the image to concentrate on when the night comes and the wardrobe starts mocking him for sleeping alone.

He climbs out of the muddle of bedclothes, takes a leap past the wardrobe, and is up on the windowsill, face against the window.

There are other houses across the way, red brick with outhouses just like this one and long rows of gardens where was.h.i.+ng lines flash and billow. The tree at the bottom of his garden is covered in new leaves tight as children's fists. It's a perfect tree for climbing and already a towering friend to Aurek. He can almost smell the earthy, beetle-sh.e.l.l scent of its bark and he longs to climb into its branches.

But he can't go into the garden. His mother is down there, kneeling in the earth, planting seeds. The man she says is his father is working alongside her, digging a trench for potatoes. That's the man who has taken his mother away from him.

The gla.s.s is cold against Aurek's cheek.

'You're not my father,' he breathes, a circle of mist appearing on the windowpane. 'Pan jest moim wrogiem. You are enemy enemy.'

In the garden, Ja.n.u.sz stops his work and wipes his face with his sleeve. He looks up at the sky, and Aurek wonders if he has heard his whisperings and is considering what he said. As Ja.n.u.sz slams his spade into the ground and begins turning over the soil again, Aurek leaps back onto the bed, pulling the covers over him.

Beyond the closed knot of his folded limbs, he is sure he hears the wardrobe door creak. He is shot through with fear. He huddles deeper into his nest and croons to himself, a soft birdsong to keep the enemy away.

In the first few months, Ja.n.u.sz struggles to find an order to their life. He leaves home early for work and when he returns, he teaches Silvana and Aurek English. They read together and then listen to the radio, mimicking the crystal-clear accents of the presenters.

He's surprised and pleased at the way Silvana picks up the language. She looks better week by week. Her skin is still pale but she has put on a little weight and he's hoping she will soon lose the watchfulness in her eyes, the constant look of mistrust. What he hadn't bargained for was the amount of time he would spend teaching Silvana and Aurek not to do things. Not to take a bath in their clothes. Not to fidget when they listen to the radio. Not to steal vegetables from the allotments by the river. After coming home from work several times to find the front door open and the house empty, he also teaches them not to wander off into the town and spend hours getting lost. Aurek has to learn not to hide food around the house; that it belongs in the kitchen. He must not go into his parents' bedroom. Ever. Nor must he touch his mother's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Ever. That's something Ja.n.u.sz has lost his temper over, sending the boy wailing to his room. The boy also learns not to bring animals of any description into the house after Ja.n.u.sz finds a nest of harvest mice wrapped in a tea towel in his bed.

'You have to get used to living in a house again,' says Ja.n.u.sz. 'Put the past behind you both. The war's over. This is peacetime. A new start for us.' He tries to soften his voice. He is aware that he sounds harsh. 'I know it's hard. You must miss Poland. I did too, to begin with.'

He watches their faces: his wife's nervy stare, the boy's silent eyes, blank as carved stone.

'There's a club in the town. A group of twenty or so Poles like us. Displaced people who have ended up living here. Some of them have children. You could speak Polish there, make some friends...'

'No!' Silvana replies, and he is surprised by the fierceness of her response.

'I don't want to see any other Polish people,' she says. 'They'll just remind me of what I have lost.'

'What we've both lost,' he replies, and she turns away from him, as if he has said something stupid.

Ja.n.u.sz brings home pamphlets. They have pictures of smiling families waving British flags on the front of them. He reads to Silvana from a booklet called 'Learning the British Way of Life'.

'Home Entertainment for Foreigners' brings a smile to his wife's face when he shows it to her. It has a picture of a housewife holding a tray of tarts on the front page. The woman's frilled ap.r.o.n rises up around her ears like the fluted ruff of her pastry.

'How to Learn British Manners' is Ja.n.u.sz's preferred reading. The ill.u.s.tration on the front cover is of two men shaking hands and lifting their hats to each other. Ja.n.u.sz insists they read it together.

'There are ways of doing things here,' he says. 'You need to learn them if you are going to fit in.' He clears his throat, lifts an imaginary hat from his head. 'Good morning, Mrs Nowak. How do you do?'

'How do you do?' Silvana repeats dutifully, a small smile playing around her lips.

'Lovely weather for the time of year.'

'Yes, eezn't eezn't it.' Silvana giggles. it.' Silvana giggles.

Ja.n.u.sz's eyes crease at the corners. 'Yes, eezn't eezn't it.' He laughs a little. it.' He laughs a little.

Silvana bites her lip and concentrates. 'Lovely vezzer,' she repeats, her voice breaking into laughter.

'Weather.'

'Vezzer. Wehhzer?'

'Wait a moment,' says Ja.n.u.sz. He comes back from the kitchen with a bottle. 'I got this today. It's called sherry. You should try it. It's what they drink here.'

Silvana takes the gla.s.s he offers.

'Oh, no, no. You mustn't drink it down in one. It's not like vodka. Here they sip it slowly and say, "Chin chin. G.o.d save the King."'

It is sweet and cloying, but they drink the bottle dry and dance around the room, the wireless playing Glenn Miller, Aurek lying on his back on the rug, making small, off-key noises to himself. Ja.n.u.sz puts a porcelain bowl on his head and pretends it is a bowler hat, while Silvana waves an umbrella in the air. Their voices are loud and full of laughter.

Swinging Silvana around in time to the music, Ja.n.u.sz thinks they must look to the outside world like a couple of newlyweds. People who have never been touched by the war. He holds her close and feels... young. A young married man. A husband and a father. Something he has not felt for a long time. He will make up for the years they have spent apart. The war and all its horrors will be forgotten in this house. He has been given a second chance. It's all falling into place, this new beginning. Yes Yes, he thinks, as he watches his wife's face. This is a lucky house. And if it wasn't before, it is now This is a lucky house. And if it wasn't before, it is now.

Most nights the dreams still come to Silvana. She cannot stop them. Being with Ja.n.u.sz has brought her to a kind of calmness, and yet his nearness brings back memories that she has kept from herself for years. Memories that threaten to undo her. Their son before the war; Ja.n.u.sz's parents' garden with its smooth lawns; Eve playing her violin for Aurek and his delighted, high-pitched laugh. It was there Aurek had taken his first steps, the child grinning with a smile only Ja.n.u.sz could have given him, father and son inseparable as a cloud's reflection in a lake. Memories like this seem to pour out of her, and she finds herself crying for those lost days.

Her dreams are dark and terrible. Her son is swimming in unfathomable waters, and try as she might to save him, he always slips from her grasp, falling back into the inky depths. She wakes, trying to sc.r.a.pe the skin from her fingers, thinking of lost children, the groups of homeless street kids she saw, the orphans at the camp. Where are they now? Still searching for their dead parents? She cannot get the children out of her head. They haunt her nights. And all the women searching for their babies call to her in her dreams, begging her to help them.

She knows she disturbs Ja.n.u.sz with her night frights, but he says nothing. He is quiet and patient, but already she wonders whether he regrets bringing her to England. It is surely not the reunion he must have had in mind. Have they both made an awful mistake?

One morning, she knocks on the door of Doris, the neighbour who always waves h.e.l.lo, the only one in the street who acknowledges them at all.

'I need to learn how to be a good British housewife,' says Silvana, smoothing her hands over her ap.r.o.n front, trying to ignore the way Aurek is pulling on her sleeve. 'Can you help me?'

'Show you how to be a housewife?' says Doris with a look of surprise, as if Silvana has asked her the daftest question she has ever heard. 'Come on in, dear. Bring the little lad in too. I've got some toys he can play with.'

Doris is hard to follow. She bustles around, filling the coal scuttles, beating rugs, was.h.i.+ng curtains, counting her housekeeping money. She scrubs her kitchen floor on all fours, bare-armed, sweating with exertion, tendrils of red hair sticking to her forehead. When it's finished, she grabs a basket of wet clothes by the back door and strides into the garden, where she hangs the was.h.i.+ng out with deft precision, shaking Gilbert's overalls into shape, slapping the creases from wet sheets, already talking about peeling potatoes for the evening meal. Keeping up with her is like trying to run after a departing train.

According to Doris, a good housewife should keep her home clean, do her was.h.i.+ng on Tuesdays, her ironing on Fridays, make sure there's bread and jam on the table at weekends and bake Victoria sponges on high days and holidays. Surely Silvana can do these things.

In her own home, Silvana spends hours wandering through the rooms in a daze. She forgets to fill the coal scuttles and doesn't find the need to sweep or dust. When she makes the beds she often lies down and falls asleep on them.

Ja.n.u.sz doesn't give her housekeeping money. He says he is waiting until she understands pounds, s.h.i.+llings and pence. The money is strange, the notes bigger than Polish currency, the coins thicker. And she'll never get used to ration books, no matter how often Ja.n.u.sz explains them to her.

Ja.n.u.sz is a good husband. More than she deserves. He takes her shopping and teaches her the names of household goods: corned beef, flour, Pear's soap, Bovril. He patiently writes her shopping lists in English and stands next to her when she reads them to the man behind the counter at the greengrocer's, correcting her when she makes mistakes.

'I want to buy flower seeds,' Ja.n.u.sz says in Woolworths. They are looking at rows of brightly coloured seed packets. Silvana can recognize some of the flower ill.u.s.trations, but the English names mean nothing to her.

Ja.n.u.sz hands her a packet with a brightly coloured picture of an orange flower on it.

'Coreopsis. A few years ago, I saw a garden in Devon filled with them. And look at these hollyhocks what a lovely red colour. Do you like them? Lady's mantle grows well in this country. The English use it for ground cover. What do you think? Is there anything you would like to plant?'

Silvana studies the packets, their rich designs, the showy flowers they promise.

'Herbs,' she says. 'I'd like to plant herbs.'

She searches the bright packets, looking for an ill.u.s.tration of a delicate white flower.

'Do they have czosnek? czosnek?'

Ja.n.u.sz frowns. 'Garlic? No, I don't think so. The English don't like strong flavours. But how about mint? Or parsley? That grows well here.'

Silvana is distracted by Aurek, who has picked up a brown paper packet of beans and is rattling it against his ear. He begins to hum and dance, twirling around, tapping a rhythm on the wooden floors, grinning at the sound the dry seeds make. People are beginning to stare.

'Come on,' says Silvana, taking the packet from him gently. 'Stop making all that noise.'

'Do you want to choose some flower seeds?' Ja.n.u.sz asks him. 'You can help in the garden too.'

Aurek shakes his head. He waves his arms slowly and sways. 'Trees,' he croons. 'I want trees.'

Silvana can see Ja.n.u.sz is confused by the boy's behaviour, so she leads Aurek outside and waits in the street while Ja.n.u.sz pays for the seeds. By the time Ja.n.u.sz joins them, he has a smile on his face again and the earlier red flush of embarra.s.sment in his cheeks has gone.

'Let's look in the jewellery shop,' he says, taking Silvana by the arm. He wants to buy her a wedding ring, but the salesman tells him there is a national shortage. Too many weddings going on and not enough gold. Silver, yes, but not gold.

'We're already married,' Ja.n.u.sz tells the salesman. 'This is our son.' He takes Aurek by the shoulders. 'Surely you must have a gold wedding ring you can sell us. Can I see the manager, please?'

The manager is a long-faced man with a dirty s.h.i.+rt collar and worn cuffs. He comes out of his office shaking his head with a kind of weary patience that suggests they are not the only people who have asked him for the impossible that day.

Ja.n.u.sz explains again that they are married. Silvana stands beside him, trying to look like a good wife, clutching her wicker shopping basket to her as though it's a velvet evening bag. She watches the manager's polite disinterest in their marital history, Ja.n.u.sz's confusion when the man tries to sell them a watch instead.

'We'll wait,' Silvana says as they step out onto the pavement. 'I don't mind waiting. I don't really need a ring.'

She sees the stiff set of Ja.n.u.sz's mouth and knows she has said the wrong thing.

'I really don't mind,' she says, pressing her hand into his. 'I have you and Aurek. All I want is that. Let's go home.'

Walking up Britannia Road, they pa.s.s a parade of women kneeling outside their front doors as if on prayer mats, heads bent towards their stone steps. Their ap.r.o.ned hips swing in almost perfect unison as they buff their steps to a s.h.i.+ne. It's a sight that makes Silvana feel awkward, all those backs turned to her as she walks past.

'Morning,' calls Doris when they stop outside their home.

'You've got to polish your steps,' she explains, standing up. 'It's a matter of pride around here. You need a donkey stone. Don't ask me why it's called that. All I know is how you keep your front door shows how you keep your home. You don't want everybody thinking they're better than you, do you?'

Silvana nods uncertainly. 'Donkey stone?'

'Put your hand out. That's it.'

Silvana turns the stone over, examining it as if she has been handed a piece of rock from Mars.

'Come on then, you have a go.'

Silvana kneels and rubs the stone against the step. It's a pleasant movement, the stone running circles over the step, an ice skater tracing patterns in the ice. Even the noise is like the sound of skates cutting through watery ice, a soft crunch and a whoosh as it glides in arcs under her hand.

Doris runs her fingertips over the step.

'Well. You did a good job there. That's one thing you can say. Don't you worry, dearie. You'll soon fit in. Keep the stone. Look after it. It's a good one.'

Ja.n.u.sz slips his arm around Silvana's waist.

'My wife has always been very house-proud,' he says to Doris.

Silvana looks sideways at him. Had she really? She can't remember, but she's pleased to hear him talk like this.

'We lived in Warsaw before the war, you see. A beautiful city. It was known as the Paris of the east.'

'Was it now?' says Doris. She laughs loudly. 'Well, Ipswich is in the east too, but I don't think it's quite gay Paree Paree. I'm glad I saw you in any case. Gilbert told me to tell you there are jobs for women going at one of the textile factories by the ca.n.a.l. All you've got to do is sew in a straight line. I thought of you, Sylvia. You should get down there quick.'

'Me?'

'Well, yes. It's a good job. Not like the munitions factories I had to work in during the war. See this yellow colour on my face?' She turns her cheek briefly to Silvana and it's true: there is a dirty yellow tint to her skin. 'That's from filling sh.e.l.ls. I cover it up with a bit of panstick but it's still there. I did my bit for the war effort. n.o.body can say I didn't.'

'It's very kind of you to help us,' says Ja.n.u.sz. 'Very kind. Aurek will be going to school soon and we have been thinking about finding work for my wife. We'll go down to the factory today.'

Silvana can't remember any conversations about finding her a job.

'School?' she says, and feels her legs go weak. 'Aurek has to go to school?'

Poland

Silvana