22 Britannia Road (31 page)

Janusz ignores him. There have been complaints among the workers since he was made foreman. A foreigner in charge. And Janusz has been hurt and surprised to find Gilbert sometimes behaving bitterly towards him.

‘It needs a bit of work. A few things need sorting out, but nothing too difficult.’

‘I bet your boy will love it when he sees it,’ says Doris. ‘They went off with Tony this morning. I saw them go. I must say, I think it’s very good of him, the way he takes them out so often …’

‘I was thinking of getting a car,’ says Gilbert.

‘Were you indeed?’ Doris tuts loudly. ‘Don’t be so bloody daft. You spend all our money on beer, fags and the pools. Was it local, Jan?’

‘From the other side of town. Do you want to see inside, Gilbert?’

Janusz unlocks the door and both men sit in the front seats, examining dials and checking the interior.

‘You know our Geena is seeing a lad from Romford,’ says Gilbert. ‘Don’t tell Doris, but from what Geena says I think it’s pretty serious. I thought it’d be good to have a car. If he does pop the question, she’ll be living over that way. We could visit them on the weekends. I’d like to do a bit of touring too. Mind you, Doris says she prefers buses.’ He runs a hand over the dashboard. ‘And you’ll be hard pushed to get petrol at the moment. You should ask Tony. He’d be the man to ask. He can get you anything.’

Janusz lets his hands rest on the steering wheel. He’ll go to the council offices and find out what he is entitled to. He doesn’t want to get anything on the black. It’s not his style to break the law. He adjusts the rear-view mirror and imagines driving away down the hill.

‘Tony? Yes, I might ask him, but I think if I’m careful I’ll be able to manage.’

‘Would you two like a cup of tea and a biscuit?’ Doris asks, leaning in the open window on the driver’s side.

‘I could murder one,’ says Gilbert.

Janusz nods. ‘Yes, please.’

They both get out of the car and walk around it one more time. Gilbert pats Janusz on the back.

‘You lucky beggar, eh? No hard feelings. Why shouldn’t you be foreman? You work bloody hard. But that’s the thing I don’t get with you foreigners. I suppose you’ve got no other life.’ He walks away into the house, still talking, his back to Janusz. ‘We don’t want to work all God’s hours.’

‘I just want to do a good job,’ says Janusz. ‘If we can produce more, then the …’

Janusz is about to follow Gilbert inside for a cup of tea when he sees Aurek running up the street. The boy looks like he’s crying. He’s stumbling as he runs. As he comes nearer, Janusz can see his tear-stained face clearly. He looks like he’s had a fall. His shorts are sticky with mud and his shirt is stained with green.

‘What’s happened?’ Janusz demands, but the child sinks his head into his stomach, fists banging against him.

Janusz bends down. ‘What is it? What’s happened? Why are you covered in mud? Aurek? Tell me. Has someone hurt you? Who hurt you? Where’s your mother?’

What Aurek has to say knocks the breath out of Janusz.

‘I don’t understand. Say it again. Slowly.’

Aurek repeats the same story.

‘You’re sure?’

‘I saw them.’

Janusz lets go of the boy. He feels the blood rushing in his ears.

‘Are you coming in?’ Doris calls from somewhere in the house. ‘Do hurry up, the tea’ll get cold.’

Janusz takes Aurek by the hand.

‘Don’t worry. Stop crying. Not a word. All right?’

‘The lad had a bit of a scare in a tree,’ he explains when they step into Doris’s front parlour. ‘Nearly fell, apparently.’

Doris ruffles Aurek’s hair.

‘Where’s your mum, then?’

‘She’ll be back soon,’ explains Janusz. ‘He’s come home ahead of the others. Isn’t that right, son?’

Janusz keeps a steady eye on Aurek, who says nothing. Doris gives Aurek a slice of bread and jam and his favourite toy tractor to play with. Janusz drinks brown tea and eats biscuits. He talks about gearboxes and spark plugs and how to dismantle four-stroke engines. And all the while, his own heart creaks and stutters, like an engine that’s sprung an oil leak.

‘I think I’ll take the boy home,’ he says, standing up.

‘Tell your Sylvie to give him a bath when she gets back,’ says Doris. ‘He’s muddy as a dog in winter.’

Janusz doesn’t bother to wash the mud off Aurek. He puts Aurek to bed in his clothes and tells him to stay in his room. The child strokes his hand, and Janusz kisses him lightly on the forehead.

‘We’ll be right as rain. Don’t worry. Now, you get some sleep and I’ll be downstairs.’

He doesn’t know what to do, so he stumbles into the garden and begins to weed the beds. That is what he tells himself he is doing, but he keeps breaking flower heads and treading on favourite plants. He is clumsy and careless, but it feels good to crush petals and green stems underfoot.

What a fool he is. It’s probably been going on for months. He never once thought that Silvana could do something like this. How could he have been so blind?

He tries to pull up a dock weed, but its roots are stuck hard in the soil and he steps back onto a clump of his favourite irises, grinding them under his heel. One thing he is sure of: she won’t take his son away. Tony will not bring up his son.

‘You all right?’ Gilbert is looking over the fence. ‘Jan? You OK, mate?’

‘I’m very well,’ says Janusz.

‘Your missus home yet?’

‘No. But I’m expecting her. She’ll be back soon, thank you.’

He bows slightly and turns to go into the house, flattening a bed of lady’s mantle as he goes.

In the kitchen he searches out the bottle of wine Tony bought them. He’d like to throw it away but he needs a drink right now, and why not drink the man’s wine? He opens it, drinks a glassful and finds it tastes bitter. He pours the wine down the sink and stumbles outside again, down to his potting shed, where he sits on the floor and puts his head in his hands. The smell of pig iron from work clings to his skin.

He looks up to see Gilbert standing over him.

‘Are you really all right?’

‘No,’ says Janusz. ‘I’m a bloody fool.’

Silvana begs Tony to drive her home.

‘I have to find Aurek,’ she says. ‘I have to find him before he sees Janusz.’

Tony stops at the bottom of the hill so that nobody will see her get out of his car. She says goodbye to Peter, who is sitting on the back seat, looking scared, the weight of what has happened that
afternoon pressing on his shoulders, making him slump. He looks fatter than ever with his fists balled on his lap and his face swollen with tears.

‘I want to go to Grandma’s,’ he moans.

‘Stop that crying, Peter,’ snaps Tony. ‘Silvana, will you be all right?’

‘Yes. Take Peter home. Please just let me go.’

‘Look, I can come with you, explain the boys made a mistake …’

‘No. I want to go home alone. I’ll be fine.’

‘I’ll be at the pet shop,’ he says as she gets out of the car. ‘Silvana, I’ll be there if you need me. Silvana?’

‘Yes,’ she says, walking away. ‘I’ll be fine.’

She is feeling anything but fine. Her legs tremble and her eye is weeping and she bows her head, hoping nobody will see her walking stiffly up the hill.

Earlier she was carrying a picnic basket and walking with Tony and the boys in the woods. Now her world has fallen in. She should have gone home with Aurek straight away. Going back to the flat above the pet shop had been a big mistake. Her knee starts to ache and she begins to limp.

She will tell Janusz the truth. She will do what she should have done that first day they arrived and he met her off the train. It’s as simple as that. No more lies. Oh, for somebody to give her advice!

Janusz will see what a gift Aurek is to them. He will see that the boy must be cherished and kept safe. They can move if he wants. Move away and start again somewhere. No more Tony. None of it. She stops outside the house and takes a deep breath.

There is a car parked outside, and she wonders who it belongs to. Her first thought is that they must have company, but she dismisses that quickly. They don’t know anybody. She pushes the door open. 22 Britannia Road. This is her home. Though what sort of a welcome will be waiting for her she has no idea. She nods at the bluebird in the door, as if it might offer her some kind of luck, and walks through to the kitchen, where she finds Janusz sitting at the table with Gilbert and Doris.

Silvana knows what she must look like. Her eye is swollen. She
has a cut on her cheek. Her dress, the one Janusz bought her, is covered in green mossy stains and rips. She tries to tidy her hair a little and her fingers find a twig. She decides to leave it where it is. She knows she looks stupid enough, outnumbered in her own kitchen, without conjuring bird’s nests out of her hair.

Doris is the first to speak.

‘So you’ve come back, have you? Why didn’t you stay with your fancy man?’

‘Janusz, where’s Aurek?’

Doris glares at her. ‘Now you ask? His father put the poor little mite to bed.’

Gilbert looks flushed and uncomfortable. ‘Doris, I think we should be getting home.’

‘I’ll go when I’m good and ready.’ She dusts her hands across the front of her apron. ‘The poor little kid. Filthy trick, if you ask me. And to think I felt sorry for you.’

Silvana ignores Doris. She will not be intimidated in her own home. Not while it still is her home, at least. She turns to Janusz. He avoids her gaze.

‘That poor child,’ insists Doris. ‘Thank God he’s got a father is all I can say.’

‘Calm down, Doris,’ says Gilbert. ‘There’s no need for any trouble. I’m sorry, Jan. We’re just going.’

Doris makes a snorting noise, pursing her lips. She allows Gilbert to take her elbow and guide her out of her seat. Silvana steps aside to let her pass.

‘I understand you all right,’ Doris whispers. ‘Oh yes, I’ve got you figured now. Family planning, my foot.’

‘Doris!’ Gilbert pushes her hard.

‘I tell you what. You won’t get away with this. This is a respectable street. You’ll get your comeuppance, you’ll see.’

‘Doris!’ Gilbert says sharply. He avoids Silvana’s eyes. ‘We’re just going.’

The front door slams and Silvana can hear them arguing outside. She sits down at the kitchen table.

‘I don’t know what Aurek said, but it wasn’t how it looked.’

She knows it sounds weak even as she says it. She tries again. Hopes she sounds more convincing.

‘I was scared and Tony tried to comfort me.’

Janusz folds his arms. ‘Scared,’ he says. ‘What of this time?’

‘Aurek nearly fell out of a tree. I thought I was going to lose him. I have a right to be scared. The world is dangerous, Janusz. Maybe not for you, but for me. I feel it every day.’

Janusz still won’t look at her. She tries to follow his gaze, and in desperation picks up her chair and places it in front of him.

He runs a finger around his collar. Stares at her coldly.

‘How long has this been going on?’

She has to tell him the truth, pull the words out of herself, force them to come. It feels like she is dredging something long-dead from a river.

‘I have to tell you. About Aurek.’

‘What about him?’

‘After you left us in Warsaw I got on a bus out of the city. Aurek was ill. Do you remember how he always picked up colds? He couldn’t breathe properly. He cried all the time. When the bus broke down I followed women and children and old people. Everybody was walking.’

Janusz reaches for his cigarettes and matches. ‘This has nothing to do with Tony –’

‘It has everything to do with us.’

Silvana stops talking. She gets up and closes the kitchen door. What she has to say must not be overheard by Aurek.

‘I gave Aurek to another woman to carry. I was tired. I shouldn’t have done it. I thought it wouldn’t matter, not just for a minute or two. Then I heard the planes. They flew over us and one of them crashed. There was an explosion. I should have kept him with me. I should never have let him out of my sight.’

She stops to get her breath. Now she has Janusz’s attention her courage is failing her. Perhaps she should stop here? Tell him yes, she kissed Tony, and leave it at that. Better to be known as an adulteress than a mother who failed her child.

Hot tears run down her face. How can she explain that she has
been living with loss since the day her son slid from between her legs in a stranger’s home – or that loss colours every memory she has ever had or will have. Loss fills her heart: it is there in the trees, in the rattle of the leaves in the wind and in the living, mysterious body of a child she has grown to love. A child she calls Aurek.

‘I tried to find him. I was confused. I called his name. I was frantic. I found the woman, but she was dead. Our Aurek was beside her.’

‘I wrapped him in my coat and rocked him. I don’t know how long I stayed like that. I got up and started walking. After a while I sat down again. But he was still cold.’

‘For God’s sake.’ Janusz slams his hand down on the table. ‘What the bloody hell is this about?’

The violence in his words hurts.

Silvana sits back in her chair, her head in her hands.

‘I just wanted him to have a proper family. He loves you, anyone can see it. I’ll go. I’ll leave. Be a father to him, that’s all I ask.’

‘What are you taking about?’

‘Our son,’ she says, knowing she is about to hurt him more than he could ever hurt her. ‘I’m trying to tell you. Our son died. Our real son. He was dead when I found him beside the woman.’

Janusz is wide-eyed. His mouth twists, as though she has forced him to taste something bitter. She stops an urge within herself to reach out to him. Her touch would revolt him.

‘You’re lying.’

‘How could I lie about that? Our son was dead in my arms. I didn’t know what to do. I got up and walked with him, and then I heard a baby crying. I followed the sound and I found a child in a wooden handcart. He was around the same age as Aurek. He stretched out his arms to me. He needed me, you see? He chose me. He was crying all alone and it was me that heard him. I’m sure he had no one. He’d been left in a big pile of blankets and my boy … our baby, he was dead.