22 Britannia Road (38 page)

‘Oh,’ she says, pulling the door wider.

Peter’s grandmother steps inside without being asked. She takes off her gloves and looks around at the hallway, its polished floors and vase of flowers on the table.

‘So Tony has finally got this place cleaned up,’ she says.

Silvana notices Aurek standing at the end of the hall watching, and motions to him to come and stand beside her. She blushes and holds her hand out.

‘I am Mrs Nowak,’ she says. ‘I’m the housekeeper. And here … here is my son, Aurek.’

‘I know who you are,’ says Peter’s grandmother, ignoring Silvana’s outstretched hand. ‘I think you know who I am too. I used to see you walking your son to school. You can call me Moira. I’m Tony’s mother-in-law. And this is Peter’s friend? Hello there.’

She fishes in her handbag and brings out a small paper bag.

‘Peter tells me you like sweets. Come along, young man. I’ve brought you a bag of sherbets.’

When Aurek refuses to come forward, Moira simply holds the bag out. Silvana is sure she is going to drop it and so she reaches out for it, grabs it like a ball suddenly thrown in her direction. She puts the paper bag on the hall table and in the moment it takes her to do it, she sees the old woman seize the chance to look at her. There is a strong sense of curiosity in her eyes, and surprisingly a look of nervousness too. Silvana has no idea why this woman is here. Should she tell her Tony is in Ipswich?

‘Peter says they are friends, the two of them?’

‘That’s right.’

Moira puts her gloves in her handbag. ‘He’s shy, isn’t he? My Peter is a very sensitive child too. Goodness, it’s a frightful day. Far too hot. Could you make me a cup of tea? I’m absolutely parched.’

Silvana serves the tea in the front room. Moira has half closed the curtains so that the sun drives only a blade of light across the room.
She stands in the shadows, sharp and immobile as a piece of polished furniture, and her voice rises out of the folds of the curtains.

‘Tell me, can you play cards?’

‘I haven’t for a long time.’

‘You never forget. Pour the tea and then sit down and have a game with me.’

Moira is a canny player. They have a hand of rummy and then whist (she teaches Silvana the Portland Club rules), and Silvana teaches her how to play mizerka and tysiac, both card games she used to play in Poland.

Several hours pass and the sun tracks round so that Silvana is obliged to open the curtains to let the afternoon light bathe the room. Moira has just won another round and looks flushed with her success.

‘Tony is like a son to me,’ she says, apropos of nothing. ‘I’m not used to him being so busy with his life. He usually spends more time with us. You know we brought his son up? Peter is our only grandson. My daughter died when he was just a baby.’

So this is what the old lady has come to talk about. Her family.

‘Tony has told me how much you care for Peter,’ says Silvana carefully.

‘Has he? Did he tell you we bought my daughter this house as a wedding present? It’s in Peter’s name now, did you know that? Tony doesn’t have a penny in it.’

Silvana turns over her cards. She has lost again.

‘Yes, I know that,’ she lies. She is not going to let the old lady think she is a fool. She wonders if Moira knows about London, that Tony has already put money down on a flat. Does he talk to her about these things?

‘The thing about Tony,’ says Moira, flicking her cards face up, ‘is that he is too kind. People take advantage of him.’

Silvana takes the pack, reshuffles and deals herself another dreadful hand. She stares in dismay at it.

‘So tell me about yourself,’ the old lady says, laying a pair of queens down. She smiles pleasantly. ‘I gather you are married?’

Silvana blushes. ‘That’s right.’

‘Are you going to be staying here long? Has Tony discussed properly your terms of engagement with you?’

‘My terms of
engagement
?’

‘Yes. You are the housekeeper, aren’t you?’

‘Well yes, but I …’ Silvana casts around for something to say. Something to stop this conversation. She will not let this woman get the last word.

‘Tony has asked me to stay indefinitely,’ she says. ‘Those are his terms of engagement.’ She’d like to add that he wants to pretend they are married too, but she stops herself.

The old lady lays her cards on the table. Silvana picks up another card. For once luck is on her side. She almost laughs out loud. She can’t lose this time. Not with a hand like this. She lays her cards in front of her and looks at Moira.

‘I’ve won.’

Moira clears her throat, gathers up the cards, sits back in her chair and begins to shuffle them. ‘We’ll play another, shall we?’

She deals the cards, picks up her own and studies them.

‘Marriages are awkward things, my dear, but one must stick at them. Has Tony talked to you about the summer holiday?’

Silvana hesitates. She says nothing and Moira doesn’t seem to notice. The old lady carries on talking.

‘We have relatives in Sidmouth. Normally Tony drives us down there for a fortnight. Peter adores the West Country.’

Silvana tries to remember if Tony has mentioned this before. If he did, she can’t remember it.

‘I know all about the summer holiday,’ she says.

Moira puts her cards down and smiles at Silvana.

‘Do you? Then you’ll know that Tony says he can’t come with us this year. Apparently he is too
busy
.’

Silvana picks up a card. A queen. She studies Moira’s face, the sharp grey eyes, the neat mouth. If only she hadn’t answered the door. If only she had hidden and waited for the woman to leave.

Moira continues. ‘Of course, I would have thought that selling his pet shop would mean Tony has more time on his hands, not less. Wouldn’t you agree?’

Silvana says nothing. She waits for the old woman to make her move, but Moira folds her cards into the pack and reaches across the table for her hat.

‘I think I’m a little tired now. I have to get the train back to Ipswich and I can’t stand catching the six o’clock. There are always far too many people.’

In the hallway, Silvana sees the bag of sweets is still there. She hopes Aurek is not making nests in the last bales of cotton sheets Tony has stored in the kitchen. When Tony gets back, she will tell him the sooner they move to London the better. She opens the front door and steps outside, letting Moira walk past her.

The afternoon light is golden and the heated air carries the drifting scent of drying seaweed. Bareheaded girls and freckled boys run across the sands, turning cartwheels, tightrope-walking along the narrow wooden groynes of the beach, avoiding the war defences that are still there, the jumbled rolls of barbed wire heaped in rusting mounds. Silvana watches the scene for a few moments.

‘Lucy always loved the sea,’ Moira says, as if remembering some specific day.

She turns to face Silvana. ‘I hope Tony manages to come to Devon with us. It would be such a shame if he didn’t get to spend some time with his son this summer. Quite unforgivable.’

‘I don’t know,’ says Silvana. She will not be bullied by Moira, and she is tired of these conversations. ‘Perhaps you need to speak to him yourself. I’m only the housekeeper here, after all.’

‘Yes. That’s true. You are just a housekeeper. Perhaps I was mistaken.’

Moira steps onto the pavement and looks up and down the road.

‘By the way,’ she says. ‘The way you wear that blouse with the silk skirt? It’s not very pleasant to see another woman in Lucy’s clothes, but I have to concede that they suit you. You’re about the same size as she was.’

She gives the road another sweeping glance and steps off the pavement.

‘I can see why Tony likes you. You do resemble her in a way.’

Silvana feels a chill run through her. Even with the sun beating down on her, she shivers. She follows the old woman.

‘What did you say?’

‘The blouse with the skirt. Lucy never wore them together.’

‘I think you’ve made a mistake,’ Silvana says coldly. She has had enough of Moira and her haughty ways. ‘These are my clothes. Tony bought them for me.’

‘Really, I knew I had to come. This has gone far enough. You are wearing my daughter’s clothes. But you know very well. Must you act so stupid? Has he given you the mink? I do hope not. It was a present from us.’

‘The mink? With the brown silk lining?’

Silvana can feel her legs giving way under her.

Moira is halfway across the road. A car moves slowly between them both, and her black hat with its single pheasant feather is all Silvana can see of her.

Silvana steps back onto the pavement. She steadies herself. Touches her throat, feels the tiny pearl buttons of her blouse, moves her hand away quickly, as though she has been burnt.

In the kitchen she washes the teacups, swirling her hands in soapy water. Aurek comes in carrying a handful of large white feathers.

‘Where have you been?’

‘On the beach.’

‘Well, don’t go off on your own like that. I was worried about you.’

He pulls on her skirts until she stops what she is doing, wipes her hands on her apron and turns round.

‘What is it you want? Something to eat?’

‘Home,’ he says, handing her the feathers.

‘What about home?’

Aurek looks up at her, his face dark with freckles.

‘When can
we
go home?’

‘You and me. We’re a home. We’re survivors, remember?’ Silvana puts the feathers in her apron pocket. ‘Thank you for these. You used to bring me feathers. When we lived in the trees. Do you remember?’

Aurek shrugs his small shoulders and she wonders if he doubts her. Is it possible he knows she is not his mother?’

‘I love you,’ she says, and feels at least, in that, she is honest. There are no lies in her heart. And what is she thinking? Of course she is his mother.

That night, Silvana sits with him in the front room, watching the sea, glad of the peace in the house. When Aurek falls asleep on her lap, she carries him upstairs and tucks him into bed. She goes into her bedroom and reaches for the newspaper cuttings under the pillow. It is time to let the children go.

She opens the window, and the sea wind that always blows catches them. Each slip of paper flies away, the wind snatching them from her fingers. She doesn’t know what she and Aurek will do, but they cannot stay in Felixstowe any more.

She changes into the dress she arrived in, the dress Janusz bought her. The one thing she owns that did not once belong to somebody else. Sitting on the bed, she goes over everything. It is clear to her now.

She will make a life on her own with her son.

Ipswich

It is Janusz’s duty as foreman to see the aisles empty of men leaving their night shifts before he is free to go. Often he stays far longer than he needs to, enjoying the few moments before the next shift clocks on and the factory starts up its work. He likes to see the machines quiet and the air clear. Despite the brief lack of workers, a muggy feeling persists in the bays like the breath of a sleeper against his collar, and it makes him part of something. It’s a great thing for him, this sense of belonging to a workforce.

He talks to the nightwatchmen before he leaves, a polite discussion on the weather and the football before he reluctantly walks out into the cold morning air, the dawn sun streaking the sky with red light.

He tells himself he walks home rather than taking his car because these summer mornings are too beautiful to miss. The truth is, it takes a good forty minutes to walk home. Forty minutes before he has to confront his empty house once again.

Opening his front door, Janusz sees the postman has already been. A letter and a postcard lie on the red-tiled hallway floor. He stoops and picks them up. The letter is an electricity bill. Nothing interesting there. He looks at the card. A black-and-white picture entitled ‘View from Wolsey Gardens’.

He turns the postcard over in his hand and almost drops it in surprise. The handwriting is terrible. It’s a small wonder it arrived at all. The address is barely legible. The 22 looks more like squiggles than numbers. The B of Britannia balloons over the rest of the letters, obscuring half of them.

There is no message, just a spidery signature.
Aurek Nowak.
The boy’s name. He feels light-headed seeing it there in print. His child’s
name. The postmark is Felixstowe. Posted three days earlier. Janusz holds it tightly in his hand. He is tired after his night shift and his body aches for sleep, but his mind is turning too fast. He goes into his kitchen, makes himself some tea and sits at the kitchen table. He drinks tea and looks at the postcard again, rereading it over and over, marvelling at it.

Felixstowe

‘I know Moira’s been here,’ Tony says when he arrives that night. He looks wary and unsure. Silvana means to be calm. She means to talk sensibly. She holds out a handful of Lucy’s clothes at him. The look on his face says everything she needs to know.

‘How could you!’ she yells, throwing them at him. ‘How could you lie to me?’

He picks up a blouse, folds it carefully, turns his brown eyes to her. ‘They are just clothes.’

‘No, they’re not. They are
Lucy’s
clothes.’

‘Silvana, don’t be like this. You know I love you, don’t you?’

‘Who?’ she demands. ‘Who? Me or Lucy? You lied, damn it! Who do you love? Me or a dead woman?’

She regrets saying it the moment it leaves her mouth. Tony stares at her, wringing his hands.

‘Can we go to bed?’ he asks. ‘I’m tired. Let’s talk tomorrow. Come to bed now. It’s late. Please, just come to bed and let me hold you.’

‘No.’

‘Love me. Come to me, please.’

‘Throw the clothes away,’ she says.

‘Throw them away?’

‘Burn them! Get rid of them. Get them out of the house.’

‘I can’t …’

‘You have to.’

She sits on the bed watching him move armfuls of dresses. He looks broken, as if he is carrying away the body of his dead wife wrapped in layers of silk and cotton and jersey. She pities him, but
she cannot bring herself to tell him to stop. When the wardrobe is empty, he stands waiting for his next instruction, but she turns on her side, pulls the covers over her head and feigns sleeps.