Part 10 (1/2)

Through a gap, Aurek sees Peter and his father standing together.

'Why don't you crawl in with him?' Peter's father says.

'Dad, you know I can't fit through that gap. Hey, Aurek! You coming out?'

Aurek considers what to do. He'd like to see Peter, but it's not easy to change out of his pig shape. He can't bring himself to be a boy just yet.

He watches Tony Benetoni grinning at his mother. He can see the man's slicked s.h.i.+ny hair, his large nose, his white teeth in his open mouth. Peter is sucking on a pink stick of rock. Aurek hears his mother apologizing and watches them walk away. He grunts, snarls, lets out a yell and rolls over in the dirt like an animal in pain.

After they have gone, Silvana puts the flowers Tony brought in a jam jar on the windowsill, arranging them for a while, s.h.i.+fting first one dahlia and then another as if she is organizing a complex colour scheme, when in reality they are all white.

She can't remember the last time anybody bought her flowers. In her grandmother's village, dahlias were always known as bachelor's flowers. Giving white ones was a single man's way of telling a girl he liked her. She allows herself to dwell on this and then dismisses it as ridiculous. Of course he wouldn't know about Polish traditions.

She had white flowers for her wedding, an armful of peppery-scented carnations. Ja.n.u.sz's father had grown them in his garden. She moves the flowers from the windowsill onto the kitchen table and climbs the stairs with a cup of tea for Ja.n.u.sz.

'Are you awake?'

Ja.n.u.sz stirs in bed and sits up, yawning.

'I'll be glad when I don't have to work the night s.h.i.+ft any more. I don't like sleeping in the afternoon. Did I hear voices downstairs?'

She puts the teacup down, perches on the edge of the bed and thinks of the flowers again.

'Tony brought Peter to play with Aurek. But Aurek was in the shelter at the bottom of the garden and refused to come out. Tony and Peter left a minute ago.'

'I wish Aurek would be more polite. That boy is the only friend he's got. I think I'll get rid of the shelter.'

'Is that Aurek's punishment?'

'For his behaviour at school? No. I'm not going to punish him. I thought I'd knock down the shelter and build him a tree house.'

'A tree house?' Silvana smiles. 'He'd love that.'

'Where is Aurek now?'

'Still in the garden. Why?'

'Because I want you all to myself for a moment.'

He kisses her, pulling her down onto him.

'You're all I want,' he whispers. 'You know that? You and the boy.'

His eyes are so blue and clear, they s.h.i.+ne with a kind of truth that shames her.

She closes her own eyes and silences him with a kiss, pressing against his warm body, but memories circle her, like wolves in a forest, the same ones that attack her in her dreams. She moans and Ja.n.u.sz misinterprets the sound for pleasure. He pulls her under him and she wills her body to follow his. Only her mind lags behind. She clings to him and her body curves to his shape, grat.i.tude moving her towards a place of unexpected desire. A place where her memories leave her alone and she is briefly full and whole, just like she was before the war.

'Thank you,' she says afterwards.

They are lying side by side, breathing heavily.

'What do you mean?'

She wonders at it herself. What is she thanking him for? For making love to her? Or for helping her forget, no matter how fleetingly, the memories that live under her skin?

'I don't know. For finding us, I suppose.'

She gets up, wrapping the sheet around her, and lifts the curtain to look out into the garden, checking Aurek is still safe.

'I love you,' says Ja.n.u.sz, sitting up and reaching for his cigarettes. She turns and looks at him.

'Thank you,' she says again, and they both laugh.

'Come back to bed.'

She folds herself into his arms and watches him smoking, a small smile playing on his lips.

I love you too, she thinks, and closes her eyes.

Later, when Ja.n.u.sz has gone to work, Silvana slides an arm into the shelter like a cat searching for a mouse. Aurek strokes her hand. She catches hold of his fingers and pulls him through the broken wooden boards, her hands cupping his head, drawing one shoulder then the next through the gap until finally his legs slip out onto the damp gra.s.s. He cries out, and when she has him in front of her, slimy and wet with mud, she holds him tightly to her.

'You don't have to hide any more,' she whispers. 'This is a new life for us. We are safe here with your father. I promise.'

She feels his grip relax and realizes with a soaring sense of grat.i.tude that she actually believes what she is saying.

The next day Ja.n.u.sz dismantles the shelter, pulling and pus.h.i.+ng, digging sharp-edged metal out of the soil.

'Do you want a hand with that?' Gilbert Holborn is looking over the fence.

Ja.n.u.sz shakes his head. 'I've nearly finished. I'm making more room for flower beds.'

'Oh, yes, quite right. Out with the old, eh? Mind you, Doris won't part with ours just yet. We had plenty of sing-songs in it, me and her and Geena. Our Anderson shelter is a firm favourite. Crazy, innit?'

'Yes,' replies Ja.n.u.sz, mimicking Gilbert's country vowels. 'Crazy, innit?'

'And what about your son?' says Gilbert. 'What's he going to do now he's not got a den to play in?'

'I'm going to make him a tree house.'

'That's a beautiful tree,' says Gilbert, looking towards the oak. 'Must be hundreds of years old, I reckon. Not many houses around here have got trees like that in their gardens, I can tell you. And you're right. It's perfect for a tree house.' He pulls out a packet of cigarettes and offers one to Ja.n.u.sz. 'A tree house and and a flower garden. That'll keep you busy. I've got some dahlia tubers you can have, if you're interested. We've got a club going, shows and whatnot. You could join us if you wanted. Where were you based before, Jan? In the war, I mean. I was in the Home Guard myself.' a flower garden. That'll keep you busy. I've got some dahlia tubers you can have, if you're interested. We've got a club going, shows and whatnot. You could join us if you wanted. Where were you based before, Jan? In the war, I mean. I was in the Home Guard myself.'

He pa.s.ses a box of matches over the fence and Ja.n.u.sz takes them, lighting his cigarette in cupped hands.

'I moved around. Scotland, Kent, Devon. Engineer corps.'

'Bit of fun that was, I imagine. Next time you need a hand, let me know.'

'Thank you, I will.' Ja.n.u.sz tries to think of something else to say, something to keep this conversation with his neighbour going. 'I know a friend of yours,' he says. 'Tony Benetoni?'

'Tony the Wop? Ah, now he is a real gentleman. I haven't seen him for quite a while. And he spoke about me?'