Part 30 (1/2)

'Can you pa.s.s me that spade, please?'

'She and the boy are in Felixstowe you know. Doris saw them.'

Ja.n.u.sz feels the blood rush to his face. He stops what he is doing.

'She saw them?'

'Apparently.'

'And?'

'She said they looked all right.' Gilbert pats Ja.n.u.sz on the shoulder. 'I don't know what went on, but Doris seemed pretty fired up. You know how she is when she gets the bit between her teeth. She told me they're moving away.'

'Moving?' Ja.n.u.sz can't hide the panic in his voice.

Gilbert sounds unsure. 'Well, I know Doris can be p.r.o.ne to exaggerate.'

'Where are they moving to?'

'Well, that's just it. Doris won't say. Stubborn as an ox, you know. She took it all very badly. Says Sylvie betrayed her trust. But look, why don't you go and see the boy while you can? I could get you the address.'

Ja.n.u.sz thinks of the postcards he has. He's driven past the house but never dared stop. The thought of seeing Silvana with Tony haunts him. He's not sure he would be able to cope with it.

'I already have it,' he says firmly. 'And I don't want to see them. Not if Silvana is happy with Tony. Let her have what she wants. Why do we even need to talk about this?'

Gilbert sighs. 'All right, I hear you. I won't go on. Listen, is it legal, taking trees like this? They must belong to someone.'

'They're only saplings. They're wild. No one wants them. s.h.i.+ne that torch over this way.'

'Tell me again, then,' asks Gilbert. 'Why do we have to do this in the dark if it's legal to take them anyway?'

Back home in Britannia Road, Ja.n.u.sz unloads the trees, heels them into the earth in the garden, cleans the car and then finally goes into his house and locks the door.

In the bathroom he takes off his clothes and washes himself, slowly, head down like a man caught in the rain, staring at his feet. When he closes his eyes, he swears he hears Silvana coming up the stairs, Aurek playing in the hallway. The house is haunted by the sounds of his wife and the child. And if what Doris says is true, that they're moving away, then there's no hope. He grabs a towel and rubs himself dry.

Let them go, he thinks as he dresses. He's not the one to blame. He may have sent them away, but she is the one who did the damage. He has nothing to reproach himself for. Nothing at all. If she chooses to go, then he can do nothing to stop her.

He walks into the boy's room, tidies the books on the shelf. He smooths the bedcovers and straightens the picture on the wall. Then he sits on the bed, puts his head in his hands and weeps.

Silvana

The s.h.i.+p put into port in England on an early tide, pus.h.i.+ng through darkness and fog. Silvana had arrived in a land of clouds. Everywhere was covered in a smoky fog that banded across the landscape and blurred the shapes of buildings. She concentrated on watching her feet and the backs of the crowds in front of her as she moved slowly down the gangplank in the thick shuffle of bodies.

Land was a shock after so long at sea. As the crowds disembarked and their feet hit solid ground, Silvana and Aurek staggered and rolled like people stepping off a fairground ride, unable to walk in a straight line. They were moved along in winding queues and handed ident.i.ty cards. Aurek was given a pair of red leather rollerskates tied together with their own laces. A man laid them over his shoulder and Aurek sagged under their weight.

Silvana looked at the boxes of skates and toys in front of her.

The man smiled. 'Does he like them?' He pointed at the skates.

Aurek was struggling, trying to take them off his shoulders.

He tipped up a box towards them. 'Why don't you have a look?'

The box of toys had teddy bears and jigsaw puzzles, tin cars and dolls. A small wooden rattle sat on top of them. Plain and polished. Silvana grabbed it. The man laughed.

'Is that what you want? He's a bit old for baby stuff, isn't he?'

Silvana shook her head. She took the rollerskates off Aurek's shoulders and gave the boy the rattle. She thought of her father, of the carved rattle he had made for her and how she had kept it. What had happened to it? Had she left it behind in Warsaw? She couldn't remember and didn't want to. She looked at Aurek and smiled.

'This is yours. Do you understand? It's a magic rattle. You keep it very safe now and it will bring you good luck.'

She closed his fingers over the handle and held them tight for a moment. When she let go, she saw the white imprint of her own fingers on the boy's hand. He held the rattle to his chest and nodded at her, his eyes big and dark with belief.

And still the journey wasn't over. They were herded towards a waiting train crowded with people from the boat. As they pulled into London, Silvana hoisted Aurek onto her hip, holding him tightly. The train rumbled and clanked and came to a stop with a hissing of brakes. Doors began to bang open and the sound of shouting, of people calling each other and children crying, filled the air. She joined the queues to leave the train and finally got to an open door. She hesitated. The station looked huge. A guard on the platform held out his hand.

'Come on then, miss. Down you get.'

Silvana stepped down from the train. She straightened her headscarf and looked around at the crowds, trying to see Ja.n.u.sz among them.

'We're here,' she whispered, as much to herself as to the boy. 'We're here.'

Felixstowe

Silvana is lying awake in her bed, listening to a summer storm. There are loud rolls of thunder and the rain pelts the streets outside her window. She can hear Tony s.h.i.+fting in his bed, the bed springs complaining. He is a terrible sleeper, she concludes. For so many nights now she has listened to the sound of him, the slam of his body turning over on the mattress, an arm flung across the sheets, the feathery punching of his pillows, the frequent sighs.

She gets out of her bed and pulls on a dressing gown. She is well aware that he wants her. And now Ja.n.u.sz has gone, and she has given up hope, there is little reason for them both to lie awake trying, as Tony says, to be decent human beings.

She forces her feet into a pair of slippers that are too tight. Tony produced them out of a box for her a few days ago: black Chinese silk embroidered with red, pink and peach roses threaded through with a leafy green st.i.tch that might be ivy.

Padding quietly across her room, she opens the door, crosses the small landing and goes into Tony's room. There is total silence apart from the rain outside. Is he holding his breath? She can hear nothing. Thunder grumbles and a flash of lightning lights the room for a moment. She steps towards the bed. Tony is visible briefly in the flash of lightning, his head on the pillow, lying on his back, hands folded across his chest. She stands over him and breathes in the warm smell of him.

'Are you awake?'

'At last,' he says.

'Tony?'

'At last.'

He seems to grow larger, rising out of the bed so that she thinks of him as a bear, his huge shadow covering her in darkness. She takes a sharp intake of breath and then he has his arms around her, his lips on her neck, damp kisses while he pulls her nightclothes off her. He picks her up and lays her down on the bed, naked except for her slippers, which, try as she might, she cannot take off.