Part 32 (1/2)

'Home,' he says, handing her the feathers.

'What about home?'

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

'When can we we go home?' go home?'

'You and me. We're a home. We're survivors, remember?' Silvana puts the feathers in her ap.r.o.n 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 s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 Ja.n.u.sz 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 Ja.n.u.sz's duty as foreman to see the aisles empty of men leaving their night s.h.i.+fts before he is free to go. Often he stays far longer than he needs to, enjoying the few moments before the next s.h.i.+ft 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 night.w.a.tchmen 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, Ja.n.u.sz 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 ent.i.tled '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. 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. Ja.n.u.sz holds it tightly in his hand. He is tired after his night s.h.i.+ft 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. 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. Ja.n.u.sz holds it tightly in his hand. He is tired after his night s.h.i.+ft 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 Lucy's clothes.' clothes.'

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

'Who?' she demands. 'Who? Me or Lucy? You lied, d.a.m.n 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.

She wakes early the next morning, her dress crumpled and creased. She opens her eyes and feels a cool sense of determination. She slides out of bed, slips her feet into her shoes and picks up the headscarf lying on the table. Lucy's house. Peter's house. Tony's house. Anybody's house but hers.

'Silvana?'

Tony is sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, looking at her. His eyes are red rimmed and his face is sunken. An empty whisky bottle rolls on the floor at his feet.

'Where are you going, Silvana?'

He has a rough blue shadow of stubble on his cheeks, and his clothes look as crumpled as hers. He obviously hasn't slept at all.

She rubs her face. 'For a walk. And you? When are you going to Devon?'

'I don't have to go...'

But he will go with his son and parents-in-law. He will go to Devon. Of course he will. He belongs with them. Not with her. He knows that. And he knows it is over already between them. The moment she told him she knew about the clothes she saw it in his face. Like a film coming to an end and the lights going up.

He looks at her pleadingly, his brown eyes watering, and she understands finally what that look means. The longing in his face, the desire she always thought was aimed at her. It is the longing of a man who desperately wants what he cannot have. She knows it herself. They are united in this at least: the overwhelming desire to find the dead in the living.

She wants to tell him she is no better than him. Didn't she take a child in order to pretend her own son was still living? That's what she did. The film is over for her too. Aurek is not her dead son. He is a boy who needs loving for who he is. And Silvana is not Lucy.

'They want me to go tomorrow,' he says heavily. 'We'll be away for two weeks. You'll be here, won't you, when I get back?'

'I don't know,' she answers. 'I'm going for a walk on the beach. Do you want to come?'

Tony shakes his head. 'I have to make a delivery. Those cotton sheets. I've finally sold them. I'm taking them over to a hotel in Ipswich this morning. Say you'll be here when I get back?'