Part 32 (2/2)

She doesn't answer. She can feel the distance between them now. Overnight, a s.p.a.ce has grown between them.

'We'll talk more this afternoon,' he says, and she hears him trying to recapture the confident tone that his voice usually contains. His hands shape the air. 'I must get up. Get on with things. I'll see you later. Have a good walk.'

Downstairs, the kitchen is glowing with sunlight even though it is early. She turns her chair away from the window while she drinks a cup of coffee.

Silvana washes the cup, dries it and hangs it on the wooden cup tree that stands beside the sink. She sweeps the floor, opens the pantry door and tidies jars, packets and tins so that all their labels face her. Then she does the same with the pots and pans under the sink, handles facing inwards just like Ja.n.u.sz's mother used to arrange them in her kitchen. She wants to leave things in good order.

At the front door she breathes in the sea air, steps outside and looks up to the bedroom window. Aurek is sitting there, watching the seagulls. He waves at her and she waves back.

'I won't be long. Don't go anywhere. I want you there when I get back.'

She walks on the deserted beach. She begins to run, soft sand spray flying up. Her red headscarf flutters around her face, and she runs until she has no breath left and has to stop, hands on her knees, waiting for her heart to slow down and her breathing to come back to normal. Finally, she stands up, takes a deep breath, climbs the concrete steps onto the pavements above the beach and walks back towards the house.

Ja.n.u.sz is driving slowly. He has already stopped twice, unsure of what he thinks he is doing. What if she doesn't want to see him? Both times he got out of the car, studied Aurek's postcard, and then got back in and continued on the road heading towards Felixstowe. As he comes into the town, its name proudly spelt out on a huge roadside flower bed, red flowers for the letters on a white background of daisies, a car heading towards Ipswich pa.s.ses him.

It's the first he's seen on the road that morning. The driver slows as he pa.s.ses. The two men look at each other.

It is Tony.

He looks tired and unshaven, his collar undone, his tie knotted carelessly, and Ja.n.u.sz hardly recognizes him. He wants to punch him, and slows down. They come to a stop in the road. Ja.n.u.sz cuts the engine, flexes his hands into fists and gets out of his car.

Tony winds his window down.

'Get out of the car,' Ja.n.u.sz says, lifting his fists.

Tony shakes his head. 'There's no point in fighting. She's waiting for you.'

The man looks so utterly wretched, Ja.n.u.sz forgets for a moment that he'd like to hit him. By the time Ja.n.u.sz remembers, Tony is already moving away, his wheels squealing. Ja.n.u.sz watches him speeding down the empty road. He watches until the car disappears from view.

Silvana only notices the car that pa.s.ses her because it is going so slowly. It must be someone out for an early morning drive. The car is very clean, polished, a s.h.i.+ny black Rover. The man driving it stares at her as he pa.s.ses. She carries on walking and then looks back, unsure what to do. A little way down the road, the car has pulled to a stop. She carries on walking a few more paces and then turns round. There is nothing between her and her husband now, not even a child to link them. She knows this, has told herself so, many times. But the sight of Ja.n.u.sz sitting waiting in his car makes her heart soar, and she walks towards him.

Ja.n.u.sz opens the pa.s.senger door and watches Silvana get in beside him. He tries to be calm. Silvana touches the dashboard, looks around herself.

'Aurek would like this car,' she says. 'He is very fond of cars.'

They sit in silence, the sun glinting off the windscreen, seagulls landing and taking off in front of them. The rows of lights that loop along the seafront swing back and forth, jingling, s.n.a.t.c.hed up by the wind again and again. Finally Ja.n.u.sz speaks.

'I met Helene during the war.' He coughs, smooths his thumb and forefinger over his moustache. 'She died. She died in 1944. I should never have kept her letters. I should have explained to you. Talked more. I shut it all up.'

Ja.n.u.sz looks across at Silvana and sees her eyes are s.h.i.+ning with tears. He pulls his handkerchief from his pocket and offers it to her.

'The thing is, the boy. I'd like to see him.'

'Do you think I am a bad woman for what I did?'

Ja.n.u.sz shakes his head. He is not sure if she is talking about Tony or Aurek.

'Am I a criminal?' she asks.

He looks at her. Her eyes have the same hard stare he has seen in soldiers. The ones who have witnessed too much. Her lips hold more questions, waiting for his response.

She pleads with him. 'Will you ever forgive me?'

He answers No No, and Yes, I think so Yes, I think so, which seem to be the answers Silvana wants to hear.

'I thought I had lost you both,' he says.

Silvana touches his cheek with her hand and he feels it tremble against him.

They sit in the car, watching the wind make patterns with the sand on the road, snaking lines of yellow back and forth, and Silvana tells Ja.n.u.sz the story of her war. She lays it out like a book, filling in details, moving back and forth over time until the whole six years they have been apart are accounted for. Some of it is hard to hear, but he listens. He does not turn away from her. She says she wants no more secrets between them.

His own stories of those years are hard to relate. He tries to explain things to her, but he does not want to remember the war. His memories of it are locked down, and he can't bring himself to open them. He cannot speak of Helene. Silvana doesn't press him for details. She changes the subject. For that he is grateful.

'Maybe it doesn't matter,' she says when he falters and loses his place in his own narrative. 'The past maybe we make too much of it. What we need is what's right here.'

But Ja.n.u.sz knows she is just being kind. Of course the past matters. He looks at her and sees the country he left behind staring back at him. Her face is full of the knowledge of his own youth, and he loves her for it. He feels like he does when he mends machines, when all those engineered details that can so easily go wrong are put in the right place, when they are warm and oiled and turning over perfectly.

Silvana hugs herself. 'He didn't have a mother. I know he didn't. He had filth in his hair and sores on his body. I had to care for him. He had n.o.body. And my own baby, our baby was '

'Stop,' says Ja.n.u.sz. He winds his window down, lets the sea air rush in, breathes deeply. 'Not that. Tell me about him growing up.'

She tells him about their woodland son and how he grew up in the forest. She tells him the boy's favourite games and the way he learned to climb trees and hunt for food.

They speak quietly together until both boys become one in Ja.n.u.sz's mind. It is the best way. He knows the boy he loves isn't really the boy who swallowed a b.u.t.ton, but he will give him these memories. Aurek will own them. There will be no more mystery. He is their son. And that will be his story.

It is awkward, embracing in a car. Ja.n.u.sz leans towards Silvana, but the steering wheel gets in the way and the gearstick lies between them. Silvana leans further forwards, s.h.i.+fting to the edge of her seat, and he manages to kiss her in a clumsy way, their noses b.u.mping.

He wants her. The sound of her breathing in the night. The way she hums when she believes she is alone. All these things. Desire rises in him. His heart beats like a young man's, full of wanting. At the same time he feels old. Old enough to understand the hurt he has suffered will not disappear overnight. The thought of Tony makes him want to push her away, accuse her all over again. But he pulls her closer to him.

'Come back,' he whispers. 'Please come back.'

'The house is along the seafront,' Silvana says. 'And you turn '

'I know,' he tells her, and starts the engine.

Aurek is sitting out on his window ledge when he sees the car driving up the road. He watches it stop outside the house. Sees his mother get out and then his father. He has come! They stand by the car and look up at him. Aurek waves, slowly at first, then faster. He stands up, hanging onto the window frame, losing his balance slightly, tipping forwards. He has to grab the sill to stop himself falling out of the window. Both Ja.n.u.sz and Silvana lift their hands to him in alarm.

'No!' they shout. 'No!'

22 Britannia Road

<script>