Spring Will Be Ours (73 page)

‘Find it all right?'

‘Excuse me?'

‘I said: find it all right?'

She shook her head.

‘Here … let's have a look. What was the name again?' He peered at her address book, and at the map. ‘Here we are, told you it was off the Essex Road, didn't I? Bit of a walk. You go down that road straight ahead, take a bus if you like, right down to the second lights, get off, turn right, that's the Essex Road, got a good long walk right up there, about halfway, I think, innit?'

Danuta looked at him and laughed.

‘Didn't understand a word of that, did you? Where you from, then?'

‘From Poland. From Warsaw.'

‘Warsaw.'
He whistled. ‘Look, I'll tell you again …' He told her, pointing out the main road she was to take.

‘Thank you. Thank you.'

‘That's all right, love.' He turned to a waiting customer. Danuta walked over the zebra crossing, and turned past the trees, and the stretch of green beyond, and the terrace of houses running alongside. She began to walk, past a little supermarket, where a tired-looking Indian woman sat at the till near the door; the shop was poorly lit, but even from outside she could see that the shelves were crammed. There was a dry cleaners, another little shop with a man inside who might be Greek, or Turkish, and a window stuffed with enormous loaves of white bread, piles of tins – pet food, peas, beans, carrots, tomatoes, jars of fruity jam, then a double-fronted chemist's with windows of suntan creams, scent sprays, sponges, lotions, tampons, nappies, bright-coloured plastic hair slides.

And there was a butcher's … Danuta stopped, put down her case and stared at joints and chops and mince and chicken, whole lambs hanging at the back, an enormous ham waiting to be sliced. She remembered standing in the queue less than a year ago, when the news of the price rises came, and thought of everything that had happened since then – a revolution! She picked up her case and walked on. When the row of shops ended, she walked past porticoed houses where the paint was peeling and the windows thick with dirt from the traffic. She looked at the people, and thought most of them looked scruffy; she felt as if she were in quite a run-down part of London, and yet they could buy anything!

It was growing warmer, or perhaps it was the walking. She felt her skin beginning to tighten, and her eyes sting. The case felt very heavy, but she wouldn't take a bus: even if she wanted to spend the money, she wouldn't trust herself to get off at the right place. One set of traffic lights. An endless walk to the next, past the same peeling houses, with glimpses of others, beautifully done up, in side streets behind them. Across the road at the lights, a factory on one corner and a huge grimy church on the other. Up the Essex Road, yawning, her feet aching, checking the names of the side streets as she went. Many of the streets had tall, elegant houses, clearly restored quite recently; others were full of skips, and cement mixers. At a junction, Danuta saw another station: Essex Road. This was where she should have come in the first place? And surely she should have found Halina's street by now?

A little further on, she came to a small market, just a few fruit and vegetable stalls, and she stood still, almost as shocked as she had been by the butcher's. The fruit! Mountains of glistening lemons and oranges, polished apples, ripe bananas hanging all along the top, boxes of grapes, yellow melons the size of footballs. Danuta thought of herself and her mother, and the hours they had spent each day in the queues, the evenings when they came home with nothing, or almost nothing, and what Mama's face would be like if she could show her all this, now. She realized she was almost crying, standing there watching the line of perhaps five or six women at each stall, waiting to buy, and she blew her nose and noticed a flower stall where carnations were only sixty-five pence a bunch. Where on earth was Aunt Halina's road?

Danuta walked on one more block, then stopped again, and asked three different people the way, each time showing the little notebook, with the address in black ink in a handwriting she realized they found hard to read. The third person was a man in overalls; he knew where it was.

‘You've come too far, love.'

‘What?'

He threw a cigarette stub into the road.

‘Back down there, third or fourth on the right.'

How could she have missed it? ‘Thank you.' She turned back, walking slowly once she saw the name on the corner: she was very tired, but it wasn't just that, she was suddenly frightened. How could she have thought it was all right just to land on a doorstep? Months ago, in Warsaw, to have an address, the address of a relative, seemed enough, to make it all so simple, coming here. But why on earth hadn't she written, to check it was all right? Wasn't it really a dreadful nerve? Then she thought again of what she would have done if Halina had written to say she couldn't come, and knew she'd had to do it. She turned into the street, where a few of the houses were done up and many looked untouched. Halina's, when she found it, looked untouched. She pushed open the garden gate and walked up the path. The door was painted brown, with heavy net curtains at the windows. The doorbells had a row of names beside them: English, Irish perhaps, and at the bottom a single Polish name. Danuta pressed the bottom one, and waited, hearing footsteps down an uncarpeted hall inside.

The door was opened; a small, fat woman in a flowered overall and slippers looked at her from a wrinkled, very Slavic face. She wore a cotton headscarf, tied at the back; wisps of grey hair escaped from it, above sharp brown eyes.

‘Yes?'

‘Dzień dobry,'
said Danuta, hesitantly, holding out the flowers, and the woman smiled. Then saw the suitcase. ‘I … I have come from Warsaw,' Danuta said in Polish. ‘You are my Aunt Halina. I am Danuta – Maria's and Tadek's daughter. They send you their very warmest wishes. I … I arrived in London this morning.'

Halina shook her head. ‘This is quite a surprise. Come in.' She took the carnations. ‘Very nice. But I have nowhere for you to stay.' She gestured at the row of names beside the doorbell. ‘All my rooms are let.'

I knew it, thought Danuta. I knew it. But just for one night? A couple of nights? She followed Halina inside, past dark-painted doors which, she knew instinctively, had remained the same colour for over twenty years. There was a smell of
bigos
; Halina led her down a small flight of green-carpeted steps at the back of the hall to a kitchen, where a large black and white cat sat on the table, half on, half off a pile of newspapers.

‘This is Henryk,' said Halina. ‘I named him after my husband.'

‘Oh. Hello, Henryk.'

The door was open to the garden: a long stretch of grass, bordered by concrete paths and flowerbeds full of polyanthus. Washing flapped on a line. Danuta put down her case, and reached out to stroke the cat, seeing the names of the newspapers, poking out:
Dziennik Polski.
The
Islington Gazette.
A large, brightly coloured picture of the Pope was pinned to the wall above a shiny sideboard.

‘Sit down,' said Halina, gesturing to a green-painted chair. She put the flowers on the table. ‘You would like some tea?'

Danuta sat. ‘Thank you.' She leaned down and began to unlock the suitcase. ‘I have brought you some presents.'

‘Very kind,' said Halina again, lighting the gas under the kettle. She turned to watch Danuta unwrapping from coarse paper the pottery bowls and folded
kilim
, the crystal vase. It sat on the table, next to the newspapers and the cat. Halina picked it up, turning it in the light from the open garden door. ‘Very pretty. Thank you.' Outside it began suddenly to rain, and she put down the vase and hurried to the washing line. Danuta watched her rapidly unpegging aprons, sheets and tea towels, enormous women's vests, dropping them into a plastic basket. Beside her the cat stretched, fat white paws patting the vase. Danuta moved it.

‘Careful, Henryk.'

‘Well …' Halina was inside again, dumping the basket of washing in a corner. She closed the door to the garden, and the rain pattered invisibly on to the panels of starred glass. ‘You like your tea with milk or lemon?'

‘Lemon, please,' said Danuta, still stroking the cat. ‘Until just now, do you know how long it has been since I saw a lemon?' She wanted to be light, bantering, somehow to make Halina like her.

Halina grunted, taking teabags from a tin. ‘And now I suppose you think you can make your fortune in the West?' She dropped a teabag into a mug, as the lid of the kettle began to rattle, turned off the gas and poured on boiling water. ‘All you young people, coming over here, expecting everything to be done for you. What do you think we had, when we came here after the war? We had our few pounds from the Resettlement Corps, and we had to get on with it.' She cut off a slice of lemon, angrily, and dropped it into the mug. ‘What are you going to do in London? Study? You look like a student.'

‘I … I'm not sure, yet, what I'm going to do,' said Danuta, taking the mug from Halina. How was she to answer all this? Perhaps it was better to deflect? ‘What … what happened to you in the war, Aunt? Before you came here?'

‘I was in Siberia, my girl.' Halina made tea for herself, and came to sit down at the table. Henryk jumped on to her lap, then to the floor, meowing by a dish. ‘Always he wants more food, this cat. Wait a moment, Henryk, I am talking.' She looked at Danuta, sipping her tea. ‘I suppose you are hungry, too.' She reached across to the sideboard, and pulled off a tin. ‘Help yourself.'

Prince Charles and Princess Diana smiled up at her. Danuta lifted the lid, and took out a packet of kataz
^·
ynki.
She smiled at Halina: ‘It's a very long time since we had these in Poland, either.'

‘Hmm. There is a nice little Polish shop not far from here, below the Polish church. You go to church at home?'

‘Well …'

‘Of course not. Everything has changed. You ask me about the war? I was in Siberia, from 1939 to 1941 – the whole of our village was taken prisoner by the Russians. In 1941, when we were all released – those of us who survived, my sister died' – she waved her hand, impatiently – ‘I was sent by train to Palestine. I spent the rest of the war there, I came here in 1945 – I met Henryk here, in a camp. I could do nothing for Poland, during the war. Nothing. So we come here. Henryk and I save for years to buy our own home; we work in Lyons Corner House – you won't know what I'm talking about, never mind. We find this house, we buy it, letting off rooms. We have no children. Henryk dies. I stay here, letting off rooms. I watch the television, and I see all you young hot-heads, with your slogans, and your demands. You are crazy! Don't you know what they will do to you all?'

‘But – we have to do something, Aunt. It has been so – dramatic, exciting. A liberation.'

‘Then why are you here? Why haven't you stayed with your drama and excitement?'

‘I have a return ticket!' Danuta said hotly. ‘I have only just arrived! I came because in spite of everything Solidarity is trying to do, things are still appalling, I seem to have
no
future there …' She broke off quickly. Where was her self-control? ‘Perhaps I don't have a future here, either,' she said, more quietly, watching the slice of lemon float slowly across the surface of her tea. ‘But I have to find out. I hope you will forgive me for knocking on your door, for not warning you. I was hoping perhaps to stay for a night or two. That's all.'

‘Tch tch tch.' Halina shook her head. ‘And where am I to put you? You will have to sleep in the front room, there is a couch.' Footsteps came running down the stairs to the hall, and the front door banged. She pushed back her chair from the table, and got up, sighing. ‘So noisy, all my lodgers. Come on, I'll show you where you can sleep.'

‘Thank you. Thank you.' Danuta picked up her case and followed her out of the kitchen and up the little flight of steps. Halina puffed. ‘And what sort of job do you think you are going to get?'

‘I thought perhaps something in a hotel.'

‘You have a work permit?'

‘Um …'

‘Of course not.'

‘Got a work permit?'

The demolition site foreman was a large man with an enormous stomach. From beneath his orange safety helmet a small trickle of sweat crept down his cheek; he rubbed it away as Stefan shook his head. Behind them the bulldozer roared; clouds of brick dust hung in the air.

‘Not yet.' They were almost the only two phrases he knew properly.
Got a work permit? Not yet.
He'd been using them all morning.

The foreman scratched the back of his neck.

‘Nothing at the moment. You can try next week, I might have a lad going Friday, but it's half pay, right? Because of the risk.' He looked Stefan up and down. ‘Think you're strong enough?'

‘Excuse me?' He'd understood only a few words, enough to know he hadn't got a job.

‘Where you from?'

‘From Poland. I am factory supervisor.'

‘Hmm. Well, like I say, come back next week.' He turned away and climbed the steps into the prefab hut. Stefan walked back across the site towards the wire mesh gates and out on to the street. He was somewhere off Oxford Street, getting further and further from it and not sure he could find his way back. Last night he'd lain on his bed in the hostel and written to Krystyna.

‘I've been here only two days and already you seem a long way away and I miss you and Olek all the time. As soon as I find a job it'll be better: I'll be doing something for all of us, able to bring something home.' He hadn't posted the letter this morning because he wanted by the end of today to be able to write and say: ‘I have a job.' There were other Poles in the hostel, all young like him, here for what was left of spring, and the summer; he wasn't sure if any of them were married. One guy, Bogdan, had told him building site jobs were there for the asking, but he hadn't told him where he worked.