A Different World (29 page)

He had just finished eating a frugal meal when Father Karlowicz arrived. His company was welcome and he greeted him amiably. ‘Father, good to see you. I suppose you have come to chide me for not coming to confession.’

‘There is that, of course, but it is not why I am here. I have been worried about you.’

‘Worried about me? Why?’ He went to a cupboard and brought out a bottle of vodka and two glasses and poured them both a drink. Then they sat together at the table.

‘You do not seem yourself. It is as if when Rulka died, a little of you died too.’

‘Perhaps it did.’

‘You are a young man still, your life is before you.’ He paused. ‘I would help you if I could.’

‘I don’t think you can.’

‘Try me. Tell me about your life in England.’

‘England?’ Jan queried, astonished. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Anything you choose to tell me. You were a young man a long way from home, in constant danger, perhaps lonely, perhaps missing your wife. Did you make friends with your hosts? I have heard the Polish airmen were feted by the populace for what they did in the Battle of Britain. Did you find it so?’

‘Yes. I made some good friends.’

‘Tell me about them? Was there one in particular?’

Jan was startled. ‘Where is all this leading, Father?’

‘I wondered if you might like to unburden yourself.’

Jan took a gulp of vodka. ‘And you think telling you will help me get over Rulka?’

‘So, there is something to tell.’

‘Father, stop sparring with me. I am not a fool. You know something, so you might as well come right out with it.’

The priest felt in the roomy pocket of his skirt, took out the letter and laid it on the table in front of Jan.

Jan stared at it. The envelope was addressed to Stanisław
Roman in English lettering and it had English stamps. Slowly he picked it up and extracted a sheet of paper. As he unfolded it, a snapshot fell out. He picked it up. ‘Oh, my God, it’s Louise.’ She had changed very little; still slim and lovely, still with a smile that could light up a room. ‘And Angela.’ He gave a cracked laugh. ‘She is holding Cuddles.’

‘You know them?’ the priest asked.

‘Of course I know them.’

‘Then read the letter.’

Jan scanned it, not once, but twice, watched intently by the old man, who took an occasional sip from his glass.

‘When did this come?’ His voice was so tearful, the question came out as a croak. He had been thinking and wondering about his little family and here was news of them. The best news ever. He had not been forgotten, Louise had not married and his daughter wanted to make his acquaintance. There was a heaven, after all.

‘This morning. Stanisław brought it straight to me to translate.’

‘So you have read it?’

‘Yes. What do you want to do about it?’

‘Answer it, of course.’

Jan was hardly aware that the priest had blessed him and left. He continued to sit at the table looking at the picture, studying every feature, and reading the letter over and over again. Then he fetched out writing paper and a pen and began to write. He made several attempts to put into words what he felt, but it was impossible. One after the other he screwed them up and threw them on the fire, watching them curl up, turn brown and burst into flame.

Angela returned from Rome, brown as a berry and full of what she had seen and done, the day before her exam results came
through. She had passed with flying colours and could take up her place at Homerton and there was the added bonus that Tommy was living and working in Cambridge. Life was exciting and not even her disappointment over not hearing from Poland could dampen her exuberance. Jenny, who was almost as proud of her as her mother, put on a celebration meal at the Pheasant. She had her first glass of champagne and laughed as the fizz went up her nose. It was a happy time, this moving from childhood to womanhood, from total dependence to making her own decisions. It was unnerving in a way, but on the other hand she couldn’t wait to savour it.

Tommy raised his glass to her. ‘Here’s to your new life and continuing success.’

They all said ‘Here, here.’ and she basked in their good wishes.

Walking home along the leafy lanes afterwards, she took her mother’s arm and laid her head on it. ‘Will you miss me when I leave home?’ she asked.

‘Of course I will, can you doubt it? But you are grown up now. I can’t keep you tied to my apron strings. And I will have Granny for company.’ She wondered how she and her mother would deal with each other when there was only the two of them in the house. At least Mum might stop finding fault. She was glad she had her job and could retreat behind her books and lesson preparation.

‘I wish my father could have been here tonight.’

‘So do I. He would have been so proud of you.’

Angela looked up at the clear night sky. ‘Those same stars are shining over Poland too, aren’t they? We aren’t so very far apart.’

‘No, looked at it like that, the world is a small place.’

‘I thought he might at least have answered my letter.’

‘You can’t be sure he received it.’ In a way Louise hoped that was the case, it was easier to bear than the thought he simply didn’t
want to have anything to do with her or his daughter. ‘Never mind, we’ll enjoy our holiday, won’t we?’

They were going up to the Lake District to stay in the cottage that she and Jan had used when he was on leave, though it had been extended and modernised to accommodate tourists. She had taken Angela up there the first year after the war and they had roamed over the hills, taken a boat out on the lakes and generally lazed about. Angela had loved it and so they had gone again the following year. It had become an annual pilgrimage, though Angela had never known why it was so special. Louise wondered if this year might be the last time they would do it together.

Ambleside was crowded with tourists, but the cottage was a little way off the beaten track up a steep, winding road. ‘Your father used to carry you up here,’ Louise said as they toiled up to it, carrying shopping bags of provisions. They had spent two days walking and climbing and on the third decided to go down to the lake and take the passenger ferry to Windermere and do some shopping. ‘He carried you everywhere.’

‘We came here with him? You never said before.’

‘No. It was wartime. When he was on leave we used to come up here to escape everyone.’

She stopped to change hands with the shopping bags. ‘I swear this hill gets steeper every year.’

‘There’s someone standing by our cottage gate. He looks a bit lost.’

The man didn’t move, but stood watching them approach. Louise looked up and her heart skipped a beat. It was an hallucination, of course it was. She had just been talking about him, remembering what it had been like years before and her imagination had conjured him up. This man, in sports jacket and beige trousers, was a stranger, he had to be, but oh …

He gave them a wide grin. ‘Louise.’

‘Jan!’ She dropped the carriers. A couple of oranges fell out and rolled back down the road. She didn’t even notice them. ‘It
is
you!’

And then she ran into his arms and they were both crying and laughing at the same time, feeling each other’s faces, kissing, pausing to stand back and look at each other in wonderment and kissing again. Angela looked on, her bewilderment turning to recognition, then a broad smile.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Louise said. ‘How did you get here? How did you know where to find us?’

‘I’ll explain later.’ He turned from her to Angela. ‘Hallo, sweetheart.’ He held out his left hand to her; the right was round Louise’s shoulders.

‘You did get my letter, after all.’ she said, as he enfolded her in his embrace.

‘Yes, and I thank you for it with all my heart.’

‘Let’s go inside,’ Louise said. ‘We’ve got lots to talk about.’

She led the way, leaving Jan and Angela to retrieve the shopping and follow her.

Over a hastily concocted meal, they talked. They talked all afternoon, sometimes with excitement, sometimes more sombrely, as he explained about Rulka and how Angela’s letter had come just when he needed it most. ‘I sat down to answer it,’ he said. ‘But it would have taken a whole book to write down how I felt and it would not have been the same as talking to you face to face, so I gave up my job, the tenancy of my apartment, packed my bags and came.’

‘Was it difficult?’

‘Not especially. I said I wanted to go to Rome for the Olympics. I flew into East Berlin but instead of taking a flight to Rome, I crossed the demarcation line into West Berlin. There are hundreds
doing that and I simply merged in with them. I got on a plane to London, took a train to Cottlesham and walked into the Pheasant. Jenny told me where you were.’

‘You’re not going back, are you?’ Angela put in. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you did. I’ve got a father I never knew I had and I don’t want to lose him again.’

‘That is up to your mother,’ he said, looking at Louise. ‘Are you going to send me away again?’

‘Do you want to stay?’ she asked.

‘More than anything in the world.’

‘Oh, Jan!’

‘I would probably have come back, even without Angela,’ he said. ‘It became more and more obvious to me that I belonged here with you. But I couldn’t leave. I had obligations.’

‘I know,’ she said softly.

‘After Rulka died, I considered it, but then I thought you might have married and you might not have told Angela about me and I’d be intruding. Angela’s letter made up my mind for me.’

‘I thought the same thing. You had a wife and your duty was to her. I understood that, so I tried to dissuade her.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘But she is as stubborn as you are.’

‘She is a lovely girl, Louise. You have brought her up well. I am proud of her. And of you.’

The excitement and euphoria calmed a little in the next few days as they continued their holiday, walking and climbing, swimming, taking the ferry, hiring a boat. But they knew that when the time came to return to Cottlesham there were practical problems to overcome – not least was Louise’s mother.

Faith knew about Jan’s arrival because Jenny had told her, almost as if warning her that when they came back, things
were going to be very different. She didn’t need that warning; she knew perfectly well how her daughter felt about the Pole. She was determined not to like him. He had led her daughter astray, had condemned her to a life of spinsterhood and her granddaughter to bastardy. And now he was back, the time had come to carry out her threat to leave. When she had confided in her friend, Greta Sadler, Greta had suggested applying for one of the retirement bungalows being built on their old field. ‘My old man’s got a bit of influence on the parish council,’ she had said. ‘It was his land and he can pull a few strings. They’re not bad places and you will have your independence. We’ll still be able to do things together.’

‘Then let’s do that. Louise has been without her husband so long, it won’t be easy for him to settle in. They won’t want me playing gooseberry.’ She was determined to maintain the myth that her daughter had been married all along.

She was unprepared for Jan’s charming manners, his bowing and kissing her hand, his compliments about her youth and elegance, nor his so obvious devotion to Louise and hers to him. Her daughter positively sparkled. ‘We are going to be married,’ Louise said, bursting with happiness.

‘And what do we tell our friends? Your husband was supposed to have been killed in the war. And you can’t say this is a different man; Angela is the spitting image of him.’

Jan laughed. ‘So I didn’t die after all. It wouldn’t be the first time someone has turned up years after being declared dead, especially if they’ve been behind the Iron Curtain. We will be married quietly at a registry office somewhere.’

‘It’s only a formality, Mum,’ Louise said. ‘As far as I’m concerned I’ve been married to Jan since 1941. I don’t need a ceremony and a bit of paper to prove it.’

‘All the same we will do it,’ Jan said.

‘That’s as it should be,’ Faith said. ‘I’ve made my own arrangements. I’m going to move into one of the bungalows on the Sadler estate so you can have the place to yourselves.’

‘When did you decide to do that?’ Louise demanded.

‘As soon as I knew Angela was determined to find her father. I knew she wouldn’t give up.’

Angela laughed and hugged her grandmother. ‘Granny, you are priceless.’

Faith beamed. For once in her life, she had done the right thing. Jan wasn’t the ogre she had always imagined him to be, he was charming and considerate and she could see why Louise had fallen for him. But she could not stay under the same roof while they were sharing a bed. Louise might say she considered herself married but she wasn’t, was she? They laughed when she suggested he should stay at the Pheasant until the wedding.

‘How would that look, Mum?’ Louise said. ‘My husband comes back after years away and I send him off to sleep somewhere else. Have a heart.’

Faith had no answer to that and was very glad when a bungalow became vacant and she could move.

The wedding took place in Norwich on the last Saturday in September. Stan, Jenny, Angela, Faith and Tommy were the only witnesses. Louise, wearing a suit in pale-blue shantung, could not have been happier. It had been a long, long wait but it was worth it. Jan had always got on well with Stan and Jenny, but it was wonderful to watch him and Angela together. They talked and laughed and teased, just as if they had never been apart.

‘You’re glad now that I went in search of my
tata
, aren’t you?’ Angela asked her mother when they were all round the table at
the Bell having a celebratory luncheon. ‘You would never have got together again if I hadn’t.’

Louise reached out and put her hand over Jan’s. ‘Yes, I’m very, very glad.’

Jan had bought a small car and the week before they had taken Angela to Cambridge and settled her into her accommodation, and afterwards Jan had gone for a job interview. Knowing Marshalls wanted a pilot to ferry wealthy passengers in small private aeroplanes, Tommy had spoken to his boss and Jan had been offered the job. ‘I’m going to be flying again,’ he had told Louise, whirling her round and round the hotel room they had taken at the University Arms until they were both dizzy and fell onto the bed laughing.