All the Days of Our Lives (43 page)

‘You’d make a nice mum,’ Marion said one evening, head on one side. ‘Haven’t you got anyone in your life, Molly? You’re so pretty, I’d’ve thought they’d be swarming around you.’

‘Oh, there’ve been one or two,’ Molly said lightly. She didn’t go into any real detail about her life to Marion. ‘But I’ve been moving about a fair bit lately. I’ll be off again, come the spring.’

‘That’s a shame,’ Marion said, and Molly could tell she meant it. ‘You’ve been such a help, and the boys like having you here an’ all.

‘Maybe I’ll be back next winter,’ Molly said. ‘We’ll just have to see.’

But she had enjoyed the boys’ company too. They were friendly little lads, and during that hard winter she knew she had been a real part of the household. ‘Almost like a husband!’ she had joked to Marion, who replied drily, ‘Yeah – but more use!’

By the spring she had been restless again and, as soon as the camp season was about to begin, she decided to head for somewhere new: this time, Butlin’s at Filey. She knew the drill now, so doing it without Liza didn’t feel difficult. Getting on a train at King’s Cross, travelling up the east coast, reminded her of the war, when the length of the coast had bristled with camps and ack-ack batteries and every kind of operation for prediction and security. Now the beaches were innocent again, dotted with holidaymakers. All the urgency and heightened intensity of that time was gone, and Molly knew she mourned it.

I’ll give Filey a few weeks, she promised herself, sitting beside her little holdall on the train. And then see where I might go.

When Ruth came to Bracklesham Bay, Molly had been there for three weeks. She always let Ruth know where she was, dropping her light-hearted postcards in a ‘Guess what I’m up to now!’ sort of tone. She had also sent Em and Cath cards too, ashamed of how long it was since she had been in touch. They always wrote a note back, but they were busy with husbands and children. They lived another sort of life. She could hardly admit to herself how much it meant that Ruth had become such a good friend. In all the dashing here and there and the changes in her life, Ruth had become a fixed point – almost like a sister. Ruth was the one person now who cared enough to take Molly to task.

‘So,’ Ruth demanded, the last evening of her visit as they strolled along the beach, ‘how long are you going to keep this up, Molly?’

‘Keep what up?’ Molly pretended innocence.

‘This life you’re living – shifting here and there with no aim in sight. You’re like some kind of gypsy!’

Molly turned away, looking out across the mauve evening water.

‘You can do better, Molly,’ Ruth insisted.

Tears in her eyes, Molly said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how else to do it.’

1948

Over those next days, the household with its new members had to settle in and get used to one another. Everyone was busy, and most conversations took place over the evening meal. They all sat round in Sybil’s dining room – the two Poles, quickly becoming familiar to them, at first peering curiously at the food and sometimes conferring quickly in Polish, as if trying to make out what they were about to eat. (
Corned beef – this is same as Bully Beef? Baked beans?
) At the sight of green haricot beans their eyes lit up. ‘You grew these on your land? Ah – marvellous!’ They were very polite, making sure everyone had what they needed, passing dishes across the table, Piotr with his strong, beefy hands, Marek long-limbed and long-fingered, the shadows cast by the lamp showing up his sharp cheekbones.

Katie learned things gradually, listening to the tea-time conversations. She discovered that the Poles were not free to come and go as they pleased; that if they went anywhere new, they had to register with the local police. They were also not allowed to work in any job of their own choosing. Their employment was restricted, for the time being, to menial jobs and ‘dirty’ industries. In the Displaced Persons camps scattered across Britain, Polish ex-soldiers and airmen and civilian arrivals to the country were being taught English and had often been learning trades. Piotr had trained as a barber.

Soon after the men arrived, Katie met Piotr on the middle landing one morning, as she was on her way out to take Michael to Maudie’s house.

‘Ah, hello!’ he said. ‘How are you today?’

They exchanged polite greetings. Katie still felt shy of both of them.

‘And how are you, little Michael?’

‘All right,’ Michael said. Both the men made a fuss of him. They seemed very happy to be living in a home, and with a child about.

Katie was about to move on past when Piotr took a lock of Michael’s hair between his finger and thumb.

‘I can cut for you, if you please . . .’

‘Oh!’ Katie was startled. It was true, Michael’s hair was getting rather long. ‘Can you?’ she said doubtfully. She felt Piotr’s eyes on her for a moment, unmistakably sizing her up, and found herself blushing.

‘I am barber – I train. Now I get work in barber shop. So I can do . . .’ He made a scissor motion with his hands.

‘Well, that would be very nice, wouldn’t it, Michael? Would you like Mr . . . Mr Piotr to cut your hair?’

‘Yes!’ Michael said excitedly. He had taken to Piotr. Marek always smiled at him in a kindly way, but was more reserved.

‘OK,’ Piotr said happily, ‘OK – I cut! Tonight, yes?’

That evening they took a plank from the shed outside and, to Sybil’s great amusement, set it across the arms of one of the chairs in the dining room to make a high seat. They tucked a towel round Michael’s neck, and Piotr lifted him onto his makeshift chair.

‘You can take the mirror down,’ Sybil suggested, as she sat, smiling at this spectacle. ‘That’s it . . .’ Katie lifted the oval mirror from its hook on the wall near the door and held it, so that Michael could watch while his new barber gave him a short back and sides. Piotr kept up a run of little jokes.

‘Now, this needs to be cut,’ and he tweaked the boy’s nose. ‘And this’ – one ear, until Michael was squirming and giggling. ‘Oh, you must be still!’

But Piotr tickled the little boy’s neck so that he wriggled all over again.

‘How’re we going to finish – huh?’

Katie found herself laughing at his antics. Then, as Piotr was snipping away, over his shoulder she noticed a movement. Marek had come to stand in the doorway and was watching with a gentle smile on his lips. Their eyes met for a moment, then she turned away, blushing, wondering what this quiet, lean man was thinking.

A moment later, looking very grown-up, Michael slid down off the chair.

‘All finished!’ he cried, triumphant.

‘Bravo!’ Marek clapped.

‘Don’t you look grown-up?’ Sybil said. Katie saw that she was thoroughly enjoying all these comings and goings in her house.

Marek had found work at Lucas’s in Great King Street. When Sybil asked him, over one evening meal, what he had done before, in Poland, he listened to the question in his polite, intent way, then shrugged.

‘I was student. When the Germans came in thirty-nine – then Soviets – I was sixteen years. I have no job.’

‘No, of course, how silly of me,’ Sybil said, while Katie realized, to her surprise, that she and Marek were the same age. She had thought him to be older. He seemed older – both of the Poles did.

‘And what about your sister?’

‘She was then twelve years.’

Since the war Lucas had stopped making parts for Beaufighters and Stirling bombers and had returned to the production of parts for cars and peacetime aeroplanes. Marek had a quite menial job in assembly.

‘But surely,’ Sybil said, ‘a bright young man like you could be apprenticed?’

‘Perhaps one day.’ Marek nodded. ‘But not now. Is not allowed.’

‘Should you like that, d’you think?’ Sybil asked. And in a rare moment of probing for facts, ‘What was your father’s occupation?’

‘He was chemist. Not in a factory – I mean . . .’ Marek put down his knife and fork. ‘He was teacher.’ After a moment he added, ‘My mother too.’

‘A chemist?’

‘No.’ A faint smile reached his eyes. ‘She teached small children.’

‘Taught,’ Sybil corrected.

‘Ah yes, taught. Thank you.’

‘Was it she who taught you to play the piano?’ They had heard Marek play, haunting tunes and infectious dances that made Katie want to tap her feet immediately, his long body leaning into the piano, relearning things he had not played for years. Gradually they were coming back to him. It was lovely to listen to, and Sybil was delighted.

‘Er, no – it was a lady, a neighbour. My mother, she played, but only little bit – in the school.’

‘Ah, songs for the children, that sort of thing?’

‘Yes,’ Marek nodded, ‘that sort of thing.’

Further questions about his family seemed to hang in the air, but it didn’t feel right to ask them.

About his sister, though, Marek was more forthcoming and they soon found out more about her. Agnieska’s ship had docked at Southampton at the end of June and she had been taken, with many of the others who had travelled from Mombasa, to Daglingworth Camp, outside Gloucester. Soon after they moved in, Marek had visited the camp to be reunited with her, coming back to report that she had been placed for the moment in the care of a Polish family, and that she had some problems with her health. She would stay in the camp for at least a few months to learn more English and become acclimatized.

Katie struggled to imagine Agnieska’s journey. ‘Mombasa?’ she had asked. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know where it is.’

‘See on that shelf . . . ?’ Sybil pointed. ‘That’s it, below our Mr Tiger – there’s an old atlas. Your legs are younger than mine, dear.’ Katie fetched the atlas, and Sybil pushed some dishes out of the way to make room. They all gathered round. ‘There . . .’ She pointed with a soil-grimed fingernail to the east coast of Africa. ‘Mombasa.’

Katie, bewildered in her ignorance of all this, became aware of Marek standing over her shoulder, his breath on her ear as he bent down to look.

‘Well, what was she doing in Africa?’ she asked, feeling foolish.

‘She was in another camp for displaced persons,’ Sybil said. ‘Some of the Poles have made journeys that you would hardly believe.’

‘Before – she was in India,’ Marek said. ‘Another camp. And before that . . .’ He pointed north and Sybil turned the pages to another map. ‘Arctic Circle. Soviet camp.’

‘And we, to start with, here . . .’ Piotr got up too, suddenly eager to join in. ‘Soviets come – they take many of our people, from here, in East Poland. Then we go to – where is? – ah yes, here – near to Sverdlovsk, in Russia. They want my father for working in steel works.’

‘Blimey,’ Geoff Jenkins said, looking at the map from the other side of the table. ‘That’s a long way.’

Piotr flashed a glance at him, an angry one, Katie thought. She had had no idea of any of this. Was he angry with them for being so ignorant? Even now she hardly knew what questions to ask, or whether they wanted to be asked anything. They would say a little sometimes, then clam up.

Most of the time the two of them were more concerned about the present. They were also full of questions about Birmingham, and English life. Their preparation in the camp had taught them about general aspects of life in Britain.

‘They tell us,’ Piotr said another night, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘not to kiss the hand of the women. That it is not good – that the women will be, er . . .’

‘Suspicious?’ Sybil chuckled.

‘Er, yes – suspicious!’ They all laughed.

‘Our men are a little more reserved,’ Sybil said, picking up the serving spoon. ‘Now, there’s one more potato – are we going to fight over it? Or cut it into five?’

‘I think give it to the men,’ Katie said.

‘Ah, yes,’ Sybil said. ‘Into three then?’

‘No, no,’ Marek argued courteously. ‘The women must not be hungry. Into five!’

The two Poles were curious about Geoff’s work, and asked Katie about herself, her job. Sometimes their questions were very blunt.

‘So, Katie,’ Piotr said at one of the first mealtimes. ‘Where is your husband? He is dead?’

Katie avoided Sybil’s gaze and looked coolly back at him. She was not used to being asked things in such a way.

‘Yes. He was killed in the war. At Arnhem.’

‘He was a soldier?’

‘Yes.’ She could feel a guilty blush rising right up through her. She hoped they couldn’t see it. How awful it was to pretend, when they had truly lost so many loved ones.

Everyone was watching her sympathetically.

‘Michael has never seen his father,’ she said. This at least was true.

‘Mr O’Neill,’ Piotr said.

‘Er – yes.’

‘That reminds me . . .’ Sybil seemed to come to her rescue. ‘Mrs O’Neill is a Catholic – I assume you are too?’

‘Catholic? Yes, of course,’ Marek said. He seemed to see Katie with new eyes. ‘You are Catholic?’

She nodded.

‘You can show them where to go to Mass on Sunday, can’t you?’ Sybil suggested.