All the Days of Our Lives (52 page)

Sybil threw out some stray thoughts. ‘I do hope the poor girl’s got a mac’ and then, ‘I must get the house ready for Christmas. Mr Jenkins said he’d go along and fetch a tree for me, even though he’s going off to his mother’s.’

‘Oh, is he?’ Katie said, trying to help Michael with the potatoes. ‘Where does she live again?’ Although she had shared a house with Geoff Jenkins all this time, she never felt she got to know him any better. Now that he was courting he was hardly about.

‘Kidderminster way, I believe. That’s it – pass me those. And put the kettle on, will you, there’s a dear.’

Later, when the soup was bubbling away and they’d had a cup of tea, they heard the front door. Archie erupted into volleys of barking.

‘You go,’ Sybil said. ‘You’ll get there more quickly – get them in out of the wet. And for goodness’ sake, grab Archie – she may not like dogs.’

Katie ran and pushed a protesting Archie into the cold front room. She opened up to find Marek outside, holding his coat over the heads of himself and his sister while he carried her case in the other hand.

‘Quickly!’ Katie said. ‘Come in.’ She had an impression of someone very thin and wiry, with large eyes, at Marek’s side.

Piotr came bounding downstairs to greet them and there were hugs and a lot of excited chatter in Polish, and outraged barking from the other side of the front-room door. Katie was glad to have a few seconds to stand aside and take in the sight of this new person in all their lives. She could see that Agnieska was strikingly like Marek, with similar pronounced cheekbones and big blue eyes, with dark lashes, contrasting with her pale hair, which was tied back. Her face was very pale and she looked delicate, but her full lips were parted in a smile.

‘Agnieska,’ Marek guided her, a hand behind her shoulders. ‘This is Katie.’ He added a comment in Polish.

Agnieska came towards her with an open, enquiring expression and Katie saw a sweet smile. She liked the girl already, felt drawn to her waiflike looks. She said something that sounded like ‘
Chaisch
. . .’ Then, ‘Hello . . .’ And held out her hand. When Katie took it, it felt bony, but there was a wiry strength to her, even though she looked younger than her twenty years.

‘Hello,’ Katie said, shyly. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ Agnieska said back, then put her hand over her mouth and gave a little laugh at herself, which Katie found infectious. Then she saw Michael. ‘Your boy?’ she asked Katie, who nodded. ‘Ah – hello!’

‘And this is Miss Routh,’ Marek went on. Sybil had come limping through from the back, and the greetings were repeated.

‘Welcome to Birmingham,’ Sybil said. ‘We hope you will be comfortable here. Has your brother explained that your room is next door?’

Agnieska, at a loss, looked to Marek and he translated.

‘Oh!’ She lit up. ‘Yes – thank you!’

‘Maybe,’ Marek said, ‘we go round there now, to meet them.’

‘Oh, have a cup of tea first,’ Sybil said, turning towards the kitchen again. ‘You must both be frozen, and there’s no hurry, is there? Now do tell me: does she mind dogs?’

‘Dog?’ Agnieska wrinkled her nose.

‘Ah,’ Sybil said. ‘Well, not to worry. Once Archie’s been introduced, he’ll just ignore you.’

The Arbuckles were delighted to have Agnieska in their house. Marek said she had a nice little room looking out over the garden, with a cheerful pair of butter-yellow curtains. Agnieska found the mother and daughter a bit confusing at first, because she couldn’t understand a word they were saying. They tried talking louder to compensate, but it didn’t help. Marek and Piotr went round quite frequently that week to translate, which made the Arbuckles even happier.

‘I was asking her, DOES SHE LIKE EGGS?’ Edna enquired at full volume.

‘Do you like eggs?’ Marek asked her in Polish.

‘Yes,’ Agnieska replied. ‘But why is she shouting? Have I done something wrong?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. Just answer the question.’

‘Yes – I like eggs. You know I do.’

‘WHAT ABOUT BACON?’

‘Yes – this I like too.’

‘ONLY WE WEREN’T SURE IF SHE WAS JEWISH?’

‘Why does she think I’m Jewish? Yes, I like these things – but please tell her she does not need to shout . . .’

And so it went on. It was going to take time for everyone to get used to each other, and for Agnieska’s English to develop.

‘She’s very thin,’ they said to Marek, frowning in concern. ‘She’ll need feeding up.’

‘Yes, but she has to eat small, small meals,’ he explained. ‘Her health is better, but there is still a little problem with digestion . . .’

Or, as Sybil pointed out, to the Arbuckles, best not overdo the suet puddings.

‘Oh dear,’ they said. ‘Oh dear – we must be very careful.’

And careful they were. They treated Agnieska as if she was a delicate china doll, cooking little meals, checking on her health.

‘They are very kind,’ she reported, when she was round at Sybil’s.

‘Yes,’ Sybil agreed, ‘I believe they are, bless their hearts.’

After work on Christmas Eve, Mr Jenkins said his farewells and set off for his mother’s for the weekend. The rest of the household, with Agnieska, decorated the tree, which had been waiting out in the garden. Sybil had a box of pretty glass baubles and they made some bows with ribbon, and Katie and Agnieska made some paper chains with Michael and hung them across the dining room. Katie found Agnieska lively company, and she was obviously loving being back in a real home. She had been properly introduced to Archie, who was now satisfied and snoozing by the fire.

Marek and Piotr were joking around in one corner, teasing Sybil and hanging things on the tree, while Katie and Agnieska sat at the table. There was leg-pulling in both Polish and English.

‘What did he say?’ Katie asked, amused, as Marek shot a satirical remark across to his sister in Polish.

‘He say . . .’ Agnieska stopped to think.

‘Not too much glue, Michael!’ Katie intervened.

‘. . . is good my hair is . . .’ She indicated its length.

‘Long? Grown?’

‘Grown – yes. Before, is very . . . um . . .’

‘Short?’

‘Yes – short.’

‘She looked like a boy when I last see – er, saw her – before England,’ Marek teased. Seeing Katie’s puzzled expression, he said, ‘In the Uzbek camp they shaved her head: she was sick, with typhus.’

‘Oh, my goodness,’ Sybil said. She was directing operations from a chair near the Christmas tree. ‘You poor girl. That sounds terrible.’

‘Is bad,’ Piotr agreed. ‘I had also. Bad fever, markings – rash on body, bad head – bad everything. We catch from lice.’

‘Yes, so my hair – all gone,’ Agnieska agreed. ‘His hair too.’

Marek chuckled.

‘That’s not funny!’ Katie scolded him.

‘Is OK,’ Agnieska laughed, shaking her fist at him. ‘Later I kill him.’

Christmas was one of the many times Katie had to be grateful to Sybil, for the way she let people into her house to share her life. It seemed to be her instinctive nature to do so; perhaps, Katie thought, because she had been one of a large and quite loving – if eccentric – family.

On Christmas Eve, Katie and all the Poles went to Midnight Mass, leaving Michael asleep with Sybil.

‘I can’t be doing with going off at night any more,’ Sybil said. ‘I’ll go to the service on Christmas morning.’

Katie stood beside Marek in the packed church and listened to the Mass, full of happiness. How much joy she had in her life suddenly! She wondered if her father was at Mass tonight, whether he was thinking of her. Every so often Marek looked round at her and smiled, reaching to squeeze her hand. She was moved by the tender, wounded look on his face and ached for them all, for their family, wondering what memories of past Christmases the Mass was bringing back to them. She saw Agnieska, the other side of Marek, wipe tears from her eyes. The night was a clear, cold one, and they moved out into its starriness after the Mass and embraced, wishing each other a Happy Christmas, and walked home, arm in arm, four abreast.

Originally the plan was for Agnieska to be wrested from the grasp of the Arbuckles for Christmas dinner, until Sybil suggested inviting them round as well and pooling resources. The Arbuckles were delighted and promised to bring a magnificent Christmas pudding they had made months ago, having saved their rations for the purpose. Everyone mucked in with the preparations. Sybil got the joint in before her church service, and all morning and well into the afternoon the delicious smell of beef slowly roasting seeped into all the nooks and crannies of the house, soon to be joined by the smell of roasting potatoes after she returned, and was soon warbling ‘It came upon a midnight clear’ and ‘O come, all ye faithful!’ in the kitchen, quite tunefully.

Katie and Agnieska had prepared the other vegetables and now laid the table for the eight of them. She was touched by the way Agnieska seemed to have fastened onto her immediately as a big sister. As they laid the knives and forks, she kept wondering about Marek’s and Agnieska’s sister. Hadn’t he said they had another sister? And what about the rest of the family? It didn’t seem right to pry. Instead, she said, ‘What was it like in the camp – in Gloucestershire, I mean?’

Agnieska was putting the cutlery down very precisely. She looked up. ‘The camp? Oh – is OK. We have many things . . . er, Polish things – dancing and, er, priest, and we are working, learning English . . . I live in umm,
beczka
– Marek what is . . . ?’

‘Hut,’ Marek said. He was at the piano, with Michael on his lap, teaching him to play. ‘Nissen hut – like army.’

‘Oh yes, I see, ‘Katie said. ‘I don’t suppose they were very comfortable.’

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘But OK. We have live like this long time now . . .’

‘Right,’ Sybil called from the kitchen. ‘Someone go and tell the Arbuckles it’s dinner time, will you?’

The meal was delicious. All the women wore their best frocks, Susan Arbuckle’s being a spectacular pink silky creation, very tight across the bust.

‘Very nice,’ Piotr said when he saw her, and Susan’s cheeks flamed with pleasure. Sybil produced a bottle of red wine, which Agnieska declined and Susan said, ‘Oh dear, no – I’d better not . . .’ So the rest of them enjoyed it.

As they tucked into their first course, Marek raised his glass and said, ‘A toast, to Miss Routh.’

They all toasted with enthusiasm. Sybil sat back, pushing a strand of hair from her eyes, flushed in the face from her efforts in the kitchen.

‘Well, thank you,’ she said, raising her own glass. ‘And may I drink to all of you. This is a very happy household and, without you all, I expect I should be a crabby old lady. So – good health to you all!’

They all clapped and cheered and joined in the toast. Michael, very excited, carried on clapping and Agnieska laughed.

‘Eat up,’ Katie whispered. Marek, on the other side of her, squeezed her knee for a moment and she looked round and smiled.

It was a very jolly meal. Susan had much to say on the subject of Percy, her beloved. Edna Arbuckle told them that her mother had been in the theatre.

‘Not one of the Gaiety Girls?’ Sybil asked.

‘Ooh no,’ Edna said, ‘they were rather high-up sort of girls, you know, young ladies. No, she was just an ordinary actress. More of a chorus girl. I do just remember her – she handed me over to an aunt to be brought up – in Erdington. She wanted to carry on working, you see. I suppose I was rather an inconvenience to her. And then she died – killed in a road accident.’

‘Oh dear, how sad!’ Sybil said.

Katie listened. It didn’t sound as if Edna had had much of a mother, either. She put her arm round Michael for a moment and kissed him. If there was one thing she was determined to do with her life, it was to do better for him.

When the pudding was brought in, after hours of steaming, another cheer went up.

‘Magnificent!’ Sybil said. ‘We shan’t be able to move after all this!’

‘You know,’ Piotr said suddenly, as all of them except Agnieska were eating big slabs of the pudding. ‘The first Christmas time we spent in Russia . . .’

Everyone was listening immediately. The Christmas season seemed to bring out all sorts of memories.

‘We were taken first to Sverdlovsk – big town in middle of country, with steel works. The Russians wanted my father – they came for us soon after the war started. They were arming against the Germans, of course. My father, he lived for ten years in America and he learned about making steel.’ Katie listened, fascinated. She had never heard any of this before. ‘The Russians took him to work and they took us. They did not treat us too bad in this place – they want his work. All the young ones, we were taken to a barracks – a kind of orphanage – me, my brother and sister and my mother worked there in the kitchen. I was in school. At Christmas time they put up two pictures, one each side of the room: one of Jesus Christ and one of Papa Stalin. They say to children, “Which one you want to pray to? You can go to either one.” But the children soon learn – if they choose to go to Papa Stalin, he has a box of sweets – sweets falling into your hand. But Jesus? He has no sweets. You go to Jesus, you come away with hands empty. So’ – Piotr raised his glass – ‘this is religion-teaching in Russia!’