‘She died. A couple of years ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Anja looked saddened. ‘We never met her. I tried to find her. Boris said to let the past lie, but I went myself, as soon as it seemed safe to go. It was heartbreaking. The family house, where your great-aunt lived, where your father went to make his home – nothing but charred, overgrown ruins. The village fared better than some in the area, but it was totally changed. Some of the old people had moved back, and a few newcomers, but much of the place was empty. Abandoned. No one knew where you’d gone.’ His language, their language, had sounded rusty with her to begin with, but was now beginning to run more freely, like an old machine newly oiled and coaxed back to life. ‘But what about you, Vinko? You had other family?’
He shook his head. ‘I managed.’
‘Where have you been living?’
He could hear her other, unspoken, question: Why didn’t you come to us?
‘My mother went to Germany after the war. I was born there. I came to England a year or so ago. I got a lift but it wasn’t easy.’
A forty-eight hour journey boarded up in a cramped, stuffy compartment at the back of a furniture lorry with two others, relieved that he hadn’t needed the faked identity card.
‘You’re all right now?’
He nodded. There was an uneasy silence.
‘Listen, I ought to tell you. Before your grandfather gets back. He doesn’t like mention of the old country. He hardly refers to it at all. Living in the past is what caused it all, he says. Lost your father to us.’
‘I know. My mother told me.’
‘What did she tell you?’
‘That…that my father went back to Croatia on his own.’ His eyes were on the ground; he couldn’t meet hers. ‘Because you and Grandfather wouldn’t take him.’ He looked up. ‘I’m sorry. She told me she’d written to you…must be the letter you got…she said you had a right to know. About me. About what happened to my father. She gave me your address, too.’ He was careful not to mention Novak. ‘The old one. The girl who lives there now gave me this one. She sends her greetings. I’m sorry, I can’t remember her name.’
‘Young Nicky Radcliffe?’
He nodded, uninterested. That episode was past. ‘Where is he now? Grandfather?’
‘He’s gone to see a neighbour about something. He’s well-liked round here, you know.’
She seemed eager to persuade Vinko of it, but he’d make his own mind up, like he’d always had to.
‘I’ll go and put the kettle on,’ she said. ‘Make us a cup of tea. We usually have dinner around seven; I hope you’ll stay.’
She bustled into the kitchen, leaving Vinko to look round the trinkets and photos on the sideboard. He couldn’t help weighing up the value of the smaller ornaments, or noticing two ten-pound notes beneath a glass paperweight. But he held back. Glancing around, he opened the top drawer a crack. Nothing but an assortment of mats and cloths. He quickly tried the rest of the drawers. No bank papers. He had never expected it to be that easy, and it was more of a relief than a disappointment; he still wasn’t sure that was the reason he had come. He studied the photographs instead – a black and white wedding photo, presumably of Anja and Boris. A couple of portraits of a woman he thought must be the ‘sourface’ Nicola Radcliffe had mentioned – his aunt, Novak’s ex-wife, smiling now for the camera. A boy and a girl at various ages, he guessed his cousins, the most recent a similar age to himself. None of them included Novak, which was not surprising. Vinko was saddened, however, to see no sign of his father, not even as a boy. He sat back down, wondering whether he should have come. Presently he heard the back door open.
‘Boris, we’ve got a visitor. Wait, let me tell you…’
Footsteps sounded and the connecting door was pulled closed. He heard muffled voices, hers hushed, his deeper and louder. Vinko considered trying to listen through the closed door or slipping away out the front. He decided the first would be too risky and the second pointless. Inertia won and he sat looking across at the pictures that didn’t include his father. The voices in the kitchen got more insistent, more heated, and he heard movement, braced himself for the door to burst open. Instead he heard the back door slam and heavy footsteps down the side of the house and out along the drive. He looked through the window and saw a stocky, balding figure in a blue anorak striding down the road.
Anja stood by the kitchen door looking apologetic.
‘He had to go out again; he’ll be back to meet you later,’ she said as she put a tray with tea and cakes on the table. ‘A friend of his—’
‘I know. He doesn’t want me here. It’s all right, I’ll go before he gets back.’
‘You won’t!’ she said. ‘Only if you want to,’ she added more gently. ‘This is my house too. I’ll not have him turn you away so soon after I’ve met you.’
Her tears were welling up again and he felt embarrassed. He looked over to the sideboard.
‘Is he the reason why there are no pictures of my father?’
Anja nodded. ‘Shall I show you the letter your mother sent?’ she asked as if by way of apology.
She disappeared upstairs and he heard the shuffling of things being moved. She returned with a yellowing envelope, the 52 Fairview Terrace address in hurried scrawl across the front and a German stamp and postmark. She removed the letter carefully and passed it to him. It was in the same hastily scribbled hand, apologising that his father had never written; he’d always intended to, and to visit them when the war was over. His mother told of their marriage, and how sorry she was to inform them of Ivan’s death soon after in the fighting. She told them she’d fled to Germany with the help of a neighbour and would write again when the baby was born. It seemed she never had, and he wondered what Anja had thought for the last seventeen years. He was surprised to find his hand trembling and glanced at his grandmother. She was staring at the letter she must know by heart, shaking her head slowly.
‘If only he’d never gone.’
Vinko shifted uneasily. ‘Are those photos?’
She handed two pictures to him. A copy of one his mother had shown him many times, the two of them on their wedding day. His father in combat gear, his mother in a pretty flowered dress. Circumstances hadn’t allowed a traditional wedding. He looked long at them, his father’s expression one of joyful pride and his mother staring at the camera as if resenting having to take her eyes off her new husband. The other was also a copy of one his mother had treasured; he remembered her crying when she lost it. She used to cry a lot. The photo showed his father ‘looking like a real hero’ as she’d said, together with his closest friend, grinning and posing for the camera. He stared hard at the two young men, dragging his eyes away from his father to the other. As he looked, Vinko realised why the busker in Holdwick had held his attention so strongly.
‘That one particularly irritated Boris,’ Anja was saying. ‘Though I know my Ivan would have loved me to see the two of them looking so happy.’
‘You knew Šojka?’
Anja frowned momentarily then smiled. ‘So that’s what they called him, is it? Yes; they were at school together. You heard about him, then?’
‘A little. I found it amazing that a foreigner fought for us in the war. He must have been special.’
‘That’s not what your grandfather would say.’ She glanced towards the window. ‘Not what he said when he turned up on our doorstep last year, either.’
‘Šojka was here? He’s alive? Can you introduce me to him?’
She shook her head. ‘We don’t know where he is now, though I’m fairly sure he doesn’t live locally. In any case, Boris told him never to darken our door again.’ She took Vinko’s hand, gripped it tightly. ‘I don’t think he knew about you or he’d have asked after you. I never got a chance to ask him about your mother either, with all Boris’s cursing and threats.’
She sighed again and gazed over towards the family photographs, seeing ones that should have been there. ‘I always liked hi
m, even though Ivan might not have gone, might not have listened so hard to my sister’s obsessions, if they hadn’t encouraged each other. But whatever his faults, I wish he’d stood up to Boris last year and stayed. Maybe he could see I still partly blamed him.’ She shrugged. ‘Perhaps he’ll come back one day, though I doubt it.’
Vinko stared at the cooling cup of tea and uneaten buns. He reached out and took one, heedless of the crumbs he dropped on her sofa as he ate. An echo drifted into his head of a tune he’d heard the previous Saturday, like one of the songs his mother had sung to light up his troubled childhood. He looked again at the photograph he was still holding. If only he’d had the guts to talk to the man last week. Why? It was probably a complete stranger, and if not, what did any of it matter? He put the photo down as if it was contaminated and swallowed the last mouthful of cake with difficulty.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said suddenly in English. ‘I go.’
‘No! Please.’ Her grip on his arm was tight, insistent, and he sat back.
He enjoyed listening to her talking about Ivan as a boy, and nodded politely as she mentioned others in the family. He paid particular attention as Anja told him about his aunt, Vesna, wondering if he’d learn anything about her marriage to Mihal Novak. Anja merely said they’d divorced. Vinko tried to keep his voice casual as he asked why.
‘From what she told us, there was no one reason. Things just got steadily worse. He was often away on business, sometimes for weeks, leaving her with the kids. He ran a small transport company, though we weren’t convinced everything they carried was strictly legal. And when he was at home, he was…not an easy man to live with. Worse when he drank. Towards the end, we believed – though Vesna never said – he’d threatened her with violence. Even hit her. Though we were never sure.’ She looked sad and angry. ‘Divorce is never good, especially not when children are involved, but I’m not ashamed to say I was relieved.’
It was also a relief of sorts when the back door opened and they both looked round. Boris came noisily through to the living room.
‘So you’re still here? Come and shake your granddad’s hand, then.’
Vinko obeyed and could smell drink on the man’s breath as he approached.
‘It is an honour to meet you, sir,’ he said in the language his grandmother had led him to associate with these surroundings.
‘We’ll have none of that here. English it is in this house. You can speak English?’
‘Yes. Though I like more to talk my own language if I can. With my family.’
‘Well you can’t. Not in my house.’
‘Boris—’
He cut Anja short. ‘I daresay I’ve forgotten every word I ever knew – I chose to, like I chose to make a new life here – and I’ll not have you two whispering behind my back. So if you’re going to stay…’
Vinko looked at Anja, saw the plea in her eyes. ‘If this you want.’
‘Aye. That’s what I want.’
He sat down in an armchair. Vinko perched on a dining chair at the edge of the room, shy about returning to Anja’s side on the sofa. She rose and picked up a magazine from the coffee table together with the letter and photos she’d hastily concealed beneath it when her husband arrived.
‘I’ll just go and make a start on the dinner.’
‘Hide ’em away well, love.’ Boris laughed to himself as she left the room. ‘Thinks I’ll chuck ’em on t’ fire one day.’
Vinko flashed him a look but kept silent.
‘So what brings you here? Spinney found you, did he? Been talking to you?’
‘I don’t know who is…Spinney.’
‘Do I look like I were born yesterday? If he’s sent you here for us to see you right ’cause you claim to be our Ivan’s kid, he can think again.’ He pronounced it eye-van, which got Vinko’s hackles up. He focused on this legitimate annoyance to keep from betraying himself by asking Boris too eagerly, too soon, to clarify what he meant by ‘see you right’.
‘I don’t know who or what you talk about.’
‘Now look here—’
‘He doesn’t, Boris,’ said Anja, coming through from the kitchen. ‘He didn’t even know Jay was still alive. And of course Vinko’s who he says he is. Haven’t you got eyes in your head?’
‘That’s as may be. And I suppose seeing as how you’re here you can stay for a while. Anja says she’s invited you to have dinner with us.’ He looked from his wife to Vinko. ‘But don’t go asking for owt else, eh?’
‘I’m sure he’s got no intention of asking for anything,’ she said, calmly. Not directly, Vinko thought.
‘Aye, well, I’m just saving him the trouble.’
Chapter 10
Marilyn got up, added a log to the fire and sat back down, watching the smoke from Jay’s pipe drift towards the chimney and mingle with that from the flames in a comfortable silence. She assumed it was comfortable, at any rate; she must be mad, but she felt comfortable. She had no idea what he was thinking.
Eventually she plucked up the courage to ask him how someone living in hedgerows and barns, scraping a living from street entertainment and odd-jobbing, had enough money to be offering her a loan. She immediately regretted being so direct, but he smiled as if being offended wasn’t an option.
‘Zora was beautiful,’ he said, in the same once-upon-a-time tone that had won her over yesterday, ‘but in trouble. She was living in a remote house on the fringe of a war zone. She’d left the relative security of the city and gone to live in her family’s crumbling house in the area where she felt she belonged. She’d taken in refugees who’d fled from villages disrupted by the conflict. And the local militia leader was her lover. This man was strong but cruel, respected and feared.
‘Our heroine held a small fortune abroad – part inheritance, part savings smuggled out – and wanted it to help them rebuild their lives when the war was over. Her man, cold, battle-hardened, found out about it and wanted to use it there and then, not only to get supplies to help make sure they won the war, but to avenge his people by causing as much death and destruction as possible.’
He leaned forward and prodded the fire with the poker, sending a dramatic shower of sparks spiralling up the chimney.
‘So, while her lover was away fighting, she confided in a young soldier she’d grown fond of. He’d been injured and was still too unwell to fight, but recovered enough to travel. She knew her lover, the militia leader, would eventually bully her into handing the money over and asked this young man to take it away, to keep it safe in a new account until things had settled down. There would be risks and she told him how much he could keep for himself as his reward. They both knew the dangers she was facing, too, and she told him that if she died he was to keep it all. She didn’t want it to be used for evil.’
He glanced at her as if to check she was still with him.
‘I knew that man, once. That was how I came to be custodian of a substantial sum of money. She died, tragically, shortly after her young friend left, and the money became his in accordance with her wishes. He bought a house but couldn’t bear to keep it so he made me custodian; eventually signed it over to me and said I could do what I liked with it. I lived there briefly, but it didn’t seem right, somehow. For reasons of my own I took to the road after a couple of years, putting the house to let with an agent. There was enough profit from the rent to pay back what I’d always considered to be more an unofficial loan than a windfall. Once I’d done so, with a respectable amount of interest, I contacted her family and handed the money over to them. But the house is still there, rent still coming in – and now I’ve found a good home for the surplus.’
He looked at her.
‘That’s…a great story.’
‘But.’ His eyes twinkled in the firelight. ‘You don’t believe I have a house in Hampshire, do you?’
She laughed. ‘Whether I do or not, it’s not the house that’s the problem.’
‘Good. Because it’s true. You can’t argue with bricks
and mortar. I could take you there now.’
She sipped her drink. ‘It’s the gorgeous wealthy heiress leaving her fortune to a hapless young soldier that’s a touch less credible.’
‘When you put it like that…’
‘So?’ She waited, but Jay simply smiled, drew on his pipe, exhaled luxuriously.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘let’s say I ask no questions and take it on trust that you’ve got a house. What’s the real reason you come to be wandering the country apparently aimlessly, and how do you really make your living?’
‘The second part first: it’s as you’ve seen. Straight up. I don’t earn much but I don’t need much. And, whether or not you choose to believe me, since last year I’ve been getting a reasonable income from the house.’
‘What happened last year?’
‘Like I said, I’d finally saved up enough to find our heroine’s family and give them their small fortune.’ She couldn’t help shaking her head. ‘Believe what you will. Truth can be stranger than fiction. What is true is that I’ve finished paying off what I borrowed to buy the house, so the income’s mine now, see? Well, yours for a while, if you’ll accept it.’
‘I’ll accept it when I know the truth about where it’s come from. So, back to the first part of my question – how come you’re on the road if you’ve got a perfectly good house?’
‘Tenancy agreements. You get a long-term tenant in, it’s a pig of a job getting them out.’ He grinned in a way that suggested he knew she felt like shaking him. ‘OK, OK. Not merely tenants – lifestyle decision, pure and simple. Well, if I’m honest, not entirely my own. My late father sowed the seeds.’
‘You’re going to tell me you’ve got Romany blood.’
He picked up his wine glass and studied it as if it were a crystal ball.
‘Not as far as I know. We moved around a lot, but it was pretty mundane – not caravans but cars and Pickford’s. Dad was ambitious in his own sweet way and thought nothing of upping sticks on a regular basis for new starts and “business opportunities” that became tediously routine in their frequency. It was better when Mum was alive; she stayed put with us more or less every other move, and made him commute. But then…then she died. Car accident.’ He paused and ran a hand through his hair. ‘It…it was about the time my sister went off to college. A few years later, the summer I was seventeen, I spent the holidays abroad with a mate. Dad said I should stay and help him with the business he was trying to get off the ground at the time. I wanted nothing to do with it. So I get home late August and find my key no longer fits the door. He’d left an address, on the other side of the country, and passed on the message through my sister: “If the cocky little bastard wants his independence, he’s welcome to it.” No hard feelings, did I understand; he wasn’t one to shirk on his responsibilities and I was welcome to join him when I was ready.’
Someone Else's Conflict Page 8
