Spring Will Be Ours

by Sue Gee

  ‘Nothing!’ Ewa shouted. ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing!’ He heard her hurrying along the corridor to her room, and banging the door. She would wake his parents. He reached the landing, pushed open the flat door and saw Anna standing in the corridor, pale.

  ‘What on earth –’

  He shrugged, not knowing how to begin, and knew at once that she would misinterpret him.

  ‘You can shrug?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake – ask her yourself.’ He moved past her into the living room, where Burek rose shakily, his tail wagging. Jan bent to pat him, reached into his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. He lit one quickly, switched on the television and stood staring at it blindly, some old film, while behind him, Anna sharply closed the door and hurried along to Ewa. Let them sort it out.

  ‘When I married you …’ Anna said, and stopped.

  ‘Go on.’ Jan, beside her, lay stiffly, inches away, as if the bed had been divided by a wall. It was very late, the darkness undisturbed by passing trains or the crack of light from Ewa’s room across the corridor, switched off now. Jan had come in here over an hour ago, and lain, unable to get to sleep, listening to the rise and fall of Ewa’s and Anna’s voices, then to Anna, moving quietly about the flat, switching off lights, going to the bathroom. She had undressed there, and slipped in beside him almost holding her breath. Then found he was awake.

  ‘Go on,’ he said again. ‘When you married me? Would it not be kinder, Anna, to say “When we married”?’

  There was a pause. ‘It hasn’t felt for a long time as if we did anything,’ Anna said slowly. ‘Sometimes I feel as if I did even get married by myself.’

  ‘Don’t be so melodramatic.’

  Anna shifted angrily in the bedclothes. ‘That’s what you said to Ewa – she told me. No one’s feelings matter except yours, do they?’

  Jan didn’t answer. Then he said: ‘You told me that you and Ewa had quarrelled this evening, in any case. I imagine you tried to stop her leaving the house looking like a prostitute, which is what some man thought she was, on our way back here.’ He described the slowing car, the dark shape of the driver, turning to get a better look.

  ‘She didn’t tell me about that.’

  ‘She didn’t see him. She was crying – over nothing, as far as I’m concerned.’

  Anna shook her head. ‘And to think she wants to be allowed to come home by herself.’

  ‘Doesn’t she think that you, too, ride roughshod over her precious feelings?’

  ‘Don’t talk like that. Of course she does, but –’

  ‘But you are both women, so you can understand each other. I might like to think that my son and I could share the same kind of … comradeship, but of course that is impossible, because he, too, finds me an ogre.’

  ‘You sound so bitter. How have you become like this?’

  ‘It’s true, isn’t it? Ewa said so. He’s scared to death of me. That’s your fault, Anna.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Anna flung back the bedclothes, and made to get out of bed. Across the corridor, the thin crack of light under Ewa’s door flicked on, and she stopped. Slowly, Ewa came out of her room, and they heard her stand, as if listening.

  ‘All right, darling?’ Anna called lightly.

  ‘Just going to the bathroom.’

  Anna slid back into the bed, and they waited until she had come out.

  ‘Come and say goodnight,’ Anna called.

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Ewa, and closed her door again. After a few moments, her light went out.

  Anna sighed. ‘What did you mean?’ she asked. ‘About Jerzy?’

  ‘A boy like that needs challenges,’ said Jan. ‘You have fussed over him and his asthma and his nightmares until he thinks he cannot move an inch without Mama. He needs to be told to stand on his own two feet, to grow up.’

  ‘You cannot stand on your own two feet on shaky ground,’ said Anna. ‘Probably the biggest challenge in Jerzy’s life is having you as a father.’

  ‘That is something he cannot change.’

  ‘But you can change. Can’t you?’ She moved a little closer, took his hand. ‘Couldn’t you try? When he comes back this weekend … make some kind of move towards him?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Oh, God! I don’t know. Ask him about his trip? Have a game of chess? It doesn’t matter what it is – just make him feel you’re interested.’

  ‘Jerzy must learn to accept me as I am.’

  ‘Why? Why must he? When you can’t accept him as he is?’

  ‘Because that is life,’ Jan said coldly. ‘He is still growing, and he has hope. Or he should have hope.’

  ‘And you do not.’

  A long silence.

  ‘No.’

  Another silence fell between them. At last Anna said: ‘I don’t know whether to think of you as the most self-pitying man I have ever met, or to feel pity for you, that you should be so … desperate.’

  ‘I don’t want your pity.’

  ‘But perhaps,’ said Anna, and swallowed, ‘perhaps I can still … give you something?’ She put her head on his chest, and they lay without speaking. After a while, Anna began to stroke his hair, his lips, moving closer to him, gently beginning to undo the buttons on his pyjama jacket. ‘It has been such a long time …’

  Very deliberately, Jan took her hand away.

  ‘I’m sorry, Anna. I can’t.’

  ‘Having problems, love?’

  ‘What? No, not really.’

  ‘Course you are.’ Stan straightened the chairs at the last table, and walked back to the bar. The door to the garden, where Kevin was checking for lunchtime litter, stood open, letting in early evening light and the sound of the birds. It was five minutes before opening time, the pub empty and quiet; Ewa stood behind the polished bar, fiddling with the corner of a towelling brewery mat.

  Stan leaned on the bar and took it away from her. ‘Twitch, twitch, twitch. How come you’re still living at home?’

  ‘I wanted to stay there for my first year at university,’ said Ewa. ‘I didn’t know anyone to share with at first, anyway. Perhaps next term I’ll move out.’

  ‘Good idea. Only natural you clash with Mum and Dad, isn’t it? Your dad thinks a lot of you, though, I can see that. And Grandad – he’s a nice old chap, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ewa, ‘very nice. Stop taking the mickey.’

  ‘Who, me? I wasn’t, honest.’

  ‘All right.’ She looked at her watch, and felt her stomach tighten. Two minutes before opening time: would Leo come in tonight?

  ‘And that’s a very nice get-up you’re got up in,’ said Stan, eyeing the pale mauve T-shirt tucked into the mini. ‘I’d go easy on the make-up myself, but …’

  ‘Yes, well, it wouldn’t really suit you, would it?’

  ‘That’s my girl. First smile I’ve seen out of you since you got here. Right then, better open up.’ He walked to the double doors, and bent to slip the bolts, straightened up and pulled them open. ‘There we are, then. Ready for anything.’

  From behind the bar Ewa looked out at the sunny street, the parked cars and the windows of the houses opposite. Where did Leo live? What had he thought of her last night, disappearing with Tata without even saying goodbye? He must have thought she was rude. Or peculiar. If he did come in, she wouldn’t be able to think of anything to say.

  ‘Now don’t you worry about a thing,’ said Stan, coming back. ‘It’ll all be all right on the night.’

  Ewa smiled weakly. ‘Which night is that?’

  ‘The one that matters.’ Stan went out into the garden, whistling. ‘Come on, Kev, what you doing out here, planting grass seed?’

  The evening began quietly. Ewa, serving, chatting politely to regulars, waited impatiently for it to get busy, so that she would not have time to wonder about each sound of footsteps approaching the pub, each figure appearing at the doorway. It got busy, but she still found herself looking over the heads of the crowd to check fo
r a very fair one, taller than any of them. By ten she had given up. I’m glad he hasn’t come, she thought, snapping the tops off two bottles of tonic; I couldn’t handle it. Now I don’t have to worry about what to say, or how to say it, or what he thinks of me, or what Mama will say if I go out with him. I hope he never comes in here again, then I can just be myself. And who is that? she wondered wryly, turning to set two glasses and two bottles before her customer.

  ‘Hi’

  ‘Oh. Hello.’

  He was right at the front of the crush, and she hadn’t even seen him.

  ‘That’ll be five shillings, please,’ she said to the gin-and-tonic man, and tucked the note into the till.

  ‘What can I get you?’ she asked Leo.

  ‘A pint, please.’ He was looking at her quizzically. ‘Get home all right? Last night?’

  ‘What? Yes, thank you, I mean I’m sorry if I was rude …’

  ‘You weren’t. Your pumpkin coach just came too early, that’s all. I looked for the glass slipper this morning, but no luck.’

  She smiled, blushing, carefully setting down his pint. ‘One and ten, please.’

  He reached into his pocket, and passed her half a crown. ‘How about tonight? Or is it the same story?’

  ‘My grandfather is collecting me,’ said Ewa, giving him his change, and had to laugh at his expression.

  ‘Your grandfather. And who comes tomorrow, Granny?’

  ‘I’m not working tomorrow.’

  ‘Aha. May I have the pleasure of your company, or should I ask your father’s permission first?’

  ‘If you only knew …’

  ‘I think I get the picture.’ He picked up his glass. ‘Okay – meet you … where’s a good place? Or should I come to fetch you?’

  ‘No,’ she said quickly, and he raised an eyebrow. ‘Bad as all that?’

  ‘Just – no. I mean no, don’t come. Sorry.’

  ‘Stop saying sorry. Why don’t you come to my place, and we’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Oh. All right.’ Ewa felt a sudden shiver. Wouldn’t it be better to meet somewhere neutral? I’m nervous enough now, she thought. How will I cope if we’re in his house? And I won’t be able to tell Mama where I’m going.

  ‘I’m not going to eat you,’ said Leo, with the same incredible smile. ‘Not yet.’

  Her stomach did another nosedive.

  ‘Here …’ He reached into his inside pocket, and pulled out a Biro and a scrap of paper. He scribbled down his address, and gave her the paper. Ewa looked at it – just round the corner from here. ‘Middle bell,’ said Leo. ‘Come about seven, okay?’

  ‘Fine. Thank you.’ She folded the paper quickly.

  ‘When you two have quite finished,’ said Stan, behind her, and she jumped.

  ‘Evening, Stan.’ Leo picked up his glass and made his way across the crowded room with his lazy, graceful walk. Watching him, Ewa was suddenly struck by the difference between the way he and Jerzy moved. Jerzy walked as if he felt awkward; even when he got up from a chair, or went to answer the phone, he was stiff, self-conscious. For a moment she felt a pang of love and pity for him, and then there were three people waiting to be served, and she forgot all about him.

  Sunday afternoon, and the platform for the London train from Manchester was almost empty. Jerzy walked slowly past the waiting carriages, old canvas rucksack on his shoulders, camera slung round his neck. Above him, on the girders of the vaulted roof, pigeons murmured sleepily; on other platforms, train doors slammed. Ahead, beyond the roof, a forest of overhead electric wires stretched above the track. He looked at his watch: still a good ten minutes, but he might as well choose a seat. Near the front of the train, he climbed into an empty non-smoker, pushed his rucksack up on to the luggage rack and sat down, suddenly very tired. Hungry, too, but there was nothing he could do about it until he got home. He leaned back, waiting for the train to fill up a little, and the whistle to blow, feeling nothing of the usual disappointment that the trip was almost over, but a great wave of relief that he was safe, and going home.

  ‘Anyone sitting here, love?’ A large middle-aged woman with two children and a bulging suitcase was clambering into the carriage.

  ‘No. no.’ He got up and helped her heave the suitcase on to the rack, sat down again and watched her unwrap an enormous packet of sandwiches.

  ‘Want one?’

  ‘No, no thanks.’

  The children munched, unblinking.

  As the train began to move, sliding slowly past the rows of small brick houses by the track, the old mill buildings and modern office blocks beyond, Jerzy gazed out of the window, thought about the previous evening, and couldn’t decide what had been the most unpleasant.

  There was the feeling of awkwardness and exclusion – from the group of students, from the flirtation at the desk, but he was so used to dealing with this on the trips that once away from such situations and enjoying his solitude again, he barely thought of it. Still, he wished he didn’t feel like that. There was the sickening, frightening fact of being approached by a man, and wondering why he had been. Had he been covertly watched on the Friday night? Would the man have been like that with any boy on his own, or was it something peculiar to Jerzy which had attracted him? The worst thing, he thought, was the way the man talked about being saved, and the love of Jesus, smearing it all with creepy disgusting intimacy. He was a nutter, that was all; he should be able to forget the whole thing and count himself lucky that nothing else had happened, that he’d had a top bunk, and the man obviously wasn’t going to try anything on in a crowded dormitory. Should he have reported it all to the girl at the desk? No, unthinkable.

  Have-you-been-saved? Have-you-been-saved? The train kept asking it: why should he find it so disturbing that a sick man was hooked on sex and religion? Have-you-been-saved? As long as you were baptized, the question didn’t exactly apply if you were a Catholic, although you could fall from grace, of course. He had fallen from grace. He could think about baptism, even communion, with detachment now; that must be a sin in itself. He could not think detachedly about confession, in which he lied through omission; above all, he could make none of the sacraments – ceremonies, as he was beginning to think of them now – reconcile with his deepest feeling, which he felt too ashamed of to discuss with anyone, certainly with none of the priests at school: that he was losing his faith: worse, that he would prefer God not to exist.

  The train flashed past fields and willow trees. It was starting to rain, a sudden summer downpour. He closed his eyes, and tried to recapture the image of creation he’d had when he was eight or nine: a grey-green sea under an empty sky, and silence. That was all. It seemed to him now to be more an image of the end than of the beginning of life, yet it also felt subtly perfect: the first form, awaiting the first breath. Now, he felt caught in pincers: if God had moved across the face of the waters, if he really existed, then Jerzy felt as he had been taught to feel: accountable. And afraid, although that was his secret; he didn’t know himself why he should feel that God had marked him out for especial punishment. If God did not exist, then Jerzy was safe from his anger, but the world seemed a meaningless, arbitrary, chaotic place, and human beings no more than ants. And he was afraid of these feelings, also.

  Two years ago, Jerzy had stood with his Scout troop amongst thousands of Polish children and their families, filling the White City stadium, confidently singing hymns from his childhood, celebrating the Millenium: 1966, the thousandth year of Christianity in Poland. White and red flags fluttered on the stadium roof; banners with the crowned Polish eagle were held high; as well as the troops of Scouts and Guides, there were hundreds and hundreds of children in folk costume, embroidered dresses and trousers and waistcoats – some made here, as Mama had made Ewa’s dress for Saturday school when she was younger – but some sent all the way from Poland.

  ‘Oh God, in your power and glory,

  For centuries you have watched over Poland.

  Before your
altar we beg you:

  Return a free homeland to us …’ He had sung the words so fervently, remembering that once in the war Mama had been able to sing not ‘Return a free homeland’but ‘Bless our free homeland’. Among all the exiles and children of exiles in White City that day, he had felt part of a great circle of Polishness, certain that somehow, despite centuries of suffering and oppression, his country had a particular place in God’s plan: wasn’t the Virgin Mary traditionally Queen of Poland?

  Later, they heard that in Poland itself, the government had tried to suppress the Millenium events by another celebration: one thousand years of nationhood. Military parades had blared next to open-air masses; a pilgrimage had been broken up by the police. The procession, carrying flowers, singing hymns, had been moving towards Warsaw from Czestochowa, bearing from the monastery Poland’s most cherished, most sacred image: the Black Madonna, traditionally said to have been painted by St Luke. The painting was seized by the police, and taken back to the monastery, the pilgrims were scattered; a few days later a demonstration in protest outside the Party headquarters in Warsaw was dispersed by riot police. On the orders of Gomułka, the border was closed to foreigners for over a month.

  Jerzy had listened to Dziadek and Babcia discuss all this one Sunday. Later, going into their bedroom to fetch Babcia’s cardigan, he looked again at the familiar postcard reproduction of the Black Madonna on the wall, and standing amongst the utility furniture and candlewick bedspreads had tried to imagine the long procession winding through the countryside, singing the hymns they’d sung in White City; then the sudden arrival of the police, and the painting wrenched away.

  Had his doubts and fears begun then? He wasn’t sure, but even if they had, he knew that they were more to do with something already lacking in himself than with anything outside. His grandparents, after all, had lost everything they knew without losing their faith – in fact it seemed to be all the stronger. Why couldn’t he be like them, going to mass every Sunday, praying every night, unafraid of death and what lay beyond it, even as exiles sure of their place in the world?