Spring Will Be Ours

by Sue Gee

  Jan had not been on the tube for over twenty years.

  The carriage swayed, creaking. The carriage lights flickered, briefly, once, then again. The train went still more slowly, and then it stopped, juddering.

  For a minute or two, it was as if no one had noticed. People went on talking, awkwardly turning the pages of the Sunday papers in the crush. Gradually, the talking stopped. Throats were cleared. The lights in the carriage flickered again, and for a terrifying second went out altogether. Then they were on again, dimly.

  Jan felt sweat pour down him.

  ‘Excuse me …’ He pushed and shoved his way towards the windows, leaning across the people sitting down, fumbling with the catch. Further along, a woman was trying to do the same.

  ‘Mind out, mate,’ said the man below him.

  ‘Excuse me …’ He pulled and tugged, and at last got it free, and slammed the upper window down. A pitiful waft of stale air came in and was lost among the smoke, the breathing passengers. Jan was panting. He leaned right over the people sitting before him, whose knees were pressed into his and peered through the open gap, trying to see anything, up ahead.

  Distantly, a red light glowed.

  Then it was just a signal. Thank Christ. They’d be moving again in a minute.

  Unless it had failed. If there was a signal failure, they could be down here another half hour, another hour.

  He got out his cigarettes and lit one, quickly.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Not now, mate.’

  ‘For God’s sake put it out.’ That was the woman, further down, her voice rising as he felt his voice would rise, hysterically, if he tried to speak. He took a long, frantic puff, and dropped the butt, stubbing it out. He thought: I was half-mad before I came down here. If we don’t move soon …

  The train creaked, and stumbled forward. They were moving, they were moving. Jan felt his whole body tremble as the train gathered speed, and then it slowed again, and drew into Tottenham Court Road station. The doors opened, and Jan pushed his way through and out on to the platform. He moved quickly through the passengers waiting there, and almost ran up the stairs and out of the station to the blessed freedom of the open air.

  For a while he just stood there, by the news stand, as the crowds milled round Macdonald’s, opposite, brightly lit. Then he crossed over, and stood at the bus stop, waiting for the number 24, which would take him to South Hampstead, and to Jerzy and Elizabeth, who had not got married yesterday. When the bus came, he climbed to the top deck, and sat smoking as they stopped and started in the traffic, and the winter afternoon light in Camden Town began to fade. I’ll go and see my son, he thought, I never see him.

  But when the bus eventually stopped at the terminus beneath the trees of South End Green, and he climbed down the stairs and got off, he knew at once that he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He paced up and down beneath the trees, and depression gnawed at his stomach like a rat, as it had for years.

  Across the road from the trees was a café, but that was closed. There was a row of brightly lit little shops, also closed, with Christmas decorations and snow sprayed on to the window panes. There was a pub, and that was open. He went in and had a whisky, and then another, but he wasn’t used to it and he didn’t want to get drunk. He wanted to die.

  A winking fruit machine thumped and rattled; he sat and watched a couple collect a shower of ten-pence pieces. Across the bar a television hung on the wall was roaring; the bar was strung with Christmas cards and fairy lights, with a plastic Father Christmas in the middle. Jan finished his drink and got up and went outside. He stood wondering where to go next, heard the banging doors of a railway carriage, and knew. The tube was out of the question, for every reason. An empty railway track was fine. He walked to the station and bought a ticket to Gospel Oak because it was the nearest and the only name he could remember anyway. Then he went down, and waited …

  He finished his cigarette, and found he was near another bridge. For a moment he hesitated; it was absolutely dark under there. He didn’t want to slip and fall, he wanted to know exactly what he was doing. He felt in his pocket again, brought out the lighter, and snapped it on. It shone like a little life, as he went carefully over the sleepers under the bridge.

  ‘I said pass on the fucking candle!’ It was snatched away from him, and went out. He could hear himself panting hard again as he came out and realized like an animal, from the smell of cold grass and earth, that on the left the track was now running right next to the heath. A few lights from the upper windows of houses on the long road on the right were just enough to see by, but the snow was beginning to fall more thickly. He brushed flakes off his face, stood still, and made out the distance between here and the third rail. He only had to take a few steps. He only had to bend down and touch it. He stepped forward, and stopped. He took off his gloves, and lifted his foot, to cross the second rail, and almost overbalanced, and heard himself shout. He stumbled back, and stood between the two safe rails, shaking. The snow whirled.

  He put his head in his hands and howled.

  There was a bell ringing somewhere. It pierced Elizabeth’s sleep like an arrow, and she woke, or rather half-woke, and listened. She heard the sitting room door open, and Jerzy go to the front door of the flat, and she knew without opening her eyes that it was very late. Flat 2 are locked out again, she thought, or half-thought, and turned over and fell deeply asleep again, very warm.

  ‘Elizabeth! Wake up! Elizabeth!’

  She rolled over and opened her eyes. Jerzy had switched on the bedside lamp and was leaning over her. He looked tense, almost panicky.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘My father’s here.’

  ‘Your father? What? It’s the middle of the night.’ She sat up, and peered at the clock: it was after one. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘He’s in the sitting room. Something’s happened to him, he looks terrible, but I don’t know what to do with him. He’s just – here.’

  Elizabeth got out of bed and put on her dressing gown and followed Jerzy to the sitting room. Jan was standing in his coat in front of the fire, his face deathly white, and even from here she could feel how cold he was.

  ‘Jan?’ She went quickly over to him and touched his arm. His coat was wet from melted snow, smelling of raw air. ‘What’s happened? What’s happened to you?’

  He shook his head, staring at the fire.

  ‘Get him a drink,’ she said to Jerzy. ‘A brandy, there’s some in the kitchen, I’m sure there is.’ She led Jan slowly to the chair by the fire and sat him down. Jerzy came back with a bottle of brandy and a glass; he poured out a drink, his hand shaking.

  ‘Here you are, Tata.’

  Jan took it, and drank. ‘Thank you. Please forgive me, I –’ He broke off, and took another sip. He lit a cigarette.

  ‘You don’t have to talk,’ Jerzy said, awkwardly. ‘You can just stay here and sleep. We can make up a bed on the sofa for you.’ He turned to Elizabeth. ‘Can’t we?’

  ‘Of course.’ She went to the door. ‘I’ll get some bedclothes.’

  She went to the kitchen and put on the kettle for another hot-water bottle, and in the bedroom she pulled out sheets, a pillowcase, blankets and an old eiderdown from the cupboard. She found a pair of Jerzy’s pyjamas, and she took the whole pile back to the sitting room, where she found Jerzy on the floor, on the opposite side of the fire from Jan, hugging his knees. He looked very young; because he was so thin you might have thought from the back that he was still in his teens, just sitting with his father in the evening. There was only one lamp on; the room looked warm and friendly.

  Jan coughed; Jerzy jumped.

  Elizabeth put down the pile of bedding on the sofa, and went to fill the hot-water bottle. She stood for a moment looking across the kitchen table at the black, uncurtained windows, where snow was falling. In the daytime and early evening you could hear the trains go past the heath from here, it was one of the reasons Jerzy had liked this flat
, and they didn’t run too late, so she didn’t mind. She thought suddenly: How on earth did Jan get here? And then: I wonder if I do know what happened, and she sat down quickly.

  When she went back into the sitting room again, she found that Jerzy had made up the bed on the sofa. Jan was still by the fire, still in his coat, and Jerzy was on the floor again, but next to him now. Elizabeth slipped the bottle between the sheets, and picked up the brandy.

  ‘I’m going to have one,’ she said. ‘I think I need it. Jan? Do you want another? Jerzy?’

  They all sat drinking round the fire.

  ‘Have you eaten, Jan?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘No, no thank you. I don’t want anything.’ The colour was back in his face; he stood up, and took off the heavy damp coat. Jerzy took it from him, and went to hang it in the hall. Elizabeth and Jan looked at each other, and looked away. When Jerzy came back, Jan said to him, very slowly:

  ‘I tried to kill myself tonight, but I didn’t have the courage.’

  Jerzy stared at him.

  Jan held out his hand, and Jerzy hesitated, then came and took it. There was silence. Ash from Jan’s cigarette fell on to the carpet. After a while Jerzy took his hand away, and they both just stood there.

  ‘Jan? Would you like to go to bed now?’ Elizabeth asked carefully. ‘We can talk in the morning.’

  He nodded, looking utterly drained. They left him to undress.

  In the kitchen, Jerzy began to cry.

  ‘I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it.’ He put his arms round Elizabeth and held her. ‘Do you forgive me?’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’ She stroked his hair.

  When he had stopped, they switched off the kitchen light, and then he went out to the sitting room door and knocked. There was no answer. He pushed the door open and went inside. Jan was in the made-up bed, asleep. Jerzy went over and turned out the fire. He bent and kissed his father on the forehead, and then he switched out the lamp and came out. He and Elizabeth went back to bed, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Perhaps an hour later, the telephone rang and rang. Jerzy stumbled out of bed. Lying there, listening, Elizabeth heard him push open the sitting room door, and mutter: ‘It’s all right, Tata, stay there.’

  She heard him pick up the ringing phone and say, automatically, for who else but the family would be ringing in the middle of the night: ‘Stucham?’ And then, his voice croaking with sleep: ‘No, no, it’s all right, Mama, he’s here, he’s fine.’

  Monday 21 December

  It was late morning, as cold as yesterday; last night’s snow had

  not settled but melted, soon after first light, leaving the grass wet,

  and drops of water clinging to every bare branch of the trees. Pale

  cloud hung above the heath, where a handful of people were out

  walking – people with dogs, mothers with children on the first day

  of the Christmas holidays, watching them run up and down the

  sloping path to the hill where the kite flyers came.

  ‘Race you to the bottom – come on!’

  ‘No – no, wait! Wait!’

  Jerzy and Jan were walking up the path in silence. Jerzy’s camera bumped against his chest. Jan was smoking; every now and then he coughed. After a while he dropped the cigarette and stubbed it out with his heel. They walked on, past the dodging children, scarves flying.

  Someone had approached the top of the hill from the other side; he stood unwinding a long kite string, a slightly built young man in corduroy jacket and knitted hat. The jacket looked like a very old cast-off, something from an Oxfam shop. The kite lay on the ground beside him, in a supermarket carrier bag; the string seemed endless, wound on to a stick, not a proper handle. He nodded to them as they approached; Jerzy nodded back. It was much colder up here, the wind cutting across the wet grass from the lake below. He turned to look at his father, as a train rattled past the heath towards Gospel Oak station.

  ‘Tata? All right? Are you cold?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ said Jan, ‘but let’s keep walking.’

  They passed the young man, who had heard them, and who gave them a fleeting, hesitant smile, as if he wanted to speak. Then they went down to where the path branched to the right, leading to a clump of tall, misty-topped trees. They could see one or two figures in dark coats walking away through them, like distant ghosts.

  Jan said: ‘I want to talk to you, Jerzy, but I don’t know where to start.’ He felt in his pocket and lit another cigarette. A waft of smoke drifted on the cold damp air into Jerzy’s face, and he coughed.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He said it automatically.

  ‘No,’ said Jan. ‘It is I who should be sorry. For everything.’

  Jerzy looked down across the long stretch of grass to the trees.

  Jan said slowly: ‘I told you last night that I lacked the courage to – to do what I intended. I’ve lacked courage in a lot of things, perhaps, and it is something I valued above everything.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jerzy. ‘You were a hero. And I never had enough courage.’

  Jan took a deep breath. ‘I wasn’t a hero, I simply did what I wanted to do. And as for you – I was very hard on you, Jerzy. On everyone, but especially you.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Jerzy said uneasily. ‘It’s all right, Tata. I’m sorry you’ve been feeling so …’

  So low, so miserable, so bleak and lonely and bitter. None of the words was enough for what his father must have been feeling last night.

  ‘Last night,’ said Jan, ‘I wanted to – to die, because I felt guilty for being free. Well … that is what I told myself.’

  Jerzy turned to look at him. ‘That’s how I’ve felt, ever since martial law. That I’d done nothing to deserve what everyone over there has been fighting for. And they’ve been punished for it. But you fought, Tata, you fought …’

  ‘And we were punished, too. Well …’ He put out his hand, as he had done last night, and Jerzy took it, and gripped it hard. Then they went on, down towards the misty trees, where the figures had walked through, and vanished.

  ‘Hey! You two – you are Poles, yes?’

  They swung round and saw the young man on the hill above them, waving and calling in Polish: ‘Watch this!’

  His kite lay beside him, out of the bag, but still in the grass, where they couldn’t see it.

  ‘I made it!’ he shouted, and tugged at the string and began to run. The kite lifted, and they caught a glimpse of red and white. The young man tugged, it lifted higher, and fell, bumping along the grass. Then the wind blew, and it began to rise again, and they saw it was a banner, two bands roughly stitched together. Across the white, the letters of Solidarność had been painted in dripping red.

  Jan shook his head, smiling. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  Beside him, Jerzy was snapping open his camera case.

  The young man had stopped running; the wind was working for him, now, and the kite was rising faster and faster into the sky, tugging at the taut string. Jerzy was looking through the viewfinder, focusing. He snapped and snapped again: the kite and the kite flyer, in his scruffy old jacket and knitted hat, raising his hand to steady it aloft; and then just the banner itself, floating full out, Solidarność billowing against the cloud.

  ‘Poland is not yet lost!’ the young man yelled, in an accent just like Stefan’s.

  Jan and Jerzy stood next to each other, watching the banner soar into the winter sky.

  New Year’s Eve Outside the Embassy, candles burned. Three large crosses, modelled on the martyrs’memorial in Gdańsk, were hung with black, and with Polish flags; there were flowers and candles at their feet, stretching for yards along the centre of the road. There had been a vigil here for fourteen days, beginning on the eleventh anniversary of the 1970 shootings in Gdańsk.

  It was cold, but there was no snow; the candles flickered, and the air smelt of burning wax. The whole family had come tonight, and Danut
a, whom Jerzy had telephoned. Babcia had brought candles for everyone; they stood in a little knot among the small crowd and she passed them round, as Dziadek had passed round the host at Wigilia. Then Babcia bent down and lit her candle from one on the ground; she stood up slowly, leaning on Dziadek’s arm, and he lit his candle from hers, and turned to Jan, who lit his own. Flame lit flame, all through the family – Jan to Anna, Anna to Jerzy, Jerzy to Elizabeth, Elizabeth to Ewa, Ewa to Stefan, who passed his to Danuta, and then they all bent down to put theirs among the others. There was a path of perhaps two hundred little lights, and each time one burnt low another one was lit.

  Anna stood next to Jan, watching the illuminated faces of the people in the crowd. There weren’t so many, probably less than a hundred: grave old men and women in hats, with wrinkled faces, who like Dziadek and Babcia had left Poland in their thirties and forties, here after the war for a ‘temporary sojourn’which had lasted almost forty years. There were couples like her and Jan, almost children when they left, whose own children had been born and brought up in this country – there were quite a number of Ewa’s and Jerzy’s contemporaries here: how had they lived their lives among the British? And there were the new arrivals, the young ones like Stefan and Danuta – and the kite flyer Jan and Jerzy had told them about. Most of them had thought their sojourn was going to be temporary, too, and now what was going to become of them?

  Anna watched Ewa, standing with her arm through Stefan’s looking down at the burning candles, and ached for her. She turned to Jan, who was looking straight ahead. He had cried when he told her about the night on the track, the first time she had ever seen him cry. Since then, he hadn’t spoken about it; she knew he would never want to again. She said carefully: ‘Jan?’