22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [109]
Or it may have been the sound of his blood and his heart beating so very loud when he wanted it to stop. He clasped his head in his hands, aware of the fragility of flesh and blood, the easy way people were killed and blown apart by guns and bombs and terribly afraid that he, on the other hand, was condemned to live through it all.
Ipswich
‘You can’t stay here, Silvana. Not in the flat.’
Tony is sure about that. It’s the first thing he says when he opens the pet-shop door, ushering her inside quickly. She thinks she sees panic in his eyes. She is sure she knows what thoughts are racing through his mind. How has he become lumbered with this woman and her child? He is a man of the town after all. He knows local dignitaries, and his dead wife’s father is a magistrate. He can’t afford to be seen collecting foreign waifs and strays.
She is about to apologize for coming, about to walk out. The docks, she thinks. I will go and find a ship and we’ll stow away. Then Tony grabs her hands in his. She can smell whisky on his breath and his eyes have a wild look in them. Fear. That’s what she can see in them. He tells her that he will look after her. He will not let her down. What about a hotel for the night?
Silvana says no. She doesn’t want to be in a hotel with people staring at her.
Finally he says he will take her to the house by the sea. It’s the only thing he can think of.
‘Yes,’ she says. How can she say no? She is homeless.
She nudges Aurek, hoping he will express some kind of thanks, but the boy kicks at her shin and pinches the skin on the back of her hand, so that she pushes him away. She regrets the action immediately, pulls him back to her too fast and he falls over at her feet.
‘Thank you,’ she says, and Tony smiles at her.
‘Shall we have a drink?’
Tony steps around Aurek carefully, the way somebody might move past an unreliable dog.
‘A bit of Dutch courage before we go?’
Tony doesn’t talk in the car, and Silvana is happy with that. She tucks Aurek up on the back seat with a blanket and he eyes her warily.
‘Where’s Peter,’ he demands.
‘With his grandparents,’ she whispers. ‘You’ll see him again soon. Now go to sleep for a little while.’
The town of Felixstowe sits on the edge of pale yellow sand and rough open sea. Coloured lights greet them. The sea is dark and inky, but the lights on the pier and along the seafront shine red and yellow, swaying in the wind, so that the colours smudge and blur in the rain.
‘The pier used to be longer,’ Tony says, slowing down. ‘Part of it was demolished during the war. It would have been too easy a landing point for the Germans. They talk of rebuilding it, but I doubt it. Years ago, I used to fish off the end of it.’
He parks the car and cuts the engine. The noise of the wind becomes louder, and rain stings Silvana’s face when she steps onto the kerb.
‘This is the house Lucy and I lived in,’ Tony says, taking her bag and ushering her towards a narrow, weatherbeaten house painted pink. ‘I moved out after she died. I use it as a store now. I’ll have to tidy up a bit, but it’s somewhere for you to stay.’
There are two heavy padlocks on the door, and Silvana stands shivering in the rain while Tony pulls keys from his pockets and fumbles with locks in the dark. Aurek runs up and down the street, and she doesn’t bother to call him back. He wouldn’t come anyway. Finally, Tony lets them in and feeds the electricity meter in the hall. When the lights come on, Silvana blinks in surprise.
Cardboard boxes fill the hall. Packed to the ceiling are labelled boxes of soap and washing powders, biscuits, chocolates, custard, cigarettes. The place looks like a warehouse. A staircase rises in front of them, stacked with piles of newspapers.
‘We’ll get the place warmed up,’ says Tony, moving a wooden crate out of the way. ‘Sorry about the boxes. This lot’ll all be gone soon enough.’
He has lost his buoyancy. He seems embarrassed and unsure, and she senses that this is the side of his life not many people see.
‘What’s that smell?’ she asks. There is a sweet