22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [31]
The doctor is a tall man with a stooped back and a head of thick grey hair. He moves methodically, steadily. Janusz has confidence in him. Like so many English men of the middle classes, the doctor’s clothes are shabby but still look expensive: a thick wool jacket wearing thin at the elbows, over-washed white cuffs, discreet gold cufflinks. Polished black leather shoes that shine like oil.
He is gentle with Aurek, approaching him slowly, spreading his hands as if to show he has nothing to hide. No sudden movements. Calm and steady.
Blood pressure, weight, height, head circumference, pulse.
Aurek, in his vest, nervous as a stray dog.
‘Nothing wrong with him as such,’ says the doctor, taking off his stethoscope and laying it on his desk. He fishes in his pocket and pulls out a sweet. ‘There you are, young man. A barley sugar for your troubles. That’s it; let your mother get you dressed again.’
‘Is it normal …’ Janusz hesitates. He doesn’t know how to say this. ‘Is it normal that he doesn’t seem to know me?’
The doctor reaches for a pipe that lies on his desk and begins filling it with tobacco from a small leather pouch beside it. He glances up at Janusz.
‘You’ve been apart for a long time. You and your wife can help him of course by showing him that you are happy together. That’s important for the child’s development. But, really, there’s nothing terribly wrong with the boy.’
‘I say this,’ Silvana butts in. ‘I say this, but he won’t listen.’
Janusz coughs, shifts his weight from one foot to the other. ‘I just want to make sure the boy is all right.’
The doctor lights his pipe, sucks on it, continues speaking.
‘Your son is underweight and small for his age. He shows signs of having rickets; his chest, that knotted look to his sternum. But it’s to be expected given his history. Unfortunately we see this a lot at the moment.’
‘He hides food around the house.’ Janusz can hold back no longer. ‘He’s not like other children. He pleases himself. Sometimes he talks quite normally. Other times he makes bird noises. What’s wrong with him?’
‘He’s been through a war,’ says the doctor wearily. ‘Give him time, a secure home, proper food and plenty of discipline and he’ll be right as rain.’
The doctor shakes Janusz by the hand and gives him a prescription for cod liver oil and malt extract.
‘I suggest liquid paraffin for the lice. He’s got quite an infestation. Leave it on his hair for thirty-six hours and take care to avoid him approaching any naked flames.’
Silvana does not shake the doctor’s hand. She holds Aurek tightly, guarding him in a way that makes Janusz think of the prisoners of war he has seen, the ones who fear their boots and coats will be stolen.
On the way home, Janusz tries to feel hopeful. There is nothing wrong with the boy. All he needs is a home and time to settle in. That sounds right. For all of them.
At break time, Aurek slips between the school railings, runs across the road, around the back of the co-operative dairy with its sign that says milk in giant glossy blue tiles, past a big house with broken glass in its windows, and stops at the main road. A policeman is walking towards him, and Aurek ducks into the garden of the empty house.
Through overgrown bushes where brown seeds stick to his clothes and weeds prickle his skin, he makes his way to the back of the derelict house. Nobody will look for him here. All he wants is to be left alone. To be allowed to wander through the easy hours of the day and sleep through the dark nights curled up against his mother.
Climbing through a window, he drops into the gloom of a large room. Cupboards full of dust and dirt stand with doors hanging from their hinges. He kicks at layers of bird droppings and old leaves to reveal a red-tiled floor. A pigeon flaps across the room and out of the window.
This is a forgotten place. He’d like to live in this house. Just him and his mother. No separate bedrooms. They stayed in a house once, a cottage in the woods. He wanders through the dim rooms,