22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [41]
Everything feels heavy. He thrashes with his arms, face upwards, trying to swim, but he just keeps sinking. Then hands are pulling him to the surface and Aurek is gasping and coughing and his lungs are on fire. Peter is beside him, pulling on his shoulders so that they both tumble over and over as they crawl their way back to the edge.
‘Somebody threw a baby in the lake last year,’ says Peter.
They are under a tarpaulin in the boat shed by the lake. ‘Divers came and got it out. It was wrapped in weeds and the fish had eaten its fingers. It was covered in blood and its face was all mush.’
Aurek wraps the tarpaulin closer around himself. He’s not impressed with Peter’s stories. He could tell far worse ones. He wonders if Peter knows about rusalkas, the ghost women who live in lakes or hide in trees and pull men to their deaths.
‘I don’t reckon it’s time to go home yet,’ says Peter. ‘I can’t go too early. My old man would know something’s up. Have you got a mother?’
Aurek frowns. What kind of question is that?
‘My mum’s dead,’ says Peter. ‘She had a wasting disease. I’ll probably get it when I’m older. I’m weak. What did your dad do in the war?’
Aurek considers. He doesn’t know, and anyway, he is trying to work out how Peter lives without a mother.
‘My dad was a spy for British intelligence,’ says Peter. ‘He’s got medals and all. I lived with Gran and Grandad while he was away and I couldn’t tell anybody where he was. Everybody’s dad went away. Lizzie Crookshank’s died and her mum went mental. Lizzie’s in an orphanage and wets the bed every night. My gran says Lizzie’ll go mental too, one day. You don’t remember me, do you? You shot me. In the pub. I fell off my chair.’
‘I remember,’ says Aurek, but Peter isn’t listening. He’s holding his hand out like a gun, shooting off imaginery rounds into Aurek’s chest.
‘So,’ he says, when he’s shot Aurek for long enough. ‘Shall we go to your house, dumb boy?’
They run through the park, their faces shiny red with cold. Aurek’s throat is still burning and he has a headache, but he feels happy running alongside this other boy. Friend, he whispers to himself, trying out the word. That’s what the enemy said he should have. A friend.
Silvana is in the road looking for Aurek. When she went to pick him up from school today the teacher told her that he and another boy had played truant. Janusz will be furious when he finds out. And who is the other boy?
She sees Aurek coming up the hill and runs to meet him, hugging him to her, kissing him, the relief of finding him overshadowing her anxiety. He is safe. That’s all that matters.
The other boy is short and square. It surprises her to see such plumpness. It is rare to see a child that looks so well fed. Perhaps he is a farmer’s child. Doris says the Suffolk farmers are the only ones not to have suffered from rationing; that they fill themselves up on eggs and pies and home-cured hams and sausages. Yes, that’s it. He is a peasant’s child. A prosperous peasant’s son, and his family will be very angry when they find him here with Aurek.
‘Your teacher says you were not at school,’ Silvana tells Aurek. ‘She says she will get the police next time. The police!’ She shakes him by the shoulders. ‘Do you want them to take you away from me? And you bring another boy with you. What will his parents say? What will your father say? Come in and get out of those wet clothes and get by the fire. You look frozen. Go on. Hurry up.’
‘What did she say?’ Peter whispers to Aurek.
‘We have to go in.’
‘Yes,’ snaps Silvana. ‘Yes. In. Go!’
In the front parlour, Silvana undresses Aurek and asks the other boy his name.
‘Peter Benetoni.’
‘In Polish, you are called Piotr. But because you are a boy and not a man we say Piotrek.’ She pauses. He is not listening to her. He’s looking at Aurek as if they are sharing a private joke, laughing at her accent.
‘You too,’ she says to Peter, more sharply than she means to. ‘You take your clothes off. They are soaking wet.’
She