Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [119]
Bettina immediately linked arms with him, all over him like a rash. Bella could see why. He was extraordinarily handsome, tall, with very dark hair cut short. But no matter how handsome he was he had no right to be here.
‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing,’ Bella told Bettina nastily, ‘but I’ll tell you what you’re not doing and that’s bringing your fancy man here to this house.’
Bella looked at him as she spoke. He was looking back at her with angry contempt. He turned to Bettina and said something to her in Polish.
‘Jan is my brother,’ Bettina told Bella proudly. ‘He is here in England with the Polish Air Force and he has come to see our mother, who is not well. He will be staying here with us for two days whilst he is on leave.’
‘Staying here? In this house? My house? He most certainly will not.’
‘You have the spare room – why should he not stay? Your Government is paying you for the use of two of your bedrooms already, although you have forced Mama and I to share one.’
Bella could feel her temper rising. How dare this … this nobody, who did not even have a country any more, start acting as though she had the right to make demands?
The mother had started to cough, just like she did at night. Bella glared at her whilst Bettina and her brother fussed over her.
‘There’s nothing wrong with her, you know. She just puts it on for sympathy.’
They were speaking in Polish again, and ignoring her, whilst Jan guided his mother to a chair, and Bettina filled the kettle and put it on the stove.
‘I’m not putting up with this,’ Bella began, but Bettina overruled her, telling her fiercely, ‘It is you who is making my mother ill. Do you really think that we want to be here, living like this, in this? At home in Poland we had—’ She stopped, bright red spots of colour burning in her face, and then continued passionately. ‘My father was a well-known and respected medical specialist. We lived in a beautiful and very old house. Our home was filled with music and laughter and friends. It was a life that someone like you could never understand. My parents loved one another very dearly and you could not understand that either. You, who has a husband who never wants to come home and who when he does needs to get himself drunk before he can bear to be with you. You see, it is as I told you, Jan,’ she continued, turning to her brother. ‘We must find somewhere else to live. I have complained already to the organisation that put us here and they have promised to find us somewhere else as soon as they can.’
Bella couldn’t believe her ears. Bettina had complained about her?
‘You come over here to our country,’ she raged at her, ‘where you don’t belong, expecting to be housed and fed by our government. You take jobs from our men and you can’t even speak English properly, and then you dare to complain? Why don’t you go back where you came from?’
Bettina burst into a torrent of Polish, stopping only when her brother put his hand on her arm and shook his head slightly before turning towards Bella, and telling her coldly, ‘You are the most despicable person I have ever met.’
Then, without waiting for Bella to respond, he went to his mother and said gently, ‘Come, Mama, lean on me. Yes, that’s it. Now we will go upstairs and you will rest, and then tonight I shall take you both out for a meal.’
Now the three of them were behaving as though she didn’t exist, Bella saw wrathfully. If anyone needed helping upstairs for a rest it was her, not their mother, because she really did feel very odd all of a sudden. Very odd indeed.
‘Look.’ Gently but very firmly Teddy put his hands on Grace’s shoulders and gave her a small shake. ‘Stop worrying about me, please. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. The thing you should be worrying about is this war, not me, Grace.’
‘It’s easy for you to say that. How can I stop worrying when I know …?’ Too late Grace realised what she had said. Of course it wasn’t easy for him. How could it be?
‘I shouldn’t have told you.’ Teddy sounded weary and his smile had gone.
They’d taken the ferry across to New