2
Nothing about Britain is the way I thought it would be. Instead of blue skies and sunshine, there are grey clouds and endless rain that seeps into your bones, your soul. It’s October, and there are no swallows, just noisy pigeons and squawking seagulls.
It’s funny how quickly a dream can crumble.
The house Dad promised turns out to be a poky flat above a chippy called Mr Yip’s Fish Emporium. The faded wallpaper curls away from damp walls and the smell of stale chip fat clings to everything. Dad has fixed the broken window, mended the kitchen cupboard, but still, it’s a dump. There are no roses around the door, just yellow weeds between the broken paving stones and a litter of scrunchedup chip papers.
It turns out that Dad’s new business isn’t making his fortune after all. Instead, it’s eating up most of his time and quite a bit of his savings.
‘It’s just a little cash-flow problem,’ he explains. ‘I promised you a proper house, and we will get one, definitely, once the agency is doing well. This flat – this area – is just temporary.’
Mum looks around the flat as if she might cry.
‘The agency will take off,’ Dad promises. ‘You have to trust me on this. We’ve had a few problems, but with the cash I’ve been able to put into the business, we will soon be in profit. I didn’t want you to change your plans – I wanted us all to be together. We’ve waited so long to be a family again.’
Dad puts his arms round Mum and me and Kazia, and for a moment the nightmare flat fades. We are together again. That’s what matters, isn’t it? And this is an adventure…
That’s what I tell myself, curled up in a creaky bed with the moonlight flooding through stringy curtains and the sound of my little sister Kazia crying quietly into her pillow.
That’s what I tell myself the next day, as we walk into town to go to Polish Mass at the Catholic cathedral. Mum, Kazia and I look around at the tall Victorian houses, which look like they’ve seen better days, the ragged pair of boxer shorts hanging from a tree like a flag, the beer cans in the gutter.
Even the cathedral is a disappointment. It’s like a giant ice-cream cone dumped down on to the pavement, or a shiny spaceship that has landed by accident and can’t quite get away again. It’s a million miles from the tall, elegant churches of Krakow.
Inside, though, light streams through the stained glass. It’s like being inside a giant kaleidoscope, with patches of jewel-bright colour everywhere. I listen to the Mass, close my eyes and pray for a miracle, something to rescue us from the sad and scruffy flat, the endless grey drizzle. I want my dream back, because it was way better than the reality.
After Mass, we stand on the cathedral steps while Dad introduces us to his friends and workmates.
‘This is Tomasz and Stefan, who work with me,’ he says, beaming. ‘This is Mr and Mrs Nowak, and Mr and Mrs Zamoyski…’
‘Pleased to meet you… of course, this is a difficult time to be starting out… there’s not quite as much work in the city as there once was, but I’m sure you will be fine! Welcome, welcome!’
We shake hands and smile until our faces hurt.
‘You’ll find it very different from home,’ one girl tells me. ‘I hated it, at first.’
‘Just don’t show them you’re scared,’ another tells me.
‘I’m not scared!’ I argue, and the girls just look at me, smiling, as if they know better. Well, maybe they do.
The next day, I pull on a white shirt and black skirt, ready for school. I slip on a second-hand blazer, black with red piping, two sizes too big for me. It belonged to the teenage son of one of Dad’s workers, who went to the same school I will be going to. He doesn’t need his blazer now, because the whole family packed up and went back to Warsaw.
I look out at the grey rain, and I almost envy them.
Mum walks us to school, her lips set into a firm, determined line. The playground of St Peter and Paul’s is quiet as we walk over to the office, with just a few kids in blazers hanging around in little groups.
In the office, we fill in forms, slowly, with lots of sign language and mime to help us along. Mum keeps looking at me to help explain what the office staff are saying, but it doesn’t sound anything like the language I’ve been studying so hard at school in Krakow. It makes no sense to me at all.
The head teacher, Mr Fisher, shakes my hand and tells me, very loudly and very slowly, that he hopes I will be happy here. And then Mum and Kazia are gone, to go through the whole thing again at Kazia’s new primary school, and I am left alone.
When I step out into the corridor this time, there is a sea of teenagers, pushing, shoving, laughing, yelling. A school secretary leads the way, bulldozing through the crowd to deliver me to Room 21a. She ushers me inside and disappears back to her office, and kids descend on me like crows picking over a roadkill rabbit.
They prod, they poke, they tug at the sleeve of my too-big blazer, and all the time they are talking, laughing, asking questions. I can’t understand anything at all. By the time the teacher turns up, the questions have got louder, slower, with accompanying sighs and rolling of eyes.
‘WHAT… IS… YOUR… NAME?’
‘WHERE… DO… YOU… COME… FROM?’
I open my mouth to answer, but my voice has deserted me, and the teacher raps on her desk for silence. I slump into a front-row seat, shaken, my eyes suddenly brimming with tears.
I remember what the Polish girls said, at Mass yesterday, and try to look brave. On the way to my next class, a couple of kids adopt me, dragging me from classroom to lunch hall like a stray dog on a bit of string.
‘This is Anya,’ they tell everyone. ‘She’s from POLAND! Go on, say something, Anya!’
Every time I open my mouth, people laugh and roll their eyes. ‘What?’ they yell. ‘Don’t they have schools, where you come from? Stick with me, I’ll look after you…’
I am a novelty, a joke. By the end of the day, I am exhausted. I am so far out of my depth I don’t know how I’ll find the courage to ever return. This school is nothing like the ones in the English books Dad used to send me, nothing at all.
I will never fit in here, not in a million years.
When I get home to the poky flat above the chippy, my little sister Kazia is dancing around the living room, singing a song she has learnt in English. She runs up to me, waving a reading book at me.
‘I made three new friends today!’ she tells me. ‘Jodie, Lauren and Amber. My teacher is called Miss Green. She’s really nice! How was your school?’
‘Fine,’ I tell her, through gritted teeth.
‘I like it here,’ Kazia decides. ‘Everyone is really friendly.’
I can’t be jealous because my little sister is settling in so easily… can I?
‘And guess what?’ Mum chips in. ‘I’ve found myself a job, so I can help your dad out with the cash flow, and hopefully get us out of this place and into somewhere a bit… well, nicer.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘What’s the job?’
Mum looks shifty. ‘It’s just cleaning work, actually,’ she admits. ‘My English isn’t good, so I couldn’t expect much more. Still, I’ve never been afraid of a bit of elbow grease. It’s a start.’
I try for a smile, but it’s a struggle. ‘Mum?’ I ask in a quiet voice. ‘What happens if we try and try, and just don’t settle in? If we decide we don’t like it here? What if Britain is not for us?’
Mum frowns. ‘We will settle, Anya,’ she tells me firmly. ‘I know the flat is not what we expected, and that school will be hard for you at first. It was always going to be difficult, but we have opportunities here, a chance for a better future. Your dad has worked so hard for this… we must make it work. There’s no going back.’
No going back. I think of the sunlight glinting on the River Wisla, the swallows swooping, crisp white snow on the rooftops, of my best friend Nadia sitting alone next to an empty desk that used to be mine.
My heart feels cold and heavy, like a stone inside my chest.