For Mum and Dad
Contents
Part 1
Leaving Gdańsk Główny
Stansted
Dwellings
First Day
Year Seven
The Bell
What I Try Not to Hear
Pale
Mute
Search Engine
Noise
Before England
Rain
Swimming
Disco
Deceiver
Road Atlas
The Odyssey
Kanoro
When I Go Swimming Again
Mistaken
Group Work
William
Small Secrets
Drip Tap
Meal Times
Wanted
Examinations
Novice
Christmas
Mama’s Mama
Snow Meal
Change
Happy Slapping
Games
Radio News Flash
Prize Night Envy
Anyone Else
In the Dark
Time to Grow
All Wrong
Karma
If I Were on the Swim Team They Might See Me
Name Day
The Hunt
Maybe
Art Class
Not Alone
Thursday
Grating
What William Says
Back in Gdańsk
Finding Tata
I Wish Tata Were Dead
Questions
Dare Devil
I Try to Tell Mama
The Pity Club
Smokers’ Corner
Oh, to be Musical
Floating
Rumours
When Boys Fight
Late Nights
Life Saver
Higher
Dear William
First Kiss
Assembly
No Offence, But . . .
Wrath
Teachers
Misread
Talking
Part 2
Gummy Bears
Partners
Love is a Large W
Kenilworth Castle
Lottery
Ending the Odyssey
The Bungalow
Cold Hot Chocolate
Blame
A Letter I Never Send
The Bell Jar
Skin Deep
I Didn’t Mean to Go Back
Melanie
The Gospel According to Tata
Lady Godiva
Ready
Guilty
Motherless
Desperation
Hope
Split
Part 3
Dalilah
The Veil
July 7
In Mama’s Absence
Maybe I Should Not
Confidence
Practice
Ms Morrow
Family
A Solution
Allegiance
Cracked
Sleepover
Cooking Stones
Good News
Vacant
Rebellion
Betrayal
Lies in the Dark
To London
Fear
Starting Blocks
Home
Gold
Metamorphosis
Forgiveness
Reunion
Treat
Resurrection
Side by Side
Epilogue
Butterfly
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Part 1
Leaving Gdańsk Główny
The wheels on the suitcase break
Before we’ve even left Gdańsk Główny.
Mama knocks them on some steps and
Bang, crack, rattle –
No more use.
There are
plastic bits
Everywhere.
It’s hard for Mama carrying a suitcase
And a bulging laundry bag.
It’s hard for Mama
With everyone watching.
She’s shy about the laundry bag,
An old nylon one
Borrowed from Babcia.
Tata took all the good luggage
When he left us,
When he walked out
On Mama and me.
‘There are clean clothes in it,’
Mama reminds me,
Like this were something
To be proud of.
And she won’t let me carry a thing
Except
my own
small bag.
‘You guard our passports, Kasienka.
Good girl, Kasienka.
And the money.
We’ll need those pounds.
Mind the money and the passports.
Good girl, Kasienka.’
Mama prattles as I scuttle along
behind her
Dodging business suits and
backpacks.
There is no one to recognise Mama
In the crowded station.
But all the same, she is shy
About that laundry bag.
‘Now keep close, Kasienka.
Keep close,’
Mama mutters as we leave Gdańsk Główny
And step aboard a bus for the airport
While I cling to the belt of her coat,
Too old for holding hands,
Even if she had one free.
Stansted
We weren’t on a ship.
Immigrants don’t arrive on
Overcrowded boats any more,
Swarming wet docks like rats.
It isn’t 1920, and it isn’t Ellis Island –
Nothing as romantic as a view of
Lady Liberty
To welcome us.
We flew into Stansted.
Not quite London
But near enough.
At immigration we queue
Nervously and practise English in our heads:
Yes-thank-you-officer.
I know I am not at home
When talking makes my tummy turn
And I rehearse what I say
Like lines from a play
Before opening my mouth.
At baggage reclaim
The laundry bag
Coasts around the carousel
And people look.
Someone points,
So Mama says, ‘Leave it, Kasienka.
There’s nothing in that bag but long
underwear.
We won’t need them here.
We’ll need galoshes.’
Mama is right:
The air in England is swampy,
The sky a grey blanket.
And rain threatens
To drench us.
Dwellings
Mama rented a room
In Coventry.
This is where we’ll live
Until we find Tata:
One room on the fourth floor
Of a crumbling building
That reminds me of history class,
Reminds me of black and white photographs
Of bombed
out
villages.
There is a white kitchen in the room,
In the corner,
And one big bed,
Lumpy in the middle
Like a cold pierogi
For Mama and me to share.
‘It’s just one room,’ I say,
When what I mean is
We can’t live here.
‘It’s called a studio,’
Mama tells me,
As though a word
Can change the truth.
Mama stands by the dirty window
With her back to me
Looking out at the droning traffic,
The Coventry Ring Road.
Then she marches to the kitchen and
Plugs in the small electric kettle.
She boils the water
Twice,
And makes two mugs of tea.
One for her,
One for me.
‘Like home,’ she says,
Supping the tea,
Staring into its blackness.
Mama found the perfect home for
A cast-off laundry bag.
Yes.
But not a home for us.
First Day
Mrs Warren asks, ‘Do you speak English, dear?’
Crouching down,
Resting her hands on her knees
As though summoning a spaniel.
Her voice is loud
And clear,
Her tongue pink
and rolling.
I nod and Mrs Warren smiles,
Then sighs,
Relieved.
‘So what’s your name, dear?’ Mrs Warren asks,
And I’m glad, because I was afraid she had mistaken
Me for someone called Dear,
And that I would have to
Respond to that name
For ever.
‘My name is Kasienka,’ I say,
embarrassed to use my
crooked English.
Mrs Warren stands up straight
and stretches her back.
She sighs,
Again,
And ridges appear on her brow.
She looks at Mama
then back at me.
‘Well . . . Cassie, welcome!’
I want to point out her mistake,
Give her a chance to say my
Name properly.
But Mama touches my shoulder.
A clear caution.
‘We’ll start you in Year Seven
And see how that goes.’
Year Seven
I am twelve.
Almost thirteen.
I’ve budding breasts and
Monthly bleeds,
But I am in a class with
Eleven-year-olds.
Mama isn’t troubled.
Until I learn to read
Austen in the original
I should stay with the
Younger ones, she says.
But Mama is wrong.
Some of them have never even heard of Austen.
I understand numbers
Better than anyone in Year Seven.
The planets too.
In lessons I have to
Hide my face
With a book
So teachers
Don’t see my tonsils
When I yawn.
I don’t read well
In English.
That is all I can’t do.
So they put me in with eleven-year-olds.
The Bell
There is a bell,
A pealing chime to signal
When everyone moves.
We are ruled by its shrillness.
Like sleepwalkers we stand
When it clangs
And return to silence
At its command.
Teachers try to lead the processions:
‘I will decide when the lesson ends,’ they insist.
But they cannot compete
With The Bell.
What I Try Not to Hear
Polish words bounce about the classroom
And it should feel good to hear it but
I try not to listen;
Two boys in my class are saying things a girl
Should not hear
If she is any kind of
Lady.
They laugh, loudly, because the teacher
Is right there listening,
Not understanding,
Thinking they are being
Good
When really they are being
Horrible,
When really they are talking about
Her chest.
Konrad winks and wields his tongue
As though he would like to lick me.
But he is only eleven; he is doing his best
To shock,
And I know that if I flirted with him
Even a little,
He would probably be
Terrified.
Pale
The brown children
Play with the white children.
The black children
Play with the brown children.
They charge at one another
Hands up, like antlers,
Hitting and howling.
I’m not welcome to play.
The reason: I’m too white.
No one likes too-white,
Eastern white,
Polish winter white,
Vampire-fright white.
Brown is OK – usually.
But white is too bad.
At lunch time
I hide
In the corner
Of the yard
By a drinking fountain
Hoping only to be
Left alone.
It’s the best to hope for
Among all the raised antlers.
Mute
Mama took a job
In a hospital.
Until we find Tata
We will be poor.
We will need the money.
Mama’s job is to clean and carry.
She doesn’t have to speak to
Anyone.
Mama’s long vowels scare
The older patients.
They’d prefer to hear
A familiar, imperial voice
Than know a Pole is
Bringing them breakfast.
On her first day
A woman with crust in her face
Asks Mama where she’s from,
And when Mama tells her,
The crusty creature snarls and says,
‘I’d like someone English,’
Politely adding, ‘Please.’
Mama doesn’t have to speak to
Anyone
Usually.
In fact, they would rather she didn’t.
She just has to clean and carry.
‘Please.’
Search Engine
Mama goes to the library
To check the internet.
She thinks
Google might know where
Tata is.
But it doesn’t.
When she types in Tata’s name,
Google spits back
Thousands of hopeless links.
Poor Mama is too tired to cook
When she returns from her
Trip to the library,
So I make dinner:
Porridge with raisins and honey.
We eat in stodgy silence,
Ignoring each other
As best we can
In the small room,
Though I don’t know why.
At ten o’clock
Mama lets me have the bed
To myself,
Then trickles in
An hour later.
Her feet are cold,
And she is shivering.
Mama sniffs.
‘Are you sick, Mama?’
She doesn’t speak.
She pretends to be asleep.
But as a car trundles by outside,
I make out, in the gloom,
The flash of a tear
On the side of Mama’s face.
And though I want to console her,
I can’t think how,
Without making her mad.
Noise
There are nasty people in our building.
&nb
sp; Mama tells me not to talk to
Anyone,
Or look at
Anyone,
Especially when she’s at work.
If they stop me on the stairs,
Or try to get into the room,
I’m to pretend I don’t speak English
‘Because there are nasty people here.’
They are not English people.
English people do not live in this building –
It could not be home for them
Because they wouldn’t fit here,
In a place infested with aliens.
Sometimes we hear children squalling
And small dogs barking,
Then yelping and whining
Long into the night.
A man shouts:
MUTT. MUTT.
And I wonder if he is shouting
At a dog or a child.
One night a barbarian knocks
When Mama is singing.
Her eyes are shut
And she jumps
When the pounding fist
Thunders against the door.
‘No noises!’ he shouts.
‘Against rules here!’
Mama storms to the door,
Opens it brandishing her sheet music –
The Barber of Seville –
To prove her singing
Isn’t noise.
‘Against house rules!’
The man shouts again,
His face a knot.
Mama gasps,
Presses a hand to her heart
And bangs the door
shut.
She isn’t afraid of him,
As I am;
She’s shaken
By his ignorance.
‘No noises,’ she repeats quietly.
As Mama starts to put away
The sheet music
I say,
‘No, Mama, sing quietly.
For me.’