22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson Page A

husband,’ continued his father. ‘That was what destroyed her.’ He sighed, stood up and patted Janusz on the shoulder. ‘Now, stop tormenting that old woman. One day you might be lonely and you’ll regret your behaviour here today.’
    Janusz looked again at the unmarked grave. He knew what he had to do. He found some fencing wood in the log pile and, with a ball of twine, strapped a new piece of wood to the old, until he had the cross standing more or less upright. Then he set to, chopping back and clearing away the elder trees until he was so tired he could only stagger back to the house and sleep.
    Janusz mended the water pump in the yard. He found a pot of whitewash and decided to repaint the window frames. Some days he just sat in the yard and watched the geese, thinking of his son and wife all those miles away and trying to work out how he had managed to become so lost and why he quite liked this numb state and this anonymous place. Over the weeks he lost track of time until finally one morning he woke up and realized he still had one more thing to do.
    He started at dawn the following day, digging a hole beside the unmarked grave. By the time the afternoon threw long shadows across his back, the hole was deep enough. He drank a cupful of water from the pump in the yard, lit the fire in the hearth, took a blanket from the dowry box and went back to find the body of the old woman.
    He knew he was near to it by the cloud of flies that flew up to meet him. Her body was covered in them, a metallic-blue mass moving in glistening shivers. He retched at the sight of them. It was his fault for leaving her there so long. He realized now that all the tidying and mending had been a way of putting off this moment. He lifted the blanket and threw it over the body, bundling it up, flies andall. Carrying her back to the house, he was half afraid the old woman was still alive and it was her, not the flies, pushing and pulsing under the blanket.
    He dropped his burden into the ground and began shovelling the earth on top of her, working as fast as he could, until the noise of the flies became muffled and he could slow down and take his time.
    When he had finished, he recited the Lord’s Prayer. He leaned on the spade, looking out across the fields. Now this final act was done, he knew he couldn’t stay much longer. There was nothing else to do here. He figured he’d stay for another week. Then he’d have to leave. He had to go back to Warsaw.
    His best plan would be to find a village and get news of the war. Then he’d go home and see Silvana and Aurek. He’d see his family. Let everyone know he was safe and start again as if none of this had happened. He’d fight for his country and nobody would ever need to know about the train and how he had stayed behind when it left.
    He stood up and was about to cross himself when he saw something that made him take up the spade in his two hands again. Two men coming across the fields. Two men in uniform.
    He met them in the yard. Close up they looked all wrong to be soldiers. One was a lanky kid, bony-faced, with hands that were too large for his wrists. The other one was stout, heavy black eyebrows and a nose big enough to be Jewish. Short-legged and barrel-chested, he walked heavily. Their uniforms didn’t fit them properly. The boy’s jacket was too short in the arm; the other man’s too tight in the chest.
    ‘ Dzien dobry ,’ said the boy. ‘Good day to you.’
    ‘You can put that down,’ said the older man, holding his hands up in mock surrender. ‘We only want a bit of food and then we’ll be on our way.’
    Janusz didn’t lower the spade. ‘Where have you come from?’
    ‘Lwow. We escaped from the Russians.’
    ‘Russians?’
    ‘They’re against us now,’ the boy said. ‘Didn’t you know?’
    ‘I don’t know anything. I lost my regiment a while ago.’ He frowned. Exactly how long had he been here now? He looked at the other man. ‘So what’s