Friday 27 May 2016

A Journey Home

 A couple of months ago, Mark and I took a trip to Poland.  The first time for both of us, but for myself, it had a greater meaning.  Apologies to my brothers who may have different memories.  This is just my own.....

A Journey Home

The plane banked, ready to descend from the sky.  The bright sunlight beaming through the tiny cabin windows dimmed as we dipped into the cloud.  I looked at my husband, he took my hand and held it in his.  I glanced through the window once more and there it was - Poland.  Miles and miles of dark forest and pale green fields sweeping below us.  The tears flowed without even a thought of what we were doing or where we were.  It was automatic, embarrassing, as I had no control over the emotions.  Why had it taken so long to get to this point in my life, I wondered.  I don’t know the answer but it felt like I was coming home at last.
    In 1945, at the end of the war, thousands of Polish soldiers arrived in England.  Given the choice of settling here, going to the USA, or returning home to Poland, many decided to stay here.  The Soviet Union having ‘liberated’ the area where my Father had come from made going home a poor choice at the time, although leaving behind his sick Mother left him carrying a guilt for the rest of his life.  Before long he met the woman who was to become my own Mother and soon they were married with a child on the way.
    Life was hard in England in the years after the war.  My Father had little education in Poland due to the German occupation.  Polish citizens were treated no better than slaves and children had to leave school at a very young age.  Now a free man with a new life here but with no trade or profession, he was a labourer for several years, working on projects such as the Fawley Oil Refinery.  My parents lived in a number of different homes in the early years:  a period of time with my Nan, some time in a converted church in Fareham, and at the time that I was born, in a Nissen hut which had previously been used by prisoners of war.
    I was still a toddler when we moved into our council house, newly built at the time.  Money was still very tight and I remember going with my Mother to jumble sales for new clothes and being given hand-me-downs from the woman my Nan worked for as a cleaner. Her daughter had only the best so my clothes were often of good quality and lasted well.
    During all those years of growing up sometimes Dad would tell us stories of his childhood in Poland.  There was always a sadness in his tales as they were tinged with the knowledge that he would never go back to his homeland.  There was this little obstacle at the time - the Iron Curtain.
    As we grew and the years passed, my Father was persuaded to train as a psychiatric nurse.  This was mainly due to my Mother who had always loved nursing and though she’d not completed her training before the children started to come along, she was working as a nursing assistant at nearby Knowle Hospital and, worried that labouring outside in all weathers was affecting my Father’s health, she talked him into giving it a go.  He loved it and had a successful career in nursing.
    When travel between the West and East became easier, in the 1980s, I finally met my Uncle and Aunt who lived in Poland - they came to visit us - my Father still would not, or could not go back to Poland for a visit.  The country remained under the Communist rule then and although some travel to the West was allowed, it was difficult and our relatives advised us not to go.
    My Father died over 12 years ago and had never been back to Poland.  Since his death, more and more Polish people have come to England and many have settled in Portsmouth.  Suddenly, everywhere I go in town, I hear my Father’s voice - in cafes, supermarkets, on the streets.  It’s somehow comforting.
    When the plane landed in Katowize and we left the airport, it was uncanny.  The people who greeted us, whilst strangers, were so familiar to me.  The journey from the airport to Krakow, through country where my Father would have possibly played and then fought during the war years, starving and cold in the winters with no fuel or money for food, played on my emotions.  For all of my life to this moment, Poland had been a distant land, a fairy tale of my childhood, a place I thought I would never see apart from in stories and in my dreams.  And yet, here I was, bumping along in a mini-bus, peering through rain-washed windows at the land of my family.  These forests where my Father may have picnicked and gathered wild mushrooms, these towns where my Father may have visited distant relatives that I would never meet, the new roads which were not there when my Father was a child, roads he had never seen.
    Krakow is a magnificent city, it’s market square boasting to be the largest in Europe, it’s history rich and varied.  It’s people are proud of their heritage and I could not find a trace of bitterness linked to their past.  Just a determination to remain free and to make Poland a great nation again.  For me, everywhere we went, I could hear my Father’s voice, my Aunt’s laughter and kindness.  The people are gentle, courteous, and hard working.  I felt truly at home.
    For many tourists going to Krakow, it’s important to visit Auschwiz and Berkenhau, to remind us all of what we, as humans are capable of.  For myself, it was chilling to think that there but for the grace of something, my Father might have ended his days there.  A tour of the Jewish Quarter and Schindler’s factory, now a museum dedicated to the Jews of Krakow is equally harrowing.  But the highlight of the visit was the free walking tour of Krakow Old Town.  You can find their details online at www.freewalkingtour.com/calendar.  Our leader, a young woman called Gosia, was enthusiastic, highly knowledgeable and sensitive as she led us through the highlights and history of Krakow Old Town.  It is recommended that you wear good walking shoes and as our trip was in early March, we needed raincoats and warm clothing.  The tour took a couple of hours and was a whirlwind of emotions for me.  We came away with a deeper understanding of Polish people.  I felt I had found my true roots.
    We only stayed in Krakow for a few days.  It was enough for me for the first visit but we left with wonderful memories and the knowledge that I’d completed a part of the jig-saw that is me, reconnecting with the past, even though I have no family left in Poland. 
    The journey home to England was simply a journey from home to home.
   

Thursday 26 May 2016

Portsea Basin Sunset

My latest short story - set in Portsmouth, a short tale of haunting where least expected.

Portsea Basin Sunset

It was just before dawn on a damp November night.  Joe walked home after a most difficult night shift.  Normally he loved the walk home in the dark.  It gave him a chance to leave behind his work and prepare for the day ahead - a couple of hours sleep and then off to his job in the Charlotte Street market.  As he turned into Arundel Street, just a few more yards to his flat, he felt a change in the air.  A mist was swirling about the trees, newly planted in the precinct.  He walked a little faster and nearly fell over the man sitting on the bench in the middle of the street.  Joe stopped just in time.
    ‘Sorry.  I didn’t see you there.’  He looked down at the man.  He hadn’t even flinched.  ‘Are you alright?’ Joe asked.  No answer came.  He could see the man was awake but he didn’t even look up at him.  Joe shrugged and walked on.  He hadn’t gone more than a few steps when he heard the sound - the sound of a heavy horse’s hooves on cobbles, water lapping in the background.  He turned back to look and the man had gone.  The sounds had gone.  All that remained was the drip, drip, drip of the rain from the roof overhanging the shops.

If they hadn’t dredged the canal they’d never have found me.  I’d been lying there for months, the fishes nibbling at my flesh, water snails sliding between my toes, my body weighted by the rocks tied around my waist with ropes still yet to rot.  Now there would be questions asked and finally some answers revealed. 
    You thought I’d abandoned you but I never would have done that.  I was waiting for you, waiting at the canal basin, waiting as we’d agreed the night before.
    The day was nearly over, the evening sun glowed red on the still water.  All seemed at peace.  The barge would be leaving in an hour, our passage booked to London.  We knew that this was the safest way to get you away - the road to London would have been the first place they’d have looked once they’d discovered you missing.
    Looking back now, I wish that I’d been stronger, that I’d not delayed and had agreed to leave when you’d first told me about the child.  If only I hadn’t hesitated.
    As the dirty waters were pumped from the muddy basin and I looked down on my mouldering body, I was glad you weren’t there to see what was left of me.  I wondered where you were - I wondered about our child.  I was so busy wondering about things that I hadn’t noticed him standing there on the bank.  His face was like a thunderstorm, ready to burst forth.  He was also looking down at my body.  I stood behind him, wanting to push him over the edge into the murky slime but the past weeks and months had taught me the impossibility of this, my own body being of no further use to me.  Had I pushed him, my hand would have gone straight through his body and the worst he would have felt was a shiver of someone walking over his grave.
    I watched, helpless, as he looked about, and seeing that he was completely alone and safe from the prying eyes of the living, he made his way to a nearby stack of timber and began to carry a log back to the bank.  He dropped the log onto my poor half-eaten body.  The mud was soft beneath my remains and as the log hit my chest I sank a little.  It may have been my imagination but I swear I felt a thud as it landed.  Still my body could be seen from the bank.  He fetched another log, then another and another, dropping each one onto my body until it was completely covered.  I felt the dull thud of pain as each one dropped, sensing the vitriol from the man on the bank - the man who’d been your cruel suitor, the man who had murdered me.
    No doubt he’d been confident that the canal waters would hide his crime.  The contamination of the City’s wells put paid to that.  When the local people began to complain of the salt water which was seeping through from the canal, tainting the once-fresh waters, the engineers decided that it should be dredged.  That was when my body saw the light of day once more.
    Now, my remains again out of sight, the evil man smiled down at the mud and laughed.  He laughed and walked away.  I tried to follow him, to find where you were, to somehow let you know that I hadn’t abandoned you by choice but I found that I could only stay within the confines of the canal basin. 
    Frustrated, I waited.  I wondered if you would come this way again and that I could see you one more time before I left this earthly domain.  I could never be at peace with you not knowing.  You never came.  But he did.  He came back, over and over again, stood on the back of the canal and looked down at where I lay, almost as if he was waiting for me to rise up and show myself to him.  I wished that I could have but it was out of my power to do so. 
    Then, one night, after dusk, he appeared at the end of the alleyway, standing in the shadows, looking around to see if the coast was clear.  There was no-one about, only me, as ever, waiting and watching.  The canal had long been filled again with water, the work all finished and the wells once more flowing with clear, sweet waters.  Several narrow boats and a couple of barges were tethered along the banks, the horses grazing in the meadow just beyond the basin.  In the distance, voices and laughter could be heard from a local hostelry as the owners of the boats unwound after a long day on the canal.  But there was no one to be seen on the banks of the basin.
    I watched as he crept from the darkness of the alley and made his way to the edge of the waters.  Then I noticed that he held a bundle in his arms.  A bundle which was moving and as I watched I heard the sound of a baby cry.  I watched in horror as he picked up an empty sack which had been discarded on the bank.  He picked up a number of heavy-looking stones and placed them in the sack.  Then, more awful still, he bundled the child into the sack also, tying a string around its neck before he slung it into the middle of the canal basin and stood watching as the bag sank out of sight.  My child!  Murdered!
    This was too much for me - I summoned up all of the anger I could feel for the loss of our child, the loss of you, the loss of my young life, and willed him to topple over the edge.  I saw him trying to resist.  He struggled but I was stronger.  He swayed, a look of fear and shock on his face as he realised that he was falling forward, in slow motion, into the deepest part of the canal basin.  As he landed, I heard his head strike something in the depths and guessed that it was probably one of the logs that he’d thrown in to hide my body.   Unhappily for him, striking the log rendered him unconscious .  I watched and smiled as his breath bubbled to the surface and I stood there, staring into the water, long after the bubbles had ceased.
    Many years have passed and still I remain here, unable to leave the basin, waiting in vain for a glimpse of you, long after your life must have ended.  I never saw you again.  I don’t suppose I’ll ever be free to rest my soul in peace.  Even now, now that the canal is long gone, smooth paving stones taking the place of the waters, I remain here and can still hear the echoes of horse’s hooves on stone, the lap the the dirty waters against the barges as if they still moved along the canal.  Some mornings I sit and watch as workers make their way home after a night shift.  I wonder when I see them, wonder if they can see me, wonder if they are somehow connected to you, wonder what ever happened to you all that time ago.