The Weight of Water Read online

  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.’