Magda's Daughter (5 page)

‘Auntie Alma. It's kind of you to come back here straight away.' Fighting tears, Helena left the sofa and hugged Alma as soon as she walked in.

‘It was the least I could do. Your mother was one of my closest friends as well as my best employee. I'm so sorry. I know how much you two meant to one another.' Alma returned Helena's hug before they both sat down.

‘The shop,' Helena began. ‘You're going to have to put someone else in to manage it, and there's the flat –'

‘I'll close the shop for the time being out of respect for your mother,' Alma said decisively.

‘For how long?' Helena asked.

‘As long as it takes me to find someone to run it, but I have no intention of looking until after the funeral. As for the flat, you're welcome to stay there rent-free for as long as you like.'

‘We're hoping Helena will move in here with us,' Bethan said.

‘Do you want to, Helena?' Alma asked.

‘I'm not sure what I want,' Helena replied.

Recalling the numbness that had beset her after she'd lost her husband, Alma knew exactly how Helena felt. ‘I agree with Bethan. You shouldn't be alone at a time like this. But there's no hurry to make any decisions, or move your own or your mother's things out of the flat.'

‘We have to cancel the wedding,' Helena said suddenly.

‘Postpone it,' Ned amended.

She looked at him. ‘I couldn't go ahead with it. Not the way my mother planned it.'

‘Of course you couldn't,' Alma agreed, ‘Everyone will understand you not wanting to think about it at the moment, Helena, and you must leave the reorganisation to us. But there are some things you can't postpone. You have to write to or telephone your grandmother and your mother's brother and sister.'

‘I doubt anyone in Magda's family will be allowed to leave Poland to attend her funeral,' Andrew cautioned.

‘That's a shame.' Alma gripped Helena's hand. ‘I know Magda wrote to her mother, brother and sister every week, and sent them regular parcels of food and clothes.'

Helena suddenly realised that although her mother had told her many stories about growing up on the farm in Poland, and read her several extracts from the letters her family had sent them over the years, she didn't even know if her mother's family had remained in the same village where Magda had been born. ‘I don't know any of their addresses.'

‘They will be in Magda's writing case,' Alma reassured her.

‘I have to go back to the flat.' Helena stood.

‘You should rest first,' Ned protested.

‘I can't just sit here, Ned. I need to do something.'

‘I'll come with you.' He rose to his feet.

‘No.' Helena knew her refusal was too curt, too sharp, but she couldn't bear to be near Ned, or be reminded that, while her mother had been dying at the side of the road in Father O'Brien's car, they had been making love. It would have horrified her mother. She tried to soften the blow. ‘I need to be alone for a while.'

‘I can't let you go to the flat by yourself,' Ned insisted.

‘She won't be alone. I'll drive her down. If that's all right with you, Helena, Bethan?' Alma checked.

Helena nodded. Bethan and Andrew were too wise to protest. It had been Alma who had first befriended Magda when she had arrived almost penniless in Wales. And it had been Alma who had found Magda and Helena a room before they had moved into the flat, and subsequently given Magda a job as well as helped her solve all her practical problems.

‘Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?' Ned pleaded.

‘Absolutely sure.' Helena avoided his gaze. ‘I'll see you later. Thank you for the tea and everything, Mrs John – Bethan.' Unable to stay in the same room as Ned a moment longer, Helena went into the hall and lifted her jacket from the stand.

‘I'll telephone you from the shop, Beth, Ned.' Alma followed Helena.

‘Alma, wait.' Andrew handed her a small envelope. ‘Tranquilisers. Just in case. Helena's too calm, too controlled. It won't last.'

Chapter Three

The fine Sunday summer afternoon had attracted crowds into Pontypridd, but most people were either heading into or leaving the enormous park that covered the floor of the valley behind Taff Street. The women were carrying picnic baskets; the children rolled­up towels that contained their bathers. The smaller ones hurried to the free pool in the playground; the teenagers to the Lido, where sixpence would gain them admission to the larger, deeper pool with its paved suntrap for sunbathing – and flirting.

Helena recalled all the warm summer evenings she'd spent with her mother there after Magda had shut up the shop. They had picnicked on the lawns, Magda reading library books to improve her English, while she'd studied for her examinations. She remembered the swimming lessons her mother had given her in the ‘grown-up' pool, the tennis lessons Magda had scrimped to pay for on the public courts, the Sunday afternoons when they had sat around the bandstand listening to brass bands. She couldn't bear the thought that they would never go there together again.

Throughout her childhood, her mother had constantly searched for new ways to introduce her to all that the world had to offer, always encouraging her to watch, listen and learn. Praising every effort she made, rewarding her with ‘treats' of visits to theatres and cinemas, and consoling her whenever she was disappointed, with the assurance that next time she would be successful.

‘So, you failed your geometry mock GCE, Helena. So what?' Helena recalled the indignant shrug Magda gave whenever she dismissed criticism directed at her daughter. ‘Teachers always make the mock examinations impossible, and mark them down to make their pupils work harder. But you don't need to work any harder, Helena, because you always do your best. Now forget all about your geometry mark and look at what came m the post this morning. It's the programme for the New Theatre in Cardiff.
Rebecca
is playing there on Saturday. I will telephone them and book tickets for the evening performance, and on the way home we'll buy fish and chips in Rabaiotti's cafe.'

She heard her own voice echoing back. ‘Mama, you can't always make everything come right.'

‘No, I can't. But if you stop worrying about things that don't matter, you will make everything come right for yourself, Helena.' She could almost feel the touch of her mother's hand stroking her hair away from her face. ‘You are intelligent, pretty and have so much good sense. You will lead a charmed life, my daughter. I promise you.'

But how could it be a charmed life when her mother was no longer there to share it with her?

ʻWould you like me to come into the flat with you, Helena?' Alma switched off the ignition after parking outside the shop.

Lost in memories of her mother, Helena looked at Alma in surprise before collecting her thoughts. ‘Please, Auntie Alma.' She glanced at the shop, unsure what she should do next.

‘You have your key?' Alma asked.

‘To the flat.'

‘I have a master key for the shop.' Alma left the car, locked it and followed Helena.

Helena opened the door to the flat and stepped inside. The air was close, warm and still. Whatever the weather, Magda always locked all the doors and windows against burglars whenever she left the building.

Helena walked up the stairs and into the living room. She only just managed to stop herself from calling out, ‘Mama, I'm home.' Even then, she half expected her mother to walk out of the kitchen to meet her, dishcloth or duster in hand, because Magda never could bear to sit still for a minute. Whenever she watched television or listened to the radio there was always wool or cotton thread, a pair of knitting needles or a crochet hook in her hands.

‘Do you want to pack a few things, Helena?' Alma said when she saw Helena hesitate.

‘As I only returned from Bristol yesterday, most of my things are in the wash. It really would be easier if I remained here.'

‘Would you like me to stay with you?' Alma asked tactfully.

‘Theo –'

‘Telephoned this morning to tell me that he is visiting friends in Devon until next week.'

‘Don't you have to run the businesses?'

‘I can do that just as well from here as I can from Cardiff. I have to go there tomorrow morning. I'll pick up some clothes then. You can lend me a nightdress and a toothbrush, can't you?'

‘Of course. Mama keeps a packet of spare toothbrushes in case of visitors …' Helena looked gratefully at her. ‘This is very kind of you, Auntie Alma.'

‘At times like this I always find it easiest to concentrate on practical things. Can I make you a cup of tea and a sandwich?'

‘Tea would be nice, but I'm not hungry.'

Alma didn't press her. ‘Your mother often showed me photographs and letters. Didn't she keep them in the bottom drawer of the sideboard?'

‘She did. And all her important papers are in a box file in her wardrobe. She tried talking to me about them but I wouldn't listen. I couldn't bear the thought of her dying, or being without her …' Helena didn't cry, but her dry-eyed anguish was almost more than Alma could bear.

‘I'll make the tea. You get the box, letters, pen and paper. We'll start by making a list of things to do.'

Helena squared her shoulders and went to the sideboard. Alma watched her before going into the kitchen. She made the tea, and despite Helena's assurance that she wasn't hungry, buttered four rolls, placed cheese and tomatoes on them, and set out a tray. When she had finished she carried everything into the living room. Helena had found her mother's writing case, photographs, letters and box file, and was looking through the letters.

‘These are all from Mama's friends in Cardiff and Pontypridd. I can't find any from Poland. But I know she was worried that we would get burgled and her family's letters would fall into the wrong hands. She was terrified that the Communists would punish her relatives because she had fled to the West.'

‘Have you found your mother's address book?' Alma poured the tea.

Helena flicked through the pages. ‘There are only local and Cardiff addresses in here. Yours, Doctor and Mrs John's, friends and customers.'

‘The foreign addresses will probably be in another book or the box file.' Alma handed her the tea, placed a roll on a plate and gave it to her without asking if she wanted it.

‘Would you help me to go through these papers, please, Auntie Alma? I've found Mama's insurance policies but I haven't a clue what to do with them.'

Two hours later, Alma and Helena had composed a paragraph to be placed in the ‘Family Notices' sections of the weekly
Pontypridd Observer
and daily
South Wales Echo
. They had set the insurance policies aside until the formal issuing of Magda's death certificate, and made a list of Magda's friends who were on the telephone. But, Helena was reluctant to speak to anyone, and insisted they wait until the morning before contacting any of them. Neither of them had been able to find an address for Magda's family in Poland.

Helena looked through the photographs. The earliest baby picture of her had been taken when she was about one year old. She was outside what looked like a mansion. Magda had told her it was in Germany. Another had been snapped among the wooden huts of the Displaced Persons' camp, where she and her mother had lived before they had arrived in Pontypridd. There was one of her grandparents, uncles, aunt and mother standing outside the family farmhouse in Poland, and a photograph of the stone cross memorial that had been erected on her father's grave. In some that she couldn't remember seeing before, her mother looked like a schoolgirl. Two other young girls smiled alongside her. Friends or relatives? Given how often her mother had spoken of her pre-war life in Poland, she thought it odd that Magda had never mentioned them.

She went to the sideboard and lifted down the photograph of her parents that had been taken on their wedding day. ‘You know, my mother always spoke of my father as if he were still alive.'

‘And I understood why,' Alma said. ‘I speak to my husband all the time.'

Helena wasn't sure what had happened to Alma's husband, but she knew he was Russian and had been forced to return there after the war, against his will. ‘Mama regarded herself as still married to my father.'

‘That too I can understand,' Alma said.

‘Which is why I have to bury my mother in my father's grave.'

‘In Poland!' Alma exclaimed. ‘Darling, the Polish government would never let you.'

‘I have to try,' Helena said emphatically. She sat down at the table, still clutching the photograph.

‘Supposing they did, by some miracle, give you permission. The cost would be prohibitive. Can you imagine trying to ship a coffin all that way? You'd need official papers. That could take weeks to organise.'

‘I could ask Father O'Brien for a dispensation to cremate Mama. I know it's not usual for Catholics, but I'm sure he wouldn't refuse if I explained that I wanted to return my mother's ashes to Poland. She loved my father, Auntie Alma. She would want to be with him for eternity. I know she would.'

Alma laid her hand over Helena's. ‘And she is, darling. You can be sure of that.'

Helena refused to be so easily placated. ‘You know how much she missed Poland and my father. She would have never come to Britain after the war if she'd had a choice. She would have returned to Poland.'

Alma knew more than Helena about the choices Magda Janek had made after the war, but she also knew that this was not the time to discuss them with Helena. Perhaps that would come later, when Magda's death wasn't quite so raw. ‘Your mother wanted a better life for you and for herself, Helena.'

‘If I carry Mama's ashes back to Poland, the only cost would be my travelling expenses,' Helena continued stubbornly. ‘Papa is buried in the graveyard of the Catholic church they were married in. If the priest knew Mama – or even just heard her story – I'm sure he and the Church authorities wouldn't refuse me permission to bury my parents together. Or prevent me from adding Mama's name to his gravestone.'

‘The Catholic Church is outlawed in Communist countries,' Alma reminded Helena. ‘Even if they allowed you to travel there, I doubt you'll find a priest.'

‘Father O'Brien will be able to find out if there is one. If there isn't, some kind of government authority must care for churchyards and cemeteries. I'll write to the Polish Embassy and ask. And there are my relatives. Mama helped her mother, brother and sister in every way she could think of for years. They can't refuse to help me with this.'

‘If we find their addresses,' Alma qualified.

‘We know the name of the village where Mama was born and grew up in. Mama's maiden name was Niklas. Her mother's name was Maria, her brother was called Wiktor and her sister Julianna. There was another, older brother, Augustyn, but he was killed by the Nazis alongside my father and grandfather. Thanks to Mama, I can speak, read and write Polish. I'll write to the village church before I go, and put on the envelope “to be opened by an official in the absence of a priest”. There's bound to be a council, shop or a post office of sorts. Someone will know where my grandmother, uncle and aunt are, even if they've moved.'

As Helena continued to outline her plans, Alma realised she was channelling her grief into a crusade to return her mother's body to Poland. She wondered if it was the result of something Magda had said, or simply displacement activity.

‘Did your mother ever talk about wanting to be buried with your father?' she asked eventually.

‘Not in so many words, no.' Helena paused, recalling the only conversation she'd had with Magda that had touched on the subject, albeit indirectly. It had occurred shortly after she had met Ned. And they had been talking about love, not death.

‘All men and women wait for true love without even knowing that is why God put them on this earth,' Magda had said. ‘We have to be watchful lest we miss the person. But when a man and a woman recognise their destiny, nothing else exists for either of them. It is as though there is no earth, no sky, no time, no past, no future. Your papa is with me, Helena. He has never left me. We are separated only by a mist. One day that mist will clear and we will be together forever. When that day comes, do not shed tears. Your papa and I will know perfect happiness again.'

‘Helena … Helena?'

‘Sorry, Auntie Alma. I was miles away.'

‘Have you forgotten how frightened your mother was of the Communists?'

‘No, but they can't do anything to me. I am a naturalized citizen. I hold a British passport.' Helena continued to stare at her parents' wedding photograph.

‘But you were born in Poland. How do you think your mother would react if she were here now, listening to your plans?'

‘I don't know, Auntie Alma. I only know that I have to do this one last thing for her.'

Alma realised it was useless to continue the argument. ‘We'll talk to Father O'Brien in the morning, darling.'

‘He knew and respected my mother; he will help me.' Helena exhibited the first signs of animation she had shown since she had learned of her mother's death. ‘I'll telephone the church now, and ask him to call here in the morning.'

‘You'd better telephone Ned, too,' Alma suggested, ‘and tell him that I am staying here with you tonight. ‘

If Helena heard her, as she made her way to the hallway, she didn't reply. Alma picked up the grainy black-and-white wedding photograph. It was one of the few possessions Magda had owned when they'd first met.

‘You weren't supposed to die young, Magda,' Alma reproached. ‘Not when your daughter still needs you. I'll try to look after her for you. But it's going to be quite a task. I think the last thing you would have wanted Helena to do was postpone her wedding and go haring off to Poland with your ashes.'