The Adjacent (31 page)

The winter passed slowly. I thought longingly about Tomasz every day, but it was an agony of longing. I wrote to him care of every address I could think of, but no reply ever came.

At the beginning of March 1940, a middle-aged army staff officer in his Polish uniform turned up unexpectedly at the house and told me that we were going to be evacuated to France, where a Polish government in exile had been set up by Władysław Sikorski. We were not allowed to fly – all our aircraft had been impounded, and, we later discovered, put into service by the Romanians. An overland journey lay ahead: through the Balkan countries, the north of Italy, most of France.

The following few weeks are now a blurred and unpleasant memory of endless travel and delays, rough sleeping and only occasional meals, but I and many others arrived in Paris in the last week of April. Most of the Poles who had been interned in Romania did manage to complete the journey, but by the time we climbed down from the last train at Gare de Lyon in Paris we were hungry, bedraggled, homesick and frightened.

My own experiences are little different from those of the others. We were housed well in Paris and began to regain some health and confidence, but it was only a few days after our arrival that the news came that the Germans had invaded the Low Countries and were advancing on Paris. The consequences were not lost on any of us. Sikorski’s government hastily relocated to London and as the sole remaining representatives of Poland’s free military forces we had to move there too.

Three days later I was in London and once again billeted with a family. This time I was in the west London suburb of Ealing, living with expatriate Poles who had moved to England about ten years before. I was in London all through that summer and the following winter, while fears of a German invasion were on everybody’s mind. Because I was a foreign national, and a woman, I was not allowed to do anything practical to defend the city beyond fire-watching at night. I was obsessed with the idea that if only they would allow me an armed aircraft I could rid the skies of the German menace. Instead, I was instructed to take high vantage points and from church towers and the roofs of office blocks I watched for fires. People in Ealing suffered like the other Londoners under the nightly air-raid alarms, but because we were far to the west of the city, in reality the number of bombs that actually fell during the Blitz on London were few in comparison with other parts of the city.

I continued to be frustrated by my position. Many of the Polish men with whom I had escaped to Britain were allowed to re-train with the RAF, and soon joined fighter or bomber squadrons, but there was nothing for me to do. I was a fully qualified pilot with more hours of solo flying time than most of the men I knew, and certainly a more diverse experience of different types of aircraft, but the operational RAF was a strictly male-only force. The best they could offer me was a job as a liaison officer in the WAAF, working with Polish airmen on bomber bases. I was about to accept this posting, thinking it would be better than nothing, when I heard about the Air Transport Auxiliary.

I assumed at first that the ATA would be open to men only, but I soon discovered that a women’s wing had been formed, as there was a critical shortage of civilian male pilots. I applied immediately, waited for what felt like an eternity, I was eventually interviewed, complimented on my command of English, but then I was sent away to improve it. Never was anyone so motivated as me, to master a new language.

I began flying with the ATA in the spring of 1941. It was a dream come true, and I imagine I shall be doing the same job until the end of this war. Only one thing would make life better, and that would be to have firm news of Tomasz, or to see him again.

KRYSTYNA FINISHED HER STORY. SHE AND MIKE TORRANCE
sat side by side on the churchyard’s wooden bench, leaning against the hard raised back, their shoulders resting companionably together. Torrance was intoxicated by the warm feeling of her arm against his, and as she waved her hands about to express herself the movement made him tingle with an inner excitement. Sometimes she pressed her fingers to part of his leg, or then she would move slightly away and turn to face him directly to say something with extra conviction or sincerity, but she would return and fold her body affably against his once more. Once, when she told him of her last glimpse of Tomasz in the ruins of Kraków, she paused, her breathing shuddering, her hand suddenly hot on his. He put his arm around her then, as she cried.

Torrance was lost in his own feelings, an astonishing surge of love and affection for the young woman he had met only a few hours before, not only a stranger to him but in fact the first person he had encountered in his life who had not been born in Britain. He was confused by the intensity of his feelings: why it had happened, what she might want from him, what they should do next. Above all, he was wondering how he could ensure that this would not be the last time he saw her.

He felt the minutes ticking by, the afternoon slipping inexorably away from him. So she spoke, softly, intently, telling him of her lost lover in Poland, her life in the sky and her passion for flying, the planes and the flights, the dangers, the long struggle to escape from the Germans.

He knew that all too soon they would have to part, that he was inevitably destined to return to the reality of his life on the Tealby Moor base. He knew that Krystyna was also aware of that, because he saw her glancing at her wristwatch, the reminder of time running over, or in this case out.

When he dared, he said, ‘How long do we have before we must return?’

‘Maybe half an hour.’

It was no time at all! ‘Can we meet like this again?’ he said.

No answer to that came. She turned away sharply, looked down at the grass. ‘Don’t say any more.’

He obeyed, biting back the words he wanted to declare, words he already knew would be pointless: a plea for more time with her, much more time, a frantic plan to run away together. She was half-turned from him, her shoulders hunched over, her dark hair tipping forward to obscure most of her face, but her left hand held his tightly and soon her other hand crept across and held it too. She would not look at him.

Then he heard her say, quietly, as she turned to look at him again, ‘I know you are not Tomasz, that you could not be him, that it is not fair of me to hope you might be him, that you only remind me of him because you are so tall and your hair is the same. I am lonely and desperate, all alone in this country, but you are here and Tomasz is not. You give me hope about him, you help me imagine him, you help me remember him. You know nothing about any of that, but you are all I have today and all I have ever had since I left my home. Dear Michael, suddenly you are so precious to me. I know one day we can and will meet without Tomasz here too, seeming never to leave me, but today you must let me keep the pretence. I am so happy to be with you, even though what you make me remember and wish for is only a memory of memories, the times before everything went wrong. My life has been interrupted. Do you possibly understand that?’

‘Yes,’ he said, thinking how inadequate that single word must sound. ‘All I want to know is that we will meet again soon.’

‘I will try.’

‘No – I’ll go crazy unless you promise.’

She was silent again. Then she said, ‘I don’t want you to be crazy. I promise you.’

‘Will it be soon?’

‘If I am sent to Tealby Moor it could be tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Or the next day. As soon as I can.’

But even as she said this he realized that it meant they would not meet that way. She could deliver a dozen Lancasters to the airfield, but he would never know it, and nor would he be able to take time off to see her.

The sun had moved across the sky while they sat there, and now they were pleasantly in the shade of one of the taller trees to their side. Her hands were still holding his.

‘I would like to give you something, Michael. Something that not even Tomasz had. Would that make you believe I will see you again?’

‘What is it?’

‘I have no money, nothing I can give you to keep, but I can tell you a secret. When I was a little girl, my mother had a special name for me. I mean my real mother, the one I have not seen again since I was eleven. It was what we call at home a love-name, a child’s name. My
matka
called me Malina. It’s an old Polish name. It’s based on the name of a fruit, a malina. My mama was very fond of malinas. When I was little my hair grew long. She used to put me on her lap and brush my hair and kiss me, and call me Malina. Not even Tomasz knows that. I never told him, never told anyone.’

‘You want me to call you Malina?’

‘I want you to know that is my private name, a secret between us. Say it again.’

‘Malina.’

‘Good.’ She moved her wrist deliberately, looked at her watch. ‘Now we have to fly back to your airfield.’

THEY WALKED UNDER THE LYCH GATE AND FOLLOWED THE
straight lane through the village. Torrance tried to take her hand as they went along but the moment he touched her she swung away from him. They were carrying their uniform jackets slung over their shoulders, and as he walked close beside her they sometimes brushed against each other. She did not seem to mind that.

‘I can take a weekend’s leave soon,’ he said. ‘Can we meet then?’

‘I am never given leave. I’m a civilian. Sometimes I fly, sometimes I do not. Leave is for airmen, for soldiers.’

‘But you must have time off. Can’t we arrange something?’

‘I will try,’ she said.

‘What is it you really want, Krystyna?’

‘I have given you a promise, Michael. What I want is the same as what you want, but it is not easy to arrange. I am happy doing what we are doing now.’

‘Then how are we going to meet?’

‘We will find a way.’

They had reached the part of the lane that ran alongside the perimeter fence of the airstrip. It was another reminder that this unique time of privacy with her was coming to a real end, and in one sense almost at once. It would be too noisy inside the Anson for more than basic communications through the intercom. As soon as they landed back at Tealby Moor then of course they would have to part immediately. Everything about the war, and life in the war, lay like a barrier between them.

‘You asked me what I want,’ she said suddenly. ‘Would you really like to know?’

‘I assume it is Tomasz,’ he said miserably, already wishing he had not asked the question.

‘Yes, of course. You know that now. But it is also you, Michael.’ Her hand found his and quickly squeezed it. ‘You are – suddenly, so important to me. The dread that I carry in me is that Tomasz has been killed and I do not know. Today, meeting you, being with you, for the first time I have been able to think of what might have happened to Tomasz as a reality. Whatever the truth, I can never go back to the life I had before the war began. Poland has been destroyed. The privileged life of Tomasz’s family will never come back, and I would not want it even if it were possible. Anyway, there are other wishes.’

She laughed unexpectedly, let go his hand and plucked a long shoot from the bank beside them. She swung it from side to side, ruffling the grasses, and insects rose around them.

‘Other wishes, such as?’

‘Don’t you have ambitions? Even small ones, things you want to do? Not just feelings?’

‘Yes.’

‘I do too. I have dreams, but I have never told anyone. So I will tell you, but you will laugh at me. I am serious, though. My god I am serious! I want one day to be given the job of flying a Spitfire. It is the most beautiful aircraft ever made.’

She raised the shoot she was still holding and threw it away from her like a dart, towards the top of the bank. For a few instants it seemed to respond to the warm air, flew through it as if finding lift, then it landed stalk-first amid the weeds growing along the high part of the bank. It stayed upright for two or three seconds, before wavering and toppling slowly to the side. Krystyna glanced at Torrance’s face, perhaps to see if he was laughing at her. But he was not.

She said, ‘All the girls I work with in the pool have the same dream. One or two of them have actually been given one to fly, but it does not happen often. We say the Spitfire is so sensuous, a kind of ideal lover, not a man, but something like a fine stallion that has to be tamed and ridden, a giant cat hunting at speed. The Spitfire is flown by men, but it was meant for women. We wear it like a close-fitting garment, an extra skin. I have a photograph of a Spitfire on the wall in my room, and I yearn to be inside it. Most of the ATA girls feel the same way, and although we joke about it and tease each other, underneath we are obsessed by it. Every now and then we go to the despatch office, and there is the order posted on the blackboard. It is like winning a big prize, and whoever is on the rota that day is like a film star. We all envy her.’

‘Never you, though?’

‘Not me, so far. I hope it is not never.’

‘So is that it? A flight in a plane?’

‘Not just a plane, and not just any Spitfire. It has to be one of the ones they are building now, the Mark XI. Do you know what that means?’

Torrance said inadequately, ‘I work on bombers. We never see fighters, so I don’t –’

‘The Spitfire XI is the best, the most beautiful of all Spitfires! It is not a fighter. It is built for photo-reconnaissance, so all it carries is high-powered cameras. To save weight it has no weapons, and to give it range it carries auxiliary fuel tanks. It can fly so high it can never be seen, and it is so fast that no other aircraft can catch up with it.’ She had stopped walking and was standing in the middle of the narrow lane, waving her hands with excitement. ‘It is a work of art, Michael! To see a Spitfire flying overhead has the same effect as fine art: you feel altered, improved by being close to it. I sometimes think that even if this war is in the end lost to the Germans, everything will be justified by the fact that the British designed and invented the Spitfire. You think I am mad?’