Fallout Read Free Page A

urgent through gritted teeth. ‘She loved it. She wanted it, and she was happy. Some of the time. Why won’t you see her? You should visit her.’
    Tomasz pressed his son’s head against his chest.
    ‘Stop, Lukasz.’
    They stayed in the fierce lock of their embrace until Tomasz nodded and Luke felt his hot breath on his neck as he exhaled. Tomasz pushed his son slowly away, gripping his face in both hands. If his mother’s eyes fronted a void, his father’s, complicated and sodden, were spilling over. He kissed Luke’s forehead, hard, and released him.
    ‘Go to bed now,’ he said.
     
    Luke sat on his bed, shivering in the luxury of his solitude. The evening passed across his memory: the succession of vehicles that had transported them along strange dark roads; the police officers who had questioned him, first with sympathy and suspicion, then pity, as his small crime was discovered and the fact that his mother had never been anywhere else in his lifetime but an asylum. Nowhere else until today , thought Luke. He pressed his hands to his eyes to shut out the inhuman subjugation it had taken to separate her from him, and his own shameful relief when she had gone.
    He lay down, surrendering more than deciding, and stared at the dark-wood and gold crucifix on the wall opposite the end of his bed. Sometimes he laughed at the idea of God, other times he quaked in fear. Often he crossed himself unthinkingly, or bowed his head, or felt rage well up like blood at the blind patriarchal hand that held him down. Now he gazed upon the cheap crucifix hanging on its one nail and prayed. He could hear his father’s slow footfalls. His eyes drifted to the ceiling. The footsteps faded. His focus blurred.
    ‘Zdrowas Maryjo, łaski pełna, Pan z Toba . . . ’
    Hail Mary, full of grace. Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death . . .
    A stream of Hurricane bombers flew silently above him. His father, as he had never known him but knew he once had been, in a scarf and gauntlet gloves, waved a cheery salute as he flew by – and Luke slept.
    Above his head, cheaply framed, the Virgin wearing powder-blue and unlikely lipstick, smiled down on him.

1965
    In the September of 1965 Luke Kanowski in Lincolnshire was beginning his lower-sixth year at Seston Grammar, while in London Nina Hollings had just left school.
    ‘I want Nina to come with me to Paris,’ Marianne said, on the telephone to Aunt Mat.
    There was a battle for territory being fought. Aunt Mat was a mild person but her sister-in-law enraged her.
    ‘Paris isn’t suitable,’ she said and straightened the rug with her toe, her heart beating hard against the things she must not say.
    Marianne’s voice came down the line like an over-tightened violin string. ‘She’s fifteen! Paris isn’t suitable for what ? Put her on!’
    It was her glad mother tone, the one that said my darling, I missed you when she hadn’t called for three months; when she forgot another birthday; when she arrived with an armful of presents – sugar mice. Aunt Mat did not have that trump card to play. She had only Horlicks, bedtimes and the solace of a good book against sporadic joy, fugitive love. However much sensible she instilled, one word from her mother sent Nina reeling towards the ridiculous.
    ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll get her.’
    Nina was upstairs, listening to her dreadful records. Aunt Mat called her down and Nina spoke to her mother, wrapping the telephone cord around her fingers, as she murmured like a lover to her parent. Aunt Mat sat on the sofa in the sitting room like a bad fairy, watching through the open door, with the fat marmalade cat purring aggressively behind her on the sill, the net curtain hitched on his unknowing ear.
    ‘. . . really Mummy? Really?’ her niece whispered.
    Aunt Mat felt familiar vile jealousy mixing with fear