22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson Read Free Book Online Page A

he so desperately wants to be.
    ‘I waited for you,’ he whispers, and believes what he says. He’ll make this work. There are a thousand questions in his head. He is hungry to know what her life has been. He cannot understand how she survived living in a forest, although he has heard of whole villages that abandoned their homes and took shelter in the trees. Every question that comes to him dies before it reaches his lips. It is not the time for questions yet. She looks so tired. Violet shadows colour the hollowed skin under her eyes. Maybe he should tuck the covers around her and leave her to sleep.
    Silvana pats the eiderdown quilt. ‘Do you want to lie beside me?’
    ‘Shall I? Say if it’s too early …’ He wonders at the foolishness of his words. Too early? After six years, surely he means too late?
    ‘I used to imagine this,’ she says, and Janusz hears the tremble in her voice. ‘You and me. A house. All three of us, together again. It’s all I ever wanted.’
    She pulls the covers back and moves to make room for him. Janusz turns off the bedside lamp. Lifting her nightdress, he slides his hands over her and hears her exhale deeply. A shiver runs through him. That sound. It is the sound of the girl he once loved coming from a woman he knows not at all.
    Her hips, like misplaced elbows, rise up from her belly. Her body is all angles and depressions. Silvana takes his hand and places it on her breast. It is soft and warm and full. It is so long since he has touched a woman, and he climbs across her awkwardly.
    ‘Is this all right?’
    He is afraid to let his weight rest against her, but she opens her thighs and draws him towards her, whispering his name, wrapping her legs around him. In the darkness he grips the edge of the mattress, and then Hélène is in his mind and he shuts his eyes to get rid of her. He has to stop this craziness. Silvana’s breathing hurries and the quick rasp of her voice in his ear sends a hot rush of pleasure through him, dispelling other thoughts. His loneliness falls away from him like unbuttoned clothes. Maybe this will be all right. Maybe they can do this. Live here, together. Forget Hélène. Make a family. He presses his cheek against her shorn hair, kisses her ear, licks it, folds the lobe against his teeth.
    Something touches his hand. He moves slightly, vaguely aware of the feeling. His little finger is being pulled back sharply. ‘What the …?’ He starts. ‘Who’s there? What the hell is going on?’
    He tumbles off Silvana and falls between the beds, scrambling to his feet.
    ‘Aurek?’ says Silvana.
    Janusz turns on the main light and the child looks at him, staring him down with wide, dark eyes. There’s a possessive, adult fierceness in the boy’s gaze that leaves Janusz speechless for a moment. He buttons his pyjama top and glares back at the boy.
    ‘Aurek? What are you doing here? Go to bed.’
    Silvana is pulling back the covers, holding out her hands to the child.
    ‘No, no. Let him stay.’
    ‘What does he want?’ asks Janusz. ‘What is it, Aurek? Were you scared of something?’
    Aurek looks at his mother and makes a small mewing noise.
    ‘He’s thirsty,’ says Silvana. ‘Please don’t shout.’
    The boy climbs into bed quicker than Janusz can protest, and Silvana wraps her arms around him. He watches as the child takes his place, small hands reaching for Silvana’s breast, dipping his head, taking the nipple in his mouth.
    ‘No,’ says Janusz. ‘No. Stop. You can’t do that. Aurek, get out. Go to bed.’
    Silvana’s face is blank and impossible to read.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, her chin resting on the boy’s head. ‘Next time. When Aurek doesn’t need me.’

Poland
    Silvana
    Janusz’s father found the newly-weds a small flat in Warsaw. Two rooms on the top floor of a tall town house. They filled a suitcase and a trunk with their belongings and took a bus to the city.
    ‘I should carry you over the threshold,’ said Janusz