1
The last few bits and pieces are packed. Mum is running around the flat with a duster, trying to make it all perfect for the next tenants, and Kazia’s sitting on her suitcase hugging the old rabbit Gran knitted for her and trying not to cry.
I know how she feels. I’m excited about moving, but scared as well. I’ve tried so many times to picture this day, but now that it’s finally here I feel numb, shaky. My stomach is full of butterflies, some of them in hobnailed boots.
Gran and Grandad arrive to take us to the airport, and then it all moves too fast. The worst bit is saying goodbye. Gran and Grandad hug me so hard it feels like they are trying to memorize the shape of me in their arms, and both of them are crying fat, salty tears even while they are telling us to be brave, to think of the future, to make the most of the new life that’s waiting for us in Liverpool.
‘We’ll write, and phone, and email,’ I promise. ‘And we’ll visit, and you can come over at Christmas and visit us…’
‘Of course,’ Gran says, but I know they won’t. They will be with Uncle Zarek and Aunt Petra and the cousins this Christmas, in their big flat with the log fire crackling and the festive table always set with an extra place in case a lonely traveller should come knocking at the door.
By the time we get through security, Mum is crying too, and Kazia, and even I have to take a deep breath in and wipe the tears away. It is hard to leave Krakow, to leave Poland, and step into the unknown. It is hard to leave my family, my friends, the place I once called home.
It’s hard, but it’s what I’ve dreamt of too, for years.
Dad went away to work in Britain when I was nine. He could earn better money there, Mum explained, and one day, maybe soon, he would send for us. In Britain, we would have a better life. I didn’t know I needed a better life, back then. The one I had seemed good enough, until Dad went away.
I missed him. I’d sit by my bedroom window, looking out beyond the city rooftops to the big, blue sky where the swallows that nested in the eaves just above our apartment swooped and soared in the late summer sun. I wondered if there were swallows in Britain, if Dad could look up, as I did, and see them dip and glide through the blue.
I wished I could fly south for the winter, like the swallows, to a place where the sun always shone. I wished we could all be together again.
In Krakow, the winters are cold – thick snow lies on the ground for months at a time. The rooftops are dusted with white sugar-frosting, and you have to wear two pairs of socks inside your boots just to stop your toes from turning blue.
‘Does it snow in Britain?’ my little sister, Kazia, wanted to know, when Dad came home that first Christmas.
‘Sometimes,’ he told us. ‘But it’s not as cold as Krakow!’
‘Can we go back with you?’ I asked.
Dad smiled. ‘One day, Anya! Britain is a land of opportunity, a place where hard work is rewarded. The streets are paved with gold. Not real gold, of course, but you know what I mean.’
I kind of did. I imagined a place where everything was beautiful, where everyone smiled because they could have whatever they wanted.
‘We could have a future there,’ Dad said softly, his eyes bright with dreams of his own.
‘Are there swallows?’ I asked Dad, and he just laughed.
‘Yes, there are swallows,’ he said. ‘Just like the ones in Krakow. Britain is not so different, really, Anya.’
But I knew it was a world away.
It took three years for Dad to settle enough to bring us over to England, three years of postcards and letters and long-distance phone calls. Sometimes, if we were really lucky, there were little wooden toys, animals mostly, that he’d carved and painted on the long, lonely nights in England, just for Kazia and me.
Dad had to take whatever work he could find, picking fruit, on a building site, night shifts in a pickle factory. I wasn’t sure how any of that could be better than his job in Krakow, managing a team of joiners and woodworkers for a big firm in town, but I didn’t argue.
Then Dad came to Liverpool and met Yuri, a Ukrainian guy running an agency that placed migrant workers in jobs all over the city. Dad went into the office looking for a job and ended up as a partner in the business.
‘Yuri wants to use my management experience,’ Dad told us over the phone. ‘And my language skills, of course. I can bring many Polish workers to the agency. With my skills, the business can grow, become the best of its kind in the north-west.’
‘Wonderful,’ Mum had said, but her eyes were anxious. I could see that living in Britain was Dad’s dream and mine, not hers, but she didn’t argue.
‘This is our chance,’ Dad explained. ‘This business will make a fortune for us. This is the start of our new life!’
Dad said he had a house for us, in a nice area, with a garden. I imagined a pretty cottage with whitewashed walls and a glossy red door and climbing roses clinging to the walls, like pictures in the books Dad used to send to help me with my English.
I imagined a new school, where the pupils wore neat uniforms and played hockey or quidditch and had midnight feasts. I imagined new friends, a boyfriend maybe.
Mum gave up her job at the bakery in town, where she had been in charge of making wedding cakes and birthday cakes and the rich, dark poppy-seed cake everyone loved to eat at Christmas. ‘No more cake,’ my little sister Kazia frowned.
‘There will always be cake,’ Mum promised. ‘Life would be dull without a little sweetness now and then.’
We packed up our possessions, said our goodbyes.
And now we are on the plane, which is scary and exciting and wonderful all at the same time. None of us have ever been on a plane before, and Kazia looks scared as Mum buckles her seat belt. She hugs her knitted rabbit tightly. We are leaving our old lives behind, building new ones from scratch, in a city called Liverpool where the streets are paved with gold.
I bite my lip. The plane climbs through grey cloud, finally emerging into clear blue skies and sunshine. The clouds are far beneath us now, a carpet of soft white candyfloss. Everything feels fresh and new. It’s like being on the edge of something wonderful, something you’ve dreamed of for years and years but never quite had within grasp until now.
Britain, at last.
I am ready for this. I have worked so hard on my English – in my last school test I came top of the class. Beside me, Kazia slips her small hand into mine. ‘I won’t know what to say to anyone,’ she whispers. ‘I can’t remember any English words. It’s all right for you, you’re good at English!’
‘So are you,’ I tell my little sister. ‘We’ll be fine!’
‘It won’t be as easy outside the classroom,’ Mum reminds us. ‘There are accents to unravel, and your dad says Liverpool has quite a strong one. But we will settle in, I know.’
I smile and lean back against the window. I think about the swallows, making their long journey south, year after year, never knowing just what they will find. I try to be brave, like them.
We can’t stay above the candyfloss clouds forever, of course, and eventually the plane begins its descent towards Liverpool John Lennon Airport. The three of us hold hands as the plane lands, our eyes wide, our hearts thumping. Climbing down the plane steps on to British soil, we find ourselves in a dark, grey world where the wind whips our hair against our faces and the rain slants down in sheets.
‘Just like Krakow,’ Mum jokes.
We collect our cases and go through passport control and immigration, and then we are at the gates, and Dad is there, waving madly, his face breaking into the widest grin I have ever seen.
‘My girls!’ he yells. ‘My beautiful girls!’
We fall into his arms.