24
I don’t notice anything after that. I push past Mr Fisher, shove my way through to the cloakroom, grab my coat. And then I’m outside, running across concrete that glints with frost, down towards the school gates.
‘Anya!’
I don’t want to hear anything he has to say. What’s the point? It’s all lies, I know that now. I was kidding myself all along.
It’s not as if people didn’t warn me. Frankie told me to be careful, Lily warned me off – even Dan himself admitted he was trouble, right from day one. I thought I knew better. I believed in Dan… that was my big mistake.
‘Anya! Wait! I can explain!’
He’s behind me, his feet slapping against the concrete as we reach the gate. He catches hold of my sleeve and I spin round to face him, furious.
‘It wasn’t the way it looked!’ he says, and I think of another night, in town with Dan, Ben, Nate and Kazia, when a man with dark skin and slanting cheekbones said exactly those words.
I didn’t believe them then, either.
‘Anya, please, it meant nothing…’
My breath comes in burning gasps, and my cheeks are streaked with tears. ‘It meant something to me,’ I tell him, and my hand flies out to drag a handful of white feathers from the angel wings. I want to hurt Dan, the way he’s hurt me. ‘Some angel you are. Leave me alone, Dan. You… you’re just like your dad!’
Dan’s eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to protest, but nothing comes out. His eyes harden and his face shuts down, and he shrugs off the feathered wings and lets them fall to the ground. Then he turns and walks away from me, and I’m glad.
I never want to see him again.
It’s just past ten when I get back to the flat. Kazia, on the mend now, is sitting at the table with Mum and Dad, eating toast made from Tesco Value bread.
Mum looks up, alarmed. ‘Anya?’ she asks. ‘We didn’t expect you back for another hour. Is everything all right?’
I’ve wiped the tears away, tried to tidy my makeup, but when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror on the wall, I can see I look windswept and weary and sad.
‘The music was rubbish,’ I tell them. ‘We left early.’
Well, Dan and I did, anyhow. We just didn’t leave together.
‘But it was your special night!’ Mum argues.
‘I know… I just wasn’t in the mood. Besides, it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow. I wanted to be home.’
I sit down at the table, take a piece of toast. The bread is not as nice as the rye bread Mum makes, but it’s cheaper than buying the ingredients to bake it. I scrape a knife round the empty jam jar, then go to the cupboard to see if there’s any more. It’s almost empty. A jar of sauerkraut, an apple, half a bag of flour. No jam, no honey.
‘I’ll shop tomorrow,’ Mum promises. ‘We’ll still have our special meal tomorrow night. Traditional. We’ll make things as nice as we can, even though…’
She looks at Dad, and he looks at the tabletop guiltily.
‘I have to go into work in the morning, just for a little while,’ he says. ‘I have a few things to do, but don’t worry, this is the last time. Things will change now.’
‘So business is better?’ I ask.
Dad looks uncomfortable.
‘Tell them, Jozef,’ Mum says gently.
‘Not better,’ Dad says. ‘I’ve tried and tried, but ever since Yuri left things have been getting worse and worse. Problems, debts, complaints… I can’t make it work. My savings are gone… it’s time to stop. Tomorrow I’ll clear the office. The business is over.’
Kazia flings her arms round Dad. ‘Never mind, Tata!’ she says. ‘It’s almost Christmas Eve. Maybe Santa’ll bring you a new job? I asked him to fix everything up, and he said he’d see what he could do.’
I blink. So that’s what took Kazia so long at the grotto. She wasn’t asking for dolls and games and sweets, she was asking for a miracle. How do you explain to a seven-year-old that there are some things Santa just can’t fix?
Dad tries. ‘Kazia, I wish it could be that simple.’
I haven’t forgotten what Dad said would happen if the business failed. How could I?
Mum sighs. ‘It’s good news really, girls,’ she says brightly. ‘No more nasty flat, no more struggles with the language. Things just haven’t worked out for us here. We’re going home, back to Krakow.’
Kazia pulls away. ‘No!’ she says. ‘I like it here! I like school, and my friends, my teacher. I’m the best in my class at art, Miss Green says!’
‘Oh, Kazia,’ Dad says. ‘I’m sorry. We cannot stay. No jobs, and no money… not even enough for rent, for food. It’s all gone.’
‘Gran and Grandad are sending us money for air fares,’ Mum explains. ‘We’ll have the cheque by New Year, maybe sooner, and we’ll go right away. We can stay with them until we get back on our feet, find a flat of our own…’
‘No!’ Kazia argues. ‘We can’t! I want to go back to school. How will I see my friends, say goodbye to them?’
‘We’ll be gone before the term starts,’ Dad says. ‘It’s better this way.’
‘Do we have to go?’ I plead. ‘Kazia and I, we’re settled at school. We have friends. Our English gets better every day.’
‘I’m sorry, Anya,’ Dad says. ‘We have no choice.’
No choice. Kids have no choice, kids like me and Kazia, uprooted and brought halfway across Europe to start from scratch because Dad had a dream. And now that the dream has crashed, we will be uprooted again, torn away from our new friends and taken back to where we started from. Are we supposed to pick up our old life again, three months on, as though nothing has come in between?
If I’d listened to Dan… we could be running now, away from Liverpool, from peeling wallpaper and stolen boots and cheap white bread with no butter or jam. But I didn’t listen, and I should be glad, because Dan let me down, trampled all over my heart and walked away into the night.
Maybe it’s just as well I’m going back to Krakow?
I don’t believe that, though, not for a moment. Even with Dan out of the picture, Liverpool is where I want to be… it was my dream too, after all. I want to stay, work on my English, be with my friends, see whether the picture-postcard cottage with the roses around the door actually exists.
I want to stay.
‘I asked Santa!’ Kazia argues. ‘St Nicholas! He promised, and I have been good, very good, so definitely he will fix it! You’ll see!’
I can’t sleep. An hour ago, Kazia crawled into bed with me, her face wet with tears. Her arms twined around me and we stayed that way, me stroking her hair, until she drifted into sleep.
Three months ago, I was packing to come to Liverpool, full of hopes and dreams that fizzled and died in the relentless British drizzle. I hated Liverpool at first, but that was before I got to know it. Now I can see that it has a crumbling kind of beauty, a chaotic warmth, a crazy, quirky heart, and I will miss it. I’ll miss Frankie and Kurt too. I will even miss Dan.
My mind slips back to the dance, replaying those scenes, those words. Dan Carney… and Lily Caldwell. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like the worst ever betrayal, the sharpest cut. I got Dan so, so wrong, but still, I’ll miss him. I’ll miss him and I will never, ever forget him.
I wish I hadn’t told Dan that he was like his dad. I saw his face crumple with hurt, and for a split second I was glad. Now, though, I’m not so sure. Hurting someone who has hurt you doesn’t make you feel better. Sometimes, it makes you feel worse.
Kazia stirs and stretches, and I sigh, my heart dull and heavy in my chest, my eyes dry and aching with unshed tears. Somewhere around two o’clock, I think I hear a bicycle bell outside, and I run to the window.
There’s nobody there, of course.