27
Back in Poland, Christmas Eve is the main part of the Christmas celebrations. We have our own traditions, our own style of doing things, and it doesn’t involve turkey or chocolate yule log or stockings hung over the fireplace. It’s just as well, as we can’t afford turkey or yule log, and we don’t have a fireplace, just radiators that cough and splutter and rattle in the night.
It doesn’t matter – we like it our way.
Mum dives into the supermarket on Aigburth Road, stocking up on basics, spending the extra ￡20. Then we go home, the snow falling softly around us as we walk.
Dad is there already. ‘It’s finished,’ he tells Mum quietly. ‘The office is tidy now, the keys handed in. All over.’
‘Oh, Jozef,’ she sighs, and the two of them hug for a long moment. I see Dad’s eyes shine with tears and I have to look away.
‘I’ve spoken to Mr Yip,’ Dad goes on, and his voice is creaky and strange, as if he doesn’t quite trust it to hold out. ‘Told him the rent situation. When the money comes from your mum and dad, Klaudia, we’ll pay him. I promised. Even before the air tickets. He’s a reasonable man – he’ll wait. He wished us happier times ahead.’
‘There will be,’ Mum sighs. ‘There have to be.’
‘Hey, hey,’ Dad grins then, and his voice is strong and bright and brisk again, and the shine in his eyes is just that, a shine, nothing more. ‘It’s Christmas Eve! Everything starts fresh tonight… we’ll put old troubles behind us! Girls, have you looked closely at the tree?’
Beneath the thick green branches, a clutch of brightly wrapped parcels have appeared – presents! Kazia pounces on them, grinning. ‘This one’s for you, Anya…’ She hands me one that’s kind of shoebox-shaped. I start to smile, imagining red shoes, sparkly shoes, shiny, pretty shoes. Oh, I wish!
‘So… one present, each, to unwrap?’ Dad says. ‘Nothing will spoil our Christmas Eve, hey, girls?’
Kazia goes straight for the biggest parcel, tearing at the paper, and I open mine. Sure enough, there are shoes… not red or sparkly or spike-heeled, but soft black suede with little heels and delicate ankle straps. Perfect.
‘I love them!’ I tell Mum and Dad.
Kazia’s present, though, takes my breath away. It’s a wooden dolls’ house, painted in glossy red and white with pink roses climbing up the walls. It’s exactly like the house I once imagined we’d live in, but in miniature.
‘It’s beautiful!’ Kazia breathes, her eyes wide. ‘You see? Santa knew!’
I think that the dolls’ house might have more to do with Dad. He made me a Noah’s Ark when I was small, with tiny carved figures of Noah and his wife and two of every kind of animal I could think of. Even after he went away, he’d carve and paint animals and send them to Kazia and me, obscure animals we’d never even thought of, like buffalo, racoons, llamas.
The dolls’ house, though, that’s something else. It must have taken months to make, with a front wall that opens up to reveal the rooms inside, each one painted and carpeted and fitted with tiny tables, chairs and beds.
I imagine Dad working on the house, secretly, at the office. I imagine him painting little red window frames and shading in the roof tiles, adding in the climbing roses curling up the shiny white walls, and then coming home to this sad little flat above the chippy. When Dad decided to make a dolls’ house for Kazia, he clearly had no plans to go back to Krakow. I imagine packing the dolls’ house up with bubble wrap and cardboard, ready to ship to Poland. It’s going to be kind of awkward.
Mum is preparing food for the Christmas Eve feast: beetroot soup with mushroom dumplings, herring in sour cream, spiced cabbage and flat, golden wafer bread. She opens up the cake box Karen gave her to reveal a chocolate layer cake drizzled with runny white frosting.
‘So kind,’ Mum smiles. ‘I will miss Karen. Kazia, Anya, will you set the table? The cloth’s in the drawer, candles too.’
Kazia runs to get them, the big white cloth we’ve used for Christmas Eve ever since I can remember, and the box of cheap white candles from the local supermarket. We had red candles back in Krakow, tall, twisty ones, but this year we can make do.
I push the sofa back against the wall and Kazia and I drag the kitchen table out into the centre of the living room, so we can take our time and stay warm while we feast. It’s traditional to sprinkle a little hay underneath the cloth to remind us of the stable, so Kazia borrows some from the bag Kurt brought for Cheesy. We smooth the cloth over the top, arrange the candles on saucers and set five places for people to eat.
There is always an extra place at the table on Christmas Eve, in case an unexpected visitor arrives. It brings good luck, and it’s a ritual we never forget, although guests are rare on Christmas Eve in Poland. It’s a family time, and of course our family are far away in Krakow – Gran, Grandad, Uncle Zarek, Aunt Petra. Still, traditions count.
Darkness is falling as Mum sets out the food, an odd number of dishes for luck. Usually there are thirteen dishes, but this year money is tight and it’s only five. I can’t help thinking that the table looks bare and empty compared to last year, when every space was filled with bowls and platters heaped with rich, steaming, festive food. There’s no point, though, in thinking that way, today of all days.
‘Any sign yet?’ Dad calls.
‘Not yet…’ Kazia is stationed at the window, looking out for the first star of the evening. As the youngest child, this is her special task. I remember when it was my job… I’d be at the window the moment dusk threatened, watching so hard, willing the sky to darken, longing to see the first bright star of Christmas.
In Liverpool, the sky has a dull orange glow and it’s snowing steadily now. Spotting the lamp post across the street will be a challenge, let alone the first star, but suddenly Kazia whoops, jumping up and down. ‘I saw it, I saw it!’ she insists. ‘I saw the Christmas star!’
That’s all we need for the feast to begin, and Mum lights the candles and Dad breaks the golden wafer bread and reminds us that now all grudges will be put behind us, all troubles are over. Dad is dishing out beetroot soup and dumplings when the doorbell rings.
‘Who is this?’ Mum asks. ‘At this time…?’
Dad is on his feet.
‘Unexpected guest,’ he says, and goes to see who it could be.