Magda's Daughter (7 page)

Helena leaned over Magda and gently touched her cheek. ‘She looks peaceful, doesn't she?'

Choked by emotion, Ned nodded. He had driven Helena and Alma to EastGlamorganHospital, so Helena could formally identify Magda's body. Given his chosen profession, he had seen many corpses, but he hadn't as yet become accustomed to the sight of death. Despite his tutors' assurances to the contrary, he was beginning to doubt he ever would.

Helena kissed Magda's forehead.

‘She does look peaceful,' Alma agreed. ‘She's lost that worried look that she so often wore in life.'

‘Do you think I could cut a lock of her hair?'

Helena glanced at Ned, but the nurse who had shown them into the room produced a pair of scissors from her apron pocket. Ned sensed that she had heard the request many times before. Alma stepped forward to help Helena. He left the room and went into the ante-chamber, where an official was waiting to record the formal identification of Magda's body.

‘My condolences at this sad and difficult time, Doctor John.' Although the man must have uttered those same words a thousand times, he sounded sincere.

‘Thank you.'

‘I have had the pleasure of meeting your parents many times.'

‘Have you?' The question was inane, but Ned couldn't think of another response.

‘And, like everyone else in Pontypridd, I knew Magda Janek. A wonderful lady. She had a kind word for every customer, no matter who they were.' He glanced through the open door into the room where Alma was wrapping a lock of Magda's hair in a handkerchief. ‘It's a terrible loss for her daughter. There are no other relatives?'

‘None in this country,' Ned confirmed.

‘I'll prepare the papers right away.' He opened a file and unscrewed the top of his fountain pen.

Ned leaned against the wall and waited patiently for Helena and Alma to join them. They came out ten minutes later. The only tears Ned saw were in Alma's eyes.

The official explained the post-mortem procedure to Helena. As Ned and his father had already told Helena what to expect, she didn't seem to pay much attention. The official read the papers to her; Helena signed them. Then the nurse entered the ante-room, closing the door behind her. She handed Helena a parcel wrapped in brown paper, and a brown leather handbag.

‘Mrs Janek's clothes and effects.'

Helena took them from her. Ned felt suddenly upset by the sight of Magda's handbag although he couldn't have quantified why.

‘Mrs Janek's jewellery is in a box in her handbag.'

Helena handed the parcel of clothes to Alma, opened the handbag and removed a white box. She lifted the lid. It contained Magda's tortoiseshell hairpins, plain, stainless-steel watch, and two pieces of jewellery: a distinctive embossed gold wedding band, and a gold locket.

‘I've never seen Magda wear that,' Ned commented when Helena lifted out the locket.

 ‘She always wore it tucked beneath her collar.' Helena touched a catch at the side. The locket flew open, revealing a grainy sepia image of a young man holding a baby. She held it out to show Ned and Alma.

‘You with your father?' Alma guessed.

‘It was taken when I was a week old. My mother used to say that she was lucky the Nazis never discovered she was wearing it. If they had, they would have taken it from her.' Helena looked at the picture for a moment before closing the locket and returning it to the box.

‘Time to go home for lunch, sunshine.' Ned wrapped his arm around Helena's shoulders.

Helena turned to the official. ‘The post-mortem …'

‘You will be sent a copy of the report, Miss Janek. As soon as it has been typed.'

‘Thank you.' Helena looked at the official and the nurse. ‘You have both been very kind.'

‘Our condolences, Miss Janek.' The nurse opened the door for them.

Ned was beginning to feel that society's way of coping with bereavement and the bereaved was by resorting to well-worn platitudes.

But as he walked Alma and Helena to his car, and saw the droop of Helena's shoulders and the heart-rending expression of bewilderment on her face, he could think of nothing more original than, ‘I am so sorry, sunshine.'

The post-mortem report was delivered to the flat two days before the funeral. Ned was sitting with Alma and Helena, who were discussing the final arrangements with Father O'Brien. He went downstairs, picked up the post, and waited for the priest to leave before giving the envelope to Helena. She saw the address on the outside and handed it back to him.

‘Please read it for me.'

‘If you want me to.' He opened the envelope with his thumb. Alma stood to leave.

‘Don't go, Auntie Alma,' Helena pleaded. Alma sat down again.

Ned scanned the report as quickly as he could. ‘The cause of death was, as my father suspected, a massive cerebral haemorrhage.' He frowned. ‘What is surprising is the number of healed fractures the pathologist found on Magda's body. Three on her skull, one on her arm, and two on her legs.'

‘I can't recall Magda ever breaking a bone,' Alma said.

‘The pathologist has stated that they were all old fractures.' Ned looked at Helena. ‘Could they be a result of war wounds?'

‘I have no idea.' Helena frowned.

‘Magda didn't like talking about the war,' Alma reminded them. ‘But she did say that she was forced to work for the Nazis. They were notorious for beating their prisoners of war and slave labourers.'

‘They were.' But the thought of Magda's injuries troubled Ned when he considered Helena's resolve to travel to Poland. What if they weren't the result of wartime beatings? His father was right. Helena knew nothing about her mother's family other than the few snippets Magda had read to her from the occasional letters, which must have been destroyed because neither Alma nor Helena had found any trace of them in the flat. In fact, there was nothing in the flat to connect Magda with Poland except a few photographs, the handwritten Polish recipes in her cookery book, and the selection of dried herbs and spices in the food cupboard.

He recalled conversations with Magda in which she'd told him that if she ever dared to return to Poland, even as a naturalized Briton and the holder of a British passport, she would be severely punished for ‘defecting' to the West after the war. She had certainly lived in constant fear of the Communist regime tracking her and Helena down, and taking reprisals against the family she had left behind. But he still thought it extreme of Magda to destroy every scrap of evidence that linked her to her Polish family.

Had Magda's memories of her life in Poland been so painful she hadn't been able to bring herself to talk about them, even to Helena? Or had there been other, more sinister reasons that had driven Magda to keep the knowledge of her family to herself? Were they vicious criminals? Were they in prison? Was that why none of them had yet replied to the letter Helena had sent to the village enquiring about her grandmother's, uncle's and aunt's whereabouts? Should he take his father's advice and do more to dissuade Helena from making the trip?

But even if he did, would Helena take any notice?

Chapter Four

Ned had been christened and confirmed into the Anglican Church – to be precise, St John's on the Graig – but he, like many teenagers busy with their social life and, to a lesser extent, studies, gradually stopped attending services. On the rare occasions someone asked him why he no longer went to church, his stock answer was that he regarded religion as ‘a personal thing', but in truth he scarcely gave it a thought. Aside from weddings, funerals and christenings, he hadn't set foot in a chapel or church of any denomination for over ten years, and Magda's funeral was the first full Catholic mass he had attended. Not only did it seem interminable but it also emphasized the chasm that had suddenly opened between him and Helena. Or perhaps it had always been there and he had simply chosen to ignore it.

Everything Helena treated so familiarly was alien to him: the smell of incense wafting from the burners; the multi-coloured crucifix above the altar that bore the broken and bleeding body of Christ; the plaster Madonna and saints in the niches in the walls; the garish biblical scenes that hung on the walls; the text of the service; the litany, the hymns, the rehearsed tones of the choir; the way Helena used her rosary …

Watching her during the service as she stood beside him – physically close, yet emotionally distant – he felt as though she were a stranger, or worse. Strangers could be introduced. There was a chance that they might strike up a conversation. But the most Helena had said to him in days was ‘yes', ‘no' and ‘thank you'.

She had become self-contained in her grief. No matter what he said, or did, to try to reach her, she pushed him away and retreated into a world from which she had excluded him. It was as though someone who didn't want to know him had taken possession of the body of the girl he passionately loved and wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

The congregation finished singing a hymn, and Father O'Brien led them in prayer. Ned knelt beside Helena. Time was passing so slowly. It seemed as if days, not hours, had passed since they had entered the church. Under cover of his clasped hands he glanced sideways at Helena.

Dressed in funereal black, her colourful mini-skirts abandoned for a new black knee-length one, her legs encased in black stockings, a black lace veil covering her hair, she looked pale and ill. Ned knew she had lost weight in the ten days that had elapsed since Magda had died, but he hadn't been aware just how much until he had seen her in her mourning clothes.

Her face was drawn and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. Sleeplessness? Or the result of crying at night, away from his and other prying eyes? His father was right; she was too calm, too controlled. But he sensed that behind her dry-eyed composure, Helena was racked by illogical guilt as well as grief. He only wished he could think of some way to coax her into discussing her feelings.

If Helena was aware that he was watching her, she gave no sign of it. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on her hands. Her lips moved in silent prayer until, a few minutes later, at a signal from Father O'Brien that Ned failed to interpret, the congregation rose. Throughout the ceremony people had stood, sat and knelt at the correct time, intoning responses, while he floundered, constantly watching the priest and Helena before making a move, and consequently always making it seconds too late.

The final ‘Amen' was uttered, the organist began to play Mozart's
Requiem
, and Ned looked at Helena again. She stared at Magda's coffin as the bearers – Alma's son Theo and his half-brother Peter among them – carried Magda shoulder-high out of her beloved church for the last time.

Ned offered Helena his arm but she ignored it. He walked with her out of the door, through the porch and into the brilliant sunshine where the funeral cars were waiting, then stood beside her as Magda's coffin was loaded in the hearse. Father O'Brien slipped between them and helped Helena into the chief mourners' car.

Ned felt like a useless appendage as he followed Alma into the car. They sat in silence, Helena gazing at her mother's coffin as it lay in the back of the hearse in front of them. A few minutes later they reached the crematorium. It was packed to capacity, and the doors had been left open so that those who had failed to get inside could hear the committal.

Helena didn't look away from the coffin until it finally sank from view. Only then did Ned dare touch her hand. It was icy. At the priest's prompting, Helena led the way outside. It was only when Ned followed her into the covered walkway that he realised just how many people had made the effort to attend Magda's funeral.

For a woman who had arrived in Wales after the war, penniless and knowing no one, Magda had certainly made a lot of acquaintances. And, judging by the number of people clutching damp handkerchiefs to their eyes, friends.

‘She was a lovely person, Helena,' said an old lady. ‘She would do anything for anyone if she thought she could help them. I'm going to miss her. Truth be told, I can't believe she's gone.' She pulled a black handkerchief from her sleeve.

‘Thank you, Mrs Morris.' Helena clasped the woman's hand. ‘My mother was very fond of you. She said no one could bake a scone as light as you, or play the piano with so much feeling.'

Ned stood behind Helena. She was making a point of speaking to everyone who had returned to the church hall for the funeral tea the church ladies had provided, but her voice was clipped and her gestures so nervous that he expected her to break down at any moment.

‘Mrs Albright, how kind of you to come. How is your leg?' Helena crouched down besides an ancient woman in a wheelchair.

Ned knew all about Mrs Albright. She was his father's oldest patient and, according to his father and all the partners in the practice, had absolutely no right to be alive.

‘Can't complain, dear.' She clasped Helena's hand between her bony claws. ‘After all, I'm still here, when your poor mother isn't.'

‘So sorry, Helena. We all loved Magda. Ponty won't be the same without her running the shop in

‘Thank you for coming, Mr Ronconi, and for your condolences and the wreath your family sent Mama. It was beautiful.'

‘I know what you're going through, Helena, and all I can say is that nothing, not even the first scorch of grief, lasts for ever. It will get less painful in time.' He gripped her hand briefly before moving on.

Helena didn't doubt his sincerity. The sudden loss of Ronnie's beloved second wife, Diana, had taken most of the light from his life.

‘Helena, we're all thinking of you. If there's anything, anything at all that we can do, just ask and we'll be there.' One of Ronnie's many younger brothers, Angelo, hugged her.

As Ned moved back to make more room for the extended Ronconi clan to talk to Helena, he noticed a middle-aged man staring at her. He didn't know him and was fairly certain he hadn't seen him before. But, from the way the man was watching every move Helena made, he obviously knew her. There was something about him that made Ned uneasy, although he looked unremarkable. The shiny elbows of his dark blue, three-piece suit suggested it had seen better days. But it was clean and well-pressed, as were his white shirt and black tie. He was of medium height, with nondescript features and brown eyes. His thinning mouse-brown hair was slicked back with an overdose of Brylcreem. He had the work-roughened, coal-pitted hands and broken black nails of a miner, and looked no different from a hundred other working-class men in Pontypridd.

Ned waited until the crowd around Helena thinned before walking across the hall to him, but the man met Ned halfway.

‘Doctor John junior?'

‘Yes.' Ned shook his offered hand.

‘Father O'Brien mentioned in the service that you're engaged to Helena Janek.'

‘He did.' Father O'Brien had told the congregation how happy Magda was with her daughter's choice of future husband.

‘I wanted to give Helena my condolences and tell her how sorry I was that things didn't work out between Magda and me. But there was nothing I could do about it at the time.' The man shrugged. ‘The housing shortage after the war was cruel. The only place we could have lived was Mam's front room, and she went up in the air when I came back from Germany and told her I wanted to marry a foreigner. I thought I could talk her round. As it turned out, I couldn't. Mam went on and on at me – drove me mad. She said that after my gallivanting all over the world I'd grown too big for my boots, that I thought Welsh girls weren't good enough for me any more. As if fighting a war was gallivanting! But that was my mam for you.'

‘Do you know Helena?' Ned cut in impatiently, not understanding the relevance of the man's ramblings.

‘Last time I saw her she was a tiny nipper. But I knew Magda well enough. That's why I came here, to say how sorry I was that things didn't go as planned between her mother and me.' He looked across the hall; Helena was still talking to the Ronconis. ‘When Helena was a kid she was as pretty as a picture. I always knew she'd grow up into a right looker. And didn't she just?'

‘So you knew Magda?' Ned prompted, his temper rising. He didn't like the way the man was eyeing Helena.

‘As I said, well enough, if you get my meaning.' He nudged Ned. ‘To cut a long story short, I worked on Mam, but just as she was coming round to the idea of me and Magda getting married when I could get her over from Germany, I had a letter from Magda. In it was a photograph of Magda with Helena. Well, that was that as far as Mam went. She wasn't happy with the idea of me marrying a foreigner in the first place, but a foreigner with a kid was out of the question. That's when she started inviting Betty round for tea. Well, one thing led to another, and,' he appealed to Ned, ‘you know how it is. I wrote to Magda and told her not to come, but I guess she never got my letter.'

‘What letter?' Helena heard the final word as she joined them.

‘Not from Poland, sunshine,' Ned explained, knowing that was the only kind of letter Helena could think about.

‘The letter I sent your mother before she left the Displaced Persons' camp in Germany, telling her not to come to Wales.'

Helena looked from the man to Ned. ‘I don't understand.'

‘Neither do I. Let's sit down over here.' Ned spotted an empty table in the comer furthest from the buffet, and steered Helena and the stranger towards it.

‘Don't you remember me?' the man said as they all sat.

‘No,' Helena answered.

‘And Magda never talked about me? Robert? She, Magda that is, used to call me Bobby. Well, everyone did in those days. Bobby Parsons?'

‘She never mentioned you.' Helena eyed the man with suspicion.

‘I met her when you were living in the Displaced Persons' camp outside Munich after the war. It was horrible, just a collection of wooden huts that leaked. Whole place was falling apart. Some said it was an old army barracks, others that it had been one of those camps where the Nazis worked prisoners to death. Either way, it was no place for a young woman with a child. And your mother wasn't the only woman there. There were loads of them. The Germans had shipped people in from all over the place to do their dirty work for them during the war – from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, even Greece. You name it. And I'm talking about ordinary people, not Jews – everyone knows what the Nazis did to them.'

‘I have no memory of it, but I knew we were in a Displaced Persons' camp,' Helena said.

‘Not many of the women had kids. Most of those who did had lost them to disease or starvation, which wasn't surprising in a place like that. But Magda would have starved herself to death to feed you.'

‘You were working in the camp?' Ned asked.

‘Not me. I was a driver. I used to drive truckloads of people from other camps that were being closed, to that one. Anyway, I sort of fell for Magda the first time I saw her.'

‘You loved her?' Helena was shocked that this nondescript, middle-aged man could have had a relationship with her mother.

‘No one could blame me for it. In fact, most of my mates envied me. Even skinny as a rake, Magda was pretty with that long black hair and those dark eyes. And she carried you around with her everywhere. Wouldn't let you out of her sight. I remember thinking it was odd. There you were, a white-blonde kid with a mother as dark as a gypsy. I had some chocolate in my bag and I gave it to you. Magda took it away. I knew she wanted to use it for barter. A small square of chocolate would buy a loaf of bread in those days. But I told her I'd get her food, all that she and you could eat. After that, every time I went to the camp, I'd look for her and give her something. That went on for six months or so.'

‘Six months,' Helena repeated in bewilderment. ‘How long were we in the camp?'

‘I don't know how long Magda was there before I met her, but she was there for four months after I was demobbed. It wasn't easy getting permission for her to come here. I had to fill in hundreds of forms in Germany, and more after I came home. And my CO in Germany wasn't keen to – help, I can tell you. He didn't approve of Welsh boys marrying foreigners. And even after we were given permission for Magda to travel, I had to pay her fare in advance from this end, to prove that I wanted her over here. They wouldn't take any money from Magda, not that she had any to give them,' he added illogically.

‘So you wanted to marry my mother?' Helena sat back in her chair.

‘I can't understand her not telling you about me.' The man pulled a packet of Woodbines from his pocket, offering it to Ned and Helena.

Helena shook her head. ‘Didn't Mama want to return home, to Poland?' She tried to put herself in her mother's position. If she had been left in Germany, a widow with a young child in a camp like the one she'd just heard Bob Parsons describe, all she would have wanted to do was go back to whatever family she had left, Communist country or not.