Read The Weight of Water Online

Authors: Sarah Crossan

The Weight of Water

For Mum and Dad

Contents

 

Part 1

Leaving Gda
ń
sk Główny

Stansted

Dwellings

First Day

Year Seven

The Bell

What I Try Not to Hear

Pale

Mute

Search Engine

Noise

Before England

Rain

Swimming

Disco

Deceiver

Road Atlas

The Odyssey

Kanoro

When I Go Swimming Again

Mistaken

Group Work

William

Small Secrets

Drip Tap

Meal Times

Wanted

Examinations

Novice

Christmas

Mama’s Mama

Snow Meal

Change

Happy Slapping

Games

Radio News Flash

Prize Night Envy

Anyone Else

In the Dark

Time to Grow

All Wrong

Karma

If I Were on the Swim Team They Might See Me

Name Day

The Hunt

Maybe

Art Class

Not Alone

Thursday

Grating

What William Says

Back in Gdańsk

Finding Tata

I Wish Tata Were Dead

Questions

Dare Devil

I Try to Tell Mama

The Pity Club

Smokers’ Corner

Oh, to be Musical

Floating

Rumours

When Boys Fight

Late Nights

Life Saver

Higher

Dear William

First Kiss

Assembly

No Offence, But . . .

Wrath

Teachers

Misread

Talking

 

Part 2

Gummy Bears

Partners

Love is a Large W

Kenilworth Castle

Lottery

Ending the Odyssey

The Bungalow

Cold Hot Chocolate

Blame

A Letter I Never Send

The Bell Jar

Skin Deep

I Didn’t Mean to Go Back

Melanie

The Gospel According to Tata

Lady Godiva

Ready

Guilty

Motherless

Desperation

Hope

Split

 

Part 3

Dalilah

The Veil

July 7

In Mama’s Absence

Maybe I Should Not

Confidence

Practice

Ms Morrow

Family

A Solution

Allegiance

Cracked

Sleepover

Cooking Stones

Good News

Vacant

Rebellion

Betrayal

Lies in the Dark

To London

Fear

Starting Blocks

Home

Gold

Metamorphosis

Forgiveness

Reunion

Treat

Resurrection

Side by Side

 

Epilogue

Butterfly

 

Glossary

Acknowledgements

Part 1

Leaving Gdańsk Główny

 

The wheels on the suitcase break

Before we’ve even left Gdańsk Główny.

 

Mama knocks them on some steps and

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Bang, crack, rattle –

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No more use.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 There are

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
plastic bits

                 
Everywhere.

 

It’s hard for Mama carrying a suitcase

And a bulging laundry bag.

 

It’s hard for Mama

With everyone watching.

 

She’s shy about the laundry bag,

An old nylon one

Borrowed from Babcia.

 

Tata took all the good luggage

When he left us,

When he walked out

 

On Mama and me.

 

‘There are clean clothes in it,’

         
 Mama reminds me,

Like this were something

To be proud of.

 

And she won’t let me carry a thing

         
 Except

         
       my own

         
           small bag.

 

‘You guard our passports, Kasienka.

         
 Good girl, Kasienka.

         
 And the money.

         
 We’ll need those pounds.

Mind the money and the passports.

         
 Good girl, Kasienka.’

 

Mama prattles as I scuttle along

         
 behind her

Dodging business suits and

         
 backpacks.

 

There is no one to recognise Mama

 

In the crowded station.

 

But all the same, she is shy

About that laundry bag.

 

‘Now keep close, Kasienka.

         
 Keep close,’

Mama mutters as we leave Gdańsk Główny

And step aboard a bus for the airport

 

While I cling to the belt of her coat,

Too old for holding hands,

Even if she had one free.

Stansted

 

We weren’t on a ship.

Immigrants don’t arrive on

Overcrowded boats any more,

Swarming wet docks like rats.

It isn’t 1920, and it isn’t Ellis Island –

Nothing as romantic as a view of

Lady Liberty

To welcome us.

 

We flew into Stansted.

         
 Not quite London

         
 But near enough.  

 

At immigration we queue

Nervously and practise English in our heads:

         
Yes-thank-you-officer
.

I know I am not at home

When talking makes my tummy turn

And I rehearse what I say

Like lines from a play

Before opening my mouth.

 

At baggage reclaim

The laundry bag

Coasts around the carousel

And people look.

 

Someone points,

So Mama says, ‘Leave it, Kasienka.

         
 There’s nothing in that bag but long

         
   underwear.

         
 We won’t need them here.

         
 We’ll need galoshes.’

 

Mama is right:

The air in England is swampy,

The sky a grey blanket.

         
 And rain threatens

         
 To drench us.

Dwellings

 

Mama rented a room

         
 In Coventry.

 

This is where we’ll live

Until we find Tata:

One room on the fourth floor

Of a crumbling building

That reminds me of history class,

Reminds me of black and white photographs

Of bombed

         
 out

         
      villages.

 

There is a white kitchen in the room,

         
                 In the corner,

And one big bed,

Lumpy in the middle

Like a cold pierogi

For Mama and me to share.

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