by Kim Slater
‘I came to the meeting here,’ I say. ‘About the screenwriting.’
Dad looks at me as if I’m speaking in Japanese or something.
‘Ah yes, the competition.’ Shaz beams. ‘You going to have a go?’
‘Dunno . . .’ I shrug.
‘Looks like it could be the ideal project for you while you’re recovering from the accident,’ Shaz says, and then turns her attention to Dad. ‘If you can secure the windows please, Pete, then just take a look around to see if there are any obvious weaknesses in the security.’
‘You got CCTV here?’ Dad looks around the foyer.
Shaz frowns and shakes her head. ‘I’m afraid our funding doesn’t stretch to that. We have a big bid currently being considered, and if we’re successful we’ll be improving our security system right away.’ Her face lights up talking about the possibility, but then her eyes fade dull. ‘They’re coming to assess us in two weeks’ time but we’re up against some of the best facilities in the region. If the centre is wrecked from vandalism and break-ins when they visit us, that’s our chances gone, I’m afraid.’
‘It’s probably just kids off school with nothing to do,’ Dad says, frowning.
‘Only, the police have said this isn’t just bored local kids. And it’s been happening for weeks.’ Shaz’s face drops. ‘They reckon we’re talking organized, wilful damage here.’
‘What makes them think that?’
‘Well, whoever it is seems to be targeting certain areas, destroying key IT and sound equipment that makes it increasingly difficult to continue our work.’ Shaz sighs. ‘The scary thing is, there’s been no sign of forced entry, so we don’t even know how they’re getting in. The only explanation is that it’s someone with a key.’
Before I can think better of it, I interrupt their conversation.
‘Shaz, I know this sounds mad . . .’ I say. They both turn to look at me. ‘But I think I might have an idea how they are getting in.’
‘Here he is, our hero,’ Dad announces when we get to the flat. He helps me up the stairs and then sits me back down in my wheelchair.
Angie is back home and she walks into the hallway, smiling.
‘Our Calum’s only just gone and solved the mystery of the local community centre’s vandalism,’ he says proudly. ‘He found something even the police managed to miss.’
My bedroom door opens and Sergei leans sulkily against the wall to listen.
I tell Angie how I’d seen someone lurking around at the side of the centre, near the bins.
‘So, when me and Shaz go and check –’ Dad takes over the story – ‘what do we find? Tucked behind the biggest, heaviest bin at the back is a small concealed hatch to the basement. Looks like a workman might have left it unlocked by mistake at some point.’
‘That’s how they’ve been getting in,’ I chip in.
‘Brilliant, well done, Calum!’ Angie beams.
Dad pats me on the head like a well-behaved dog and while they fuss around the flat getting stuff moved out of the way so someone can push me through into the sitting room, Sergei sidles over to me.
‘Bravo, Calum,’ he says with a faint smile. ‘It seems you are quite the detective.’
He’s pretending to be impressed but I can tell he isn’t really.
Suddenly I remember how, on the afternoon of the accident, I was supposed to be meeting him at the school gates to walk home together. But, of course, he didn’t turn up.
Lucky for him. He would have been with me when the speeding car appeared from nowhere.
I can’t help wondering where Sergei got to. Where was he, while I was under the wheels of that car?
I look up to ask him, just in time to see the bedroom door closing.
Dad goes to the chippy for tea, so we get normal food instead of Polish stuff.
After we’ve all scoffed our fish and chips, Dad clears his throat.
‘Right, we’ve got something to tell you both,’ he says. ‘Angie?’
Angie looks down at her hands, and Sergei and I look at each other.
‘I have to go back to Poland,’ she says in a small voice. ‘My papa, he is sick and needs—’
‘Dziadek is ill?’ Sergei jumps up. He pronounces it Jah-dek. It sounds like one of the strange words he was saying in his sleep. ‘Mama, I will come with you.’
He rushes over to sit next to Angie.
‘No, Sergei, I cannot take you with me this time. Dziadek is in the hospital and there is much to be done, tests that must be carried out. Perhaps when he is better, you can—’
‘No! I must come with you.’
Angie throws up her hands and looks at Dad, exasperated.
‘Come on, Sergei, lad. Listen to your mum, she knows what’s best for you.’
Sergei glares at Dad, and then at his mum, and storms out of the room, knocking over Angie’s glass of wine on the way and slamming the door behind him.
Dad’s jaw drops open and I feel a little twist of satisfaction that finally he’s glimpsed a side of Sergei that only I seem to have seen up until now.
If Sergei has a hidden side, maybe Angie does too. I mean, how well can Dad really know her after such a short time? Things seemed to escalate very fast between them. Met at work one minute . . . moving in the next.
Dad’s no fool, but I know part of him is lonely, after Mum.
And there are people in this world that know just how to exploit a situation like that.
Angie and Dad both go to the bedroom to try and speak to Sergei. Angie comes out crying ten minutes later and shuts herself in Dad’s bedroom.
‘He just keeps pulling the quilt over his head; he won’t even look at us,’ Dad tells me when he comes back into the living room. ‘Can you go and see if you can get through to him, Calum?’
‘Me? And say what?’
‘You’ll think of something. It’s hard for him, you know,’ Dad says, as if this is somehow my fault. ‘While Angie’s away for a few days, I’ve got a fairly clear diary, so the good news is the three of us can do some man-stuff together. And I’ll be home for your birthday on Thursday.’
The three of us? Great.
At least he’s remembered it’s my birthday later in the week, though, which makes a change.
Dad helps me hobble through to the bedroom on my crutches. They feel bulky and sore under my armpits, pressing on to my bruised flesh. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate using them for more than a few steps. Dad sits me down on the end of my bed. Then he walks out without saying another word and closes the door behind him.
I can see the outline of Sergei under his quilt, but he’s covered himself up completely; there’s just a single tuft of hair visible on his pillow.
The throbbing in my legs is so bad I can’t even try to speak to Sergei. I close my eyes and wait for it to pass.
All I can do is concentrate on my breathing until the pain abates a little. I feel sick and hot, and I am frightened to move a muscle in case it makes it even worse.
I look across at Sergei’s shelf. The Burj Khalifa sits next to the Empire State Building. The twinkly lights aren’t on now, but it is still impressive.
I think about the notes I’ve started to make on my screenplay. I’ve got my main idea down now and I’m thinking about the characters.
After a few minutes, Sergei pulls the quilt down a bit and peers out at me.
‘Are you OK, Calum? Your face looks very pale.’
‘Yeah? Well you’d probably pass out if you had pain like this.’
Then I remember I’m supposed to be trying to be a bit nicer to him.
‘I do understand because I have pain right now,’ he says softly. ‘Heart pain can also be unbearable.’
I don’t know what to say.
‘You saw the picture of Dziadek when we were at school, yes?’
‘Yeah,’ I say with a shrug, remembering the photograph in his rucksack that Linford crumpled and tossed aside.
‘He was a young man in that picture. Strong
, and the head of the Zurakowski family. Dziadek has always been there for me, Calum, as long as I can remember.’
I think about Grandad, how he was around when I was happy, always there when I felt sad or worried. I could talk to him about anything; somehow we just understood each other.
‘It is my turn to be there for Dziadek, now he is in need, you know?’
I do know.
Grandad’s breathing failed him in the end; the coroner wrote ‘chronic bronchitis with breathing complication’. He was ill for weeks beforehand and he fought like a soldier before it finally got the better of him.
I used to call in on him on my way to school and every night, too, on my way home. Between us, me and Dad looked after him, and with his daily home-help visit, it meant he could stay in his own home until the end. That was really important to Grandad, to stay in the place he felt safe. Old people don’t like change; they like to sit among their memories.
‘Decades of fun and laughter are trapped in these very walls,’ Grandad used to say. ‘I can still hear your gran’s voice when I listen hard.’
Gran and Grandad had lived in that house all their married life. Even though it was too big for him when Gran died, Grandad said he’d never move. And he didn’t. He took his last breath at home in the very bedroom where my dad was born.
‘I understand,’ I say quietly to Sergei.
‘You do?’
‘I have got feelings, you know,’ I say.
‘Yes, I can see this now.’ Sergei nods. ‘But you have kept them very well hidden up until this moment, Calum.’
The cheeky so-and-so.
‘I want to go home with Mama, to show Dziadek I am still here for him. She should not stop me.’
‘I’d feel the same as you, Sergei, honestly I would,’ I say. ‘But he sounds a proud man, your old fella. He might not want you to see him feeling so unwell. Maybe it’s best he gets the medical help he needs first and then you can go back when he’s feeling stronger.’
Sergei frowns as he considers this.
‘Perhaps you are correct after all, Calum,’ he says, staring into space. ‘If only we had not come over to England, I would not have this problem. I would be by Dziadek’s bedside this very moment.’
‘That’s true,’ I agree.
I can’t help thinking that they should’ve thought about that before they rushed over here, but for once I decide to keep my mouth shut.
‘I told Mama that I did not want to leave Warsaw. I did not want to travel 928 miles to this place.’
‘You mean you didn’t want to come here?’ I’d always believed the headlines I’d seen on Dad’s newspaper; that Eastern European people were all clamouring to come here. And the stuff Linford was always repeating. ‘So why did your mum still make you come?’
‘It became dangerous at home.’ Sergei shrugged. ‘My father, he is a violent man. He hurt Mama. He hurt me. He hurt our pet animals, too. Mama left him once before, but he found us again and he broke her arm.’
‘Did you go to the police?’
‘Yes, the police had an arrest warrant out for him, but when you are afraid, it is not easy to believe people can help. Even the police.’
‘What did you do?’
‘We ran, started again in a new place, but every night we were too afraid to sleep. Mama gave him one more chance, but it happened again. That’s when she said we had to come to England.’
The back of my neck prickles as he describes their life. I had no idea.
‘But I thought you just wanted . . .’
I press my lips together tightly. I’ve said too much already.
‘Benefits, housing, a free ride, as your friend Linford likes to say? This is really what you think we want above our home, our family?’
I look down at the floor.
We both stay silent for a few moments.
‘I wish with all my heart I was back there,’ Sergei says, his voice flat and empty. ‘Home.’
His eyes look dark and shiny. I’m not sure what I should say to make him feel better. I think about the assumptions I’ve made and I hang my head.
‘You’d still go back?’ I remark.
‘Yes, I would still go back, even though both Mama and I were so afraid there. I did not want to leave my beloved Warsaw. I did not want to leave my best friend Pawel, or my rabbits and my dog. I did not want to leave our little house on the edge of the wood where the squirrels come to the windowsills each morning to eat breakfast.’
A tear rolls down the side of his face and leaves a clean, wet track. I look away.
‘Most of all, I did not want to leave Dziadek.’
He throws off the quilt at last and sits up on his bed.
‘It sounds like you’re better off here, mate,’ I say. ‘At least until it’s safe.’
Sergei bites his lip as if he’s trying to find the right words.
‘But my home is in here.’ He taps his chest. ‘It stays there, even when you move away or have bad times. It is a place that you want to return to someday.’
I think about Amelia and Sergei. Their home is a place they love; for me, home is somewhere I can’t wait to escape from.
★
EXT. SUMMERTIME – KABATY, WARSAW – DAY
Small, single-storey detached house stands at edge of a wood. Two windows and a door with a red tiled roof. There are other similar houses dotted here and there further along the edge of the wood.
A line of washing sways slightly in the warm breeze. Birdsong. The sound of the odd car from the road behind the wood. The sound of a WOMAN singing drifts through the window now and then. Otherwise, it is quiet.
BOY ONE sits in full sun on a patch of grass in front of the house with BOY TWO, his best friend. They are building a structure.
BOY TWO
Hey, it is my turn now!
BOY ONE
In a moment, my friend. Have patience. Remember, I am the master builder!
A long-legged black dog runs by and knocks over part of the building the boy is working on.
BOY ONE
Hey, Baron! Bad dog! I’ll thank you to stay away from my masterpiece.
The dog turns and yaps, wagging his tail.
BOY TWO shakes his head and rolls his eyes, and both boys laugh.
BOY ONE
That is one crazy dog, but he is like my brother. My dog brother and best friend. As you are my best friend.
BOY TWO nods and smiles, picks up a small stick and throws it. The dog barks and chases after it.
BOY TWO
You are my best friend, too.
BOY ONE
(grins)
I know this trick. Some people will say anything for a turn to build, yes?
BOY TWO
(calls, taunting)
That’s right! But what are you going to do about it?
BOY TWO jumps up laughing and runs to edge of wood.
BOY ONE laughs and jumps up, begins to run towards his friend. The boys yell, chasing each other in and out of the trees.
A rumble of an engine stops both boys in their tracks. They fall silent and look at each other. BOY ONE’s face drains of colour.
They dash behind a nearby tree and watch as a burly MAN in a checked shirt and jeans jumps down from a jeep-style vehicle. There are freshly cut tree trunks in the open boot of the vehicle.
The dog runs to greet MAN as he jumps from the jeep. MAN kicks out and the dog yelps and limps away.
MAN stands and glares at BOY ONE’s building project on the front lawn. His face is red and sweaty. He is scowling. He takes a long drink from the can of beer he clutches in one meaty hand.
MAN
(throws back head and yells)
What is this crap doing out here, left for someone else to tidy up again? Where is the boy?
WOMAN comes rushing out of house, wiping her hands on a towel.
WOMAN
(nervously)
Oh! You are home so early!
MAN
(f
ace darkens)
So, a man can’t return to his own house when he pleases? A fine welcome. Where is the boy?
The WOMAN’s eyes dart over to the woods. She turns back to the MAN and smiles nervously.
WOMAN
I am so pleased to see you are home early! Come in, Bejbe. I have a cold lemonade and I just this minute took cakes from the oven.
MAN
(yells)
Are you deaf, woman? Where is that good-for-nothing boy?
He takes a final swig of beer and tosses the can into the bushes.
WOMAN
(close to tears)
H-he is with his friend, Bejbe. I think they went for a walk. Please don’t—
MAN
(clenches fists)
Please don’t what? Don’t teach him a lesson? Maybe I should teach you the lesson instead, huh?
He lumbers towards the WOMAN. She squeezes her eyes shut but doesn’t move.
BOY ONE steps forward from the trees.
BOY ONE
(quietly, head down)
Here I am, Papa.
The MAN stops walking towards the WOMAN and turns to the BOY.
MAN
Oh, you are ready to face me like a man now. Instead of running around the woods like a baby with your . . . little friend.
BOY TWO whispers something to BOY ONE and slopes away into the woods.
MAN nods to the structure outside the house.
MAN
You left a mess for your mother to clean up.
BOY ONE
The building is not yet finished, Papa. I was just—
MAN
(slurring)
You left a mess.
BOY ONE
I am sorry, Papa. I will clean it up right now.
As BOY ONE walks by him, MAN lashes out and catches him on the side of the head. BOY ONE loses his balance and falls over.