She still won’t look.
She won’t look at me when I sit
Opposite her at dinner
Trying not to spill anything,
Even eating the onions.
She won’t look at me
In bed at night,
And if we accidentally touch,
She shakes me off like
She’s been bitten,
Like I’m poison.
So now I’m feeling too
Brittle to look at her.
Instead I stare at the
Hem of her dress,
Or a clip in her hair,
Or the rings on her fingers
When we speak.
And it all makes me feel
Like going swimming.
Desperation
It is
Not my fault
Tata doesn’t
Love you
Any more.
Can I say that to her?
Hope
Someone was cruel to Mama at work.
‘Sorry,’ I say.
Mama sniffs.
And now she wants to go home.
‘To Gdańsk?’ I ask.
She nods.
She hasn’t showered in days.
‘Really?’ I ask.
She nods again.
‘When?’ I ask.
Mama shrugs
Then puts her head into her hands and weeps.
Split
There are many Kasienkas now.
She has split into pieces and
Scattered herself about like fallen fruit
Beneath a leafless tree.
One Kasienka is Mama’s girl –
The Kasienka who chews quietly
And sleeps with a teddy bear in her arms.
She is muted and hidden and
Wants nothing more than to run to Tata –
To form a real family again.
Another Kasienka is Tata’s pilgrim,
The tight-lipped teenage Kasienka.
She is frightening and moody.
She is also William’s Cassie,
Shy-eyed and broad-backed –
A swimmer, but a girl before anything else:
A girlfriend with a mouth and breasts.
Cassie belongs to Clair too,
She smells of cabbage and fear.
She is a dumb, defiant victim.
But she is easily demolished.
If only I knew Kasienka’s Kasienka:
When I search for myself in the bathroom mirror
I cannot find her at all.
When I am alone
I do not know who I am.
When I am alone
I am nothing.
Part 3
Dalilah
You are the new girl in the class
And maybe they will hate you
Instead of me.
They do it like this:
They look,
They whisper,
They laugh.
And it doesn’t sound like much,
But when it happens
Every day
It feels like you’re walking uphill
Carrying a giant boulder on your shoulder.
You are the new girl in the class
And maybe they will hate you
Instead of me.
Maybe they will notice your shoes.
I do.
They are not like everyone else’s:
They are thick and buckled
And you’re wearing knee-high socks
Which no one does.
But I only half want that –
I only half want you hunted.
Mostly I want a friend.
So when the teacher says,
‘Lily will need a partner,’
I throw up my hand,
Offer up myself to you,
And you look at me and smile
And that
Makes
My
Day.
The Veil
Dalilah wears a purple veil and she is so pretty in it.
She is
All eyes.
I make myself jealous looking at her,
Imagining my face framed,
My hair hidden beneath folds of fabric.
When I see women in the street
With veils down to their feet,
Chadors,
Jealous of their concealment,
Of a robe that would cover me
from head to toe
And hide me from the world.
It would be like a kind of armour,
A veil like that,
A veil that covered me
from head to toe
So no one could get in.
July 7
At 8.50 a.m. The Bell rings and we stand
To remember
What happened.
But Clair is looking at Dalilah
Forgetting,
Not remembering at all.
And at break we are surrounded
And Marie says,
‘Why did you say they deserved it?
I heard you. I heard you whisper to Cassie.
I heard you say that.’
And Dalilah looks at me because she was standing to remember
What we were all too young to remember
While Clair was standing looking at her.
In Mama’s Absence
There are balloons all over the place.
There are red balloons in the house
And more in the garden.
Helium balloons on string
To keep them from being
Captured by the sky.
William’s grandmother
Is having her birthday party
And she wanted balloons
Instead of waxy candles that would
Ruin the cake.
There is a barbecue in the garden
And William’s father
Is wearing a stripy apron and
Cooking everything outside.
Meats mainly.
There is music
Coming from two heavy black
Speakers
Connected to an iPod
And a bouncy castle for the kids.
We both want to bounce
But his cousins are on it and they’re
Young –
And we don’t want to
Be like them.
Then William’s grandmother
Crawls into the castle and starts to jump
And jump
And I laugh
Out loud
With William.
I do not think she is like
Any grandmother
I have ever seen before.
I could not imagine Babcia
Bouncing.
So it’s OK for us to jump
Too.
And we do.
We hold hands and jump and jump
And I squeal a little
When I fall over,
When I fall on top of William,
Which I do
Again
And again.
William’s father doesn’t scowl
When we close
The bedroom door,
Just says, ‘Be good, kids.’
He turns on his computer
And asks me to choose a song.
I point to a track I don’t recognise
And he says, ‘Cool,’
And I feel good.
Music fills the small room as
A firework explodes inside my belly and
Colour spins and sparkles in my gut.
When he smiles it is like having a torch
Shine right at me
Lighting up all the dark corners,
And I cannot imagine why everyone
Is not in love with him.
William leans in
Opens his mouth
And I do too.
But not t
oo wide.
Just enough
To give him room to breathe into me.
I close my eyes,
Let William lead,
And try not to pant too loudly
As we do things
Mama would hate.
When we have kissed enough
I ask him where his mother is –
Why his mother is missing –
And he shows me a photograph
Of a woman with no hair and says
‘Mum died.’
And then we hug
Until it is very dark outside.
And I tell him how sorry I am.
And I tell him about Mama
And Tata,
And revealing our feelings
Means more than the kisses ever could.
And inside I am bursting to tell Tata how grateful
I am that he was missing and
Not dead.
Maybe I Should Not
Be thinking of William
And aching
In this way.
But when Mama sees me and
Doesn’t look closely enough to notice the scandal
Printed all over my skin,
I do not feel guilty at all.
Confidence
When I tell William
All about Clair
He says, ‘Stand up for yourself.’
William is in Year Nine.
He could save me from the pack
But he does not want to:
He knows
I can save
Myself.
And this makes me glow
And love him even more.
Practice
Girls shouldn’t want to
Beat each other –
But I want to beat everyone,
To know I’m faster,
And stronger
Than the girls in the other lanes,
Than Clair in lane four.
It isn’t meant to be a competition.
We’re just training.
No prizes or trophies for coming in first
Today.
And yet.
When I hear the whistle,
I dive with a fierceness
I don’t expect,
And a passion for first place
Propels me
Through the water
To the other end and back again.
I take breaths
Only every four strokes,
Preferring to see the
Blinking tiled bottom of the pool
Than the clumsy splashes
Of my teammates,
Than Clair out ahead of me.
When I pull myself from the pool
Ms Morrow approaches and says,
‘Nice one.’
Then, one after another,
The other girls emerge too.
Some shake their heads,
Others prefer to cut their eyes.
Clair won’t look,
She turns in the water
And does backstroke
Up to the other end.
‘She wants to be team captain,’
Marie tells me later.
‘So be careful;
There’ll be trouble if the coach
Chooses you.’
Ms Morrow
Ms Morrow does not know.
She does not know but she suspects.
After practice she keeps me back
To check.
And this is what I have been waiting for.
But I do not know what to say.
Or how to tell what’s happened.
When Ms Morrow says, ‘What’s going on?’
I cannot tell her everything.
So I tell her nothing.
Family
When Mama and Tata stand together
They do not look right:
Tata is too shiny for the room
And for Mama
Now.
Together they are tuneless;
The sounds they make are ugly,
Like knives being sharpened
Against stone.
Together they are waxwork statues;
Recognisable
But lifeless.
Tata will not look around the room
Even when Mama says,
‘Look!
Look where we have been living!’
He is staring at his smart, shiny
Shoes and will not notice
There is only one bed in the room
And the kitchen is in here too.
‘Look!
Look how we have been living!’
Mama shouts.
But Tata is staring at his tight, shiny
Shoes and will not notice
That Mama’s clothes are frayed and frumpy
And mine are too.
Tata merely mumbles and goes on
Looking at the floor
While Mama keeps condemning him.
Tata is as silent in the room
As he was before we found him.
When Tata has gone Mama whispers,
‘Look . . .
Look at what your father has become.
And Kasienka
loves Tata
more than
she loves
Mama.’
A Solution
Melanie is standing at the school gates
holding Briony
by the hand.
Briony is wearing a green dress
and licking a melting ice cream.
Melanie waves and I wave back
and then we walk
together to her car
Where she buckles Briony in
and Briony rubs ice cream
all over the seats.
Melanie is taking Briony to the pool
And thinks I might like to come too,
Which I do.
I do not do lengths up
And down
The pool because
The wave machine is on so I splash
And play with Briony
And we pretend we are at the beach,
The wild ocean lapping us,
Launching us on to the shore.
Melanie does not change into her costume;
She sits by the side of the pool
Chat, chat, chatting on her phone
And not watching us at all.
So when a wave takes Briony away from the edge
Into the gyre of water
And spins
Her
About
And around
Up and down,
Melanie will not save her because she is
Chat, chat, chatting on the phone.
And for a moment I pause
And wonder what life could be without
Briony.
Allegiance
When Tata gets home from work we sit
Around the dining table
Like a real family
Eating spaghetti bolognese,
Wearing bibs like babies and
Trying not to flick sauce on our faces.
Melanie says, ‘She was amazing.
She saved her life.’
Then Melanie says,
‘We would like you to come and live with us,
Kasienka. Here.’
I stop eating my pasta to look at Tata,
To see if this means he has left Mama
For ever.
And Melanie says,
‘You would have your own bed.
You would have a room to yourself
And a computer, if you like.’
Tata has been telling tales,
Stories that make Mama
seem bad.
When he looks up he is frowning
And then he looks at Briony
and I know this means that he will not
be back
To live with us;
That it is Melanie and Briony
For ever.
She serves éclairs for dessert,
Expensive chocolate dribbled pastries
That Mama could never afford,
And I wish I could take mine home.
To give to Mama.
As a treat.
Instead of eating it
Myself.
When I am helping to load the dishes
Melanie takes my arm and says,
‘Will you come and live with us?’
But Melanie does not know
How Mama would feel.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I can’t live here.’
I won’t leave Mama.
Cracked
I cannot make Mama whole again.
Tata stole
pieces
of
her
and now she is
Jagged at the edges –
Cracked.
When I get home I take off my shoes
To keep the carpet clean
And do my homework
Without asking questions.
I tiptoe.
I am silent.
She does not look at me
Any more.
She lies in bed
With a book and a
Glass of wine
Held to her heart.
Sometimes she drinks
Half a bottle,
And maybe she drinks
Even more.