‘Yes. He was killed in the war. At Arnhem.’

‘He was a soldier?’

‘Yes.’ She could feel a guilty blush rising right up through her. She hoped they couldn’t see it. How awful it was to pretend, when they had truly lost so many loved ones.

Everyone was watching her sympathetically.

‘Michael has never seen his father,’ she said. This at least was true.

‘Mr O’Neill,’ Piotr said.

‘Er – yes.’

‘That reminds me . . .’ Sybil seemed to come to her rescue. ‘Mrs O’Neill is a Catholic – I assume you are too?’

‘Catholic? Yes, of course,’ Marek said. He seemed to see Katie with new eyes. ‘You are Catholic?’

She nodded.

‘You can show them where to go to Mass on Sunday, can’t you?’ Sybil suggested.

Katie felt her heart sink, though she knew it was only because of shyness. It felt hard work being with them. But she could hardly refuse.

‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed, and made herself smile.

Forty-Eight

‘Are they coming with us?’ Michael asked, excited, as they waited in the hall before setting off on Sunday morning to an early Mass.

‘Yes – that’s nice, isn’t it?’ And it was, in a way, not to feel like the only exotic foreigner in the house because she was a Catholic. Katie knew a lot of people regarded the church as the ‘Italian mission to the Irish’.

There were sounds of movement upstairs and soon the two of them came hurrying downstairs.

‘We are not too late?’ Piotr said.

‘No – we’ve got plenty of time.’

Both of them looked appreciatively at her best Sunday dress, a neat navy shirt-waister with a tiny white spot, and her straw hat – also in navy, which she knew was a colour that flattered her.

‘You are looking very nice.’ Marek half bowed at her to usher her out of the front door.

‘Thank you,’ she said. Though wary of them, she found herself absurdly pleased by the compliment and couldn’t help smiling at their courtly manners.

‘It is lovely day!’ Piotr said in a stilted way, as if this was something straight from a phrasebook. But they seemed in a good mood, glad that it was Sunday – no work and time to look around and get acquainted with the place. And it was a lovely still, sunny day. It would not take many minutes to walk across to the church in Hunters Road.

‘Did you have Mass at the camps?’ she asked.

‘Here, in England?’ Marek said. Walking beside him, she realized just how tall he was, with a loping, wiry strength, and his voice was strong, booming. ‘Oh yes, of course.’ He explained that in the camps every attempt had been made to keep up precious aspects of Polish culture – the Church, the national dancing – to help people feel at home, yet strengthen their sense of Polishness. ‘Our people have lost so much,’ he said. ‘Their lands and country – and now they belong to the Soviets.’ She thought for a moment he was going to spit, his voice was so bitter. ‘They keep what they can, in this country.’