Chapter 14

Holdwick marketplace was fairly quiet as yet, but it was still relatively early. Jay brought his first story to a close and paused to savour the moment. The pleasure he got from recognising a couple of the faces and knowing they had stopped to listen again outweighed any of his lingering doubts. A movement caught his eye.

‘What d’yer think yer doin?’ A burly, leather-jacketed man with a guitar case strode up, gesturing over his shoulder for Jay to move. ‘This is my usual place.’

‘Is it?’ he replied calmly. ‘I didn’t realise. Seeing as you weren’t here yesterday. Or last week.’ He glanced over to the stall. ‘Seeing as Mike asked me to come back.’

‘Acts like he owns the place but he’s got nowt to do wi’ it.’ The man stepped nearer, a head taller than Jay, who stood unmoving.

‘Asked you to move on before now, has he?’

‘Now look ’ere.’ The busker jabbed the air with his guitar case like a weapon, alcohol-laden breath steaming in front of him. His aggression told Jay he’d guessed correctly. ‘You’re doin nobbut yakkin anyway. People want proper music. Songs they know, like.’

Jay nodded, imagining the jaded repertoire. ‘Perhaps we could work together,’ he said, safe in the knowledge his offer would never be accepted. ‘Some kind of accompaniment. It’d be good to work with a guitarist.’

‘I don’t work wi’ your sort.’ He moved a menacing step closer. ‘Now fuck off.’

Jay saw the shove coming and fended it off. In a single, smooth action he had the guitar case on the floor and had gripped both the man’s wrists hard. He stared unflinching into his adversary’s eyes. ‘We can settle this however you like,’ he said quietly, ‘but I don’t think a scrap’s good for anyone’s business, do you?’ He glanced over and saw Mike serving a customer. ‘Me, I’d be happy to move on if it came to it. But I get the impression you want to come back here again – so you don’t want to cause trouble, right?’ He felt an almost imperceptible tension and tightened his grip even more. The slight relaxation as the man yielded broke the moment and Jay smiled. ‘So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some yakking to do.’

The busker bent to pick up his guitar case. ‘Fuckin nutter,’ he muttered as he strode off. Jay took a deep breath, picked up his flute and quickly began a lively tune to recapture his audience’s attention and distract his own.

A short while later Mike brought him a coffee. ‘Sorry about that, mate. Bit of a rush on there. I was going to come over as soon as I’d done, give you a bit of support, like. Can’t be doing with him – he stinks and his playing’s crap.’ They exchanged a knowing smile. ‘He can be a nasty piece of work, can Ferris, though – we’re lucky he decided not to push it today.’

Jay nodded, sipping at his coffee in an attempt to dissolve the lingering tension inside, choosing not to remark that luck hadn’t come into it.

‘If there’s any more trouble I’ll stand by you, don’t you worry,’ the market trader continued. ‘I like what you do. You bring a breath of fresh air to the place.’

He returned to the stall as Jay turned back to his listeners. He prepared himself to wander the winding paths his stories and music led him down, to let them carry him a safe distance from the encounter, the memory of the previous night’s conversation and the persistent whisper of hypocrite in his head.

A sizeable audience had gathered when he caught another glimpse of leather jacket among them. His heart sank, though he didn’t falter. He glanced down at his hat. Quite a collection already, and Mike’s stall was nicely busy. This time he’d walk away. When he looked up again the people had shifted and he realised this was not the same leather jacket – equally worn and tatty, but the wearer was smaller and slighter. Jay’s relief was jolted by another rush of adrenalin as he registered that it was the youth who had caught his attention the previous week. And what of it? A number of his listeners had returned; why should this lad be any different? Trying to pretend he hadn’t noticed the young man mouthing the words to the tune he’d just played, he made himself tell a long, involved story as if nothing had happened – nothing had happened, after all – a story with a lot of laughs, a lot of action and a happy ending. By the time he’d finished there was no sign of the lad.

Jay gathered up his hat and told his audience he’d probably be back after lunch, though he knew most of them wouldn’t, and went over to tell Mike the same, before setting off towards the baker’s to buy a sandwich. As he passed a shop window full of phones he thought absently that they even had a shop dedicated to the gadgets in a place like this. At least it was an independent – he’d seen it before but until then assumed that Dog & Bone was a pet shop. It gave him an idea and he stopped walking. If he was starting to get his life sorted… Her phone was off. But that wouldn’t be forever. He was inside the shop before he could talk himself out of it.

He bought the cheapest model they had and a pay-as-you-go sim card for the provider the young assistant told him gave the best coverage in the area. She offered to set it up for him. As she showed him how to use the basic functions, he felt slightly ridiculous about being so out of touch. The feeling annoyed him; until then he’d always had a proud disdain for the ubiquitous gadgets. Apart from his sporadic visits to libraries to check for e-mails from his sister and search for news on the Internet, there’d been no one he needed or wanted to keep in touch with.

He left the shop trying to memorise his new number, and finally headed for the baker’s.

‘Excuse me.’

Jay paused and looked round, somehow not surprised to see the dark-haired youth in the scuffed leather jacket.

‘I…I like your stories. And the music.’

‘Thank you.’ He smiled warily. ‘I noticed you listening.’

‘I know some from the tunes. I have surprise hearing them here.’ He was looking at Jay intently. ‘You…you are Šojka?’

The question sounded more inevitable than surprising.

‘Once upon a time,’ he said. Šojka was another place, another age. ‘Jay Spinney, pleased to meet you.’

He swallowed as he held out his hand. The youth shook it.

‘Vinko Pranjić.’ His eyes were shining and his grip on Jay’s hand was tight.

‘Drago mi je,’ Jay replied automatically, triggering an excited torrent from Vinko. He caught a few snatches, including the word for ‘father’ – so his notion of a resemblance to Ivan the previous week had been correct – before losing track completely. ‘Whoa, Vinko, slow down. It’s been a long time since I heard or spoke your language. I’m afraid you’ve left me behind.’

‘But you are Šojka.’ Half statement, half question, to match the mix of pleasure and sudden disappointment in Vinko’s expression.

‘Stranac. The foreigner.’

‘The foreigner who was one of us.’

Jay’s feelings were also mixed as he regarded the lad who, now he knew, looked so like Ivan in his expressions, his gestures. He felt a real pleasure at discovering that his friend had a son, and remembered the growing closeness between Ivan and one of Zora’s refugees. He assumed that must be Vinko’s mother; he could still picture her face and tried to remember her name. The memory, shared with a real person in the clear light of day, brought on strangeness, and he was deeply afraid, both of the inevitable disillusionment he would represent to the lad, and of what the meeting might awaken – like removing a bandage too soon from a wound not yet properly healed. He wished he could simply walk away.

‘Listen,’ he said, looking round the busy market square, ‘I’m sure we’ve got a lot to talk about. Let’s have some lunch.’

Vinko looked like he needed feeding up. As they walked across the square to an inviting pub and settled in a corner, he postponed any more difficult topics of conversation by finding a solution to the communication barrier. Vinko seemed unsure of himself speaking English, though he could understand Jay well enough. He’d grown up speaking Croatian with his mother and some of her friends, and German with the rest of the world. Jay found in turn that as Vinko slowed down and he really tuned in, his understanding came back more readily than he’d ever have expected. He could even envisage himself speaking it again without too much problem. For now they settled on each of them using their own language, or a strange mixture of the two. Just like the early days with Zora. He shook his head at himself. No. Not like those days at all.

He went to the bar and ordered two shandies and two steak pie lunches. As he returned to the table, drinks in hand, Vinko gave him a broad smile. Jay’s pleasure at meeting him returned and eclipsed his doubts. They chinked glasses, drank.

‘I can’t believe you’ve suddenly appeared after all these years.’

Vinko frowned. ‘So you did try to find me?’

‘Find you?’ He shook his head. ‘Why would I? I didn’t even know I should be looking. How old are you?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘See – you were born after I left Croatia. How could I know you existed?’

‘You didn’t hear news?’

‘I heard your father was killed. But not until a long time after it happened, and that’s all I heard.’

‘I heard you died with him.’

It was an accusation. Jay shook his head.

‘I had to leave.’

‘Why?’

He shook his head again.

‘But you did know my mother?’

‘A little.’ Assuming it was her. ‘Do you have a picture of her?’

Vinko smiled . ‘Of course.’

He immediately produced a battered photo from inside his jacket. Jay smiled. ‘Marta. How is she? Where’s she living now?’

‘She died. Nearly two years ago.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’ Eyes lowered, he handed Vinko his photo back.

‘It’s in the past.’ He shrugged. ‘I was upset then. I’m all right now. She was ill. She wasn’t happy.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated, taking a drink to mask the inadequacy of his response. Vinko smiled hesitantly, as if to suggest the subject was dealt with, waiting for Jay to speak again. He obliged. ‘So what brings you here looking for me?’

‘Not looking. Chance.’

‘We’re hundreds of miles away from the place that links us. That’s some chance.’

Vinko shrugged. ‘You grew up not far from here, I think. So did my father. I suppose that’s why I came to England. Why did I come to Holdwick? Chance, and then…I like coming here. It’s not like the city. I think…’ He looked slightly embarrassed, fingers drumming lightly on the edge of the table. ‘I think it’s the kind of place I imagine home to be.’ Jay nodded. ‘And one time, I see a man I haven’t seen here before, playing music from home, telling stories from home – though he chooses to change them…’

‘Stories evolve and grow, to suit the time and place, and the person telling them.’ Jay leaned back in his chair. ‘Like the one about Šojka Stranac, the hero who died in the fighting by his best friend’s side.’

Vinko was looking at him intently. Jay wished he hadn’t said that, and willed the lad not to ask more. A waitress approached the table with their food and Jay felt as if he’d been rescued. As they ate, he asked Vinko about his life, partly to ward off any further talk about himself. After Ivan died, Vinko’s mother had gone to Germany with some distant cousin. He didn’t say much about their lives, only that he’d come to England shortly after she died; someone he’d met in Dresden had suggested it and offered to get him over. The same contact had got him an underpaid job in a sweatshop factory and a dingy bedsit in Bradford, not too far from where his father’s family had lived. Vinko spoke as dispassionately about all this as he had about his mother’s ill health and death, but Jay could sense the emotion simmering underneath.

‘I want to learn to do something well.’ He fixed Jay with a stare. ‘I want my life to be worth something!’

Jay felt inadequate. ‘I’m sure—’

‘I’m sorry,’ Vinko said with a sudden smile. ‘I’m all right.’

He admired the flashes of good humour illuminating the pride in Vinko’s dark eyes. The lad’s positive attitude sparked in him an overwhelming desire to take him under his wing, offer him some kind of security. He stopped himself short. They’d only just met. And there was Polly – his heart leapt a little as he thought of her. He had to keep reminding himself there was another person in his life to consider now. But there was something definite he could, and knew he should, do for Vinko.

‘I’m glad you introduced yourself,’ he said. ‘You see, I…’ He fell silent. ‘How did you recognise me?’ he heard himself asking instead.

‘I first saw you last week, here, but – you’ll think this is mad – I didn’t recognise you until afterwards. My mother used to have an old photo of my father and you. I saw the same picture last week when I went to visit my grandparents. I think, though I didn’t know then, that it must have been seeing you here that made me go. I was never sure that I should.’

‘Why not?’

Vinko lowered his eyes.

‘My life hasn’t been good,’ he muttered. ‘I’m not a grandson they can be proud of.’

‘They said that?’

‘Of course not! My grandmother welcomed me. But also…I’d always known, my mother told me, that they disowned my father, you know?’

Jay nodded; he knew only too well. One of the experiences he and Ivan had shared.

‘They didn’t want him to go,’ Vinko continued. ‘They didn’t believe he should get involved.’

‘Weren’t they proved right in the end?’

‘No! How can you say that?’

His eyes flashed with a passion Jay remembered feeling.

‘We didn’t make much difference, did we?’ Hurt a few more people, caused a bit more destruction. ‘I understand them now, though at the time I felt like you do. I guess it hurt them that he threw away the chance they gave him. They’d come here in the early sixties because they wanted safety and a better life for their family – not so different, I dare say, to the reasons why your mother went to Dresden.’ Vinko glared at him angrily. Jay cut off his protest before he had chance to speak. ‘So you went to see them. How did you get on?’

Vinko stared at the table in front of him, shifting edgily in his seat.

‘He was just like I imagined,’ he said eventually. Jay gave a crooked smile of sympathy. ‘I think you know. Anja was lovely, though. She shouldn’t put up with him like that.’

‘I think he’s got a better side.’ Jay thought as he said it that guilt must be making him feel charitable. ‘People like you and me just don’t get to see it.’

Vinko nodded. ‘Anja said you’d been to visit them last year and he didn’t make you welcome.’

This was it. The moment Jay had feared. He was surprised Vinko hadn’t challenged him before now. ‘She told you about that? What did she say?’

‘That Boris turned you away almost as soon as you arrived. I think she would have liked the chance to talk to you.’

‘I mean about the reason I went to visit them.’

Vinko shrugged, still staring at the table. ‘She didn’t mention a reason.’

At least that explained why he wasn’t angry. ‘The money?’

‘What money?’ Vinko’s eyes flicked up, but he dropped his gaze just as quickly. ‘The woman who lives in their old house – the address I had – said they’d come into money a few months ago, that was why they moved. But I never thought any more of it. Neither of them mentioned it to me.’

Jay felt his anger rising, glanced round the busy pub and forced himself to keep his voice steady. ‘“A few months ago” was when I called on them, Vinko. It was your aunt – sorry, great-aunt – Zora’s money. At least some of it should be yours. They didn’t tell you?’

Vinko shook his head, frowning, as he picked up his drink. ‘What do you mean, should be mine?’

‘She wanted it to go to Ivan. I can prove that. And you’re his son.’ Jay put his head in his hands. ‘I wish we’d met earlier.’

‘You think it’s too late?’

‘No.’ He looked up; Vinko was watching him eagerly. ‘Probably not. You’d have to talk to them. I’d go with you. If you want me to.’

‘You would?’

‘It’s my fault I haven’t got it here to give you right now. Of course I would.’

‘When?’

‘Any time. This afternoon if you like.’ Vinko looked worried. ‘Sorry, you probably want to leave it a bit. See if they offer you anything of their own accord.’

‘No, it’s not that.’ He smiled and his doubts seemed to have vanished. ‘Yes, why not this afternoon?’