‘Oh yes, do stay,’ Topsy said, clapping her hands. ‘You can’t leave now we know you. You can have the lodge for as long as you like if it means we get to keep you.’
Jolka smiled. ‘Well, I will think it over.’
Topsy turned to the pilot in his wheelchair, and Bobby noticed how he always tried to keep the burned half of his face to one side so she couldn’t see it. ‘I came over to demand your company, Teddy. We can’t make do with only one gentleman over there – or I suppose two if you count Tommy, but he’s far too interested in cakes to make a good companion for pretty young ladies. It isn’t fair that Birdy should steal you away and keep you all to herself over here.’
Teddy smiled. ‘I am ready to come back now Bobby and I have had some little talk, and prepared to be in better spirits. I am sorry if I was sullen before.’
‘Don’t apologise. I know it must be tiring for you, all of this. I promise I’ll be quiet and not annoy you with my silly chatter while you eat your sandwiches.’
‘Your silly chatter is my favourite part of the day, Topsy.’
Topsy laughed, looking at Bobby. ‘I told you he was a tremendous flirt, didn’t I? Are you going to join us, Birdy?’
Bobby looked at Jolka’s painting, and then at the view that inspired it. ‘I think I’ll have a walk by the lake before I come and sit down. I can’t help feeling restless today for some reason. I’m not ready to be still just yet.’
‘May I join you with my sketchbook?’ Jolka asked. ‘There are some details on the boat there I should like to study at closer range before I work any more on my painting.’
‘Of course, I’d like that. Will your little boy be all right here without you?’
‘Oh yes, his father can mind him well enough. He will never notice I am gone – at least, for as long as there are cakes and custard.’
Topsy wheeled Teddy back to Piotr while Bobby and Jolka walked along the silver-pebbled shore of the lake and down the jetty towards the rowing boat.
‘It must be wonderful to have such a talent for painting, Jolka,’ Bobby said.
‘I don’t know about talent, but it’s a comfort to know I’ll always have the means to support myself and my family.’ Jolka crouched down by the rowing boat and took out her sketchbook and pencil to capture deftly the detail of its flaking paint.
‘Does Piotr mind that you earn more than he does?’
‘Why should he mind?’ Jolka said absently as she drew.
‘Well, because sometimes men can be funny about things like that. They feel it’s humiliating to be supported by a woman.’
‘Then such men must be fools. To be able to provide for your family and have your children never know hunger is always a blessing.’ She looked up from her sketch. ‘When I selected a husband, I knew that I would not be willing to give up this painting that I loved. I wanted a man who would not expect this from me. One who could see me as an equal and would be truly a partner in our life together. I was lucky enough to have many suitors when I was a young woman in Poland, Bobby – that sounds rather vain, I am sure, but so it was.’
Bobby took in the woman’s slender, willowy figure, her flashing eyes and thick, glossy black hair. ‘I can believe it.’
‘My family thought I must be a madwoman, to choose a poor man and a Jew to be my husband when I could take my choice of handsome, wealthy young men. But I knew I could only be truly happy with Piotr, because to Piotr I was not merely a woman. To Piotr I was Jolka.’
‘He’s excessively proud of you, you know. What’s more, he loves you a great deal. The first thing I heard him say on the mountain was your name.’
Jolka smiled. ‘Yes, he loves me. But more important to me was that he respected me, so that I may love him in return. Many people I know think me hard-headed, I think. I have had to be, because Piotr does not have the hard head for business matters.’ She got to her feet again and put the sketchbook away. ‘Even so, Bobby, I love my husband very much – as much as any sensible woman can.’
‘Aren’t you afraid?’ Bobby asked as they walked back down the jetty towards the shore. ‘I mean when he flies. He was lucky to survive that crash.’
Jolka scowled. ‘That foolish squadron leader. He ought to be told he has blood on his hands. He ought to be punished. Piotr will not let me get involved.’
‘No, I couldn’t persuade him to make a complaint either. Won’t you be frightfully worried when he’s restored to flight status?’
‘I am always worried. But this is Piotr’s choice, and it is the right choice. It is the only way that the world can be free again. That Poland can be free.’
‘Still, it must haunt you.’ Bobby closed her eyes. ‘It does me. I can’t stop seeing what was up there on the mountainside. What I saw in the plane wreckage and Teddy as he was when we found him, so horribly disfigured and burned.’
Jolka looked at her curiously. ‘Piotr tells me you have a young man of your own in the RAF.’
‘He isn’t my young man any more. But he is someone I care about.’ Bobby sighed. ‘That was why I had to say no when he asked me to marry him. I knew I couldn’t think of him up there in the skies without being tortured by images of him… like the body in the plane.’
‘You turned down the young man because you feared he may crash and die in that same horrible way, and then you would be alone?’
