CHAPTER 28. ONE LONE EVACUEE.
"Hey! What are you doing? Why're you packing your bags?"
"What's it look like? I'm leaving. I'm getting out."
"C'mon, Kassia. Tell me what's wrong? Listen, why don't you put the kettle on – make us a nice cup of tea."
"That's your answer for everything now, Patryk. A nice cup of tea. You're even turning into one of these stupid English fools."
"Well, we chose to come over here, didn't we? Nobody forced us. Look, come and sit down and tell me what's wrong."
"What's wrong? What's wrong? He asks me now what's wrong?"
"Well, I'm not a mind reader, am I? How can I know unless you tell me, Kass?"
"All right, Patryk. You want to know then I'll tell you. I'm getting out before the pogroms start."
"Pogroms? What are you jabbering on about? What pogroms?"
"The pogroms that'll start any time now."
"Are you off your head woman? This is England. They don't have pogroms here."
"Have you heard your fat mate Peachornby? He's been sounding off on the local radio all day going on and on about the asylum seekers in Kamp Kleethorpes and all those illegal posters going up. He's blaming the Polish community for them."
"So? What's that to do with us? We're E.U. citizens, not asylum seekers that he can force out."
"What do you mean by 'so', Patryk? That monster's taken over, no-one seems to be stopping him – not even your mate, Willard – and I'm getting out before he really starts gunning for us Poles."
"He's not going to do that?"
"You've seen his latest leaflet... the one saying: 'Is this Sleaford or Sleafordgrad?'"
"Oh, that. He's only playing to the gallery, Kassia. Just building up support among the English doleys. You must know that."
"Well, I'm not staying to find out as I'm taking the first flight back to Warsaw. If you haven't lost all your brains you'll come back with me."
"You know I can't do that. We're making way too much money here to just give it up and walk away. We'll never make this much back home in a hundred years. And in a few months time we'll have enough to buy that little farm you've got your eye on."
"I don't care, Patryk. I'd rather be poor but alive than rich and dead. Come on Patryk, take your cash and come back with me. Today. Look at what's happened to Lukasz. He's been beaten to a pulp."
Patryk said nothing about Lukasz. He knew what he and Lukasz had been up to and he certainly wasn't about to tell her about their fly-posting. That was strictly between the resistance. Instead, he blew on his tea, cooling it.
"You're over-reacting, Kassia. Sure, Peachornby is a nasty – no, a Nazi – racist bigot. But it's not like he's going to start rounding people up and putting them in concentration camps, is it? Well, apart from those asylum seekers he shipped out, of course. I mean, this is England after all. They won't let him. And stop loading up that suitcase, will you?"
"That's what they said back in 1939. And look what happened? Do you know how many of us Peachornby's guru, Hitler, killed during the war? Over two million Poles. That's how many. And they'd have killed us all if they could."
"Oh, come on, Kass. The man's only Mayor of Sleaford, not Chancellor of Germany. Someone from Lincolnshire Council will take over soon. Or maybe he'll go one step too far and get himself arrested."
"You're a bigger fool than you look, Patryk. Your boss, Naismith, thought he could control him and look what happened. He's in hospital covered with third degree burns from Peachornby's fire."
"Well, you don't know one hundred per cent Peachornby's lot started it. And don't forget the cops arrested that Kurdish guy for it, didn't they?"
"And he's denying it."
"Well he would, wouldn't he? He's not gonna put his hands up to torching the Town Hall, is he?"
"So you believe what that fat führer’s saying?"
"Well, no, of course not. But you're over-reacting, Kass. I really don't want you to leave – stay here with me. Please?"
"Sorry, Patryk. My mind's made up. I'm off to the airport and flying out this afternoon. If you've got the brains you were born with, you'll come with me. Please, Patryk, I love you; you know that. Come back with me before it all goes too far. Please?"
"Sorry, Kass, I love you too. But give me a few months and then I'll be back. With enough to buy that farm for us."
"I don't care about that farm any more. I'd rather have you. One last time – please come back with me."
Patryk thought. It was tempting but he didn't want to walk away. He'd helped build up Peachornby and it was partly down to him to knock him down. And after Lukasz's hiding, that was something he really wanted to do. "No, I started this and I'll see it through. Don't worry about me – I can take care of myself. But if you're really going I'll see you in Warsaw. Good luck."
"It's you who'll need all the luck, Patryk. But if you don't come now you're as big a fool as Naismith was."
"But a rich fool. I'll drive you to the airport if you want, Kass."
Patryk loaded her cases into the back of his van. Both were deep in thought and neither said much on the journey there.
On his lonely way back to Sleaford, Patryk felt a sense of relief. Although he'd miss her, Patryk was glad that Kassia was safely out of the way. Now he could concentrate on taking Sleaford's führer down without worrying about her.