‘That’s fine,’ I reassured him. ‘What would you both like to drink?’
‘Er, nothing,’ John answered, glancing at the other man before speaking. ‘Tight for time, as I say …’
‘Up to you,’ I said. ‘But I’m having one. It won’t take long, and –’ I indicated upstairs with a nod.
But the man shook his head. ‘No, thanks all the same,’ he answered stiffly.
I went out into the kitchen, catching John’s eye as I left. Looking at Mr Kanski, I’d had that thing happen. That thing – thankfully it only happens to me rarely – where a person does something – some small thing; it’s often not a big thing – to make you form an unfavourable first impression. There was nothing about Mr Kanski that I could really put my finger on. He was the sort of unremarkable, soberly dressed man I’d half-expected. Late thirties, perhaps, or early forties. The sort of person who wouldn’t really make any sort of impression if they were sitting beside you on a bus. But there was something that set my teeth on edge about him nevertheless. He wasn’t exactly impolite but then he wasn’t exactly on the same page as me either. I got no sense that Adrianna’s desperate circumstances particularly moved him, even though I felt absolutely sure John would have conveyed the distressing nature of them to him on the way here. Plus there was this sense I had – strongly – that some words had been exchanged between them. That ‘fitting us in’ was some major inconvenience.
As well it might be, I thought, as I popped my head out of the kitchen door and hollered ‘Adrianna, how are you doing?’ up the stairs. I did it as much for the man’s benefit as anything. It might well be that he had much bigger translation fish to fry and that coming to chat to our 14-year-old runaway was indeed a bit of a pain.
Even so it rankled and, as I came out of the kitchen to see Adrianna starting down the stairs, I nodded towards the living-room door and pulled a conspirator’s face – just a very slight one – to let her know he seemed a grumpy old sod.
Of course, what Adrianna made of all my gurning could only be guessed at, but it was an irrelevance in any case, because as soon as we all gathered at the table I could see, just by her body language, that she felt the same about him as I did.
And she dealt with it in the traditional teenagerly way, by switching off. You could almost hear the click. And what she started with her expression, she finished with her body language; she didn’t so much sit, as slither down into the dining chair, sitting back, looking across the table with tired, wary eyes. Quite apart from anything else, she looked ill. Definitely as if she was still running a temperature, and I had to fight an impulse to reach across and place the flat of my hand against her head. Perhaps having the man round for an interrogation so soon wasn’t a very good idea. It wasn’t as if there was some huge rush to all this, after all. It wasn’t like anybody was going anywhere.
John cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. ‘Adrianna, this is Mr Kanski,’ he explained, a little over-brightly. ‘He’s come to help with the translation of our conversation.’ And as if via autocue, because I didn’t see any sort of sign pass between them, Mr Kanski duly translated what he said. I had to admit, he seemed good at it.
‘So,’ John continued, ‘we need to find out a little more about you, Adrianna. Then we will know how best to help you. Is that okay?’
The man began translating this as well, and, seeing Adrianna’s glazed expression, I decided to help things along a bit by getting her some pills.
‘Sorry,’ I said, as he glanced irritably at me, ‘I just want to pop into the kitchen and grab Adrianna some water and paracetamol. She’s not very well,’ I added, looking at Mr Kanski. He nodded. ‘But please feel free to carry on without me,’ I added. ‘I’m aware that time’s an issue.’
Smiling politely, I then got up and left the room.
I was gone no time at all – couldn’t have been much more than a couple of minutes – but by the time I returned John had already scribbled a fair bit on his pad. I couldn’t see what, but as I put the tablets and water in front of Adrianna I could sense a definite tension in the room.
The translator was speaking again, obviously reiterating some lengthy question John had put to her while I was in the kitchen, and as he spoke I could see Adrianna already forming a head shake. And then another. Then a shoulder shrug and spread of her palms.
‘Nie,’ she said. Followed by an indecipherable longer utterance.
‘She says she has no family to go back to,’ the man said. ‘She said she is an orphan. She says she doesn’t know when or where she entered the UK.’
‘No family at all?’ John asked. ‘Was she brought up in care, then?’
The man asked her. Again, no. ‘She says a children’s home. In Krakow. Which she ran away from.’
I looked across at Adrianna. Despite the direness of her straits and her obvious infection, one thing I’d noticed straight away was her unmistakable sense of self. Her self-possession. Her bearing. This was a child raised in the care system? It didn’t seem to fit. I knew they came in all shapes and sizes – as did all kids – but there was always this look they had; of being beaten down, diminished. Faintly hostile. Assessing. Adrianna just didn’t. She just didn’t look like a looked-after child. ‘So no family whatsoever?’ I asked, looking quizzically at her.
Mr Kanski asked the question again. Adrianna looked right back at me as she answered. And provided another ‘Nie’.
‘So how about your time in the UK?’ John continued, with his pen poised over a pad, ready to spring into action. ‘Can you tell me more about that? What have you been doing? How have you been living? With friends? On the streets? Have you been staying in any hostels? Have you had any contact with social services, or the housing office, there?’
Adrianna listened, seemingly intently, because she sat slightly forwards as Mr Kanski conveyed all this. Then she responded with another lengthy stream of Polish. But even as she spoke I knew we were making little in the way of progress. It was just so obvious, from her tone, from the lack of place names, from the wealth of ‘ums’ and ‘ers’ and shrugs, so when Mr Kanski explained that she’d been ‘getting by’, living on friends’ floors and couldn’t remember any details about anywhere she’d been staying as she’d always ‘moved around a lot’, it came as no sort of surprise. She clearly wanted to tell us as little as possible.
‘What friends?’ I asked. ‘Are there friends who’ll be wondering where you are now, Adrianna?’ I asked, speaking directly to her.
‘No one,’ came Mr Kanski’s answer, in translation of yet another flat ‘Nie’.
‘What about London, Adrianna? Where you’ve just come from? How long were you there?’ John asked. ‘You were there for a bit, weren’t you? Before you arrived in Hull?’
‘About a month, she thinks,’ Mr Kanski said, once he’d asked the question and been given the answer. ‘Though, I think –’
‘Casey?’ Adrianna’s voice. Small but decisive. ‘I not so good.’ She gestured to her head and grimaced at me. ‘Ill.’
And to be fair, she certainly looked it. Her face was pale and clammy and her hair was sticking to her forehead. ‘You know what?’ I said to John. ‘I think we should hold off doing this until Adrianna’s feeling a little better, don’t you? Come on, love,’ I said, rising from my seat and gesturing that she should also. ‘Back to bed with you.’ I turned to John. ‘We can just as easily have this conversation in a few days, can’t we? And with Mr Kanski in a hurry to be somewhere anyway, perhaps that’s best, eh? I’m sure we’ll be able to get more out of her once she’s properly rested and feeling brighter …’ I moved aside to let Adrianna pass me. She even smelt unwell. Not as in body odour particularly.