This time the journey passed uneventfully and in due course we were once more in Poland, piling out of the train quickly before it moved on. Hamish had his old job back, collecting the eggs each morning and Kirsty picked the cherries and wild strawberries. To Anna’s delight, I had brought her two stone-removers for the cherries. Chilled cherry soup was promised for the following day.
That evening we went to bed early, but during the night I was woken by the sound of Kirsty fighting for breath. She looked dreadful and could hardly speak. I sat her up in her cot and alerted Anna and George. We agreed that a doctor was needed urgently but would take quite some time from the hospital in Poznań.
After a long and anxious wait, the doctor examined Kirsty and then asked me if she was allergic to any medication. I didn’t know for certain, but thought not. To be on the safe side, she said she would give Kirsty an injection and we would need to wait a few hours. If everything was all right, she would then administer a much larger dose.
She went downstairs for some food and – as I only subsequently learned – told Anna that it was a severe case of asthma, and that I would have many difficult years ahead of me. I had never seen anyone with asthma before, though I knew that Ewan’s father had suffered severely from the affliction and had died at 60.
I wondered what I could do to amuse Kirsty. She asked for a story. This was when ‘Horatio’ was born: a story that was only told when things were really desperate. Later, I secretly came to hate Horatio, knowing that Kirsty only ever asked for him when she was feeling very poorly indeed.
Making it up as I went along, I told her about Horatio, a handsome white horse who lived in the mansion house of a beautiful village and drove a Rolls-Royce. Horatio was the village squire, and his best friend was French, Penelope Poodle. She enjoyed visiting him, and always wore the most beautiful Parisienne hats with flowing veils when she drove out with him. (I gave all the characters their appropriate voices.) Horatio had a cherry tree in his garden and every year the local villagers would come to his open day to pick the fruit and enjoy a wonderful party. The story grew, and in later years she drew pictures of him, and of the other animals in the village (there were no humans), all of whom had names, families and personalities.
Breaking into our story, the doctor now returned, and after an examination decided to give Kirsty the full injection. When I saw the needle I was shocked, the syringe being far larger than any I had seen at home. Kirsty protested at the size, so I suggested we went on with the story and we would both look away. I was told that this injection would keep her well until she got home. She was given vitamins in the shape of crispy little chocolate-flavoured bits which were much appreciated by the patient. She had another day-and-a-half to recover before getting up and we spent the time happily drawing and reading books.
Hamish took Kirsty up the hill to visit some children he had met in a neighbouring house. But within 20 minutes they were back – both white as sheets and spattered with blood. Hamish carried Kirsty into the house. He told me she had fallen and hit her head on a rusty iron gate. I bathed the cut with Dettol and hoped for the best. Shaken though I was by these setbacks, most of all by Kirsty’s asthma attack, the rest of our holiday was enjoyable. We toured the countryside around Zakopane, the winter ski resort, where we visited a retired writer and priest. He lived in a beautiful, secluded area close to a large forest and offered to take us all on a day’s trek but I quietly declined, indicating Kirsty and saying there was ‘a problem’ with this plan. She overheard me and immediately spoke up: ‘I’m not a problem, I’m a little girl.’
When the time came for us to leave for home, George said he had arranged for us to travel overnight by train instead of the long car journey we had previously made to Poznań. Much as we had all enjoyed it, he thought it would be a safer bet. So midnight saw us in a second-class berth on a Polish sleeper. Cramped though the space was, we slept cosily enough and by morning we were pulling into Frankfurt-an-der-Oder – only to see our connecting train pull out from another platform. We caught another one a couple of hours later to East Berlin, and I was assured we could still make our train in West Berlin. They didn’t reckon on the German guards at the entrance to the U-Bahn: the Berlin Wall had gone up in 1961 and the deliberately slow investigation of each traveller meant that even the short journey by tube to West Berlin wasn’t fast enough and once again we missed our connection.
Both children were fine after a good night’s sleep, but we still had a lot of luggage and Berlin was experiencing a heat wave. I deposited everything but the pushchair and my handbag in left luggage. Impressing on the kindly official that I must be on the platform in time for the trans-European express train that evening, I was reassured that everything would be ready.
I had a little ‘emergency money’ and thought this was as good a time as any to enjoy it. We were in a smart part of Berlin, near the zoo in the Kurfürstendamm district. We came across a very smart, newly renovated hotel for the day. The room seemed palatial: single and double beds, chaises longues, a table and easy chairs. The en suite bathroom was brand new, with white fleecy towels, shower-caps, shampoo and sachets of bath foam. Being the youngest, Kirsty was the first to enjoy these luxuries. Wearing a shower-cap she almost disappeared under the foam. I rang room-service and ordered four Coca Colas and two lagers. They came beautifully chilled.
After our bath we relaxed on our beds with our drinks – but this had to be a day to remember, so Kirsty got a toy tiger which she called ‘Benji from Berlin’. (I still have it.) Hamish, our resident DIY expert, chose a Scalextric model to build. We went back to our room and while Hamish worked on the model, Kirsty and I amused one another with stories.
At about five or six in the evening, we all began to feel very hungry. Reluctantly leaving our room for the last time, we went down to the dining room and were shown to our table for three. The children ordered fish and chips and I was delighted to see Kirsty display a healthy appetite and finish her meal. She and I chose ice cream for dessert; Hamish chose crêpe suzette. The trolley rolled its way past the diners, the waiter settling it by Hamish’s chair. With a full house of spectators looking on, the waiter played to the gallery. As the flames rose high from the pan, he turned to face his audience, shaking a bottle of liqueur around his head before taking out the cork and liberally splashing it into the pan. A murmur of approval met his antics and he smiled, supplying an encore with another bottle, and finally a third, before placing the plate, by now swimming in alcohol, before my son. I hoped Hamish wouldn’t like it; he assured me it was excellent. I asked him only to eat a small portion as I needed him to help with the baggage and I didn’t want him to be worse for wear. Regretfully he agreed, but Kirsty had listened in on the conversation: she volunteered to finish the crêpe and swallowed a spoonful before I could stop her. She pronounced it ‘very nice’. In desperation, I finished it. They were both right – it was the best I ever tasted.
After settling our bill, we went into the well-lit streets. Passing the famous Gedächtniskirche, recently rebuilt after the Allied bombing, we saw crowds waiting outside, the doors opening every ten minutes to let another lot of visitors come in as the others went out. Before I knew it, Kirsty had gone in with the waiting group and we were just too late. We followed with the next crowd and met up with her inside, standing in front of a new piece of artwork. There was no doubt even then of her independent spirit: unafraid, affectionate and interested in everything.
Once at the station, my kindly official in the left-luggage department waved to me and said that he would bring our luggage to us himself when the time came. He had also asked his wife to escort us to the right platform. We were duly introduced to an elderly smiling woman, walking painfully on swollen feet, whose shoes were distorted by her bunions. My protests were politely turned down and she walked over the bridge with us to our platform. I was slightly concerned not to see my luggage following but she told me ‘her man’ would bring it in time.
The express was now due, and as it noisily came in, I heard the rattle of a trolley and there was our friend – and our luggage. We packed it all into our sleeping