A Chip Shop in Poznań, page 8
We stand in the sun, waiting. There’s no room between us. She looks the only way she can look. No amount of fatigue or disarray could lessen the effect of her face. I want to say: ‘For God’s sake do you understand the extent to which you occupy my mind?’ Instead, I put my hand on her side, just above the hip. It takes some nerve to do so. I want her to read the gesture as a polite appeal to come closer. She looks at the hand and makes a doubtful, disappointed noise, as a mother warning a child. It sounds like a perfect rejection. The noise humiliates me in the strictest sense of the word – I am made humble by it, low, weak, small. I had anticipated her doing nothing, but I hadn’t anticipated her being disgusted. Her reaction suggests that she’s sure: sure that she doesn’t want my affection, sure that I won’t be getting hers. I withdraw the hand, wish I never had it, say absolutely nothing as loud as I can. Some minutes pass – ten? fifteen? – and then she says: ‘I am going to my home town this afternoon. Do you want to come? We can take a bus.’ I have to supress a laugh. There’s a danger that my response will be impolite. I take a moment, sigh ostentatiously. ‘Sure,’ I say, matter-of-factly. After handling the delivery, we go to eat something vegetarian. She eats quickly, anxiously. I’m halfway through my okra and buckwheat when she abruptly stands, announces she must go straightaway, and then does so. I make no protest or query. Suddenly alone in a shopping centre food court, involved with a meal I had pretended to enjoy in order to appear virtuous, I realise that I am always confusing the verbs chcieć and lubić in Polish – that is, what I want and what I like.
23 June. I work with Kuba in the kitchen. Kuba is eighteen, looks about seven, and is somehow related to the owners. He tells me that he is a keen historian, likes volleyball, and is ‘unprecedentedly fluent in English’. I become fond of Kuba the moment he agrees to bone five kilos of cod. While he gets on with that, I chip potatoes. There is a contraption for the chipping, which is nice. I used to consider myself a luddite but now I advocate mechanisation come what may. There aren’t customers so we’re able to talk as we work. I decide to treat Kuba less like a person and more like a learning resource.
‘Thanks for learning my language,’ I say.
‘Don’t sweat about it.’
‘Can you tell me about the partitions of Poland?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go on then.’
‘Prussia, Austria, Russia. Late 18th century. Poland was off the map for 124 years.’
‘Who is your favourite Polish historical figure?’
‘Piłsudski.’
‘Again.’
‘Piłsudski.’
‘Slower this time.’
‘Pi – ł – suds – ki.’
‘What did he do then?’
‘He beat the Russians.’
‘At what?’
‘At what? Jesus and Mary. Let’s say it wasn’t gymnastics. Can you pass me the— Thanks.’
‘When?’
‘Nineteen-twenty. Outside Warsaw. The miracle on the Vistula I think it is in English. He believed in an omnifarious Poland.’
‘A what?’
‘A multicultural Poland – a home of nations, recognising numerous ethnic and religious nationalities.’
‘How did that go down?’
‘He died of liver cancer.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko.’
‘And what did he do?’
‘He beat the Russians.’
‘Am I right in thinking the best way to secure your favour is to beat the Russians?’
No answer. Kuba is hell-bent on the fish. I understand what he’s going through.
‘I understand what you’re going through,’ I say.
‘I don’t doubt it. It’s because you understand what I’m going through that you were quick to land the fish on me, so to say.’
‘Well you better get used to it. There’s plenty more where that came from.’
‘You mean there’s plenty more fish in the sea?’
‘I suppose.’
‘That would have been a wittier thing to say.’
‘I’ve better things to do than be witty.’
‘Like work in a kitchen in Poland for 8 zloty an hour?’
‘Ten zloty an hour.’
‘What?’
‘Ten zloty an hour.’
‘Why am I being paid less than you?’
‘Because you’re seven years old and know nothing.’
‘Oh, I see. Forgive me for asking.’
‘I’ll speak to Anita about it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No bother.’
‘By the way.’
‘What?’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be voting in a referendum today?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
I don’t want to talk about it because I’m supposed to be voting in a referendum today. What I went and did was book a flight for the day after the vote – for tomorrow morning, crack of dawn – believing the referendum was on 24 June. By the time I’d realised my mistake it was too late to organise a postal vote or sort out a proxy. Granted, I could have booked another flight, but the prices had shot up and I was scheduled to work and, to be frank, all the polls have been calling a Remain victory so I figured it wasn’t as if my straw was going to break the camel’s back. I’ve had a shocker, I know. Whoever invented democracy – Herodotus? Cleisthenes? – is probably turning in their grave. Having said all that, if one considers what the American satirist H.L. Mencken said about democracy – that it’s a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance – perhaps I’m doing the result a favour by keeping my ignorance to myself.
On my way home from work, I stop at Freedom Square. I don’t normally stop at Freedom Square in case I get offered another teaching job. A crowd has gathered to enjoy an arts and culture festival. Perhaps feeling a certain amount of guilt about not voting, I decide to behave in an overtly political manner by asking 50 people what they would do if Poland were in Britain’s shoes. Opinion is split. Some want to see Britain leave and so doing provide an example to Poland. Others say they would vote to leave because the EU is just Germany really and hadn’t Germany been a bully for long enough? One young man, with his tongue in his cheek, says he’d vote to leave because there’s too many British immigrants in Poland. On the flipside, there are plenty who think the idea of leaving preposterous, given the opportunities and investment that come with membership – Poland, let us remember, has had more money from the EU than any other member state, and by some margin.27 One intrepid woman asks for my opinion on the matter, and soon wishes she hadn’t. I say something about the people who go on about sovereignty but who are unable to nominate a single piece of EU legislation with which they disagree. I say something about the misinformation and propaganda – the claim that Britain sends £350 million a week to the EU, the poster that said all of Turkey was going to move to Britain. I say something about the democratic process, and referendums especially, which are by their nature divisive and reductive, which reduce wild complexity to a straightforward binary, which distil a thousand unknowns down to a straight yes or no. I say something about the bigger picture, the underlying principles, the overarching ethics, about the long-term virtues of cooperation and sharing and integration, and the need to remember what a disunited Europe is capable of: 100 million killed in the last hundred years because civilians were goaded by patriotic fruitcakes to loathe each other. I say a lot of questionable, sentimental, half-baked, half-arsed, self-serving, well-meaning stuff, and I say it because, when I had my chance, when push came to shove, I said nothing at all.
27 Poland has seen a good slice of the European Regional Development Fund because, in short, a lot of its regions needed developing.
13
The morning of Britain’s detachment (London)
24 June. I go to the airport at dawn. I sit at the counter of a café-bar and watch the rolling Polish news. I deduce that the official result isn’t in yet but that the final poll, like the ones before it, had the UK staying in Europe: I got what I wanted without breathing a word. I finish my cappuccino, my strudel, my woda niegazowana, then board the Wizz Air flight to London Luton.
At the border there are two men in uniform. One wears glasses and the other wears a turban. They are cut from different cloth but both have proper London accents. ‘What was the score?’ I say. The one with the turban looks up from my passport.
‘We’re leaving, son,’ he says. ‘Welcome home.’
I hadn’t planned for it to happen like this. I hadn’t planned to get the news off the country’s doormen, surrounded by incoming Poles, whose relocation to the UK was one of the reasons there’d been a referendum in the first place. If I were a novelist and had set things up so the protagonist learns of the result on the border alongside 200 implicated Poles, it would seem indelicate penmanship, too bad to be true.
I buy a couple of yesterday’s papers – the Mirror and the Guardian – because today’s aren’t out yet. I read them outside the terminal on a bench. I am shocked and want to know how it happened. A bus is idling nearby. ‘Last call for London Victoria!’ That’ll do. I pay 50 zloty for a ticket: that’s five hours’ potato work for a one-hour bus ride. And for what? I feel like I’m bound for a funeral, or if not a funeral then a wake, or if not a wake then some kind of socio-political purgatory. The coach driver has the radio on, but the awful reception obfuscates reports of a fallen pound and sunken shares.
I get off at Finchley Road. I have nowhere to be. It is early, 8am or so, but already warm – people go to work in confident tops, without contingent cardigans or brollies. I find an ordinary café – there’s no other sort on the Finchley Road – and there take a coffee on the pavement and continue with the papers. It is a cliché to talk of a palpable atmosphere, but I like clichés on occasion so will come right out with it and say the atmosphere is palpable. Never have I heard a city’s conversation so dominated by one topic. A lorry passes noisily.28 Hope Construction, it says. There’ll be want for their services, I’m sure.
I walk the short distance to Swiss Cottage. There is a market in train outside the theatre: Italian cheeses, Turkish bread, Corsican olives, French pastries, Korean hand rolls. That’ll be right, I think, on a morning like this, Swiss Cottage showing off all its culinary variety, all its tasty diversity, the yummy goodness of sharing stuff. And then, outside the public library, where the written word is pooled for the common good, a paddling pool has drawn a crowd of bright fearless children of all kinds, whose splashing and chasing is lifeguarded by various smiling parents. Yes, I think. That will be right. Go on London. On the morning of Britain’s detachment, show me the good-looking, heart-warming, encouraging charm of community.
I enter the library to use a computer. Everyone is after the same thing. What now? Can I still go on holiday? What if I’ve changed my mind? Cameron has already resigned. Fifteen minutes before I entered the library, while I’d been watching London’s children splish-splashing in the sun, Cameron had given a parting declaration outside 10 Downing Street. He said he could no longer lead the country without doing it injury. Further injury, more like. Cameron had said he’d stick around to steer the ship no matter the result, but he was plainly only joking. A queue has already formed to jump in Dave’s grave. Gove and Boris and May are all chomping at the bit. For my money, Boris is bound to win by a head, if only on account of his being bigger than most. I read that the pound has taken its biggest pounding since Black Monday in the 80s – down 10 per cent in a matter of hours, which although generally disastrous does mean that I’m now on £2.20 an hour. The old lady to my left wants to know if the Channel Tunnel will close, while the old lady to my right is ordering something from IKEA while she still has the chance. I sit back in my chair and stare at the BBC homepage, waiting for breaking news that it was all a joke.
The Bank of England doesn’t appear to be trembling. It appears as taut and august as ever. Its columns haven’t buckled under the pressure. Inside there must be madness and panic but the bank’s face is brave. I am handed a copy of the Evening Standard, and then a slim emergency version of the Financial Times. I sit on the front steps of the neighbouring Royal Exchange and read. Traditionally, it is on these steps that royal proclamations are delivered by a herald or crier. Perchance someone will emerge with a trumpet presently and announce the rebirth of Great Britain. The steps are replete with workers coming up for air. Sandwiches and salads, shop gossip and referendum talk, all watched over by the 1st Duke of Wellington, up on his horse, fresh from duffing the French at Waterloo. To my left is a statue of James Greathead, railway engineer, who spent his life building bridges, while above Bank junction, where Princes and Poultry collide, a rainbow flag has been raised, which I read as a gesture of tolerance and inclusion.29 It feels to me that all things are pointing to the bigger story, that all items are commenting on the context. I half expect an Anglo-Polish couple to break up before my eyes.
I wait for a friend in the courtyard of the Guildhall. It was here, just hours ago, that the London referendum results had been announced. London’s rump had voted to Remain, but its outskirts – Romford and Dartford and Barking and Basildon – had not, which needn’t surprise us, for doesn’t it make sense for the periphery to be on edge, to be unsure? Whereas the centre is secure, immured, the edge is by its nature precarious. The Leave campaign, mendaciously or otherwise, promised control, assurance, revival. If you don’t have such things, or feel you don’t, you are wont to want them. What’s more, the edge is a contested space. It attracts the newly arrived, who, in good faith and in all humility, compete gamely for its fruit, its school spots and surgery slots, its work and shelter. For many on the edge, the status quo left much to be desired, and here was a throw of the dice. But that’s there and this is here. This is Zone 1, kilometre zero. This is the country’s heart of gold and it isn’t easily perturbed. A marching band is due on court, to serenade a round of graduating cadets, and so I’m told to clear off, whether I like it or not.
28 How else is a lorry to pass? Gingerly? Like a mouse?
29 The flag had nothing to do with the referendum result. Pride festival was scheduled for the next day.
14
I just don’t want any more to come (Boston)
26 June. I go to Boston, Lincolnshire, an old market town of about 40,000 people, because I read in a newspaper that it has the highest concentration of Leave voters and the highest concentration of Polish migrants, and I fancy the two are connected.
At Boston train station there is a Thai restaurant where the ticket office used to be, and a sports day is in progress in the playing field of a neighbouring primary school. Egg and spoon race, sack race, long jump – the competitive din is lovely and menacing; I can’t hear a child for the children; it is all chorus, a shared noise that sounds like fun and fear at once, the sort of noise you might expect from Britain’s most unsettled town.
West Street is known as East Street round here, because it carries a number of businesses run by Eastern Europeans. I pause outside one such business to look for evidence that Boston is the least integrated, most murderous, most obese, most European, most anti-European town in the country, as the papers have claimed, but I can only see John. John isn’t obese. He wants some milk and reckons I might be the man to get it for him. He’s just been hit by a car. Just? I say. ‘Well, a few months ago,’ he says, ‘but I’m after some milk at any rate.’ I make to go in for his milk but he stops me. He’s remembered something. ‘Make sure it’s soy milk, yeah?’
Opposite the shop is the local cinema. Independence Day 2 will be showing tonight. The timing of the film’s release is appropriate. Nigel Farage, one of the Leave campaign’s chief stokers, called 23 June Britain’s ‘Independence Day’.30 Next to the cinema is The Corner Shop. I go in and find things I recognise from Poznań. So here is a British institution – the corner shop – filled with tasty Polish sausage and chocolates and salty snacks like paluszki. The owners might have called the shop Polski Sklep, like most do, but instead opted for something quintessentially British – a small nod to the host nation. I quite like the compromise. I buy a few chocolates then ask the cashier for hotel options. She says she has never required a hotel in Boston and doesn’t know anybody who has.
In total, there are eight or nine shops on West Street called things like European Delicatessen or Euro Stop or Global Quickie. Almost invariably, the shopfronts display both European and British flags, in an effort, one assumes, to demonstrate that although the produce is from elsewhere, the owners aren’t arrant nationalists, here to impose their culture on England’s green and pleasant land one bag of shopping at a time. Outside Global Quickie I ask a tough-looking, Slav-seeming lad where I might get a bed for the night. ‘Try The White Hart, pal. It should be a girl called Marianne on reception. You can tell her Kieran sent you. She’ll like that.’
It is Marianne on reception, and I do tell her. ‘Ordinarily I’d say pay no attention to Kieran. He’s a bit of a knob. But on this occasion, he did well.’ Marianne proposes a single room for 50 quid with breakfast and a view of the River Witham. ‘The River Witham was busy until it wasn’t,’ she adds. I take the room, if only for Marianne’s manner of putting things. I reckon all history should be presented in such a way. King George VI reigned until he didn’t. Poland did communism then stopped. Before Europeans went places and called them things like America and Australia and British Hong Kong other people already lived there but that didn’t matter. That sort of thing.
I drop my bag in the room then go to the bar downstairs. I ask for something local, but the most local thing was brewed in the Netherlands.31 Both the barmaids voted to stay in the EU and think that anyone who didn’t is a bit daft. Coincidentally or not, both girls live outside Boston in cute villages with professional families. ‘We’re not yellow-bellies,’ one says. Yellow-bellies? Is that a political term? ‘It’s what the locals are called,’ clarifies the other. ‘I don’t know why they’re called that. They just are.’ They just are. Again, I’m impressed how things are put around here. It reminds me of the Leave campaign. How will Britain benefit from detaching itself from the biggest trading and security block known to man? It just will.
