Love Among the Single Classes Read online

  The Polish Centre could be in the middle of Warsaw for all the English I can hear around me. I watch the audience, trying to see whether they have anything in common with each other, or with Iwo. There is perhaps a kind of intensity in the way they talk and gesture and listen. Their smiles and arguments are passionate: or do I romanticize them because they are all Polish? The truth is probably that they could be any cross-section of people, some well dressed, some drab. Iwo looks shabbier than most.

  He leans forward and watches the play with fierce concentration, nodding occasionally. I wear headphones, through which I can hear the interpreter’s voice speaking in time with the actors. When he – that is, the hero – says, ‘I can’t live in another country, under another sky…’ the words make me glance at Iwo, to see if he reacts to their relevance to his own situation, but he listens apparently unmoved. There isn’t a man in Poland who isn’t scared’ – he and Tadeusz nod at one another. And, at the end, ‘My country! Why did it always have to be so sad, so desperately, hopelessly sad!’ My lover! Exile has made you joyless, and I do so long for joy.

  I reflect, during the applause, that if I am fathoms deep in love, Iwo must be fathoms deep in grief. The sad country he has left is unknown to me, and the chance of reconciling our two obsessions is slim. But it does help me to put Joanna into perspective. It is Poland he loves and wants, not some other woman. My jealousy of her misses the point. Marina was right: what he needs above all is comfort, warmth, a reason to live in the present and stop yearning for the past. Oh, I know I can do that for him – and I take his arm with the confidence of our earlier meetings as we walk through to the restaurant.

  As we sit down, Iwo and Tadeusz start talking Polish, so I turn to Joanna and ask her to help me with the menu. She recommends a dish called bigos, a thick, filling, smoky stew, and as Tadeusz turns his attention to ordering I look past the waitress and see …

  ‘Iwo! Look there! Surely that’s Marina!’

  ‘You’re right.’

  He smiles brilliantly and goes across to where she is sitting with a young man. He comes back with them and we all rearrange ourselves to share the same, now cramped, table.

  ‘This is my friend Peter,’ says Marina. ‘Peter Matthews.’ He shakes hands all round and even sketches a small, un-English inclination of the head.

  ‘Could you understand the play?’ Iwo asks him.

  ‘Those headphones were excellent, didn’t you think? And Marina had explained the plot beforehand – it’s very well-known, right? So I could follow it. As to whether I understood… I don’t know whether any English person can understand.’

  At once I grasp that he loves Marina, for he has interpreted the play through her experiences exactly as I had applied it to Iwo’s.

  ‘Peter,’ says Marina, ‘you realize this is the Professor Zaluski, who taught me at university; at Lodz?’

  ‘Was she a model student?’ Peter asks him, mock-sarcastic to conceal his pride.

  Iwo sees it too, and answers. ‘Oh, she was. That is to say: difficult, talkative, made every class into a battlefield … cost me very much trouble!’

  ‘Hasn’t changed, then,’ says Peter.

  Marina was not boasting when she said her English boyfriend would marry her. The problem is more likely to be whether she wants him. He isn’t at all as I had imagined. In his early thirties, he’s rather thin, his face angular and severe, and he wears a blazer and knife-edged trousers. Her dead fiancé would have been very different – but then, we marry who we can, and for a variety of reasons. She offers beauty and intelligence; he offers security. It’s much the same exchange as between Iwo and me. So does that mean he, like Marina, is wondering whether he could settle for someone so much less good than he had before? But he keeps insisting his marriage went cold years ago.

  Marina is conferring with Iwo about his visa, and as she pauses to explain the situation to me I learn for the first time that it will probably not be renewed. Even though he has a job and somewhere to live, the extension could be refused. In the first wave of sympathy that the British felt for Solidarity, it wasn’t hard for Poles to get entry visas. Even Home Office officials and immigration officers were touched by the courage of brave Polish workers raising their banner to confront the Soviets in the name of freedom. But three or four years later, that struggle is out of the headlines and those who were originally welcome now find their position insecure. Thus Iwo and Marina need to seek permission all over again, every year, and dare not leave the country for even the shortest holiday in case they are refused re-entry. The authorities have no reason to deny Iwo an extension to his visa, but … he knows others, equally blameless, who have been given notice to leave. What have they done wrong? They’re not told. Perhaps a landlord complained anonymously, or a colleague. Perhaps they fell foul of some petty official in the DHSS. It may be anything, or nothing at all. I hadn’t realized quite how urgently Iwo needs a wife, an English wife, who can give him permanent status here. If he doesn’t marry me, or somebody, soon, he might be gone within weeks! Joanna swims back into focus as a very real threat: for she, as the daughter of a naturalized Briton, born and brought up in England herself, she would also guarantee him residence. His situation, mine, is more desperate than I knew.

  ‘We are lucky that the British like us,’ Joanna is saying. ‘You’ll be all right, don’t worry. It’s not as if you were black.’

  ‘Quite right too,’ says Peter, and his face turns spiteful. ‘Far too many of them here. Thinking a British passport is a meal-ticket for life. Lazy buggers. Double the birth-rate of whites.’

  Dear God! I think, the man’s a racist. No wonder Marina’s shining corn-goddess looks appeal to him. Can I challenge him, or would that offend her? But he is offending me.

  ‘In the company of so many foreigners who are the grateful guests of your country,’ Iwo is saying in a dangerous monotone, ‘that is perhaps not a wise thing to say.’

  Rather than watch them square up to each other, both needing to impress Marina, I interrupt and change the subject.

  ‘Peter, how did you and Marina meet?’

  ‘I picked her up!’

  ‘He picked me up practically inside a church!’ she says, ‘nearly six months ago.’

  ‘It was outside the Brompton Oratory,’ says Peter, and as the two of them laugh and correct each other and tell the story of their first meeting I see that they are happy together – they’re far more relaxed as a couple than Iwo and I – and it will probably work out for them. Lucky them. I glance across the table at Joanna, trying to gauge her reaction, and wonder how she feels about marriage and if she has a lover. She’s surely in her mid-thirties, yet there’s been no mention of a man. Could she – it seems unlikely, but she could I suppose be lesbian. Just then Marina gets up and heads towards the Ladies, so I follow.

  I love the way women relax the moment they’re alone together, even in a ladies’ loo. I already like Marina far more than I like Iwo. She’s a friend and an ally and he’s certainly neither of those things.

  ‘Peter obviously adores you,’ I tell her.

  ‘I must show you a photograph of Jerzy next time. My Polish fiancé.’

  ‘Is Peter like him at all?’

  ‘He lives at home, with his mother, works in an insurance company … no, he is not at all like Jerzy. He has had a simple life, he is a good Catholic, and he loves me. Which is surprising because he’s very patriotic, very proud to be English. Falling in love with a foreigner is the most dangerous thing he’s ever done in his life. I think he’s still surprised at himself.’

  ‘And you …?’

  ‘Constance, we must go back, or Joanna will think we’re talking about her.’

  ‘I’d actually meant to ask you about her … but some other time. You found my phone number?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Marina, if you know about him and Joanna you’ve got to tell me.’

  ‘Yes, once or twice, but don’t let it worry you. I
know him, and I promise you it isn’t important! Come on. We must go back.’

  Why did I insist? Now I have to emerge and look at Joanna – and they are, of course, talking together in our absence, heads close, while Tadeusz struggles to make conversation with that frightful little Fascist. Joanna’s wonderful auburn hair swings over her face concealing her expression, making her words confiding, for his ears only. And to think I walked in here proudly holding his arm – look, everybody, this is my man!

  Tadeusz grins at us.

  ‘When two women go off to the Ladies together they always take three times as long! Well, have you decided about us? Do we get gold stars?’

  ‘Two gold stars!’ I tell him. ‘One for the play and one for the dinner.’

  ‘Well, if you are going to be one of us’ – oh, leaping heart! – ‘you will have to learn about us. We are sentimental, we are Polish, we live with our past.’

  But Joanna interrupts, before he can give me more precious clues.

  ‘Papa stop it, you will depress us all! Constance, take no notice. He’s a tragic actor who is still waiting for his destiny. The theatre always makes him like this. Now he’s going to go home and brood on the great soul of his country. Am I right, Iwo?’

  ‘He will, and so will I,’ says Iwo. ‘Shall we go?’

  We part in a flurry of smiles, handshakes, hand-kissing, cheek-kissing: several social conventions all going on at once, like a comic sketch. Iwo refuses both offers of a lift and, taking my arm, heads resolutely towards the tube station.

  Half an hour later, less, we are together in his bed. He makes love to me in silence, as usual: but tonight it seems as though he is suppressing speech. Words burst like fireworks in my mind, beautiful explosive showers that I long to release and dare not. He embraces me, takes hold of me, turns me this way and that, rolls me to and fro, with a ferocity that is close to violence. The tightrope between pleasure and pain is taut and narrow, and we sway along it together, leaning one way and then the other. I have a strong urge to bite and scratch, to mark that smooth pale skin and startle him into making a noise. I bare my teeth against his shoulder, taste his sweat, part my lips against his flesh, graze it with my teeth.

  ‘Yes!’ he murmurs, ‘Oh yes…’

  That night he talks in his sleep: in Polish of course, and repeats the name ‘Kika

  I lie awake for hours under the pale night sky, my mind brimming with questions. But few nights are entirely sleepless, for in the morning he wakes me.

  9

  The following evening, walking back from the library, I notice that already Christmas trees are beginning to appear, leaning in resinous clumps outside the greengrocer’s. Paper cut-outs with red or green lettering saying ‘Merry Xmas’ and ‘Season’s Greetings’ are pasted inside shop windows, and woolly gloves, slippers, and knitted hat and scarf sets now have the words ‘Gift for Dad’ pinned beside the price. ‘Order Your Christmas Turkey Now!’ says a notice in the butcher’s window; so I go in and order a goose. For how many? Until now, Paul has always made a point of spending Christmas Day with us, leaving his current girlfriend to visit her parents or stay with friends or go skiing or do whatever they did. Now I wonder whether I can invite Iwo to join us this year. Will he want to share our English Christmas? What will the children say? I order a large goose, big enough for six, eight at a pinch. That should cover all possible permutations. The Indian newsagent has paper streamers festooned garishly across the shop and extra racks of Christmas wrapping paper with Father Christmas and his reindeer sledging downhill. I buy an Advent calendar for Kate. In the end I’ll probably be the one to prise open the daily doors and peer at the tiny drawings on transparent paper, as the dates progress steadily towards 24th December.

  Kate is home already, and shrugs eloquently when she sees the calendar. At least she doesn’t reject it.

  ‘I had a brilliant time at Amanda’s, Mother. We sent off this whole load of really weird Christmas cards to the boys at her brother’s school. They were like way-out cartoons saying, “It’s a girl!” and “Peace on earth and goodwill to all women!” and stuff like that. The boys are such sexist pigs. And then me and Amanda sat up for hours talking. We want to give this really great New Year’s Eve party …’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Not here, don’t worry, at Amanda’s house. Her mum’s already said we can. We were making out a guest list. We’ll do the food and get everyone to bring a bottle …’

  ‘A bottle? Darling, you’re a bit young for a bottle party: are you sure Amanda’s mother doesn’t mind? I’d better give her a ring …’

  ‘It’s all right Mother. Oh Christ, you’ll only go and spoil it and make her think it’s going to be really wild and it won’t be …’

  ‘Will they be there? Her parents?’

  ‘Course they will. I mean, we’ll organize everything, we’ve got it all planned. Her brother’ll do the disco and …’

  ‘What time did you get to bed?’

  ‘It wasn’t late, Mother, honestly.’

  ‘To sleep then?’

  ‘Well, round about midnight, something like that.’

  That means small hours. She’ll get crotchety with tiredness soon. ‘Darling, I must sit down and think about my Christmas present list. Why don’t you start on your homework while I’m doing that? Then we’ll have supper. Call me if you need help.’

  Kate goes off to spread her school books in a messy semicircle over the dining room table. I make myself coffee and sit down to think about Iwo, and my Christmas list.

  The phone rings and I leap to answer it.

  ‘Hello? … Paul! How’re things? Listen, you were really nice the other evening. I’m sorry I …’

  ‘No problem. You OK? Seen him lately? Any better?’

  ‘Yes, last night. I’m getting to understand him a bit, I think. It’s all this business of being Polish that screws things up. Anyway, some other time … What about you? Are you seeing the children this weekend?’

  ‘Not this one. Lulu and I thought we’d take off for a quiet weekend in the country before the countdown to Christmas starts. Soon everyone’ll be getting drunk at agency parties. There’s a great place in the Cotswolds I know …’

  ‘Yeah, I remember …’

  ‘Not that one. Another one. Don’t be so spiky. I’m ringing to ask you to dinner, but I could always change my mind.’

  Dinner. He hasn’t asked me for dinner before. I’ve been to his flat for Sunday lunch sometimes with the children or drinks on my ex-father-in-law’s birthday: awkward, dutiful occasions when we all tried to make believe that in spite of the divorce we were still a close and caring family. It never worked. But I’d had the impression up till now that Paul’s social life was more a matter of cocktails at the media clubs than dinner parties at his place. I hadn’t realized Lulu was so entrenched. It’s nice of him to ask me. I must have worried him.

  ‘What dinner? When?’

  ‘Saturday week. Be about eight of us, some you know, some you don’t. Remember Andrew Lloyd-Simpson, from Oxford? Christ Church man?’

  ‘Andrew? Good heavens … yes, I do remember him. What’s he been up to all these years? Gosh, he was nice. He used to have poems in Isis, do you remember?’

  ‘He still writes poetry. Published a slim volume last year. Faber and Faber.’

  Good old Paul, never forgets a brand name. ‘What’s he doing nowadays?’

  ‘Advertising.’

  ‘Well, I’ll manage to forgive him. Can I bring Iwo? Actually I’m curious for you to meet him. See what you think of him …’

  ‘Certainly not Whole point of this is to get you away from him, at least for one evening.’ ‘Oh Paul, I don’t see him often.’

  ‘Listen, are you coming? Saturday week? About eightish?’

  ‘Christ, what’ll I wear? Your friends are bound to be deadly chic.’

  ‘Something red or black. Anything.’

  ‘OK. Thank Lulu. I look forward to it.’

  ‘
Good. Seeya kiddo.’

  Do I look forward to it? Lulu will probably be intimidatingly efficient, cook some wonderful nouvelle cuisine dinner, and I shall have very mixed feelings about seeing her act as my husband’s partner and hostess. I go into the kitchen and prepare onion, bacon and potato hotpot for me and Katie, with plenty left over to warm up at the weekend if Cordy or Max drop in.

  I spend the next few days in high spirits. I still love Christmas: not just for the children’s sake, not just for the feasting and presents. I love the carols, the secrecy and planning, the lift that it gives to the mid-winter doldrums. Katie’s school has a carol service and, although she pretends to find it all a great bore, I hear the high, clear notes of ‘Oh Little Town of Bethlehem’ or the lower register of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ drifting down from her room. I think about this year’s decorations. We have always prided ourselves on not having to resort to twisted Woolworth’s streamers or paper chains. Last year we decorated the house using a dozen rolls of silver paper, twisting it round the backs of chairs, smoothed glitteringly across the table and mantelpiece, adorned with ice-white satin ribbon and candles everywhere. This year I shall have to try to improve on that. Red and green would be nice, but how? Apples and holly and ivy and branches of fir? With green and red candles this time? Yards and yards of satin ribbon twining round the banisters, green and red again, and Christmas tree candles stuck into cored apples … yes. It takes days to decorate the whole house, but we never have a single fairy light anywhere, everything is lit by candles, with their mysterious old-fashioned smell and soft circles of guttering light. Lovely, oh it’ll be lovely!

  Then there’s the children’s presents to think about. Cordy will know what Kate wants; Kate will know what Cordy wants. Max will tell me himself. I scribble lists in the back of my diary. And Iwo? The excitement stops abruptly. I long to buy him special things: a warm, soft, expensive sweater; a thick duvet for his cold bed; a book about Vermeer, my favourite artist. I want to be extravagant: I want to be intimate. The problem is, how not to embarrass him? He has so little money; if he buys me anything at all it can only be a token.