I’d asked Elly if she wanted to visit her Mum and show Andrew off but she declined. We had booked some flights back to the UK to tell people but when I spoke to my family on Skype that week I didn’t give any hint of Andrew or coming back. They had gotten used to Elly being at my place but never asked about her.
Elly instead wanted to visit her friend who lived in Krakow. I was very interested in going somewhere new so we bought some train tickets and set off on Saturday morning. I hadn’t been on a train in Poland up to that point and I never really imagined what they would be like. The trams were comparable to the modern trains in England so I was surprised when it was more Thomas the Tank Engine than the trams were.
There were no signs or announcements in English and Elly didn’t seem too sure about much but we did the best we could and when the train I thought was ours pulled up we showed the inspector our tickets and he pointed us to a different carriage. I looked at our ticket and it said carriage 4. I passed carriage 3, then 17, then 9, WTF dumbasses?
Finally we just got on and sat down in a rather luxurious cabin. There were six plush chairs to each cabin with ample leg room and overhead storage. I was pleasantly surprised and I watched out of the window as we chugged away.
“I wish I had my camera.” Elly mused.
“Did you forget it?” I asked not having ever remembered seeing her with one.
“No I don’t have it yet. Maybe when I will be a photographer.” She said wistfully.
“You want to be a photographer?” I asked.
I was surprised.
“Yes. Don’t you?” she asked.
“Not really.” I said.
I liked photos but I thought that with today’s cameras and software it didn’t take an artist to take a good photo. I also thought that the subject was the interesting thing and while a photographer might catch a subject at the right time, don’t they need the subject to comply. An artist can create something from nothing, by themselves. An artist can shape things to their vision, a photographer just captures what is there.
“I would like to write though.” I said opening up.
“A writer. Like the poem you wrote for me?” She said remembering my terrible attempt at a romantic gesture.
Well the gesture was solid, the poem was terrible.
“I have been working on a book called Dojo Football. It’s about a billionaire who takes children from orphanages and raises them in an elite academy in Scotland. He teaches then various sports and then when they are old enough they become champions, Olympians and revolt against the billionire.”
“Oh.” She replied and returned to looking through her baby magazine.
“It’s about nature verses nurture.” I said trying to capture her interest. “Whether natural ability can be overtaken by technique and training.”
“Well can it?” She asked.
As if such a complex question could be adequately solved by me and my book.
“Gifted people have an easier route to the top but you can train people to a very high level. If you have someone who is gifted and trained well then they can become the best.”
“That’s interesting I suppose but do people still read books. You should make a movie.” She said reading her magazine.
“A movie? Writers never get any credit. Stars and directors get famous and producers get rich. Writers, they only get forgotten and blamed if the movie sucked.”
My impassioned rant ended when the ticket inspector popped in to punch our tickets. He had a conversation with a girl who’d been sitting opposite us and she must have been in the wrong place as she got her stuff and left.
“You want to be famous?” Elly seemed interested in this idea.
“Not really. It would be nice to be remembered after am dead. The thought that I could touch someone’s life after am gone, if only to humour them appeals to me.” I said honestly.
“You will touch a life.” She said rubbing her belly.
“It would be nice for Andrew as well, he could read my book when he is old enough.” I said smiling to myself.
“It might be scary.”
“Scary? Why?” I was confounded.
Why would Andrew be scared by my book?
Why would anyone for that matter?
“I don’t know.” She said and returned to her magazine.
I looked out of the window angry and by the time I’d calmed down and turned back Elly was asleep. I decided I’d get up and have a wonder around the train. I walked passed a few rowdy guys flagrantly drinking and stepped over a sleeping youth who looked like a stowaway. I found the toilet and was pleased with how large it was. I had a walk down a few more carriages looking for some form of food but couldn’t see anything so I turned back. I passed the ticket inspector who wished to check my ticket and we had a mangled discussion about me going back to my seat and whether it was possible to buy food on the train. I ended up back in my cabin foodless and bored.
Elly woke up just as we were approaching Krakow and smiled at me.
“Juz?” She asked and this was a kind of now/already word that seemed to be employed as often as moze and ch-e-ho.
“Yes my dear. It went by in the blink of an eye didn’t it?” A very sleepy blink.
We disembarked and a woman clad in bright red pants, stilettos and the same red overcoat came bounding over towards us. Well towards Elly. They embraced and jabbered away in Polish as I politely waited to be introduced. I couldn’t help but notice the jealousy her ‘friend’ was oozing. Sure she was smiling like a dolly bird, looking at the stomach as if it was a crystal ball and honestly I think Elly felt the same when she observed her friends clothes. She was obviously doing well for herself and was dressed to impress.
Could I muster a fake smile? I tried but I have no idea if I mastered it.
We dragged our bags off towards Klaudynia’s car. She insisted that I called her Klau but pronounced like clou in cloud but obviously without the ‘d’, obviously.
She drove us around the city pointing various things out and we stopped for a coffee and finally we ended back up near the train station, I could see it. Our hotel or guest room was very close to it.
We went inside had a shower each then got ready for an evening with Klau. It would be dinner then the theatre.
How exciting!
I was bored by the end of the meal and excused myself for a ciggy while they got desert. Elly screwed her face up at me but if she was going to yak it up in Polish I could smoke.
It wasn’t illegal then to smoke in restaurants but I went and stood away from the diners just to be polite. I overheard a group speaking English so I pretended to do something with my phone while I edged closer.
“What do you call a women in the board room?” One asked in a non-descript accent.
“Dunno. What do you call your mum in the boardroom?” Another replied.
Your mum, nice.
“The cleaner.”
They all laughed and braced themselves for a shot of vodkas. I was still struggling to make out their accents but I suppose after a while abroad you lose that regional twang, as you struggle to make yourself understood by the masses.
I wondered if I was losing my Yorkshire twang.
I remembered that people at university said they couldn’t understand me and then when I went back to Bradford I got told that I was speaking like a toff.
That could mean anything and nothing in Bradford though. I think I learnt to balance my speech and actually tailor it to the individual or group I was speaking to.
They went through another round of jokes and vodkas and when someone would tell a stinker he had to drink. Clever game. I had run out of my Camels and threw a joke out at them as I walked passed.
“What’s the worst thing about being a clown?” I said then answered without missing a beat. “Getting the cum stains out ya costume the next day.”
It was a pretty risky joke but I believe that outrageous can be funny, ridiculous can be funny, actually everything can be funny with the right build and circumstances. They must have agreed because they roared with laughter and invited me to sit down.
We exchanged pleasantries between jokes and it turned out that the four lads all actually came from Liverpool and had been doing management consulting and IT assistance in the ‘region’ for about five years. When they asked what I did I played down the customer service gig but they were quite polite about it and I thought maybe it wasn’t actually that bad.
Through the course of the night they taught me that I was wrong about people from Liverpool, they weren’t all cunts. I thought about it really hard and decided that you probably got all sorts in every type of group and while I still believe that stereotypes exist for a reason, individuals can buck the trend and be different. Maybe I was the knob for being so judgemental about such a large group of people. Me starting off on the wrong foot maybe pushed the Scousers I’d met before into acting in a negative way.
What wasn’t up for discussion was the shit I stepped into upon my return to the digs me and Elly were staying at. It was about 7 am by the time we’d finished drinking and I’d paid a taxi driver and shown him the address I’d earlier programmed into my phone. I got back not longer after expecting Elly to be sleeping.
I’d told her that I was going to have a few with the lads and then head back, which turned out to be what happened. When she got back from her fun filled evening she had sent a message saying she was tired and wouldn’t wait up for me but the door was unlocked. I had a second key so I called her back, told her to lock up and I’d see her in the morning. I didn’t imagine that the drinking would keep going and am sure at some stage of the night we had all been asleep.
“What’s the bitch’s name!” Elly screamed at me when I got in.
“Who?” I asked.
She looked furious but I went towards her with my hands held up and my head ringing.
“Where have you been?” Her interrogation continued.
“Drinking.” I belched.
“All night?” She looked like she was going to hit me.
“Yes.” I stumbled towards her.
It took a while but she stopped screaming and I jumped in the shower. I went to bed and said she could meet Klau alone and I’d meet her before the train would set off. It wasn’t popular and neither was I on the train journey home but I needed to sleep.
“It’s not normal.” She sulked when we got back to Warsaw.
I didn’t need another argument.
“No, it’s not normal is it? It doesn’t happen all the time does it?” It was a fair defence for an indefensible crime.
That seemed to be the end of it.
“Don’t do it next weekend. We will visit Mama.” She said walking off into the bedroom.
I was going to meet her mum. A week full of nerves and worry, I was still hung over the following Wednesday and only on the Friday did I begin to feel happy about us taking that awkward step of meeting the parents.