The Polish Experience by Nicholas Westerby - HTML preview

Chapter 33

“You have a visitor.” My Mum said entering without knocking.

I loved being home and getting to see everyone but the conversation was always the same and I just didn’t have the answers. Every time I had that conversation I realised a little bit more how hopeless my dilemma was.

“Nice to see you. How’s it going?” They’d say.

“Fine.” I’d lie. “Nice to see you too.” That was true, usually.

“How’s Elly and the bump?” They’d ask.

“Great. Still inside.” That was about as much as I knew. I didn’t understand the Polish doctors and Elly only said everything was fine.

“How long are you back for?” They’d ask.

“Just a couple of days. Got a meeting with my boss then back to the renovations.”

This would lead to them remembering their first house, a DIY mishap or something along those lines and I’d be back to my thoughts. I didn’t have much to say. I didn’t know what to do. I think that I wanted to ask for help but I wasn’t sure what specifically anyone else could do. It was on me.

It was all on me.

I had taken the journey from my parent’s house to Leeds many times before but that day it seemed different. Things moved at the normal speed but the sound was muffled, like underwater.

I walked down to Bolton Road in my suit. I saw the other people waiting in line for the bus. So organized, so patient. I thought about the Polish system where as soon as the doors opened everybody scrapped and pushed themselves forward, even before the poor people who wanted to alight had a chance to get off. The bus pulled up and everybody filed on in an orderly fashion, paid the driver and took their seat.

It was a simple but comforting act.

It reminded me I was back home.

By the time we reached the city centre I had noticed my strange audio deficiency and it didn’t worry me, it felt nice. Everything slows down under water. I strode past the hotel where my cousin had been married, down past large arches where trains or horses had been kept once upon a time. Out towards the retail park where sports shops and discount retailers sat comfortably with McDonalds in their car park. Before you reached that evolution of the market system you happened upon a train station. Here I caught a train to Leeds.

I walked up to the desk and asked the short fat woman the price, maybe she was some Pole’s aunt, she had the figure for it. Bafflingly the ticket to Leeds Centre cost more than the ticket to the station after Leeds Centre.

“Is that right?” I asked confused.

“Is wot rit pet?” She said without looking up.

“To Burley Park is cheaper than Leeds Centre?”

“Aye ‘ts seem so.” She sounded as surprised as me.

“I’ll have a return to Burley Park then please.”

“Here you are love, don’t forget to change at Leeds Centre though.”

No, of course not.

Once I got to Leeds I had a brisk but memorable walk up from the train station to my old work. I always loved Leeds and there was a polite hustle and bustle to the city. People watched other people and tried to guess which way they were going. In Poland people didn’t watch you, they stared at you. They hunted you down and zoomed in on you, changing path then diverting at the last moment. It was disconcerting at first but you got used to it. I knew better than to stare in Yorkshire though.

I walked past law offices and banks, past a Church and a hospital, finally making my way to Minkins and Minkins HQ. The guard was still the same, nothing appeared to have changed.

That wasn’t true though.

Mr and Mrs Minkins had left the business in the capable hands of Stephen Coutts and it was Mr. Coutts I was set to meet. I told Todd, the guard and he checked the system. It spat out the appropriate answer because I was granted an all access pass and pointed in the direction of the lifts.

I saw familiar faces and nodded a few times but it seemed as if I was the forgotten man. Mr. Coutts hadn’t moved offices but had taken Minkins old secretary, Cheryl. She offered me a seat and coffee. I took the seat and refused the coffee. I felt plenty alert. My hearing was back and the nerves began to kick in.

Coutts appeared from nowhere, well probably his office but I didn’t notice him until he was stood over me. I was playing on my phone as had become my habit.

“Please come in James.” He said.

I entered the room and sat in a comfortable but not luxurious chair. I remembered Minkins office and Coutts was more business like. His chair was steadfast, no rocking or bobbing for him.

“I have this for special occasions.” He said holding up a bottle of whisky.

“Sixteen year old single malt. She’s old enough to fuck.”

He poured the 16 year single malt whisky and I settled down.

“Taste your future.” He said offering me a tumbler.

I took a drink and liked the idea of drinking a 16 year single malt. It didn’t taste like a future I wanted.

“Are we celebrating?” I asked.

“We could be.”

Could be?

What did that mean?

Oh yeah that meant he had an offer for me and flying all this way meant it was either going to be amazing or a shit task. I didn’t know him well enough to decide what the whisky signified.

Was he buttering me up?

“I guess you have an offer for me then.” I said.

“No offer.” He replied.

Oh shit.

He was buttering me up.

Scratch that.

This fucker was jamming me up.

No offer.

That meant he was going to inform me of something. It couldn’t have been that I was staying in England. That would be too ordinary. Too mundane for all the pomp.

What the fuck could it be?

“You have impressed us so much we are promoting you and am happy to tell you all about it.”

He sounded confident.

He felt in control.

“To what?” I asked perplexed.

“Country manager.”

“I thought I was a country manager?”

I was wasn’t I?

“Of a real fucking country.” He answered.

Like I’d been managing an insignificant experiment.

God I had.

I had been a guinea pig for these fuckers and now he had decided I wasn’t a guinea pig but a fucking tiger. A hungry tiger and he was going to let me play with the big boys.

“Where?” I asked.

“We’re going to base you in Dubai but you might be given one of the territories, regions or whatever they fucking name themselves there.”

He seemed to be getting annoyed. He gulped down his whisky and poured himself another. He motioned at my glass and when I didn’t move, I didn’t know what to do, he topped it up.

“What about Poland?”

I tried to balance the whisky that was practically over flowing. I lunged down and took a gulp as if I were a gull diving for a meal. Urrgh, I might not be a whiskey drinker after all.

It seemed that was that.

I was asking myself a rhetorical question and a beige folder on his desk held my future.

One possible scenario for my future at least.

I remembered seeing a map of Dubai once, I think it was Dubai anyway. It showed a huge airport that took up about a quarter of the map, Metro stops scattered around the city. I had become accustomed to Warsaw’s single line Metro and had forgotten about the possibility of traversing a whole city that way. I remembered it being on the sea, that meant a beach and I knew it was as hot as hell.

Dubai sounded great.

I also knew somewhere in my mind that they had strict laws and little drinking.

A large ex-pat community wouldn’t have existed without drinking though and I was also sure that they wouldn’t all have converted to Islam. The money would be good.

“What about the money?” I asked hoping that my estimation would have been confirmed.

“Six figures.” He said smiling. “Tax free.”

That did sound nice.

Hell if Elly didn’t want to move I could fly back every weekend with that kind of cash.

“Free apartment as well.” He interrupted. “The perks over there are immense.”

It was too good to be true.

Had I James Williamson really been offered a six figure salary with a free apartment?

I think I had.

I know I had.

“I will have to discuss it with my fiancée.” I said trying not to sound too overjoyed. “We are expecting our first child.”

“How delightful.” He said clasping his hands. “That salary increase will really come in handy.”

He wasn’t wrong.

We shook hands and I returned home, to my parent’s house I should say. It would always be a home but it wasn’t my home anymore. My home was with Elly and Andrew. Elly had made it perfectly clear before I left though.

She wouldn’t move back to England.

She wanted to stay in Poland.

She wanted to live in Raszyn with her mother.

Dubai or diapers?

That was the choice that was presented to me.

I know I said I needed your help to decide but a real man, and I do think of myself as a real man, knows when it’s time to step up.

Now is my time.

I am going to be a father and I am looking forward to fatherhood in the mother’s land.