Love Among the Single Classes

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Love Among the Single Classes Page 26

by Angela Lambert


  ‘Marina, tomorrow morning, early, you should telephone your mother. Let me pay for the call. But book it now.’

  She leans across and puts her arms round me. How sweet she smells.

  ‘That would be wonderful.’

  ‘You’re in Max’s bedroom. There’s a telephone up on the top landing.’ I have prepared the room for her as though it were for her wedding night, rather than the last time she will sleep alone. There are flowers and candles beside her bed, a snowy white duvet and pillows plump and soft as ducks, and laid across the bed my present to her: a nightdress of intricately pleated white cotton, as elaborate and virginal as anything a village maiden would have stitched for her bottom drawer.

  ‘Go to bed Marina. Everything will be all right.’

  * * *

  Next morning we hardly have time for a calm breakfast together before the chaos begins. It is almost entirely a telephonic chaos, most of it incomprehensible as well, being in Polish. Every five minutes the infernal instrument rings and my simple Polish is stretched to breaking point. Everyone wants to wish her luck and check the morning’s arrangements: how to get to the church; what time the service begins; they are right, aren’t they, the reception is at the club afterwards and should they bring anything? Marina darts between bathroom and telephone in her underwear, wrapped in a towel, with wet hair, hair-dryer, but won’t let me leave the phone off the hook so that she can get dressed in peace.

  Suddenly it’s half past ten. Andrew has offered to pick us up at eleven-fifteen and drive Marina to Iwo’s, who will take her up the aisle, and then come with me to the church in Fulham Road. Marina is ready, wearing an apricot-coloured linen suit, and I have to rush to catch up. From downstairs I can hear her voice on the phone bubbling away. It seems that the only person who hasn’t rung is Peter. As Andrew arrives she pulls one last, marvellous surprise. She must have got up early to pick fresh flowers from the garden, and these are woven into a little chaplet which she wears perched on top of her upswept hair. Very few young women could carry off such ingenuous simplicity. We both gaze at her as she descends the stairs, and Andrew says, ‘You look very beautiful.’

  In the car after we have dropped off Marina, I say to Andrew, ‘I am … sorry … about the other night. The theatre. It was dreadful of me.’

  His gaze fixed on the road, he replies, ‘Yes. I’m sorry too. But I daresay a quick death is better than a slow one.’

  ‘Does that mean … not that I’d blame you … have I wrecked our friendship? Does it mean we can’t be friends?’

  ‘I hope not. But it means we can’t be lovers. Not that we ever could. My fault, probably. How could a dream compete with an obsession?’

  ‘You are good to take me to this wedding.’

  ‘I’m lethal at my job, you know. Real New York stuff: no holds barred. A killer in creative think tanks. I just can’t be tough with women. I don’t suppose it could have worked anyway. Us as lovers.’

  ‘No …’

  ‘I’ll drop you here and find somewhere to park. You go in. I’ll join you.’

  The organ is already rumbling like distant, melodious thunder as I seat myself and wait for Marina to arrive on the arm of Iwo.

  The unfamiliar Catholic ceremony forces me to concentrate, and as I sit and stand and kneel and watch her back view I find myself praying for her. I lost the habit of praying in childhood, and now I find myself using the same childish, almost pidgin language. Please God, make Marina happy, no, make them both happy, but specially her. Please God, let it all work. Iwo stands stiffly next to Joanna in the pew in front of me, and I add my uncertain prayers for him. Please God, make Iwo find what he’s looking for, preferably with me, but if not then with his wife, and please let her welcome him and make them be happy too. And, since no-one listens to a marriage service without recalling or imagining their own, I think about Paul and me, and my young hopes, so desperately innocent, curdled by reality. It is odd to think that Andrew was present on that occasion, too. I remember walking up the aisle towards the rigid back of the man I was about to marry and thinking trustfully, How extraordinary: now I shall never kiss any man but Paul again.

  What is Marina thinking? What, I really want to know, is Iwo thinking? Around me the deep Polish voices rise and fall, mostly male, for the club members have turned out to a man, it seems. Everyone’s here except young Lochinvar. The frail voices of elderly Polish women tremble on a register above the men’s as they cross themselves, and genuflect, murmur and move in unison like solemn grey and black birds swept up and down by unseen winds. Marina’s voice is steady; it is Peter who scarcely speaks above a whisper. The priest, in his stiff white brocade vestments, seems to be the centre of the ritual, the rest of us mere onlookers, deferring to his superior knowledge. His sonorous voice and unsmiling expression are more appropriate to a funeral than a wedding – which intensifies my feeling that Marina is being sacrificed to the young man awkwardly pushing a ring on to her finger. Oh God, forgive me these grudging thoughts! I do want them to be happy really …

  My attention wanders back to Iwo and Joanna, standing far enough apart not to touch even at the elbow. She is wearing an expensive coat and a small, shiny hat: no doubt she hopes the wedding may weaken his resolve. Does she know he’s going back to Poland? Does she know how soon? She could not possibly care as much as I do! Oh God, let me get married again! Not for the procreation of children but for the – what does the Book of Common Prayer say? – something about mutual comfort and society one to the other.

  The service proceeds to the long nuptial mass, which I don’t understand and can’t share. People smelling musty and moth-balled in their best clothes brush past on their way to the altar, and again on their way back, and I smile and try to look holy, as they do. All these decorous, shuffling footsteps and downcast eyes: what are they thinking? Iwo doesn’t take Communion either.

  At last it ends. Marina walks shiningly down through us all, and Peter relaxes and smiles. Before leaving the church I make a little bob, in deference to all those genuflections, like a republican who can’t help acknowledging the passing of royalty, and we find ourselves milling about in the street with passers-by skirting us irritably just as though nothing particular had happened: as though two entirely different and separate people had not just vowed to stay together and look after each other every day for the rest of their lives.

  They leave in Peter’s car after a few hasty photographs have been taken outside the church. A wide white nylon ribbon makes a fluttering V for victory along the bonnet. A few people attempt to throw confetti; a few curious onlookers stare into Marina’s face as she sits smiling beside her husband, remembering to give a special wave to his mother. ‘See you in a minute!’ Peter calls out, and then the car disappears into a mêlée of lunchtime traffic.

  Ten minutes later we’re at the club where, although it soon fills up, the Polish contingent and the English guests stand at opposite ends of the room, eyeing one another. Peter introduces me to his mother, a stout lady with a strained expression that might be due as much to her corset as to the emotion of seeing her only son bind himself to another woman.

  ‘Peter says you’ve been ever so kind to Marina,’ she says.

  ‘I haven’t been kind – it’s been a joy getting to know her. I do think she’s a wonderful woman. She’ll make him very happy.’

  ‘She’s certainly a very nice-looking girl. As for the rest, we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we? See how it turns out, whether she can learn to do things the way he likes them. I’ve always done my best for him, that I know.’

  ‘It can’t have been easy. But then, Marina hasn’t had an easy life, either.’

  ‘No, well, she’s a long way from home, isn’t she? Can’t expect to be just accepted straight away. These things take time.’

  ‘Marina understands that. And I know you’ll help her.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll try. Can’t do more than that.’

  A tray is offered, with thin
slices of smoked Polish sausage wrapped round pickled gherkins, and rye bread cut into small squares on which morsels of cheese and black olives are impaled with toothpicks.

  Peter’s mother looks at them and says, ‘No, thank you very much all the same.’

  She’s afraid they’ll dislodge her false teeth, I think viciously. Or stain her new turquoise gloves.

  ‘Will you excuse me?’ I say to her. ‘I must go and talk to Marina’s economics professor …’

  ‘Oh well, I’m not clever enough to talk to him,’ she says.

  And I think, too right you’re not, lady; and immediately afterwards, but then, nor am I.

  Iwo and Joanna are standing in a small group of Poles, including her father. Tadeusz raises my hand to his lips.

  ‘How splendid you look for the occasion, my dear! You do Marina credit!’

  ‘You are most elegant,’ says Iwo.

  I introduce Andrew to everyone I know, and have my hand kissed by a number of courtly Polish gentlemen. One or two thank me gravely for my kindness to Marina. The noise rises to a hubbub as trays bearing glasses of champagne are circulated with which to toast the newly married couple. Iwo makes his way to the far end of the room, beside Peter and Marina; and holds up his hand for silence.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ he begins, in the heavily accented English that I had almost forgotten. ‘You will forgive me that my English is not so good, that I will first speak in Polish and then my good friend Tadeusz will translate for our English friends and Marina’s new family.’ He waits for the cries of ‘Shame!’ and ‘It’s fine!’ to die down, before commencing in his own language.

  I have never seen him speak in public before. His voice carries strongly around the room, and the rolling phrases, whose meaning I can follow though not word for word, bring smiles and nods of agreement from the assembled Poles. Marina stands with downcast eyes, holding Peter’s hand. Iwo praises the bride and groom, refers gravely to the mother country that they – and so many of those present – have been compelled to leave, then lightens the atmosphere again with a joke I half catch, about how Peter will have to be a better and sterner teacher than he, for Marina was never a docile student; and finally, his voice raised almost to a shout, he holds high his glass and proclaims, ‘Peter! Marina! Happiness!’

  He is echoed by a deep harsh roar from all the Poles in the room: ‘Peter! Marina! Happiness!’ as heads tilt back to drink the toast in one full-throated swallow.

  After this speech has been translated into English, and those guests from the groom’s side of the aisle have responded with a rather more muted echo, first Peter makes a short reply, and then, to everyone’s surprise, Marina turns to him and says, ‘May I speak?’

  ‘It’s not usual,’ he tells her; ‘you don’t have to.’

  ‘I only want to say a few things,’ she says. ‘And in English, for I have become an Englishwoman today. This is the last Polish occasion in my life, and perhaps the last time I shall be in a room with so many Polish people. I would like to say that I am grateful to this country, this free country, for having taken me, and all of us, under its wing. In Poland, where we were forced to live a lie, we dreamed of coming to the West, and being able to live in truth. For me that dream is doubly fulfilled today: thanks to my husband. To him, I pledge my love and duty as his English wife. And to all of you, my gratitude in sharing this day with us. And so, for the last time, I say: God bless Poland!’

  This time the echo is more of a murmur. ‘God bless Poland!’ say the old men and women. In front of them all, Marina reaches up to kiss her new husband.

  No half measures, I think. She has cast the die indeed, in front of them all. She is brave and beautiful and humble. I cannot meet her eyes or I shall cry.

  The champagne, or perhaps the emotion of nostalgia, has loosened everyone’s inhibitions, and tentatively the two sides begin to mix. Marina introduces some of Peter’s friends to the elderly gentlemen from the club, and both groups bend their heads towards each other in puzzled goodwill. Taking my cue from her, I walk over to Iwo’s corner and introduce Andrew first to him and then to Joanna. She by now is bright-eyed and dishevelled; she has taken off her stiff little hat and is laughing with the abandon of slight drunkenness, tossing her glossy hair across her sidelong face and then back, with a flash of her taut throat. Iwo seems to be unaware of this flirtatiousness. It soon becomes clear that Andrew is not. He stands fractionally closer than necessary, and his voice lowers so that only she can hear clearly. At first Joanna’s animation includes them both – Two, tell this ignorant Englishman that in Poland, women are different!’ But when she sees that Iwo will not pander to her wish to play them off one against the other – ‘I am sure, my dear Joanna, that you can tell him much better than I’ – she bends all her attention towards Andrew. Iwo places his hand almost imperceptibly in the small of my back and steers me away. He begins to talk Polish to some old ladies dressed in black, with black headscarves folded triangularly around their pale, seamed faces; and soon I smile vaguely at them and drift away. The champagne is insulating me from my own reactions. I am content to stand alone in a corner of the room, watching as an anthropologist might watch a strange tribe. I observe that the Poles touch each other a good deal, but smile more rarely; while the English shun all contact, but smile all the time. The Poles interrupt shamelessly, two or three often talking at once and no-one is offended, while the English nod and wait to be quite sure the speaker has finished. For once I find myself looking into people’s faces, not merely at them; and I seem to see in the Polish faces a combination of self-confidence and candour which the English lack. The guests from Peter’s side are defensive, correct, missing nothing. They will have a fine tale to tell their mates at the pub, their hairdressers, the girls in the keep-fit classes, or whoever makes up their safe circle.

  Meanwhile one of the wedding guests has produced an accordion, and starts to play: softly at first; soon with increasing speed and emphasis. The Poles murmur the tune, the murmuring swells with clapping, and finally the clapping is matched by insistent stamping feet. Marina glances anxiously at Peter, for she can see that his friends are looking ill at ease. At that moment an old man approaches her, bows with great dignity, and evidently asks her to dance. Peter nods and smiles his permission and Marina, flushed and excited, moves into the centre of the room, where the guests are backing against each other towards the wall to clear a space. Her partner bows, stamps his feet, and then slowly raises her hand to his and together the two perform a dance like a couple in a dream. Their faces are serious, the old one so deeply lined, the young bride so smooth and firm, both with pursed lips and eyes on each other. He could be her father, her grandfather even; and in this solemn dance he seems to be giving her in marriage far more than Iwo did when he escorted her stiffly up the aisle. Is it a dance they both know, or are they improvising as they dip and spin, loose hands, clap, and join again? The accordionist ends on a bravura crescendo that stops abruptly on a thrumming chord, and the two dancers salute each other, catch their breath, and break into laughter, happy at their combined skill, as the guests applaud. Even Peter’s mother is smiling, archly indulgent – and then my gaze shifts to Andrew and Joanna. They are looking at one another, intense, secret, rapt. A cocoon of mutual anticipation shimmers around them.

  ‘Iwo,’ I say, ‘when Marina and Peter have left, can I go with you?’

  He looks across at Joanna, sees what I have seen, and nods. ‘Yes,’ he says.

  Soon after this we are on the street together, waving the newly-married pair towards their unknown destination. Peter’s mother is sniffing tremulously, but she has plenty of concerned supporters: she doesn’t need me. Andrew and Joanna make their excuses and drive off together – impossible to be discreet on such an occasion and, in any case, why bother? – and Iwo takes my elbow in the familiar manner as we walk away from the club.

  ‘Well, that went off all right, didn’t it?’ I say tentatively.

  He hardly bothers
to acknowledge my remark, but asks, ‘Your friend … is he a good man? Tell me about him.’

  In a rush of protective warmth I recount the story of my friendship with Andrew; his long bachelorhood – ‘Why? Does he prefer to go with men … or boys?’ – his current loneliness in the tidy, empty flat. I tell Iwo that he is a poet, which is approved, and an advertising man, less acceptable. I say nothing about our recent encounter.

  ‘Good. Perhaps something may come of it for them both. Joanna needs a good man. She is also sometimes lonely. Like us.’

  Surprised and made brazen by this rare admission, I say, ‘Can we go to your room, Iwo? It isn’t far.’

  ‘We could sit in the park, in the sun …’

  ‘We could, yes.’

  ‘All right. If you wish.’

  We head towards the house where he lives.

  His room is, as always, austere as a bleached bone. The bed has the tidy, anonymous look of a hospital bed; the floor is swept; the curtain drawn across the end of the room ripples in the light like sun on water. Soon he will be gone, and its emptiness will be complete. This may be the last time I am ever here with him.

  ‘Iwo, please, do me a favour? Can I spend your last evening here with you? Before you go? Sorry to ask. Would you like it?’

  ‘I know I have made you unhappy, Constance. Believe me, I never wished to be unkind.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. Don’t worry. But please let me.’

  ‘It is a very generous offer. I leave next Thursday.’

  ‘So soon! Oh God … I hadn’t quite realized it was that soon.’

  ‘Now that Marina is married, there seemed nothing … there was little reason to stay. I bought my train ticket yesterday, at lunchtime, and told my employer I wouldn’t be coming back.’

 

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