Love Among the Single Classes (34 page)

‘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.'

My face, my body, are as though turned to stone. I can only look at him, no longer able to hide my feelings. For that matter, could I ever?

‘I am sorry, my dear. I don't think you understand.'

Understand? I have never understood. To understand means, literally, to feel supported from below; to bestride certainties; to be buttressed by knowledge. My love for Iwo tried to take root in imagination, guesswork, and fantasy: all of it probably wrong. I have been standing on air. This time my thoughts are slow, and in the silence we stare at one another. Then he takes a step towards me, two, three, and puts his arms around me, without speaking.

I stand rigid, held in a gesture, not an embrace, until all my control sags and I say, Two, shall we go to bed?'

An image flashes into my mind – Joanna and Andrew
coupling rapturously – and as I dismiss it guiltily I hear Iwo murmur into my hair, ‘I think it would be better not. I am bound to disappoint you,'

But thou wilt never more appear folded within my hemisphere, since both thy light and motion like a fled star is fallen, and gone.

Walking like an automaton through the sunshine towards the tube in my best clothes, my mind knotted and my emotions brimming, I realize that I am not far away from my mother's flat. On an impulse, for the first time in years, I decide to visit her unannounced, and, now that I have a source of comfort, I almost run through the streets towards her. I stumble clumsily down the steps and press hard on the doorbell, breathing heavily, knowing that the moment I see her I shall cry: Oh Mummy, oh Mummy it hurts, please make it better! Where does it hurt, darling? Here, here, it hurts
all over
. Now Constance, pull yourself together and don't be a silly girl. Tell Mummy clearly where it hurts most and then we'll put some TCP on it …

She stands in the doorway, incongruously smart. Her eyebrows shoot up at the sight of me, but she recovers instantly – as, indeed, do I. Ah, the English self-control!

‘Darling! What a lovely surprise! I think there's some tea left. Come in …'

Leading the way, she walks through to her small drawing room where, amid her best teacups and slivers of lemon and thinly-sliced cucumber sandwiches, an elderly man is rising to his feet.

‘Constance darling, you remember Uncle Leonard, don't you? Leonard Elphinstone?'

‘She won't remember me, goodness no! But I remember you, very well.'

He is wrong. I do remember him. Uncle Leonard and Auntie Janet. They used to play bridge and tennis with my parents when we were all young: when, come to think of it, my mother must have been younger than I am now.

‘I do remember you, though. And Auntie Janet.'

An expression of conventional grief comes over his face,
and my mother says hurriedly, ‘Auntie Janet died a couple of years ago, Constance.
So
brave. It's been a very difficult time. But Leonard's been wonderful. Oh yes you
have
, Leonard!'

Deference has been observed towards the dead.

‘Well my dear,
you
look very smart. Been lunching with an admirer, hm?'

‘Not exactly, Mr Elphinstone.' I will
not
call him Uncle Leonard, yet I can't bring myself to utter his naked Christian name. ‘I've just come from a wedding.'

‘A wedding!' bubbles my mother. ‘Darling, how lovely! Whose? Do I know them?'

‘No: some Polish friends of mine.'

‘Splendid chaps, the Poles. Lot of them fought in our Air Force in the last war … Did you know that, Constance?'