A Chip Shop in Poznań, page 25
Hubert insists I take a packed-lunch with me for the train. He watches me make a roll but isn’t satisfied. More! he demands. Keep going! he shouts. He puts the rolls in a bag then half-a-dozen ribs in another. I am told to come back any time, that all I need to do is call.
I share a train compartment with a young man who tells me that Poland is better off without the millions who have left the country because they are mostly pathological. At Olsztyn, the young man is replaced by an old lady. She wants her seat by the window, so I move to the opposite one. At the next stop, another old lady enters and wants her seat by the window. I take my packed-lunch out to the corridor. I see a wind turbine catching its breath, a man in a tent, a scarecrow, mistletoe. Everything added by man looks like an injury. But then where would we be without man’s additions? I shouldn’t be on this train for a start. Now here’s a picture. Four boys are in conference in the middle of a snow-covered football pitch. I say they are in conference but what am I getting at? I mean they are stood around the centre spot, close to one another, interlinked, their outward breaths commingling. One has the ball under his arm. Another wears the captain’s armband. All are wearing scarves – blue, green, black, beige. What is discussed at their summit? What is at stake? (Who shoots which way, I bet.) Do they notice the passing of a train? Could they have guessed that someone was peering down at them and wondering what they were about? I’ll never see those boys again, to say nothing of know them. One will live to 100, another will make films, and the smallest will rise like a star and then burn out at 50. Or perchance they will all stay as they are now, as they were then, young and earnest, stood in the centre circle of a snow-covered pitch, talking about nothing and everything at once, at the edge of Neverland. I return to the compartment: the two women won’t take their eyes off the world.
‘Madam likes the window?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘Why not?’
82 The Queen stopped breeding corgis in 2015. Her final corgi, Willow, died in a car crash in April 2018. The Queen also likes cocker spaniels. She has previously owned cocker spaniels called Bisto, Oxo, Spick and Span. It’s such quirkiness that keeps her in favour with the British public, and thus in a job.
36
A thirteen-mile souvenir
14 March. It is two days before the Poznań half marathon. I’ve been training extensively since last Thursday, and unconsciously carb-loading for years. I entered because I thought it would be a nice way to say goodbye to the city – a sort of lap of honour, without the honour. I go to the World Trade Centre to register. I’m given fudge, beer, a sponge and a bin-liner. A video of the route is played on loop on a big screen: it promises to be a bleak few hours. Anything mildly diverting or usefully distracting – the old town, the zoo, the river – has been avoided. Special running vests and supportive underwear are for sale, but it’s too late for any of that: it’s going to be unpleasant and there’s no two ways about it. My lifestyle the past year has been abysmal. I deserve to suffer.
Some friends and family from England will also be doing the run. The first batch are due to land any minute. I take a bus to the airport to collect them. Tom has been to Poland before. It was he who threw fast-food at a statue in Krakow. (See Chapter 1.) The others aren’t equipped with Tom’s experience. They’re fresh. As far as I’m aware Merle has never been outside Scotland, while Jimbo works in marketing so doesn’t get out of the office much. The airport makes a good first impression on Merle; I think she expected to land in a wheat field. We take a bus towards town then get off at the Mercure Hotel on Roosevelt Street. After everyone has checked in at the hotel and registered for the run, we eat at Oskoma on Mickiewicza. Merle is impressed with the food: ‘I thought it would be just bread and stuff.’ Merle is an unusually smart woman, and yet her preconceptions of Poland are somewhat lacking. I don’t mean to poke fun at Merle or the Scottish education system, rather to show how limited and negative the general understanding, or the common sense, of Poland is.
We go to the flat. Batch number two arrives in a cab from the airport. Cheesy runs an unsuccessful recruitment agency and is so called because he’s lactose intolerant, while Dinita is an actor, a bit Indian, and in her spare time Tom’s wife. We get a few bottles of red wine in. Talk turns to the ‘race’. (That the run is being referred to as a race instantly tightens my hamstring.) Merle has learnt a particular breathing technique. Cheesy has invested in some Hugo Boss cycling shorts. Tom can’t be sure what shape his marriage will be in after thirteen miles in tandem with Dinita. Chafing comes up and Vaseline is enthusiastically prescribed, apart from by Jenny, who thinks lubrication is for wimps and snowflakes. He says that if he starts chafing, he’ll just run with his legs farther apart.
We take a tram into town, dismounting outside Hotel Rzymski. ‘I spent my first night in Poland there,’ I say. ‘Imagine trying to say that when you’re drunk.’ I hope the mention of my debut in Poland will prompt a series of questions about the early days and my awkward attempts to assimilate – pushing when I should have been pulling, waiting when I should have been going, expecting customer service when I shouldn’t have been expecting customer service – but it doesn’t. Instead, Merle continues to point amazedly at things she didn’t think they had in Poland, like pavements and electricity and disposable income. We go to Dragon for a single beer, but don’t quite manage it.
To Drukarnia for breakfast. There’s confusion among the group about what should and should not be eaten on the eve of a big run. Merle ate so much pasta leading up to the London Marathon that she couldn’t sleep all night and was absolutely knackered before she’d even started. Tom says too many bananas will block you up. Cheesy has been eating protein more or less exclusively for months, while Charlie, who arrived late last night (being married to Merle, he prefers to travel independently), hasn’t given the matter any thought whatsoever, although he has cut his hair to reduce drag. Talk turns to what people plan to consume during the race. Jimbo relies on boiled sweets. Richard will be taking his tobacco along. Merle says she’ll snack on a haggis she plans to keep down her pants. Anna says nothing because she is not with us. She is working, like she always is.
After breakfast we go to the old square to watch the diurnal goats do their clunky dance in the tower of the townhall. It’s the first time I’ve seen the spectacle. I’ve been meaning to take a look for ages but could never quite raise the requisite curiosity to actually do so. A ceremonious trumpeter warns of the goats’ imminent appearance, and then out they trundle, into the public domain, where they proceed to butt heads for a while before withdrawing back into their tower. I think of a photograph Richard took of people watching the goats, with each member of the gobsmacked mob staring up at the entertainment except one man who’s looking at Richard instead, bored as hell.83 Merle wants to know why the goats do it, so I tell the story, which involves a medieval cook who burnt the king’s venison and couldn’t find a replacement so went after a pair of goats who legged it up the tower and did a little dance, then enjoy how the story changes as it goes round the group: by the time it’s reached Cheesy, it was the cook’s first day and the goats jumped off the tower to avoid capture.
We go to Cocoa Republic, just across from Dragon, where we drink thick hot chocolate on low sofas upstairs. There’s a general will to reminisce. The weekend when Tom and Dinita first locked horns is remembered. We were all in Buxton, at a campsite, because I had a play on there, an obscure two-hander that went nowhere in one act. It happened that Tom had a company car at the time. It was a chintzy Audi M6 or something. It is Charlie’s opinion that if Tom hadn’t had that company car there’s no way he would have ended up marrying a successful actor. ‘Tom’s a handsome man,’ explains Charlie, ‘but you have to admit he’s far more eligible sat behind the wheel of the latest Audi than stood at a bus stop.’ More stuff is dragged up from the archive.
Jimbo says, ‘Do you remember the pickle factory?’
Tom says, ‘What about that time Ben and Davy planned to rob Domino’s?’
Charlie says, ‘What about that time we went hunting with a crossbow, Tommy!’
Merle says, ‘Bearing in mind I didn’t study with yous [sic], would you mind changing the subject?’
At 1pm the group splits along gender lines, the men to watch Warta Poznań play football and the women to be beautified by Anna. (I wish as a group we were more progressive and gender fluid, but there you are.) Warta Poznań are not to be confused with Lech Poznań, who I saw last year, a couple of weeks after I arrived. Lech are in the Ekstraklasa, the top division, while Warta aren’t. Lech’s stadium can accommodate 40,000 people, Warta’s can’t. Because it’s chilly and the first half is a bit of a damp squib (Warta are a goal down), morale is dropping. I try to gee up the boys by pointing out that if Warta can turn it around they’ll move up to thirteenth in the table. When that fails, I resort to a platitude: ‘Come on boys. When in Rome!’ Charlie, who is on the pedantic spectrum, points out that 99.9 per cent of Romans are elsewhere in Rome, doubtless doing something warm and lively and genial. Richard has been to a couple of Warta games before. On each occasion, he came home raving about Warta’s number nine, who he reckons has bags of talent. I keep my eyes on number nine for ten minutes: if he has bags of talent, then he’s struggling to open them.
‘Richie? What about your number nine then? He’s crap.’
‘Give him time, mate. He’ll turn up. He was in Dragon last night.’
‘And what about the left-back? He won’t shut up.’
‘Never seen him before.’
‘He looks a bit like … Blow me – is that Mirek?’
‘It can’t be. Mirek’s in Asia.’
‘Are you actually joking?’
‘Nah. You see number seventeen?’
‘I do. He’s handy but he can’t get on the ball.’
‘That’s the thing. I’m given to understand Legia Warsaw are after him. The other players are jealous. They won’t pass to him.’
‘Bloody hell. It’s like that joke I told you.’
‘About the pots of oil?’
‘That’s the one: three pots of boiling oil. ’Ere, Charlie, Tommy, listen to this. And you Jimbo. A joke vis-à-vis why no one’s passing to number seventeen. Three pots of boiling oil. The devil, right, for want of anything better to do, has flung the French in the first, the Germans in the second, and the Poles in the third. Following?’
‘What type of oil?’ asks Charlie.
‘Doesn’t matter. Devil goes off for a while, for lunch or whatever, then comes back to check on the pots.’
‘I suppose it wouldn’t have been olive oil – bit expensive.’
‘The French and the Germans are helping each other get out of their pots. But nothing’s coming out of the Polish pot. The devil pops his head in for a look, sees that every time a Pole begins to advance up the side of the pot a compatriot pulls him back down.’
‘Him or her,’ says Charlie.
‘What?’
‘Really you should have said him or her, in today’s climate.’
‘Fine. There were women as well as men being burnt to death by the devil.’
‘Good. And how does the joke relate to number seventeen?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’84
The Warta manager is a short man with thick white hair and a moustache. He patrols his technical area non-stop. You’d think this was the European Cup final and he’d staked his grandchildren on the result. Periodically, he calls over his young assistant for an intense tactical discussion. (‘Hey. Przemek. Is that Mirek playing left-back?’) They’re like a pair of field marshals at the Battle of Grunwald. I could do with a bit of their passion. So could most of the Warta players. As if privy to my thoughts, the home side finally start to push for an equaliser. And they get one: a powerful half-volley from number seventeen. Just when it looks like the home team might seize the initiative and sneak all three points, the Warta left-back allows his man to cut inside and somehow plant a low shot into the roof of the net. Two–one. Full-time. I turn to pundit with my friends, but they’re already halfway back to the hotel.
As far as I’m aware, my Auntie Jo has never run more than a mile in her life. When I told her about the half marathon in Poznań I didn’t think she would even register the idea, let alone pounce upon it.
‘Got anything coming up then?’
‘Meh. Might stay with some nuns for a bit. Half marathon in Poznań.’
‘A what where? Say that again.’
‘Meh. Might stay with some nuns—’
‘The last bit.’
‘Half marathon in Poznań.’
‘What’s that then?’
‘It’s when you run for a long time.’
‘Not that bit, the other bit.’
‘Poznań?’
‘Yeah. What’s that?’
‘That’s a place, Jo. That’s where I live.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I think I’d like to do that.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you run?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have an interest in Poznań?’
‘Not really.’
‘Fair enough.’
She booked a flight the next day, and then another for her ten-year-old son, and then, remembering she couldn’t leave her son unattended for six hours during the run, another for her son’s father. I go to meet them at their hotel. The receptionist can’t tell me which room they’re in but can invite me to search the hotel as comprehensively as I wish. I fancy they might be in the pool. When I was Oliver’s age, if there was a pool to be in, I was in it. To enter the pool area, I’m obliged to put blue plastic covers over my shoes. I must look rather odd, dressed for winter with blue plastic bags on my feet, snooping round the spa facilities of a decent hotel. A small party in the jacuzzi eyes me coolly, trying to decide whether to alert security. It’s them. It’s Jo and Oliver and Kev. They’ve definitely spotted me but they’re pretending not to have. I’m tempted to get in the jacuzzi without even acknowledging them, just climb straight in as I am. At the very least, it would make Oliver laugh.
Jo takes me to her room because she wants to show me all her energy products. She has bought a small suitcase full of the stuff. It can’t all be for personal use – she must be dealing. It’s clear Jo’s race philosophy is thus: if I eat an energy paste every hundred metres, I won’t actually have to run. She shows me what she’ll be running in. It’s a T-shirt dedicated to her late rabbit. When I see the picture of Ralph, I can’t help but laugh. It stirs a memory. Last Christmas I sent Jo and my cousins a card, but decided to address it to Ralph, who unbeknownst to me had been run over and killed the Tuesday before. When they got the card they didn’t know what to think. Jo thought that it was something to do with Ralph’s will or life insurance. So yeah, when I see Ralph I can’t help but giggle.
We meet the others at the café on my street for dinner. I try not to notice Anita floating about. I drink beer and eat beef and order a pudding. I guess my thinking is that the more of me there is, the sooner I’ll cross the finish line. By now we are a full contingent. We take up most of the café. It’s nice to have everyone bunched together like this, tight-knit and fraternal. I make the most of it while I can. No doubt tomorrow will be a different story entirely.
I try on Anna’s leggings. They were bought for her when she was thirteen. They fit nicely. I match them with yellow socks, a red sweater and a turquoise headband. Jenny has one thing to say to me this morning: ‘Do you wanna have a bet cos I reckon I’m gonna beat ya?’ Jenny is ferociously competitive. To his credit, he tries to keep a lid on it, sensing that it’s undignified to care so much. He’s probably been awake half the night debating whether to make a bet with me: I know I shouldn’t care … but I think I’m going to beat him … so why not be rewarded? I’ve known Jenny a year and he remains a beautiful enigma. I can sincerely say I love him. But I can sincerely say I haven’t a clue why. He would have made a wonderful subject for Freud. We put a bottle of vodka on it.
Richard and I were up at 6.30am to start digesting. Richard was quite adamant on this point. ‘Ben. Listen. The last thing you want is porridge running down your leg halfway round.’ I couldn’t argue with this assertion. It was as true as anything he’d ever said. After about three hours sat at the kitchen table digesting, we stretch-walk to the Mercure to round up the others. They’re gathered in the foyer.
‘What the hell do you look like, Bonza?’ says Charlie.85 ‘Actually, I know what you look like: you look like one of the very first recorded joggers known to man.’ Merle’s sensibly dressed, which is surprising. She’s known for her outlandish fancy-dress outfits, and I thought she might whip out one of her classics today, like her inflatable obese ginger Scottish highlander. Cheesy looks reliably ridiculous: he’s wearing a turtleneck and eating a guinea-fowl. Everybody starts to stretch and talk about target times. Jimbo is a veteran of such races, is in decent shape, is going for a PB – around one hour 40 minutes. Despite his rock star lifestyle, Richard has a good engine and means to keep up with Jimbo. Charlie has his sights set on the two-hour mark. Merle is carrying a knock and might take the bus. Dinita and Tom are running as a couple holding hands, so they don’t count. Anna keeps quiet but I know she’s a dark horse. Contrary to appearances, she’s got stamina. When we go for a run together, she may well be stooping and wheezing by the time we get to the end of the street, but can carry on in this fashion for hours. When pressed, I admit I’ll be following a two-stop strategy: a stop for a coffee at kilometre seven, and then a cheese roll or similar at kilometre fourteen. I explain that such a strategy will render the whole experience more satisfying, which is the point of life. Auntie Jo is nowhere to be seen. Maybe she’s still in her room marinating herself in energy paste.
It’s chaos around the start line. We soon start to lose one another. I cling on to Richard and Jimbo, meaning to stick with them as long as possible. We wiggle forwards through the crowd, so that we’re going off with runners aiming to run a 1:50 pace. It’s a party atmosphere: model athletes on lofty pedestals encourage runners to dance to the music, to put their hands in the air, to wave to the camera, to choose life. Last-minute selfies are taken and swiftly shared. I can see Jenny ahead, arrogantly bobbing about with the 1:40 crew. He drops out of sight. He must be tying his laces. No doubt he’ll tie some others while he’s down there. Tom and Dinita are farther back, around the 2:10 mark, along with Charlie and Merle. Still no sign of Jo. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was up the front with the pros, adjusting the vest of energy bars that’s wrapped around her torso like a bomb. I feel nervous. My legs are wobbly. I think I need the toilet. I should have worn a nappy. (Maybe that’s what the sponge was for?) The siren sounds. The front runners set off. It will be a few minutes before our tranche will be on the move. It’s the calm before the storm. I wonder what the storm will bring. Cramps of nostalgia, I hope. Pangs of sentiment. I want to dwell on memorable spots. The park where I went on my first evening to search for a sculpture in the dark. The train tracks that go south to Starołęka, where the school is, where I was given a chance. The section of riverbank where Anita slept in the sun while I looked at her fearfully, lovingly, stupidly, vainly. Others are loading their ears but I don’t want music. I want to listen to the city. I want to absorb the environment and its associations. I want to go back on myself, one stride at a time. I want to feel wistful, introspective, sad and happy at once. I want a two-hour rehearsal of my time in Poland, a thirteen-mile souvenir. There’ll be a lot to remember, a lot to cherish. I shall want the race extended. I shall want to do it again.
I share a train compartment with a young man who tells me that Poland is better off without the millions who have left the country because they are mostly pathological. At Olsztyn, the young man is replaced by an old lady. She wants her seat by the window, so I move to the opposite one. At the next stop, another old lady enters and wants her seat by the window. I take my packed-lunch out to the corridor. I see a wind turbine catching its breath, a man in a tent, a scarecrow, mistletoe. Everything added by man looks like an injury. But then where would we be without man’s additions? I shouldn’t be on this train for a start. Now here’s a picture. Four boys are in conference in the middle of a snow-covered football pitch. I say they are in conference but what am I getting at? I mean they are stood around the centre spot, close to one another, interlinked, their outward breaths commingling. One has the ball under his arm. Another wears the captain’s armband. All are wearing scarves – blue, green, black, beige. What is discussed at their summit? What is at stake? (Who shoots which way, I bet.) Do they notice the passing of a train? Could they have guessed that someone was peering down at them and wondering what they were about? I’ll never see those boys again, to say nothing of know them. One will live to 100, another will make films, and the smallest will rise like a star and then burn out at 50. Or perchance they will all stay as they are now, as they were then, young and earnest, stood in the centre circle of a snow-covered pitch, talking about nothing and everything at once, at the edge of Neverland. I return to the compartment: the two women won’t take their eyes off the world.
‘Madam likes the window?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘Why not?’
82 The Queen stopped breeding corgis in 2015. Her final corgi, Willow, died in a car crash in April 2018. The Queen also likes cocker spaniels. She has previously owned cocker spaniels called Bisto, Oxo, Spick and Span. It’s such quirkiness that keeps her in favour with the British public, and thus in a job.
36
A thirteen-mile souvenir
14 March. It is two days before the Poznań half marathon. I’ve been training extensively since last Thursday, and unconsciously carb-loading for years. I entered because I thought it would be a nice way to say goodbye to the city – a sort of lap of honour, without the honour. I go to the World Trade Centre to register. I’m given fudge, beer, a sponge and a bin-liner. A video of the route is played on loop on a big screen: it promises to be a bleak few hours. Anything mildly diverting or usefully distracting – the old town, the zoo, the river – has been avoided. Special running vests and supportive underwear are for sale, but it’s too late for any of that: it’s going to be unpleasant and there’s no two ways about it. My lifestyle the past year has been abysmal. I deserve to suffer.
Some friends and family from England will also be doing the run. The first batch are due to land any minute. I take a bus to the airport to collect them. Tom has been to Poland before. It was he who threw fast-food at a statue in Krakow. (See Chapter 1.) The others aren’t equipped with Tom’s experience. They’re fresh. As far as I’m aware Merle has never been outside Scotland, while Jimbo works in marketing so doesn’t get out of the office much. The airport makes a good first impression on Merle; I think she expected to land in a wheat field. We take a bus towards town then get off at the Mercure Hotel on Roosevelt Street. After everyone has checked in at the hotel and registered for the run, we eat at Oskoma on Mickiewicza. Merle is impressed with the food: ‘I thought it would be just bread and stuff.’ Merle is an unusually smart woman, and yet her preconceptions of Poland are somewhat lacking. I don’t mean to poke fun at Merle or the Scottish education system, rather to show how limited and negative the general understanding, or the common sense, of Poland is.
We go to the flat. Batch number two arrives in a cab from the airport. Cheesy runs an unsuccessful recruitment agency and is so called because he’s lactose intolerant, while Dinita is an actor, a bit Indian, and in her spare time Tom’s wife. We get a few bottles of red wine in. Talk turns to the ‘race’. (That the run is being referred to as a race instantly tightens my hamstring.) Merle has learnt a particular breathing technique. Cheesy has invested in some Hugo Boss cycling shorts. Tom can’t be sure what shape his marriage will be in after thirteen miles in tandem with Dinita. Chafing comes up and Vaseline is enthusiastically prescribed, apart from by Jenny, who thinks lubrication is for wimps and snowflakes. He says that if he starts chafing, he’ll just run with his legs farther apart.
We take a tram into town, dismounting outside Hotel Rzymski. ‘I spent my first night in Poland there,’ I say. ‘Imagine trying to say that when you’re drunk.’ I hope the mention of my debut in Poland will prompt a series of questions about the early days and my awkward attempts to assimilate – pushing when I should have been pulling, waiting when I should have been going, expecting customer service when I shouldn’t have been expecting customer service – but it doesn’t. Instead, Merle continues to point amazedly at things she didn’t think they had in Poland, like pavements and electricity and disposable income. We go to Dragon for a single beer, but don’t quite manage it.
To Drukarnia for breakfast. There’s confusion among the group about what should and should not be eaten on the eve of a big run. Merle ate so much pasta leading up to the London Marathon that she couldn’t sleep all night and was absolutely knackered before she’d even started. Tom says too many bananas will block you up. Cheesy has been eating protein more or less exclusively for months, while Charlie, who arrived late last night (being married to Merle, he prefers to travel independently), hasn’t given the matter any thought whatsoever, although he has cut his hair to reduce drag. Talk turns to what people plan to consume during the race. Jimbo relies on boiled sweets. Richard will be taking his tobacco along. Merle says she’ll snack on a haggis she plans to keep down her pants. Anna says nothing because she is not with us. She is working, like she always is.
After breakfast we go to the old square to watch the diurnal goats do their clunky dance in the tower of the townhall. It’s the first time I’ve seen the spectacle. I’ve been meaning to take a look for ages but could never quite raise the requisite curiosity to actually do so. A ceremonious trumpeter warns of the goats’ imminent appearance, and then out they trundle, into the public domain, where they proceed to butt heads for a while before withdrawing back into their tower. I think of a photograph Richard took of people watching the goats, with each member of the gobsmacked mob staring up at the entertainment except one man who’s looking at Richard instead, bored as hell.83 Merle wants to know why the goats do it, so I tell the story, which involves a medieval cook who burnt the king’s venison and couldn’t find a replacement so went after a pair of goats who legged it up the tower and did a little dance, then enjoy how the story changes as it goes round the group: by the time it’s reached Cheesy, it was the cook’s first day and the goats jumped off the tower to avoid capture.
We go to Cocoa Republic, just across from Dragon, where we drink thick hot chocolate on low sofas upstairs. There’s a general will to reminisce. The weekend when Tom and Dinita first locked horns is remembered. We were all in Buxton, at a campsite, because I had a play on there, an obscure two-hander that went nowhere in one act. It happened that Tom had a company car at the time. It was a chintzy Audi M6 or something. It is Charlie’s opinion that if Tom hadn’t had that company car there’s no way he would have ended up marrying a successful actor. ‘Tom’s a handsome man,’ explains Charlie, ‘but you have to admit he’s far more eligible sat behind the wheel of the latest Audi than stood at a bus stop.’ More stuff is dragged up from the archive.
Jimbo says, ‘Do you remember the pickle factory?’
Tom says, ‘What about that time Ben and Davy planned to rob Domino’s?’
Charlie says, ‘What about that time we went hunting with a crossbow, Tommy!’
Merle says, ‘Bearing in mind I didn’t study with yous [sic], would you mind changing the subject?’
At 1pm the group splits along gender lines, the men to watch Warta Poznań play football and the women to be beautified by Anna. (I wish as a group we were more progressive and gender fluid, but there you are.) Warta Poznań are not to be confused with Lech Poznań, who I saw last year, a couple of weeks after I arrived. Lech are in the Ekstraklasa, the top division, while Warta aren’t. Lech’s stadium can accommodate 40,000 people, Warta’s can’t. Because it’s chilly and the first half is a bit of a damp squib (Warta are a goal down), morale is dropping. I try to gee up the boys by pointing out that if Warta can turn it around they’ll move up to thirteenth in the table. When that fails, I resort to a platitude: ‘Come on boys. When in Rome!’ Charlie, who is on the pedantic spectrum, points out that 99.9 per cent of Romans are elsewhere in Rome, doubtless doing something warm and lively and genial. Richard has been to a couple of Warta games before. On each occasion, he came home raving about Warta’s number nine, who he reckons has bags of talent. I keep my eyes on number nine for ten minutes: if he has bags of talent, then he’s struggling to open them.
‘Richie? What about your number nine then? He’s crap.’
‘Give him time, mate. He’ll turn up. He was in Dragon last night.’
‘And what about the left-back? He won’t shut up.’
‘Never seen him before.’
‘He looks a bit like … Blow me – is that Mirek?’
‘It can’t be. Mirek’s in Asia.’
‘Are you actually joking?’
‘Nah. You see number seventeen?’
‘I do. He’s handy but he can’t get on the ball.’
‘That’s the thing. I’m given to understand Legia Warsaw are after him. The other players are jealous. They won’t pass to him.’
‘Bloody hell. It’s like that joke I told you.’
‘About the pots of oil?’
‘That’s the one: three pots of boiling oil. ’Ere, Charlie, Tommy, listen to this. And you Jimbo. A joke vis-à-vis why no one’s passing to number seventeen. Three pots of boiling oil. The devil, right, for want of anything better to do, has flung the French in the first, the Germans in the second, and the Poles in the third. Following?’
‘What type of oil?’ asks Charlie.
‘Doesn’t matter. Devil goes off for a while, for lunch or whatever, then comes back to check on the pots.’
‘I suppose it wouldn’t have been olive oil – bit expensive.’
‘The French and the Germans are helping each other get out of their pots. But nothing’s coming out of the Polish pot. The devil pops his head in for a look, sees that every time a Pole begins to advance up the side of the pot a compatriot pulls him back down.’
‘Him or her,’ says Charlie.
‘What?’
‘Really you should have said him or her, in today’s climate.’
‘Fine. There were women as well as men being burnt to death by the devil.’
‘Good. And how does the joke relate to number seventeen?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’84
The Warta manager is a short man with thick white hair and a moustache. He patrols his technical area non-stop. You’d think this was the European Cup final and he’d staked his grandchildren on the result. Periodically, he calls over his young assistant for an intense tactical discussion. (‘Hey. Przemek. Is that Mirek playing left-back?’) They’re like a pair of field marshals at the Battle of Grunwald. I could do with a bit of their passion. So could most of the Warta players. As if privy to my thoughts, the home side finally start to push for an equaliser. And they get one: a powerful half-volley from number seventeen. Just when it looks like the home team might seize the initiative and sneak all three points, the Warta left-back allows his man to cut inside and somehow plant a low shot into the roof of the net. Two–one. Full-time. I turn to pundit with my friends, but they’re already halfway back to the hotel.
As far as I’m aware, my Auntie Jo has never run more than a mile in her life. When I told her about the half marathon in Poznań I didn’t think she would even register the idea, let alone pounce upon it.
‘Got anything coming up then?’
‘Meh. Might stay with some nuns for a bit. Half marathon in Poznań.’
‘A what where? Say that again.’
‘Meh. Might stay with some nuns—’
‘The last bit.’
‘Half marathon in Poznań.’
‘What’s that then?’
‘It’s when you run for a long time.’
‘Not that bit, the other bit.’
‘Poznań?’
‘Yeah. What’s that?’
‘That’s a place, Jo. That’s where I live.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I think I’d like to do that.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you run?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have an interest in Poznań?’
‘Not really.’
‘Fair enough.’
She booked a flight the next day, and then another for her ten-year-old son, and then, remembering she couldn’t leave her son unattended for six hours during the run, another for her son’s father. I go to meet them at their hotel. The receptionist can’t tell me which room they’re in but can invite me to search the hotel as comprehensively as I wish. I fancy they might be in the pool. When I was Oliver’s age, if there was a pool to be in, I was in it. To enter the pool area, I’m obliged to put blue plastic covers over my shoes. I must look rather odd, dressed for winter with blue plastic bags on my feet, snooping round the spa facilities of a decent hotel. A small party in the jacuzzi eyes me coolly, trying to decide whether to alert security. It’s them. It’s Jo and Oliver and Kev. They’ve definitely spotted me but they’re pretending not to have. I’m tempted to get in the jacuzzi without even acknowledging them, just climb straight in as I am. At the very least, it would make Oliver laugh.
Jo takes me to her room because she wants to show me all her energy products. She has bought a small suitcase full of the stuff. It can’t all be for personal use – she must be dealing. It’s clear Jo’s race philosophy is thus: if I eat an energy paste every hundred metres, I won’t actually have to run. She shows me what she’ll be running in. It’s a T-shirt dedicated to her late rabbit. When I see the picture of Ralph, I can’t help but laugh. It stirs a memory. Last Christmas I sent Jo and my cousins a card, but decided to address it to Ralph, who unbeknownst to me had been run over and killed the Tuesday before. When they got the card they didn’t know what to think. Jo thought that it was something to do with Ralph’s will or life insurance. So yeah, when I see Ralph I can’t help but giggle.
We meet the others at the café on my street for dinner. I try not to notice Anita floating about. I drink beer and eat beef and order a pudding. I guess my thinking is that the more of me there is, the sooner I’ll cross the finish line. By now we are a full contingent. We take up most of the café. It’s nice to have everyone bunched together like this, tight-knit and fraternal. I make the most of it while I can. No doubt tomorrow will be a different story entirely.
I try on Anna’s leggings. They were bought for her when she was thirteen. They fit nicely. I match them with yellow socks, a red sweater and a turquoise headband. Jenny has one thing to say to me this morning: ‘Do you wanna have a bet cos I reckon I’m gonna beat ya?’ Jenny is ferociously competitive. To his credit, he tries to keep a lid on it, sensing that it’s undignified to care so much. He’s probably been awake half the night debating whether to make a bet with me: I know I shouldn’t care … but I think I’m going to beat him … so why not be rewarded? I’ve known Jenny a year and he remains a beautiful enigma. I can sincerely say I love him. But I can sincerely say I haven’t a clue why. He would have made a wonderful subject for Freud. We put a bottle of vodka on it.
Richard and I were up at 6.30am to start digesting. Richard was quite adamant on this point. ‘Ben. Listen. The last thing you want is porridge running down your leg halfway round.’ I couldn’t argue with this assertion. It was as true as anything he’d ever said. After about three hours sat at the kitchen table digesting, we stretch-walk to the Mercure to round up the others. They’re gathered in the foyer.
‘What the hell do you look like, Bonza?’ says Charlie.85 ‘Actually, I know what you look like: you look like one of the very first recorded joggers known to man.’ Merle’s sensibly dressed, which is surprising. She’s known for her outlandish fancy-dress outfits, and I thought she might whip out one of her classics today, like her inflatable obese ginger Scottish highlander. Cheesy looks reliably ridiculous: he’s wearing a turtleneck and eating a guinea-fowl. Everybody starts to stretch and talk about target times. Jimbo is a veteran of such races, is in decent shape, is going for a PB – around one hour 40 minutes. Despite his rock star lifestyle, Richard has a good engine and means to keep up with Jimbo. Charlie has his sights set on the two-hour mark. Merle is carrying a knock and might take the bus. Dinita and Tom are running as a couple holding hands, so they don’t count. Anna keeps quiet but I know she’s a dark horse. Contrary to appearances, she’s got stamina. When we go for a run together, she may well be stooping and wheezing by the time we get to the end of the street, but can carry on in this fashion for hours. When pressed, I admit I’ll be following a two-stop strategy: a stop for a coffee at kilometre seven, and then a cheese roll or similar at kilometre fourteen. I explain that such a strategy will render the whole experience more satisfying, which is the point of life. Auntie Jo is nowhere to be seen. Maybe she’s still in her room marinating herself in energy paste.
It’s chaos around the start line. We soon start to lose one another. I cling on to Richard and Jimbo, meaning to stick with them as long as possible. We wiggle forwards through the crowd, so that we’re going off with runners aiming to run a 1:50 pace. It’s a party atmosphere: model athletes on lofty pedestals encourage runners to dance to the music, to put their hands in the air, to wave to the camera, to choose life. Last-minute selfies are taken and swiftly shared. I can see Jenny ahead, arrogantly bobbing about with the 1:40 crew. He drops out of sight. He must be tying his laces. No doubt he’ll tie some others while he’s down there. Tom and Dinita are farther back, around the 2:10 mark, along with Charlie and Merle. Still no sign of Jo. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was up the front with the pros, adjusting the vest of energy bars that’s wrapped around her torso like a bomb. I feel nervous. My legs are wobbly. I think I need the toilet. I should have worn a nappy. (Maybe that’s what the sponge was for?) The siren sounds. The front runners set off. It will be a few minutes before our tranche will be on the move. It’s the calm before the storm. I wonder what the storm will bring. Cramps of nostalgia, I hope. Pangs of sentiment. I want to dwell on memorable spots. The park where I went on my first evening to search for a sculpture in the dark. The train tracks that go south to Starołęka, where the school is, where I was given a chance. The section of riverbank where Anita slept in the sun while I looked at her fearfully, lovingly, stupidly, vainly. Others are loading their ears but I don’t want music. I want to listen to the city. I want to absorb the environment and its associations. I want to go back on myself, one stride at a time. I want to feel wistful, introspective, sad and happy at once. I want a two-hour rehearsal of my time in Poland, a thirteen-mile souvenir. There’ll be a lot to remember, a lot to cherish. I shall want the race extended. I shall want to do it again.
