A Chip Shop in Poznań, page 29
I go up on deck to watch Albion inch nearer. The Humber Bridge is quite something. Boy, is it big. All that effort and ingenuity just to make it easier to get to Scunthorpe. There’s plenty of dirty energy being made yonder, judging by the amount of high-rise chimneys letting off steam. I suppose a town has to do something for a living. Not everyone can be a bingo caller. It used to be fishing that kept the locals busy. They used to go after whales back in the day, until people started complaining they couldn’t finish their chips. Then it was cod. Thousands of trawlers would go out for weeks at a time, right up to the North Atlantic, up near Iceland. For the Icelanders, the British boats were overstepping their mark, sticking their nose in where it wasn’t welcome. Cue the Cod Wars of the 70s, which Britain lost. Within a decade Hull’s fishing industry was all but gone.
I’m not the last off. A few of the Manchester lads are, because one of their number was bringing something up in the loo, and it wasn’t a topic of conversation. ‘UK BORDER’ it says. A popular threshold. Too popular for some: the people of Britain have spoken and they’ve said they want it to be harder to get over this line, because there’s no room on the other side, no vacancies, no left overs. A light interview to figure out my movement.
‘How long have you been away, Mr Aitken?’
‘About a year. I’ve been living in Poland.’
‘But you sailed from Belgium.’
‘Yes. I got a lift to Cologne with two Russians and then a train to Zeebrugge.’
‘That’s odd.’
‘It was fun.’
‘Why did you avoid flying?’
‘I wanted to consider the state of Europe.’
‘And?’
‘Relatively speaking, it’s doing wonderfully.’
‘Do you have anything on you? Cash? Food items?’
‘I’ve got some cash in a brown envelope.’
‘And where are you going now?’
‘Not sure. Might try Philip Larkin’s house.’
‘That’s a friend of yours?’
‘No, he’s dead.’
I wait for a bus outside the terminal. ‘Hull and Proud!’ it says on a billboard, as if the city was generally considered to be an affliction, something to be borne with a brave face. We pass Sausage Meat Suppliers, Discount Hunters, a franchise of Her Majesty’s Prison, before being set down outside the main train station. I ask a florist where Philip used to live.
‘Around Pearson Park wasn’t it?’
‘And how do I get there?’
‘Down Spring Bank then up Princes Avenue.’
Half way down Spring Bank, I enter a Polish butcher shop. I don’t want anything. Just a chat really. The proprietors are from Katowice. I tell them about watching the tennis there. They seem delighted I know where they’re from. I feel bad for bothering them so point to a bucket of gherkins and say in Polish, ‘Please, that one.’ I try to give the lady a pound from my bingo money, but she won’t let me pay, shoos me out the door, like a kind neighbour sending somebody else’s child back outside to play with the others, having given them a biscuit and told them not to tell their mother.
Just before Spring Bank meets Princes Avenue, I enter a greasy spoon for breakfast. The table top is a glossy Union Jack coming away at the edges. I order chips, cheese and gravy for two quid. A food hygiene certificate on the wall (1997) tells me that John Green is in charge. I assume it’s John Green at the helm today. Only a boss could be so chipper.
‘You’re happy today.’
‘I’m always like this. I’ve only had three hours sleep. I’m a professional entertainer. I’m flipping nuts, to tell the truth.’
‘How do you entertain exactly?’
‘Bit of comedy, bit of karaoke. It doesn’t take much round ’ere.’
‘And do you like Hull?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m from ’ere!’
I head north on Princes Avenue until I reach Pearson Park. I know Larkin lived on the south side of the park but which house? I fancy it’s the one at the end of the terrace. (I saw a documentary last week which contained footage of Mr Miserable coming home from work.) Despite his miserable reputation, there’s something strangely buoyant and cheering about a lot of Larkin’s poems. ‘Aubade’, for instance, is about death for the most part but makes me want to live. And there’s a couple of others about working life, about the drudgery of it, the slow, long routine. The toad life, he called it. I can’t say the toad poems made me want to go to work, but they did make me smile at life, and how we tend to live it. A few years ago, on the 30th anniversary of Larkin’s death, the city commissioned 40 toad sculptures to be scattered around the city. There was a toad that looked like Larkin sat outside the library. There was a toad that had a Mohican, and another that was gender-neutral. The toads were obviously very popular because half of them were stolen. I stick my head over the front gate for a better look. My hunch is correct: a small blue plaque confirms that Larkin lived upstairs. It’s a bit ramshackle: the garden needs tending, and there’s a sizeable hole in the front room window, through which a small girl watches my clumsy attempt to open her gate. I wonder if she’s a little Larkin, a wee toad. She rushes off to tell someone that a man is trying to break into the garden. Seconds later, a woman comes out to deal with me.
‘I like his poetry, madam, and I was wondering if I could take a picture.’
‘Fine.’
‘Sorry to bother you.’
‘Used to it by now.’
‘Get a few do you?’
‘In the summer, a coach-load of Chinese pulls up once a week.’
‘I didn’t know he was translated into Chinese.’
‘He’s not.’ She turns and looks up at the house. ‘He had the top floor flat. It’s all one house now. My son-in-law had Larkin’s room done up like it used to be. The university did some filming.’
‘Yes, I think I saw that.’
‘Of course, my grandson wasn’t best pleased because it was his bedroom and it looked Edwardian. He had a few ladies up there.’
‘Your grandson?’
‘Gi’ o’er. Larkin. Not that it did him much good. His main inspiration was the park,’ she says smiling and closing the door, giving me a clue it’s time to move on.
I go to the park. A man on a bench is drinking beer and watching the ducks, while a father and daughter sit cross-legged on the grass and share an ice cream. A Polish family – I can tell by the cries of ‘kurwa!’ and ‘nie!’ – are playing football, using a statue of another immigrant – Prince Albert – for one of the goalposts. A woman in a headscarf and leggings is using the outdoor gym equipment, while a young girl in neither rides on the back of her granddad’s mobility scooter, pointing the way. They alight at the pond to feed the ducks bread, which they shouldn’t really, because an easy diet of bread makes them lazy and can even prevent them from flying. People think they’re doing a good thing but in fact they’re screwing things up. It’s a pity, really.
I’m outside the train station with ten minutes left. A wedding party is put down in the taxi rank. I watch the ladies correct their dresses and hats, each grinning and squalling after early champagne. I go through to the station concourse. There’s a statue of Larkin done in bronze with spectacles and a suit and a folder under his arm, as if he were on his way somewhere. Here and there, excerpts from Larkin’s poems have been added to the floor. Scanning the departure boards for news of the delayed Skegness service, the locals get to stand on sentiments, bide their time on lines that are both sad and not sad. I peer between my feet. Struck, I leant more promptly out next time, more curiously, and saw it all again in different terms. I like that one, as I like all these lowly scraps that have been taken from their harbouring wholes and settled beneath us, to be stood on mostly but sometimes seen and taken on board, as we wait, as we all wait, for that delayed Skegness train, or the 1.20 to London. I take a few paces forward, homeward that is, then look down once more. Always it is by bridges that we live. Hmm. Nothing wrong with ending on the words of another.
Acknowledgements
Giulia Spinicci for sorting out your nan’s flat for me. Mike Lamont for the cheese factory. Erin Trummer-Lamont for feedback on the cover. My dad for low rent and hot dinners. Charlotte Horton and Alexander Greene for giving me the afternoons off. Sylvia Whitman and Shakespeare & Company for ongoing support. Kim and Stephan Menzies for two stints in Majorca. Tony Moult and Marietta Milewska for hiring me despite my lack of qualification or motivation. Julia Klorek for doing similar. My friends and family for their sustained and sincere interest in what I’ve been up to the last couple of years. Megan Menzies for lending both ears and much of your heart. Jenny Suska for reading the third draft to make it Pole-proof (‘Benny, if you publish that you’ll be arrested’). Anna J for taking me to a wedding, for improving my face, for being wonderful. Patrick Ney for answering my call. Mother Stefania for not kicking me out. Jerzy up in the mountains for starting my fire. Hubert for granting me an audience with a hundred cows. Christian Davies for watching the England–Belgium game with me in Warsaw. Ellen Conlon and everyone else at Icon for making the book better. Ed Wilson for doing the deal. The European Union for making such a migration possible in the first place. All the Poles in the UK for giving me something to bounce off. Anita Anioł for being kind to a stranger. Richard Morgan for plenty of things. Auntie Jo for coming over to run the Poznań half marathon against all common sense. Oliver and Kev for carrying her home. My friends that also came over for that race – Cheesy, Mezza, Chaz, Tommy, Jimbo, Dinita. Tim Hague for helping with the BBQ. Chris Chappell for being the first to come out. Michael Moran, the most refined Australian I’m likely to meet, for sharing a few thoughts that time. John Borrell, the most refined New Zealander I’m likely to meet, for sharing a few thoughts that other time. Friends from Poznań – Tessa, Dominic, Marcin, Magda, Max, Malwina, Maciej Kautz, Helena, Gosia, Mateusz, Natalia, Piotr, Mirek, Alina, Paulina, Walt – for making me realise that Polish people are on average far more sophisticated and charming than I am. Gabriella Cederström for changing words. Małgorzata Hordyk for the same. Ania and Czesiu for your big hearts and wise words. Joanna Suska for lending your eye for design. Andrzej for giving me a lift home in your van. Agnieszka and Przemek for letting me into your house. Jacek and Irena and Dominic and Ola and Wojciech and Grace and Danka and Szymon and Przemek and Marek for making my Christmas. Olek for drawing me a picture. The Department for Work and Pensions for its support at the end of 2018, when I quit my job as a carer in order to get the book finished. The country of Poland for returning from the moon, and the people of Poland for giving me plenty to chew on. Phillip Larkin for providing a wonderful terminus.
PERMISSIONS
Text from A Country in the Moon © Michael Moran, Granta, 2009.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
Text from The Moon Under Water by George Orwell
(Copyright © George Orwell, 1946). Reprinted by
permission of Bill Hamilton as the Literary Executor
of the Estate of the Late Sonia Brownell Orwell.
Text from Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney
reprinted with permission of the publisher, Faber and Faber Ltd
Text from The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin
reprinted with permission of the publisher, Faber and Faber Ltd
Text from The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin,
edited by Archie Burnett, reprinted with permission
of the publisher, Faber and Faber Ltd
Copyright
Published in the UK in 2019
by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,
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ISBN: 978–178578–558–0
eISBN: 978–178578–559–7
Text copyright © 2019 Ben Aitken
The author has asserted his moral rights.
Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of the material reproduced in this book. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to make acknowledgement on future editions if notified.
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Ben Aitken, A Chip Shop in Poznań
