FOR RESALE’ label, especially since the bottles carried another reassuring promise: ‘EXPORT STRENGTH’.
‘Listen,’ said Oskar, with a mischievous look, ‘if you’re short of cash, I could always get you a shift on the site.’ Dropping his fork he grabbed Janusz’s hand, and turning it over to check the palm, chuckled. ‘Kurwa! All this wheeling and dealing’ – he used the English phrase – ‘gave you hands like a schoolgirl’s! You wouldn’t last five minutes on a real job.’ He scooped up another tottering forkful of bigos. ‘You want to come over later, watch some football?’
‘I can’t tonight,’ said Janusz. ‘I’ve got a ticket for a lecture at the Royal Institute – one of the physicists from the CERN project.’
Oskar frowned. ‘That big metal doughnut in Switzerland – the one that keeps blowing a fuse?’ he asked. ‘Something to do with the First Bang?’
Janusz nodded – it was easier.
‘They say the universe will collapse one day, you know,’ said Oskar, adopting a scholarly air. He clapped his hands to demonstrate: ‘Pfouff! Down to the size of a beach ball.’ Before he could offer any further cosmological insights, the café door rattled open to admit three lanky buzz-cut youngsters, dwarfed by their rucksacks. Their loud voices exuded confidence, but the way the trio hung close together, shoulders almost touching, told the real story. First-timers, thought Janusz, straight off the 0830 Ryanair flight from Warsaw. When the tallest one spotted Oskar his relief was palpable.
Joining the men at their table, the boys greeted them politely. Oskar balled his checked napkin and after wiping the grease from his lips, punched out a number on his mobile.
‘Czesc, Wassily, you old hedgehog-fucker,’ he bellowed. ‘You still looking for ground-breakers? I’ve got three beauties for you – real musclemen.’ He winked at Janusz. The youngsters exchanged apprehensive glances, shrugged. ‘I’ll bring them over now.’
Oskar levered himself up from the table on powerful arms with a sigh. ‘Some of us have man’s work to do,’ he told Janusz. ‘I’ll put your name on a dozen cases, kolego, but if you can get cash for more by tomorrow, let me know.’
Oskar departed, trailed by his clutch of new recruits, but at the café’s threshold he turned.
‘Remember what we used to say when we were skinny-arsed conscripts shivering in the barracks?’ he shouted to Janusz. ‘Life is like toilet paper …’
Janusz finished the saying for him: ‘… very long and full of crap.’
The rectangle of oak slid open and Janusz bent his head to the aperture.
‘I present myself before the Holy Confession, for I have offended God.’
He shifted in his creaking seat and coughed, a bassy smoker’s rumble. Through the wire mesh, he could make out Father Piotr Pietruski’s reassuring profile, topped by his unruly shock of white hair.
‘It has been, uh, three months since my last confession,’ he said.
‘Six, faktycznie,’ corrected the priest. ‘I did hope that we would see you at Midnight Mass, at least.’
‘I’m sorry, father. I’ve had a lot of … business to attend to.’
Unconsciously, he clenched his right hand, stretching the grazed knuckles white.
The priest tugged at his earlobe – it was a familiar gesture, but whether it signalled resignation, or exasperation, Janusz never could tell. He felt a surge of affection for the old guy: Father Pietruski had always looked out for him, from that first morning more than two decades ago when he’d showed up here after a 48-hour bender, rain-soaked, wild-eyed and stinking of wodka.
Back then, before every inner-city high street had its own Polski Sklep, homesick Poles had beat a path to St Stanislaus, hidden away down an Islington back street. English Catholic churches, all modern steel and concrete, were unappealing, but St Stan’s was solid, nineteenth century, its stone structure curvaceous as a mother’s cheek, and since the mass was conducted in Polish it had felt almost like being at home. And the shop in its crypt where you could buy real kielbasa, cheesecake and plums in chocolate, didn’t hurt either.
These days he wasn’t even sure he still believed in all the mumbo jumbo, so why did he still come? Partly, he supposed, because the church felt like the last remaining pillar of the old Poland, a place where respect and honour were valued above all else. Or maybe because he’d never forget how Father Pietruski had found the drunken boy a bed, fed him lemon tea, and later on, put him in touch with a foreman looking for site labourers.
Even if it meant the old bastard never got off his case.
‘Have there been any recent incidents of violence?’ asked the priest.
‘One scumbag who was beating his wife. She came to me for help.’
‘And?’
‘I like to help women. I helped her. He decided to get another hobby,’ Janusz shrugged, pressing a smile from his lips. Better not to mention the woman in question was his girlfriend.
The older man sighed. It was never straightforward with this one: his methods might be unsanctionable, but his instincts were often sound.
‘Anything else to trouble your immortal soul?’ Janusz detected a trace of sarcasm.
‘Sins of the flesh, father.’ A sudden image: a rumpled bed, the rosy S of a woman’s naked back, Kasia’s, framed by an oblong of light. ‘The normal things.’
‘These “things” are not normalne. You are a married man: that sacrament is indissoluble!’ The priest actually rapped out each syllable with his knuckles on the mesh.
The old fellow had – unusually for him – raised his voice, stirring up a little rush of whispers from outside the box, where, Janusz knew, a bevy of old dears would be waiting to confess their imagined sins. Maybe the priest was right, but what was he supposed to do? He and Marta had read the last rites over their marriage long ago, and he wasn’t cut out to be a monk.
‘Yes, father,’ Janusz bowed his head a fraction. The exchange didn’t alter much with the years. It was a pain, yes, to be lectured, but like the church’s smell – incense, spent candlewicks and ancient dust – it was strangely comforting, too.
‘I know you and Marta have been estranged for many years,’ Father Pietruski continued, his voice lower, but still firm. ‘Nonetheless, you must try again – for the sake of the boy, at least. Build some bridges with her, hmm?’
Janusz moved his head in a gesture that he hoped might pass for assent. The priest waited for something less ambiguous – in vain.
‘Say three Hail Mary’s and the act of contrition,’ he said, blessing Janusz with his right hand, ‘And I’ll meet you at The Eagle in half an hour.’
Janusz stood and stooped to leave the box, the step loosing off a gunshot crack. The ladies outside rustled with excitement, like birds disturbed at their roost.
‘Dzien dobry, paniom,’ he bowed, recognising many of the faces. They chirped greetings
