Mozart or Edith Piaf, and when adults raised their voices it was in greeting, not anger.
Remembering Paris always made Yvette feel shaky and sick, and today was no exception. She turned away from the window and went over to the turquoise cocktail dress on her dressmaker’s dummy. She had to set the sleeves in and have it ready for a final fitting for Mrs Silverman in Chelsea on Monday.
Forty-seven-year-old Ryszard Stanislav, known to everyone in Dale Street as ‘Stan the Pole’, was also watching Fifi and Dan from his bedsitter on the top floor of number 2. He wanted to go down to offer to help them, but he knew from experience that he would immediately be suspected of having some sinister motive.
After fifteen years here his English was excellent, but try as he might, he couldn’t lose his Polish accent. It didn’t help either that he was a dustman and lived alone; this made people think he was dirty and uncouth.
About ten years ago he’d rushed to help an old lady who had collapsed in the street. Later, after she was taken away in an ambulance, the police came, accusing him of stealing her purse. He would never forget the way they spoke to him, so bigoted, so full of hate, almost ready to string him up without a shred of real evidence against him. It transpired eventually that the old lady had left the purse at home – she found it once she was discharged from the hospital. But the police officer who came to tell Stan the charges against him had been dropped didn’t apologize. It was as if he imagined that an immigrant with a funny accent couldn’t have any feelings.
Stan had learned to ignore slights and ignorance; that he had to be dim because he was a dustman; that he’d never known anywhere better than Dale Street; or that he liked being called ‘Stan the Pole’. Sometimes he was tempted to grab people by their shoulders and insist they listen to his story before judging him. But he was only too aware that most people around here had no idea what had gone on in Poland during the war.
The truth was that he’d been a skilled carpenter with a wife and two beautiful daughters, until the Germans invaded. While he was off trying to defend his country, his wife and children were gunned down in the streets of Warsaw and his home destroyed. Stan felt he might as well have been killed too, for without his family he was nothing.
But the English didn’t understand, and how could they? Their country had never been invaded. London might have been heavily bombed, but English people had never experienced soldiers crashing into their homes in the middle of the night, or seen innocent civilians shot in the street just because they were out after curfew. He was just Stan the Pole, the man with the funny accent, another one of those immigrants who ought to leave England for the English.
As he looked down at the couple in the street below, laughing because their pile of belongings was toppling over, he realized that his daughters, if they had lived, would have been around the same age as the young blonde girl. Sabine had been dark, taking after her mother, and Sofia blonde, after him. A tear trickled unchecked down his cheek as he remembered them.
Alfie Muckle at number 11 , right opposite number 4 and next door to Yvette Dupré, was watching Fifi through ahole in the blanket which covered his bedroom window. As she bent over to pick up a box from the pavement, his cock stiffened at the sight of her pert backside in her tight jeans.
Alfie was the same age as Stan the Pole, but that was the only thing they had in common. Stan was tall and thin, with a face as sad and loose-skinned as a bloodhound’s. Alfie was short and stocky, with a round, shiny face and receding sandy hair. Stan was an intelligent, honourable man, Alfie was a liar and a thief, and what he lacked in intelligence he made up for in low cunning.
Alfie’s bedroom was representative of his entire house. Distempered walls were stained with everything
Remembering Paris always made Yvette feel shaky and sick, and today was no exception. She turned away from the window and went over to the turquoise cocktail dress on her dressmaker’s dummy. She had to set the sleeves in and have it ready for a final fitting for Mrs Silverman in Chelsea on Monday.
Forty-seven-year-old Ryszard Stanislav, known to everyone in Dale Street as ‘Stan the Pole’, was also watching Fifi and Dan from his bedsitter on the top floor of number 2. He wanted to go down to offer to help them, but he knew from experience that he would immediately be suspected of having some sinister motive.
After fifteen years here his English was excellent, but try as he might, he couldn’t lose his Polish accent. It didn’t help either that he was a dustman and lived alone; this made people think he was dirty and uncouth.
About ten years ago he’d rushed to help an old lady who had collapsed in the street. Later, after she was taken away in an ambulance, the police came, accusing him of stealing her purse. He would never forget the way they spoke to him, so bigoted, so full of hate, almost ready to string him up without a shred of real evidence against him. It transpired eventually that the old lady had left the purse at home – she found it once she was discharged from the hospital. But the police officer who came to tell Stan the charges against him had been dropped didn’t apologize. It was as if he imagined that an immigrant with a funny accent couldn’t have any feelings.
Stan had learned to ignore slights and ignorance; that he had to be dim because he was a dustman; that he’d never known anywhere better than Dale Street; or that he liked being called ‘Stan the Pole’. Sometimes he was tempted to grab people by their shoulders and insist they listen to his story before judging him. But he was only too aware that most people around here had no idea what had gone on in Poland during the war.
The truth was that he’d been a skilled carpenter with a wife and two beautiful daughters, until the Germans invaded. While he was off trying to defend his country, his wife and children were gunned down in the streets of Warsaw and his home destroyed. Stan felt he might as well have been killed too, for without his family he was nothing.
But the English didn’t understand, and how could they? Their country had never been invaded. London might have been heavily bombed, but English people had never experienced soldiers crashing into their homes in the middle of the night, or seen innocent civilians shot in the street just because they were out after curfew. He was just Stan the Pole, the man with the funny accent, another one of those immigrants who ought to leave England for the English.
As he looked down at the couple in the street below, laughing because their pile of belongings was toppling over, he realized that his daughters, if they had lived, would have been around the same age as the young blonde girl. Sabine had been dark, taking after her mother, and Sofia blonde, after him. A tear trickled unchecked down his cheek as he remembered them.
Alfie Muckle at number 11 , right opposite number 4 and next door to Yvette Dupré, was watching Fifi through ahole in the blanket which covered his bedroom window. As she bent over to pick up a box from the pavement, his cock stiffened at the sight of her pert backside in her tight jeans.
Alfie was the same age as Stan the Pole, but that was the only thing they had in common. Stan was tall and thin, with a face as sad and loose-skinned as a bloodhound’s. Alfie was short and stocky, with a round, shiny face and receding sandy hair. Stan was an intelligent, honourable man, Alfie was a liar and a thief, and what he lacked in intelligence he made up for in low cunning.
Alfie’s bedroom was representative of his entire house. Distempered walls were stained with everything
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