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Troubador Publishing Ltd - Polly Courtney

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192 pages

English

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Description

"You're lucky, being a girl. You can always get au pair work. Or a job in a Polish bakery - apparently they're springing up all over London". Marta grits her teeth and nods. She is used to this now: the assumption that she has come to England to abandon her career and make a fortune changing nappies and cleaning floors. It couldn't be further from the truth.Poles Aparttells the story of an ambitious young graduate from the outskirts of Warsaw who moves to London in search of fresh challenges and the opportunity to make a name for herself. But it's harder than she had anticipated. Her qualifications are unpronounceable - let alone recognisable - and the workplace isn't the only area riddled with prejudice. Marta's new set of 'friends' are quick to turn their backs on the newcomer, as are the men in her life - of which there are many. Based on a true story,Poles Apartis an insightful, funny, cynical look at London life through the eyes of a young migrant. It is a book for anyone who has ever encountered preconceptions or prejudice.

Informations

Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	01 septembre 2008
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781848767188
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Polly Courtney, 28, lives in London where she divides her time between writing and sports-related projects. Her first novel, Golden Handcuffs, exposed the truth about living and working as a ‘high flyer’ in the square mile. In stark contrast yet with some surprising parallels, Poles Apart is an eye-opening depiction of what it’s really like to be a young migrant in London today.

Copyright © 2020 Polly Courtney
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and PatentsAct 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, inany form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of thepublishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance withthe terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiriesconcerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, eventsand incidents are either the products of the author’s imaginationor used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons,living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Matador
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Email: books@troubador.co.uk
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ISBN 9781848767188
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
Thanks to the real Marta, whose story inspired me to write Poles Apart, and to everyone else who helped make it happen.
PROLOGUE
“HAH! DRINK UP – you’re using the wrong hand!” squawked Rosie, quick to point out Holly’s error. “It’s European Drinking Regulations here, you know. In the first half of the hour, you drink with your left! Don’t you know anything?” She gleefully filled Holly’s glass and sat back in her chair to watch, pouting.
Obligingly, Holly downed her red wine. She was good at drinking games, but this evening, new rules kept creeping in that everybody else seemed to know about except her. European Drinking Regulations , for God’s sake. They were so cliquey, the South Kensington lot. She had never warmed to them. If Tash hadn’t begged her to come over tonight, she would have made up an excuse and come round to see the place another time.
They were playing an intellectual version of twenty-ones, which involved turning your number into a roman numeral, then converting I, V and X into ‘ooh’, ‘yeah’ and ‘not there’ respectively. You could tell they were bloody Oxbridge, thought Holly.
“Ooh, not there!” Tom moaned loudly.
“Not there!” shrieked Plum. Holly watched as the girl flicked her hair in the direction of Jack, Tash’s boyfriend. Plum (real name Victoria) had no morals – but then, as far as Holly could tell, neither did Jack. She wondered whether they’d ever actually done anything behind Tash’s – “Oh, not there, ooh, yeah!” she said, just in time.
“Hesitation!” chimed Rosie and Plum triumphantly. “You can’t say ‘oh’! See it away!”
Holly knocked back more wine, white this time. Jeremy, sitting opposite, was looking down his long, unattractive nose at her, swilling what looked like Port in his glass. Some house-warming, thought Holly.
“Not there, not there, oooooh!” cried Tash hysterically, before realising that the joke was on her. She sulkily polished off her wine. Emerging from the bowl-sized glass, she waved her hand. “Ooh – I forgot to tell you! I have some news! Bad news,” she said dramatically. “As of next week, this lovely, beautiful house that mummy and daddy have given me will not be mine any more!”
The others around the table acted suitably shocked and surprised. This was Tash’s style: melodramatic. Holly had got wise to it, having lived with Tash during their second year at university. She had famously reported an intruder to the police when the electrician she’d booked came round to change the light bulbs.
“No! I’ve been told that I am to share it…” A long pause… “With a Polish girl!”
Again, astonishment all round.
“She’s from a small village just outside Warsaw – called Loopoopski or something – and mummy is allowing her to stay for as long as she wants! Oh – and listen to this. They’re charging her fifty pounds a week. For a place in South Kensington!” There were gasps and shaking heads. “Fifty pounds!”
“Who is she?” asked Plum, as though referring to a nasty disease.
“Mummy used to help organise foreign exchange trips, ages ago,” Tash explained, “and she stayed in touch with one of the teachers. So this is the teacher’s daughter.”
“Does she have a name, this teacher’s daughter?” asked Holly, fed up with the undertones of this conversation: the implication that this girl wasn’t good enough for South Kensington.
“Marta,” Tash replied. “Oh and don’t ask me to pronounce her surname–”
“Polovski?”
“Smithovski?”
“Powchowska?” came the helpful suggestions from round the table.
“Oh – it is something like that. Dabrowska! That’s it!”
“We’ve got a Polish bagel shop just opened near us,” Jeremy announced, as though this was interesting.
“They’re everywhere, Poles, these days,” declared Jack disdainfully. “The government’s letting them in to do all the jobs we Brits don’t want to do.” He snorted. “Still… she’d better be bloody attractive.” He yelped as Tash presumably pinched him under the table.
“Sorry.” He flashed a cheeky smile at Plum.
“Actually, I have a photo,” said Tash, pushing back her chair and stretching out to the antique dresser. “She looks… well…” she screwed up her face, squinting. “Polish.”
Holly leaned forward to get a glimpse of the photo, which Jack was eyeing up approvingly. The image was of a tall, leggy girl in tight jeans and a sweatshirt not dissimilar to the type Holly had worn as a teenager. It may even have been from the early nineties, she thought, cringing at the lurid colours. The girl had long brown hair cut in no particular style and a pale complexion. Despite the amateurishly taken photo – snapped outside what looked like a concrete bunker – it was impossible not to be drawn by the girl’s eyes: icy blue, turning up at the edges in a momentary smile.
“Well, I think it’d be nice to have a housemate,” declared Holly. “It’s a massive place – you’d rattle around in it on your own.”
“I’m sure I’d find things to do,” replied Tash, talking more to her boyfriend than anyone else.
“I can’t believe your parents are letting an Eastern European immigrant be their first tenant!” squealed Rosie.
Tash shook her head, rolling her eyes. “Frankly, neither can I.”
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
1
“LOOK, IT’S NOT AS IF I’m going into space,” joked Marta, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s only a short flight away.”
Her parents smiled and glanced at one another. The smiles didn’t reach their eyes. What Marta had neglected to mention, and what they were all thinking, was that short flights cost money. She wouldn’t be popping back for a weekend any time soon.
Her best friend, Anka, was avoiding eye contact. Marta could tell she was about to cry. Marta’s brother and sister were just staring at her.
“God, stop being so morbid, all of you!” cried Marta. “We all have phones, don’t we? And email? Well, sort of,” she added, remembering the last time she’d tried connecting to the internet in Łomianki library.
Marta glanced up at the departures board and the others did the same. Her flight was boarding. “I’d better go through,” she said, suddenly feeling worms in her stomach. This was it. She was about to leave her country. This was the last time she’d see mama and tata, Anka, her brother and sister – for at least a year.
They were so close, their family – sometimes too close, in their little townhouse. She couldn’t imagine them not being around her. Mama running up the stairs to chase her brother out of bed in the mornings, tata chiding her sister for not taking long enough over her homework, the five of them sitting down to dinner together every night – pierogi or gołąbki – and her brother whinging that he wanted to watch TV… this was life, for Marta. It had been for the last twenty-two years.
Anka stepped forwards and finally dared to look Marta in the eye. There were tears in hers. “Będę za Tobą tęsknić, Marta.” I’ll miss you. Then she pulled away and delved in her bag. She’d dressed up for the occasion, Marta noted. Anka always looked stylish, but today she had on long drainpipe jeans and a tight sparkly black top beneath the old brown coat she always wore. The glittery eye shadow had gone to waste, thought Marta, watching it stream down her cheeks.
“Open this when you get there, OK?” Anka instructed, chewing on her bottom lip to stop her jaw wobbling. It was a sizeable parcel, wrapped in what looked like magazines and brown tape. “Sorry about the paper.”
Marta hugged her. She could feel Anka’s body heaving with every sob. She was determined not to cry, not to falter; she wanted to leave them with an image of strength and resolve. But to Marta’s dismay, she felt her eyes welling up.
They had been best friends ever since Marta had rescued Anka