by Lesley Kelly
One of his pals had a brother living in Edinburgh, so the pair of them took the next train North. Old Joe’d got a few bob in his pocket from the demob, so when he got to Edinburgh he decided he was going to get a room to himself. Lebensraum. He’d never had a room all to himself before, between his sisters, the labour farm, then five years sharing with other squaddies, but Joe decided – the good life started here.
He waved goodbye to his friend then wandered down the cobbled streets of Edinburgh until he saw a ‘Room to Let’ sign and chapped the door. An old wife answered.
‘I looking for room.’
The old wife looked him up, and down.
Joe, sensing reluctance on her part, tried to reassure her. ‘I have money. Can pay good.’
‘Oh, aye. And what’s your name, son?’
‘Josef Wiśniewski,’ he said proudly.
To his surprise the woman started shaking her head. Through the rapidly closing door she said, ‘Oh no, son, I’m not having any of you Poles staying here. You lot should be long gone by now.’
And with this welcome to Scotland, Joe realised that not everyone was all that grateful for their war effort.
Joe was sleeping on a bedroom floor with five other men and working twelve-hour shifts down Leith Docks. But he was not without ambition. He could do well in this country, he thought, if only he could be a bit more, well, British. He looked at his fellow Poles, all living on top of each other, drinking themselves insensible at weekends, and wondered if there wasn’t more to life than this.
One Sunday morning he was out for a walk when he saw a sign in a newsagent’s window. ‘English lessons. Good rates. Enquire within.’ Suddenly it all became clear to Joe. He was going to improve his English, get a job in an office and go to night school. He’d get his degree, get a better job and woo some Scottish lassie. He pushed open the door to the newsagent’s and nearly fell over the step in his haste to begin his self-improvement.
Miss Ailsa Morrison was a very proper-looking young woman. She explained that she was a qualified primary school teacher and was offering English lessons in the evenings. Her father did not approve of her teaching foreigners so she was holding the lessons in the back room of the newsagent’s. She named her price.
In the first lesson he learned about English nouns, and noticed how beautiful Miss Ailsa Morrison’s eyes [noun] were. The second lesson covered verbs and adverbs, and Joe noticed how delightful Miss Ailsa Morrison’s laugh was. She laughed [verb] beautifully [adverb]. By the time they reach prepositions he realised he was completely in [preposition] love with Miss Ailsa Morrison.
Ailsa, for her part, played her cards close to her chest. It must have been obvious to any observer that she’d got a lovesick Pole on her hands, but she didn’t encourage, or for that matter, discourage, him. She was, however, happy to listen to his stories at the end of each lesson. He told her about his family, his experiences in Italy, and what life was like for him in Scotland. When he suggested they meet for a walk one Sunday afternoon, she blushingly accepted.
After six months of careful tutoring, Joe felt confident that his English was good enough to start implementing his plan. So he headed into town and presented himself at the first office he came to. There were three men in the office, so he addressed himself to the one who looked the most senior.
‘I am looking for work.’
The man looked him up and down in a way that was becoming familiar. ‘Oh aye. And who might you be?’
‘My name is Josef Wiśniewski.’ Joe hated himself for the small hint of defensiveness now in his tone.
The two other men sniggered.
‘The boss doesn’t employ papes.’
Joe thanked them for their time, and hurried back to find out what a ‘pape’ was.
‘Oh, Joe,’ said Ailsa, ‘It’s a rude word for a Catholic.’
Joe considered this new information. ‘But I do not go to church. How do they know I am Catholic?’
‘Well, your name I suppose.’ Ailsa sighed. ‘It’s a Polish name and Polish people are Catholic.’
‘I fight a war for this. I fight for Poland and now I cannot get accommodation and I cannot get job because of my Polish name.’
‘Oh, Joe,’ said Ailsa again. ‘I’m so sorry.’ And she took his hand.
They were sitting side-by-side in the room at the back of the newsagent’s. The newsagent had gone home.
‘Do not be sorry. It is not your fault. My name is my name and I proud of it.’
Ailsa was so moved that tears welled up in her eyes. Joe noticed her distress and wiped the tears away with his calloused hand. They were sitting very, very close together.
‘Oh, Joe,’ said Ailsa for the final time that evening. Joe put a finger to her lips and kissed her.
‘We can’t, Joe.’
They were sitting a respectable distance apart in the back room of the newsagent’s.
Joe threw his hands up in a gesture of disbelief. ‘I learn the words for nothing.’
‘And you said it beautifully,’ said Ailsa, tactfully ignoring the fact that he had just asked her to marry ‘it’. ‘But my father will never approve of me marrying a foreigner.’
Joe leaned forward and took Ailsa’s hand again. ‘Why not? I work hard, I get better job, I work harder for you and for our babies.’
‘The babies are the problem.’ Ailsa pulled her hands back to her lap. My father’s never going to accept his grandchildren growing up called Wiśniewski.’
Joe got to his feet. In one sentence Ailsa had confirmed all his fears. He walked slowly out of the room, and was halfway through the shop before he heard Ailsa call his name. He paused, looking at the tins of peas and the posters about sugar rationing.
‘I can still give you English lessons.’
He shook his head and opened the door.
Joe wandered the street for hours that night. He asked himself ‘in my position, what would Queen Elizabeth II do?’ (although I’m not sure she’d really have the frame of reference to imagine herself as a penniless twenty-four-year old Pole). But in a blinding flash of royal inspiration, Joe realised what Bessie would do, old Miss Saxe-Coburg-Gotha herself. What she would do is change her name to that of an inoffensive local town. So, he borrowed a map of the UK from work, closed his eyes, crossed himself for luck, rotated his arm three times above his head and came down hard.
On Staines.
Three days later he marched into the Victoria Street Registry Office and changed his name by deed poll. On 24th July 1948 Josef Alojzy Wiśniewski officially became Joseph Aloysius Staines.
Now, I’m not saying that things couldn’t have been worse. A couple of inches northwest and I’d be going through life as Joseph Bishop’s Itchington. At least that would have spared me a lifetime of ‘stain’ puns. In Joe’s position I might even have done the same thing. I can relate to his motives: he was too proud of his name to change it to get better digs, or a half-decent job, but the first whiff of a bit of skirt and he’d renounced all his patriotic fervour. I’ve done enough daft things over lassies myself.
And, I know that there was no malice in it. Old Joe didn’t realise when he went into the Registry Office, the repercussions his act would have twenty-five years later. He didn’t know the impact on my first day of primary school when the teacher sat us in alphabetical order. If old Joe hadn’t messed with nature I would have been nestling safely in between George Thompson, who went on to be Dux of the school, and Angela Young, who everyone agreed was the prettiest Gala Queen they’d ever clapped eyes on. I could have spent my formative years sandwiched between brains and beauty.
Instead, on my first day of school I sat down, turned my head, and stared into the fat, four-eyed face of Lachlan Stoddart.
Monday
The boot is removed from my neck, and I roll over and take a few choking mouthfuls of air. A hand reaches down and pulls me up.
‘Thanks, pal,’ I say, but I’ve no idea who I am talking to.
‘Thi
s way,’ says the voice and pushes me toward the kitchen.
I bump into the kitchen table and bounce my backside into one of the kitchen chairs. The mystery man flicks the switches back on in the fuse box and the weak light of Father Paul’s economy bulbs fills the kitchen.
‘Surprised to see me, Stainsie?’
Standing opposite me and looking mighty pleased with himself is, well, I don’t actually know his name, but I know he’s one of Mrs Stoddart’s thugs. I’d never troubled to find out what he was called – to me he was just one of the laddies with pit bulls that followed her everywhere and I wasn’t that keen to pursue a friendship with them.
‘Good to see you, eh…’
‘Bruce.’
We sit for a minute in silence. He pulls a bit of fluff off his leather jacket. He’s a bit of a dapper dresser, is Bruce. I remember that much about him. I can’t recall ever seeing him dressed in anything other than head-to-foot black, which makes a nice contrast with his heavily highlighted hair. I like that kind of attention to detail in a thug; half his time spent kicking the shit out of OAPs who can’t meet the 2000% APR on their debts, the other half drinking tea and leafing through Heat magazine in some lassies’ hairdresser’s or other.
‘Can I get you a cup of something, Bruce?’
‘No, no, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll just say my piece and be on my way. Now, the thing is, I believe that you’ve got something that belongs to me.’
This confuses me a little. As far as I was aware the sum total of my possessions is a rucksack full of dirty washing. ‘I’m not quite with you, Bruce.’
He leans back in his chair, contemplating his perfectly-manicured nails, and sighs. ‘Then I’d better start at the beginning. I’ve been Mrs Stoddart’s right-hand man for some years now, as we both know.’
If you say so. I rack my brains to see if there could be any truth in the statement. Bruce looks about a year or two younger than me, and I’d first become aware of him and his highlights maybe five, six years ago. Did that make him a likely candidate for taking over the Stoddart empire? Still, this wasn’t the time or place for that kind of debate. I nod furiously.
‘Oh aye, Bruce, I know that.’
‘And me and Mrs S had an understanding. Lachie, God rest his soul, was not what you’d call a businessman.’
Too right. The poor bastard didn’t know his arse from his elbow never mind which way up a balance sheet would go.
‘Mrs S was relying on me to look after the family business if anything were to happen to her. Which it has, God rest her soul. So, I start looking into her affairs and what do I find? The one-and-only copy of her tallybook is missing.’
Aw Christ.
‘I respectfully ask Lachie if he’s seen it recently, and the daft little prick – God rest his soul – says that he’s given it to you.’
Bruce gets up and wanders over to the kitchen dresser. He pulls out a knife; using the knowledge I gained at catering college, I’d say it was a boning knife, ideal for cutting through raw meat and possibly small bones. With the knowledge I’ve gained in the years since I left catering college, I’d say it was very bad news indeed for me.
He sits back down at the table, and starts working the point of the knife into the wood. He’s making quite a mess of the polished surface. Father Paul’s not going to be too happy about that. Then I think that that’s really the least of my worries, seeing as the last time I saw Ma Stoddart’s tallybook it was floating down the River Tyne. Bruce continues with his theme.
‘And I was a bit worried at first because I thought that Lachie’s jakey pal is an even dafter wee prick than he was. But then, then, I thought even Stainsie will know what that book is worth. He’ll not have done anything stupid with it.’
I wouldn’t underestimate my stupidity, especially when there’s a lassie involved. ‘Aye, about that…’
‘’Cause if he was, for any reason, unable to return that book to me,’ he stabs the knife head first into the table top. He stands and uses all his weight to push it in. The knife stands upright on its own. ‘I’d cut the daft prick’s balls off.’
‘OK,’ I say, getting swiftly to my feet. ‘I don’t actually have it to hand at the moment. Is there somewhere I could deliver it to you?’
Bruce laughs but doesn’t move. ‘You’ve got one week to find it. And don’t worry about delivering it – I’ll find you. Wherever you are staying.’
He’s showing no signs of leaving so I try changing the subject.
‘So, are you still partners with that other laddie with the dog?’
‘Duncan? Naw. Him and me had a disagreement about who was in charge.’ He smiles and tries to pull the knife out of the table. It doesn’t move. He holds my gaze as he manoeuvres the blade slowly to and fro. The bloody thing still won’t shift so he starts putting a bit more welly into it. This puts an unacceptable strain on the band that’s holding his ponytail in place and his hair bursts free. On the plus side at least it means he’s not staring me out anymore, but I can’t help feeling that he’s a man that doesn’t like having his grooming interfered with. He lets out a couple of grunts then puts a stack heel on the table leg, and using all his weight, finally releases the knife, leaving a crater the size of a small orange in the table top.
He takes a minute to rearrange his hair and continues the conversation. ‘A big disagreement.’
I watch him wielding the knife. ‘How big?’
He laughs. ‘Let’s just say you’ll not be seeing him again.’
An image of the Polis finding a body in Isa’s development comes into my head.
‘When you say I’ll not be seeing him again…’
‘Unless you end up in the same place as him,’ he gestures hell-wards with the knife, ‘because you don’t get me that book.’
Clear enough. I start wondering how long I should give it after Bruce leaves before I pack up my things and get out of town. Should I wait an hour or two, or is he likely to hang around to see if I try to run off? I decide that it makes sense to hang fire until the morning.
Bruce is just about out of the door when he stops and turns round. ‘Do you know a blonde lassie that lives in the banana block? What’s her name?’ He makes a show of racking his brains. ‘Marion, is it?’
I try to look as if I don’t know who he’s on about. ‘Naw, don’t think so.’
‘Marianne!’ He smiles. ‘That’s her name, isn’t it, Stainsie? ’Cause a wee birdie tells me that you and her were pretty tight before you left town.’
I shake my head. I’m trying hard not to show that she’s the last person I want dragged into this but when I speak my voice is an octave higher than usual. I sound like a chipmunk. ‘No, honest pal, you’ve got it wrong.’
He walks back into the room and stands in front of me. I get a whiff of his aftershave as he leans forward and rests his hands on the back of my chair, one either side of my head. ‘Now, I’m not sure of all the names in Ma Stoddart’s tallybook, but I do remember that hers was in it. I just want you to know that, if for any reason, that book doesn’t reappear, say ‘cause you left town or something stupid like that, I just want you to know that I’ll be starting my debt collecting with her.’
He steps back and gives my seat a kick. I jump about a mile.
‘But I’m not an unfair man, Stainsie. If wee Marianne’s a bit short of cash, I’m willing to negotiate how she pays me.’ And in case I’ve not got the message he grabs a handful of his leather-covered groin and leers at me.
Turning on his heel he gives me a cheery wave and disappears through the door. I watch him go and wonder how much more trouble that lassie is going to get me into.
1973-1980
I enjoyed my first day at primary school. Of course, I didn’t know then that this was the first day of a suffocating friendship with a psychopath, a friendship I’d still be trapped in thirty years later. My first impression of Lachie was entirely positive. His opening line to me was, ‘I’ve got a spacehopper.’ I was too yo
ung to play it cool.
‘Really?’ I said, eyes wide.
‘Aye. And a Pong game.’
‘Fantastic.’
‘And,’ he paused for effect, ‘we’ve got a colour TV.’
That was the clincher. Lachie was going to be my new best friend. I was in it for what I could get out of him, and, to be honest, that didn’t change much over the next three decades.
Friendship with Lachie wasn’t too bad at first. He delivered on the material goods side of things, and I played my part by keeping my mouth shut and looking suitably impressed at his lifestyle. And what a lifestyle it was. On my first invitation round for tea after school I couldn’t stop myself gawping.
The Stoddarts lived in a seven-bedroom villa looking out onto Leith Links. Even in 1973 there weren’t that many of the big houses still intact, with most of them converted into apartments, or nursing homes. The ground floor of the house was used by Lachie’s dad, Guthrie, as offices; he’d sub-divided the huge front room into an office for himself, and a reception area. The reception desk was often taken up by Mrs Ainslie, who did the books for Guthrie while chain-smoking Silk Cut. The fact that Guthrie’s office didn’t have any natural daylight didn’t seem to bother him; perhaps he saw some advantage in the fact that, when the door was shut, nobody, not even Mrs Stoddart, could see what he was up to.
The rest of the ground floor was used as store rooms for Guthrie’s import/exports, with the family kitchen, living room and bedrooms on the first storey. Lachie had more or less exclusive use of the second floor.
The house had gardens that stopped just short of being labelled ‘grounds’, with a swing, climbing frame and a treehouse, all for Lachie’s use. To a laddie who’d spent his first five years in a ground-floor flat in Balfour Street, this was really living the good life.
