Verity made her way along the pavement looking in shop windows, all closed up for the evening. She slowed outside a shop selling music cassettes, her mind drifting to Hugh – maybe she would buy one for him. He liked Madonna and Cher. The shop was bound to have one or the other. She pressed her hand against the shop window, and lowered her head. God, she missed her brother. She’d only spoken to him on the rare times she could get a call past Pippa, and it was never enough to quench her need.

She headed down some steps into a jazz bar in the basement of a building, approached the bar. ‘Vodka, proszę,’ she said. ‘Double,’ she added, holding up two fingers.

She found a table in the corner; sat down with her drink. She planned to leave as soon as the music started at nine; unable to cope with happy couples writhing to the sound of a saxophone, the intoxicating voices of jazz singers.

Maybe she should go home to England. Face Flynn House.

An hour later she knocked back her third drink, was about to rise.

‘Czy to miejsce jest zajęte?’ The man was average height, muscular, his dark hair cropped short, his eyes piercing blue.

She knew a little Polish from her phrase book, but he spoke fast. Her face must have shown her confusion.

‘Is this seat free?’

She nodded, expecting him to take it to another table. But he sat down opposite her, placed his glass of clear liquid on the table.

She had been about to leave, hadn’t she? She should really get back to her accommodation. But something made her stay. This man, whoever he was, stirred something inside her she’d never felt before. She raised her hand to catch the waiter’s eye.

‘Vodka, proszę,’ she said as he approached.

The man looked at her smiled. ‘My name is Mikolaj.’

‘Verity.’

She soon learnt he was a builder, working on the new airport terminal.

‘I’m staying in a crappy bedsit nearby,’ he said, his English good, his accent twisting her stomach in a good way. She sensed he could see inside her head, knew what she was feeling. And as the evening drew to a close, he brushed her hair from her cheek, and told her she was a beautiful English rose.

*

‘Pippa’s pregnant,’ Hugh told Verity in the December of 1988, his voice full of emotion. ‘We’re so happy, V. Be pleased for us.’

‘I am! That’s great news.’ She meant it. She was pleased for her little brother, because she now had her beautiful Mikolaj. Hugh and her past were slotted away at the back of her mind. She was happy. Convinced her new lover – her new obsession – would never let her down.

Chapter 22

Halloween Weekend 2019

Alice