198 days to go
Yesterday
was our 50th anniversary. It was a quiet low-key affair, with no
friends, no big expense. Albina had it as she wanted it, to spend time
uninterrupted with me alone. We saw a film at the Westfield Vue. It was “Bullet
Train”, an extraordinary feast of violence as various assassins run into each
other and interact with extreme sanction, on a bullet train rushing from Tokyo
to Kyoto, a route I am familiar with. Brad Pitt is in his element as a
philosophical somewhat absent-minded killer. We see about 50 or so brutal
deaths against which we become totally anaesthetized by the repetitive action
and by a sharp upbeat script mellowed by mood music and songs. Not many jokes
in the script, however. Albina appeared to be happy with the film. Afterwards,
we went back to Brentford by bus and had a meal at the Holiday Inn Hotel.
I gave her
a pretty ring with 3 amethysts interspersed with mini-diamonds, with which she
was delighted. I know she likes jewellery with inset stones, not stones that
jut out and get in the way. Also, the amethyst is her birth stone. However, my
intention was to buy her a diamond ring for £2000 or so. Over the years I have
given her rings with sapphires, rubies and emeralds, as well as pendants with
other stones, such as tanzanite and peridot. A decent diamond would complete the
quest.
Unfortunately,
I was completely fucked up by Barclays Bank on this. For 3 years I have avoided
using a credit card and cut up my last platinum card. I do all my spending from my debit card. However, I reordered my
former platinum card 2 weeks ago to be able to get her a proper ring. Instead
of a credit card, the bank then sent me a new debit card which I did not need. At the
last moment the previous Sunday I convinced a lady at Barclays to send me the
missing credit card. Instead, on the last Friday before the day, they sent my
wife a credit card which she did not need. I was left high and dry, and at
the last minute had to make other plans. Albina was unaware and seemed pleased
with the ring I had bought her at the last moment, but I was incandescent with
rage. No diamond ring and still no credit card. So for me it was a tense frustrating day.
Albina has
been worn out over the years by long night shifts at the airport and illnesses,
as well as by her difficult childhood as an orphan. But sitting opposite her I
still remember the soft spoken shy golden-haired beauty whom I married in a
secret ceremony in Wandsworth Civic Centre in 1972. There were only three
witnesses, and I only informed my bewildered parents a week later. It was all
both foolish and romantic. We had met in 1969 when she lived for 5 weeks in my
parents’ house in Ealing and worked in my mother’s restaurant kitchen in
Gloucester Road at the SPK Club. She was pretty and quiet as a church mouse,
wishing to avoid everyone’s notice. It was her first time abroad and she did
not speak a word of English. I showed her London and we got very intimate, to
my father’s horror, as he thought her a Communist plant. After a month she went
back to Poland. Initially we corresponded, then she fell for another guy, and for 3 years we lost touch.
In the
summer of 1972, she rang me out of the blue and said her aunt was going to invite her to
England and if she came, could she please see me. I said yes straight away. I was excited. Then she
rang very disconsolate some weeks later, saying her aunt had other priorities.
Without hesitation I said, don’t worry as I will invite her myself. Only then
the trouble began, as I was pestered by two police visits. They asked me why I
was inviting a young lady from Poland. To shake off the Home Office, I resolved
to marry her as soon as she arrived and afterwards, as my wife, she would be able
to travel back and forth between Poland and the UK without hindrance. So there. That was my logic. I had not given any thought how we would live together, and where. I only revealed my plan to her the evening she arrived. I pressed her for an
answer, and she quickly agreed, but she asked why I had not warned her of my
intention. I said that I didn’t tell her because if I had warned her, she
probably would not have come. “Well, you’re right,” she said.
She had
only come for five weeks again, and I just had the time to sort out the licence
with Wandsworth Civic Centre (at the time I lived in a commune in Battersea, as
we were all employees of Davies Turner and Co.). For witnesses we had my former
university flat mate John Roberts and his wife Anne, as well as Włodek
Szechter, who had come to take photographs. Anne had earlier taken her to the junior
section at Harrods and bought her a pretty white and yellow dress and I was
wearing the green suit I had bought earlier that year in Carnaby Street. It was
all very sweet. Albina repeated the marriage vows word for word in English on
the script she was presented with, stumbling only over the word “matrimony”, and not
understanding one word. Then she read the pre-prepared text again in Polish. Włodek
took photos, we had a meal with our guests, and I took her next day to a
Commissioner of Oaths to swear loyalty to the Queen as a British subject. Three
days later we both went abroad, me to Italy as a guide, and Albina back to Poland. It
was only after she had left that I told my parents and friends. They all
thought we were mad. A madcap decision made impulsively with no chance of
lasting. Well, that was 50 years ago and we’re still an item.
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