girls who died in one night – it happened in Poland. Gdansk, I think he said.’
Janusz raised his chin, and ran the razor from throat to jaw line, enjoying the rasping sound of the blade. As he rinsed it under the running tap he felt the prickle on the back of his neck that told him he was being watched.
He turned around to find Copernicus, the big grey tabby tomcat who had adopted him almost a decade ago, standing in the bathroom doorway. Although the cat’s gaze was impassive, his message was crystal clear.
‘Alright, Copetka. I know dinner is running a bit late at Hotel Kiszka,’ said Janusz, towelling off the last suds. With fluid grace, the cat turned and led him to the kitchen cupboard.
After feeding him, Janusz opened the kitchen window to let the cat onto the fire escape and watched as he trotted down the half-dozen flights of stairs. Through the gathering dusk, he could make out the first daffodils under the plane trees that edged Highbury Fields.
These days, it was one of North London’s most select areas. But back in the early eighties, when the latest wave of the Polish diaspora had washed him up on the shores of Islington, the locals – better-off English working-class types – couldn’t get out fast enough. Taking their place were Paddies, Poles and blacks, and a few bohemian types who weren’t fazed by the area’s reputation as crime central. The flat had been a cheap place to flop once he’d split the rent with workmates from building sites. And he’d always liked the view.
By the time his Jewish landlord had decided to up sticks and start a new life in Israel, Janusz had earned enough for a deposit and got a mortgage to buy the place. Now, his only problem was the odd funny look from his newer neighbours, the City types and advertising executives who were taken aback to find a Polish immigrant living next door in a Highbury mansion block. Well, tough luck, he thought, he was here first.
Janusz went to the fridge to check he had everything he needed for supper – Kasia would be arriving in less than an hour. He was happy with the look of the beef, a good dark-coloured fat-marbled slab of braising steak he’d paid a crazy price for at the Islington farmer’s market. It was always worth spending an extra pound or two when it came to meat.
He levered open the big bay window in the living room to get rid of the smell of stale cigars, and picked up a dirty glass and a pile of junk mail off the mantelpiece of the marble fireplace. Then he put them back, smiling to himself: Kasia would enjoy cleaning the place up later.
The evening started out well enough.
Sure, he and Kasia had been reserved with each other at first, an edge of awkwardness to their embrace at the door, but since this was their first date since they’d first slept together, it was to be expected. That night, a fortnight ago now, had been the culmination of weeks of assignations over coffee and cake snatched during her work breaks – encounters that couldn’t have been more tantalisingly proper had they been chaperoned by a brace of babcia. It was just his luck, reflected Janusz, to be dating the world’s most straitlaced stripper.
While Kasia tidied the living room, exclaiming at the mess, he cut the beef into three-centimetre chunks, and started to chop the onion and garlic.
After a few minutes she came and leant against the worktop, lighting a cigarette while he browned the beef. ‘I never saw a Polish man cook before – not even a boiled egg!’ she said, watching him slice a red pepper. He shrugged. ‘I think it’s good,’ she added. ‘I’m a katastrofa in the kitchen, and anyway, how would I cook with these?’ She brandished her sinister talons at him.
‘I always meant to ask: why do you paint your nails black?’ he asked, quartering the chestnut mushrooms.
‘I started doing it when I was a Goth,’ she said surveying her outstretched hands. ‘After that I never changed them.’ She took a thoughtful drag on her cigarette. ‘Maybe it’s nice to be a bit different.
‘So, how did you learn to cook? Do you watch the TV programmes from home?’
He shook his head. ‘My mama taught me, right from when I was a little boy.’ Using a wooden spoon, he scraped the onion and garlic into the hot oil of the pan, releasing an aromatic sizzle. ‘When there was nothing in the shops we’d take a basket into the countryside to find treats for Tata’s supper. In the summer, wild asparagus, lingonberries to make jam …’
Kasia smiled at the nostalgia in his voice. Janusz’s childhood, with its visits to his grandmother’s place, a crumbling farmhouse on the outskirts of Gdansk, was a million miles from her monochrome memories of a monolithic Soviet-built estate in industrial Rzewow. She loved to hear his boyhood tales of collecting warm eggs from the chicken house, or climbing up into the high branches of apple trees in the orchard. The funny thing was, even though his memories were so different from hers, they still made her feel homesick.
She tapped cigarette ash out of the kitchen window. ‘How did your mama know what was safe to eat?’
‘She came from a family of farmers, so she was a real country girl. She even knew how to make birch wine. In the spring, you cut through the bark’, he used his wooden spoon to demonstrate the lateral cut, ‘and drain off a few litres of sap. But you must be careful: if you make the wound too big the tree will die.’
Pouring a jugful of water over the meat and vegetables, he said over his shoulder, ‘October, November, I take the tube to Epping and go into the forest to look for mushrooms. If you get lucky, you can find boletas. I could take you, if you like – show you which ones are good to eat.’
There was a moment of silence as they shared the unspoken thought … if they were still seeing each other in six months’ time.
He threw a couple of roughly chopped red chilies in the pot. The dish’s final ingredients, a little sour plum jam and a cup of buttermilk, wouldn’t be added till the end.
He’d been sliding glances at her face while he cooked and was relieved to see that the old bruise on her cheekbone had faded completely, with no evidence of fresh ones. The warning he’d delivered to Steve had done the trick, at least for now. And according to Kasia, Steve had bought the story that Janusz was Kasia’s cousin over from Poland, which was a relief – he didn’t want to give that chuj another excuse to knock her about.
He opened the fridge and pulled out a jar filled with cream-coloured fat.
‘What’s that?’ asked Kasia.
‘Goose smalec for roasting the potatoes,’ he said, doling some into a roasting tray.
‘Ah, goose fat is good for you!’ exclaimed Kasia, examining the jar, ‘It helps you to lose weight.’ Then, on seeing his sceptical look: ‘It’s true – I read it in a magazine.’
Kasia might be blade-sharp, reflected Janusz, but like all Polish women, she had a vast collection of cherished – and often crazy – dietary folklore: a rich brew of Catholic injunctions, old wives’ tales from medieval Poland, and the crap peddled by glossy magazines.
Janusz brandished the jar in front of him and adopted a serious air: ‘Top government scientists are warning: too much goose fat can cause dangerous weight loss – please use it sparingly.’ Pretending to be insulted, she made to grab the jar back from him.
He caught her arm deftly, his big hand circling her slim wrist with ease. ‘Can you stay tonight?’ he asked. Best to get the question – and the phantom of Steve – out of the way early so that it didn’t overshadow their evening. She looked along her eyes at him, then nodded. ‘I’m staying at my sister’s.’ Breaking into a grin, he grabbed her by the waist and, ignoring her laughing protestations, danced her around the tiny kitchen.
Half an hour later, with a couple of glasses of a decent Czechoslovak pinot noir inside him, he settled into the big leather sofa and, wreathed in