“Oh,” said Nina. “I didn’t even know this was here! It’s gorgeous! So beautiful.”
“Like you,” said Marek simply, drawing her into a secluded corner away from where the family was working. Nina looked into his dark eyes. It was the loveliest evening after all.
“Oh, Nina,” he said, holding her hand. “Since I came to this country . . . I came here, so far away, and everything is so strange. And I meet you and you are so kind and sweet and clever, my Nina. And how I love to get your message and send things to you.”
She found herself moving closer to him.
“I almost . . . I live in room with many other men. It is so hard. I work all night and I cannot sleep in the day because I can’t find it quiet, and I am sad and I miss, oh, I miss my home so much, and I miss my little boy so, so much. It is hard here, and nobody is friendly, and everything is so expensive, and, Nina, you have done more than you know; you have done so much to make me happy . . .”
He pulled her close. Nina froze suddenly. She grabbed her hand away as if it had been bitten.
“You have a little boy?” she said, thinking immediately back to snotty bloody Lennox suggesting it as a possibility.
“Oh yes,” sighed Marek, clearly unable to read the tone of her voice. “Let me show you photo.”
“And he lives with his mother?” she said, still reaching tentatively for the possibility that he was divorced, separated. That was normal, yes?
He pulled out a tatty old wallet. “Here,” he said, taking out a photograph.
The little boy was Marek’s absolute double, big puppy-dog eyes threatening to overspill his long dark lashes. Beside him sat a beautiful, slender blond girl, smiling shyly at the camera.
“Who’s that?” Nina could feel her heart thumping in her chest.
“Well, that’s my son, Aras,” said Marek, obviously close to tears. “And that’s Bronia.”
Nina squinted at the picture. “Your wife?”
“No, no, no . . . my girlfriend. She is Aras’s mother. She live with my mother.” Marek’s eyes were downcast for an instant.
“So you’re still together?”
He looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“You’re a couple?”
“Yes. But I work here for a year. So far from home. And I am so lonely, Nina. So lonely. And I meet you and suddenly . . . it is like sun coming out! And I have someone to talk to and to write to and to think of . . .”
“But you write home?”
“Yes, I call home every day. But what to say? I make money. I am sad. They are sad. My mother and my girlfriend fight. Aras does things and I am not there. He starts to say words and I am not there. I call and everyone is there and everyone is sad and angry with Marek and I am in my room with all the other men and they say, oh, Marek, are you out in bars all the time, you are away all the nights, oh, Marek, are you having all the fun, oh, Marek, we are stuck here and we need more money . . .” His voice trailed off. “It is so hard, Nina.”
Nina swallowed. Her emotions had shifted 180 degrees, from anger and bewilderment to enormous pity.
“But didn’t you know . . . didn’t you think that maybe I wouldn’t want a man with a girlfriend and a baby? You have a family, Marek. How could I step in the way of that?”
Marek shrugged. “I don’t know. It is different here maybe? Things are different here?” His voice was cracking with hope.
Nina shook her head, close to tears. “No. Not that different. I wouldn’t . . . I’m not that kind of—”
“But I did not think that about you!” he interjected. “I never thought that about you! You to me were always special, Nina! So special! Not like other girls!”
His cheeks were pink now, the wallet still open in his hand. Nina touched his arm gently under the lush green tree.
“Oh, Marek.”
He looked at her for a long time, the hope gradually dying in his eyes.
“I am so sorry,” he said. “I am sorry. I should not have thought . . .”
“Oh no,” Nina said, trying not to cry. “Oh no. You could have thought. You could absolutely have thought.”
Marek looked at her. “When you kissed me on the train, I was so happy.”
Nina shook her head. “I think you need to go home, Marek. Make yourself happy there. At home.”
“When I have made more money. When I can look after my family and get a good job and have my qualifications . . . I have to do what I need to do. That is it, to be good man.”
Nina took him in her arms and hugged him, carefully.
“I think you’re a very good man,” she said. “And I think you’re going to be fine.”
“I am not good man,” said Marek sadly.
“But think about Aras,” said Nina. “Think how much he needs you and needs you to see him.”
Marek nodded. “I know. And soon I will be able to drive trains in Latvia too and I can go home . . .”
They had started to walk again, aimlessly, past the old woman playing with her grandchildren and back out into the sticky, noisy streets.
“But I will miss it,” he added. “Not here. Birmingham I do not miss. The men and the room and . . . no. Not that at all. But I will miss Scotland. Where it smells like home; rain on the air and wind in the grasses and the stars overhead. I miss it. And I will miss you.”
His face was such a picture of misery that Nina wanted to slip her arm through his. But they were approaching where she had parked the van full of books.
“I have to go,” she said.
Marek nodded. His face hung; his entire body looked heavy and sad.
“Do you want me still to bring books for you?”
“No,” said Nina. “I have to . . . It helped so much. But it could get you into trouble. You risked so much for me. Too much. And I was selfish and wrong not to see it, and I was selfish and wrong not to ask about your family before. I was told I should, but I didn’t listen. It’s my fault.”
Marek shrugged. “Was not your fault. Was my privilege.”
Surinder was lying on the sofa when Nina got in, tears tumbling down her face.
“I did warn you.”
“I know. I know you did. I just . . . I built him up in my mind so much.”
“Too much reading.”
“In my head, he was this kind of lost romantic hero.”