SANDY 2013
It’s 2013, I am 65, it is 12 years since Berthe. Sandy came to the Royal Geographic Society Monday evening lectures. She stood out like a peacock amongst the fuddy-duddy oldies at the pre-lecture drinks. Dressed like a gangster's moll in flimsy floaty floral dresses with the hem four inches above the knee, revealing her shapely legs, a low decolletage revealing a deep cleavage, and a mop of tight blonde curls. As I sat in the foyer after the lecture she struggled into her red coat near me, and turned shyly to look at me over her shoulder. "Hello" I said “You look nice, would you like a glass of wine at the Polish Club down the road?”.
The Ognisko Polskie, the Polish Hearth Club in Exhibition Road was the nearest place one could get a drink, and a rather curious place. Souh Kensington had apparently hosted an ex-pat colony of Polish refugees during the war, and with Poland falling to the Russians they hadn’t gone back. Daquise restaurant was also a result. After the collapse of the Iron Curtain and Poland joining the EU in 2004 there was a flood of ex-comunist Poles into London, but they were apparently not welcomed by the wartime Poles and established a separate centre in Hammersmith. The Polish Club was in a grand white stuccoed Victorian terraced house with a portico, and had a restaurant on the ground floor with a bar for pre-meal drinks. By this time the rules for who was entitled to use these facilities had relaxed and no one prevented you from entering if you knew you could. The interior was high ceilinged faded shabby Roccoco. The bar had seating for I think three couples, on red velvet banquettes and with subdued lighting.
Over two glasses of wine we got to know each other. She was a nurse, whose husband had died two years before - she had nursed him at home in the marital bed. They had gone to the RGS Monday lectures together, and so she had continued - she obviously liked Geographers, perhaps she hoped to find another one. As she had to go home from Waterloo Station I sugested a meal in the Archduke wine bar under an arch near Waterloo on Saturday. This went rather well - she looked gorgeous and we kissed on parting.
Our next date was to ‘Winter Wonderland’ in Hyde Park and a meal in the Serpentine Restaurant nearby overlooking the lake as dusk fell; quite romantic! This went rather well too, and afterwards I took her back to my flat. After an hour of polite conversation and two cups of tea a chaste two feet apart on my sofa getting to know each other further I proposed taking her home, a forty minute drive away in Kingston on Thames, and she coyly said yes.
She gave me a tour, her flat was modern and cheerless; fortunately there were two bedrooms; the living room had a black leather sofa; the lighting was harsh; there was a coal effect electric fire and no books. We sat close together on the sofa chatting inconsequentially as the expectation rose to breaking point . . . . .
Sandy died in 2018