We were soon, therefore, sorted. And Adrianna was kitted out with a small but decent wardrobe. Two distressed-looking T-shirts, bearing slogans – I had a suspicion she was a bit of a rock chick – plus a couple of hoodies and a nice pair of black skinny jeans. The very height of fashion, Riley had assured me. And once our haul was complete, including a selection of lingerie, socks and tights, we set off for our visit to my sister’s café.
I’d hoped my niece Chloe might be working and was pleased to see she was. Though I doubted she had any more Polish than I did, there was a natural affinity between girls of similar ages, wherever they came from – one of the plus points of a global social media being that, culturally, they probably had more in common than they didn’t.
And sure enough, once the complicated introductions were done with – and it is definitely tricky trying to establish ‘sister’ and ‘niece’ via the medium of flapping hands – Adrianna was coaxed into shyly showing Chloe our various purchases, while I went down the back with Donna to get some drinks for us.
We were late, in terms of the lunch crowd, so there was no problem getting a table; apart from a couple in the window and a young mum who was busy feeding her baby, we had the place pretty much to ourselves. The only other customers were a group of what I recognised as Donna’s regulars: a trio of local ladies, all in their late sixties, who used the place weekly for a gossip and a catch-up. The kind of women you see everywhere. Cheerful. Innocuous.
Or so I’d thought. ‘Hello, Casey, love,’ the nearest of them said as I passed them. ‘Long time no see.’
I agreed that it was.
‘What you up to these days?’ she continued. ‘Still doing your fostering stuff? Donna told us you hung on to that boy.’
Leaving aside my irritation at the way she’d said ‘that boy’, I must have had some sort of instinct about her, because my first response – unspoken, obviously – was ‘none of your bloody business’. Which was unlike me. So I smiled. ‘Tyler,’ I said instead. ‘Indeed we did.’
I carried on past, but the woman half-turned her head. ‘She one of yours too, then,’ she said, nodding towards Adrianna, who was no more than a table away, with Chloe.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Adrianna is staying with us for a while.’
It wasn’t strictly necessary, but I slightly emphasised the word ‘Adrianna’, which was at least one step better than going ‘Who’s she? The cat’s mother?’, which was what it had been my impulse to say. I can’t stand nosey parkers at the best of times, and she was a rude one, to boot.
Again, I carried on, plucking a menu card from the holder on the counter and scanning it, while Donna took the helm of her Italian whizz-bang coffee machine.
‘Any good specials on today?’ I asked her.
She began to reply – still with her back to me while she tapped and frothed and twiddled – but my attention was soon diverted by the word ‘Polish’.
‘Or Romanian or Lithuanian … There’s so many of them now, aren’t there? Can’t bloody keep up with them. Basically the whole top half of the Eurovision Song Contest leader board,’ one of the other women chortled.
I stopped scanning the menu. ‘Makes no difference,’ my earlier interrogator commented. ‘They’re all the same, aren’t they? All come over here intent on stealing our bloody jobs. Do you know, Jean,’ she told the woman sitting opposite her, ‘my Simon got laid off from the crisp factory two months ago. Bloody eight years he’d worked there. Eight years! Then just like that,’ she snapped her fingers to demonstrate, ‘he was gone. Him and a fair few others, mind. Next thing we hear, only three weeks later they set a load of them bloody Eastern Europeans – that’s what’s they call them, or so our Simon says. I call them a bloody disgrace!’
They were talking to each other – not to me, not to Adrianna, but to each other. Which, ours being a free country, they had every right to do. But they were doing it sotto voce, clearly keen to be overheard.
So I decided to ignore them, even though I was seething inside.
Chloe, however, seemed to have other ideas. ‘Er, excuse me?’ she said. ‘Hello? We’re, like, just here?’
Donna and I both turned around. This was a turn-up. But the women appeared to ignore Chloe. ‘And not content with stealing jobs and taking benefits,’ the other one muttered, ‘they start dumping their kids on social services now as well.’
The other women – definitely not ladies – muttered their agreement, one even prodding a finger at the open tabloid in front of her. ‘Flipping disgrace, that’s what it is …’ An utterance that was followed by the evergreen, predictable ‘and on tax-payers’ money’. Donna and I exchanged looks.
‘Jen, would you mind?’ Donna said mildly, coming out from behind her counter. ‘You know – entitled to your opinions and that, but … well …’ She nodded towards the girls and made a small, almost apologetic, gesture.
‘Mum!’ Chloe said, anger flashing in her eyes.
I had some sympathy with my sister. After all, these were her regulars. Chloe, however, did not.
‘Mum, they are being outrageous!’ She glared at the three women. ‘How can you be so rude!’
‘We’re only stating facts, love. To each other. Not you.’
‘No you’re not!’ Chloe retorted. ‘You’re talking in stage whispers. On purpose! Fortunately, Adrianna doesn’t speak much English, but I do, and those are completely outrageous things to say!’
Go my niece!, I thought. One of the A levels she was doing was Law. She’d make a cracking lawyer, I decided.
‘Well, if the cap fits,’ said the first woman. ‘See, that’s half the problem. Why doesn’t she speak English? If these people refuse to integrate …’
‘Yet!’ Chloe snapped at her. ‘Yet being the operative word. And, frankly, I can hardly believe such utter rudeness. Racist rudeness. Makes me ashamed to be British.’
Whatever Adrianna thought of all this – whether she had managed to get the gist of it – she was keeping her counsel, standing impassively at Chloe’s side. For me, it was a blast. Go that niece of mine!, I thought again. Because the three women – who must have a combined age of pushing two hundred – were being seriously taken to task by an 18-year-old girl. I saw humiliation creeping into their expressions, even as they affected a look of indignant surprise.
‘Well, I think we’re about finished here, aren’t we, Jen?’ said the one who’d so far been the quietest. ‘Soup was cold anyway …’ she huffed, rising and scraping back her chair.
‘Good!’ Chloe said, glancing quickly at her mother as she said so. ‘So you’ll probably want to eat elsewhere in future, won’t you?’
If I’d been surprised before, I was open-mouthed at this. I glanced at Donna too – these customers were her livelihood, after all. But her expression was supportive and she made no move to intervene, even when the raised eyebrows on the woman called Jen seemed to suggest she might.
In the face of that, the three woman had no real choice but to bustle out, glaring at the other customers, whose expressions, hilariously, said it all. Indeed, as the bell on the door ding-a-linged to signal their departure, there was a necessarily small but heartfelt round of applause.
‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, Mum,’ Chloe said, immediately contrite and apologetic. ‘I just – grrr – I couldn’t help it. What racist old bags!’
‘Lord,