The Long Glasgow Kiss

There was a lot about Glasgow, about Scotland, that itched at me like a nettle rash; but there was also much about the Scots I liked. One of their most redeeming qualities was the way they accepted different shades of Scottishness. Just as it was possible to call yourself an Irish-American, there were identities within Scotland that were unique, but taken as part of the Scottish identity: Italian-Scottish; Jewish-Scottish, the variation that had given birth to a totally unique cultural phenomenon of the bar-mitzvah cèilidh, where yarmulkes and kilts were required dress; and, since the end of the war, there had been a new Caledonian breed: the Polish-Scot.

Tony the Pole Grabowski was one of the thousands of Polish servicemen who had fought alongside the British Army or in the skies above Britain. Many had died defending an island they had only known for months. The vast majority of the British-based Free Polish Army had been stationed in Scotland. I had a soft spot for the Poles: the Polish First Armoured Division had been attached to the First Canadian Army and I had seen them in action. And having seen them, I had counted myself very lucky to have been on the same side as them.

After the war, like so many of his countrymen, Tony the Pole had decided he preferred the pattern on this side of the Iron Curtain and had become a resident alien, then a naturalized British citizen. He had married a Scottish girl and had settled down in Polmadie, in the south of the city. Polmadie was about as picturesque as its name suggested: a maze of tenements and 1930s’ Corporation semi-detached houses – mind you, in a city with districts called Auchenshuggle and Roughmussel, Polmadie was positively lyrical. And a semi-detached was a palace compared to a Gorbals slum.

Tony the Pole’s day job was as a greengrocer. Being Polish, he hadn’t understood that fruit and veg – unless they had been fried or were capable of being fried – were always at the bottom of any Glaswegian shopping list. Maybe that was why greengrocery had remained Tony’s day job. It was his night job that had brought in the real cash – Tony the Pole Grabowski opened doors, all right. He had been, without doubt, the best peterman in Scotland. There had not been a safe he couldn’t crack, one way or another. But the peterman’s life was a perilous one. There was always the threat of the missed foothold, the slip from a drainpipe, the fall. Or the danger of silent alarms, night watchmen, or patrolling bobbies with a soft tread. So Tony, when he had saved enough to keep his family comfortable and before he had been locked into a box himself, had quit the peterman business and had resigned himself to a world of wilting cabbages and wrinkling tomatoes. Except, every now and then, Tony would organize a card game or set up a book on a sporting event. Just to supplement the income from peas and sprouts.

I found Tony the Pole behind the counter of his shop on Cathcart Road. He was a short, squat man with a broad Polish face and an even broader Polish accent. He was balding and had shaved off what had been left of his hair. From the darkening rim that swept from temple to temple, I guessed the time must have been nearer five o’clock than I had thought.

‘Hi, Tony … whaddya say, whaddya hear?’

Tony laughed at the movie line. He actually giggled, an action at odds with his squat, powerful frame. He was a James Cagney fan and at our first meeting had been entranced by my ‘American’ accent. Since then, every time I met him, I greeted him with the Rocky Sullivan line from Angels with Dirty Faces. I had once tried Bogart from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre on him but had withered under his disapproving gaze.,,

‘Hey, Lennogs. Vad daya zay? Vad daya hear? It’s been a vee vile, neebour …’ Tony’s party trick was made all the better because he didn’t know that speaking in the Glasgow vernacular and a thick Polish accent simultaneously was a party trick. Anyone learning a new language tends to speak in the idiom they are exposed to. As far as learning English had been concerned, Tony had been exposed to the linguistic equivalent of gamma radiation: Glaswegian English. Now, Tony bantered and pattered like a native Glaswegian, yet almost every initial consonant was substituted with v or z. It was as hilarious as it was impenetrable and it cracked me up every time I heard him. But I never let it show.

‘Hi, Tony. How’s business?’

‘Ze ushual. Cannae complain … widnae dae much use iv I did …’ Tony said, the usual mix of Will Fyffe and Akim Tamiroff. Maybe a little Bela Lugosi thrown in. ‘Vot’s occurin’?’

‘I’m looking for a bit of information.’

‘Vell you’ff come to ze right place … I know my onions.’ He laughed his girlish laugh and indicated his counter stock with an open-armed gesture.