Sketches, Dispatches, Hull Tales and Ballads - University of Hull

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loved to use but the mangled words slithered like slugs from my
mouth.
‘You don’t sound too well, lass. If I were you I’d be gettin’ off home
now. You’ve done enough work for tonight,’ he smiled kindly.
I wanted to show him the treasure I’d found. I wanted to tell him
about Kraków and my father’s second hand bookshop in Stare
Miasto. About the hours I’d spent as a child curled up on the window
seat on the top floor reading book after book. To tell him that I
hadn’t really wanted to come here but I needed the work, how much
it broke my father’s heart the day I left. I wanted to ask him if he got
lonely at night sitting in his cubby hole, waiting for night to pass,
hoping that nothing terrible would happen.
‘Yes. You get home and have a nice cup of tea, lass. I’ll lock
up here.’
Tea. The great British panacea.
I rack my brains for something friendly to say but the words slip
from my grasp like water through my fingers. So I just smile and
nod and hope I’ll be able to hold back my tears until I get home to
my tiny bedsit on Chanterlands Avenue. I offer him the box of
Maltesers I’d found on Seat 22, Row M and he takes it with a smile
then scoops up the black plastic sacks for me and strides away up
the theatre steps whistling a tune from Footloose, the show that was
on that night. While he takes the rubbish to the bins I change out of
my overalls and pull on my coat and outdoor shoes. By the time I
get back to the foyer he’s at his post, checking screens, tapping a pen
on his desk.
‘You still here?’ he asks cheerfully.
Once again my tongue is tied so I just take the book from the bag
and show it to him.
‘What’s this then?’ He takes the book from me, riffles through the
pages. ‘Great Expectations,’ he reads, ‘by our very own Charles
Dickens. Dream on, pet. Dream on,’ he says, but he continues
flicking through the pages, reading some of the passages to himself,
smiling at the illustrations, just as my father might have done. I long