Irina Romanowska couldn’t believe her immense good fortune as she surveyed her new home. It was a dream come true: a place of her own in Pleasant Square. The basement flat had a large sitting room which got the afternoon sun and looked out over the back garden and paved terrace; a small kitchen to the front with cream-painted cupboards; a big bedroom; a small boxroom where Mr Lynch stored the remainder of his dental equipment and supplies; a bathroom with a bath and a shower; and a staircase that led up to the hallway of the main part of the house. It was a beautiful house, built so long ago, a house filled with history and love. How lucky she was to be living in such a place and able to afford the rent.
At first she had been very nervous when it was proposed she live in a house only three doors away from where she worked, but meeting Oscar Lynch had immediately reassured her. This proud, elderly Irish gentleman, recovering from surgery, was certainly in need of a watchful eye and willing spirit ready to help out and make his life a little easier. He reminded her of her grandfather Tomasz who had died when she was sixteen.
‘I am so grateful, Mrs Ryan, for the opportunity you give me.’
‘And I am grateful to you, Irina, for agreeing to help out my very old friend.’
‘I will do my best,’ she promised.
She had resigned from her job in the newsagent’s; Pat Delaney the owner gave her a big box of chocolates and a bottle of wine to say thank you. Now in the mornings she did not get up until eight o’clock, when she checked on Oscar and organized his breakfast.
He ate a small bowl of milky porridge and took either scrambled eggs or a poached egg on toast with a mug of coffee. Then he read the paper and did the crossword before he took a shower and got dressed. Once he was settled Irina set off for the group of regular households that she cleaned. Some days she arrived back in time to make him soup or a toasted sandwich for lunch, otherwise he managed himself, but in the evening she made a point of cooking him a good nourishing dinner. Her mother Hanna had ensured she knew how to cook the best meals using good vegetables that were in season and she could tell Oscar appreciated the home cooking as he literally licked his dinner plate clean every night.
‘It will be a lucky man who gets you, Irina,’ he praised her. ‘You will make some fellow a wonderful wife.’
Irina had smiled ruefully, as that wasn’t what Edek had thought when he tossed her aside for that cheeky brunette with high heels who worked in a hairdresser’s and she doubted she even knew how to boil an egg.
She had signed on for English classes and two evenings a week went to Harcourt Street, to study seriously in a room packed with people of all nationalities struggling to make sense of this new tongue. Once she had good English she could maybe work in an office or for one of the technology firms.
Her friends had been a little envious when she told them of her new position and the benefits it entailed. Marta’s mouth had opened when she saw the big blue couch and chair in the sitting room and the peaceful white bedroom with the old medical file cupboard now turned into a wardrobe for her clothes.
‘It is lovely, Irina,’ she said, hugging her. ‘I am so pleased for you.’
‘Some nights you stay,’ Irina offered generously.
She had laid her few possessions out around the flat to make it seem more homely. Her photographs of her family and the pretty pink wrap she’d bought in the marketplace in Łódź now served as a throw on her bed; her good-luck statue of a silver swan now sat on the circular table near the window alongside the polished piece of crystal she had found down near the river when she was seven years old. With her wages she would save and buy a few things, mugs and cups and bowls and a coffee pot. She hated the instant coffee that Irish people seemed to consider reviving and refreshing and longed for the familiar scent of coffee brewing, filling her senses with anticipation.
With her mobile phone she had taken photographs both inside and outside the house and sent them to her mother, knowing how impressed she would be. Hanna Romanowska would be boasting to her neighbours and family how well her daughter was doing now that she had gone abroad.
Irina sighed, work was different now and Oscar was such a kind man. He was lonely and constantly talked about his wife whose photos dominated the large sitting room and the dining room. Elizabeth Lynch had been a beautiful woman and he must have loved her very much. The wardrobe in one of the bedrooms upstairs still held some of her clothes and shoes and handbags; her perfume and face powder and red lipstick still stood on the dressing table. It was sad that death had separated them, she thought, as she dusted and cleaned the silver frames, and polished the old mahogany sideboard and tables with beeswax. She wondered if any man would ever love her in such a way, or had her mother been right that Edek had been the closest she would ever come to finding love and marriage? She pushed the unwelcome thought away philosophically. In moving to Ireland and to Pleasant Square it seemed as if she had been granted a second chance and being an optimist she had high hopes that things were definitely going to improve.