Return of the native

We know the pressures the steady flow of immigrants has caused in our society though we hear less about the benefits of having them here; nor do we have much idea what they think about us. Lev, the Polish migrant in Rose Tremain’s new book, expected to find men who looked like Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai but found they were slovenly geezers with shaven heads and garish tattoos and not so different from those he worked alongside in the sawmills back home before losing his job. The early death of his wife, his responsibility for his adored small daughter and his ageing mother, the need of money in a decaying village persuade Lev to leave for London. Surely the streets there must still be paved with some gold, though at 42 it’s a little late to start looking. Fortunately he’s a dreamer with a will of iron and the luck of the devil,  as well as being strikingly handsome — as Lydia, the woman ‘with the mud-splash of moles’ across her face, sitting beside him on the bus, is quick to spot. She is a translator and teaches him a little English on the bus and gives him her address in London.

Lev sleeps rough, distributes leaflets for a restaurant and finally has to ring Lydia.  She scans the ‘Wanted’ columns for him despite his refusal to make love. He finds a job washing up in a restaurant under a famous chef, G. K. Ashe, who wants his pans clean enough to drink cocktails from. He finds a room with Christy, a kindly drunk who hates celebrities: ‘If you can’t  get your ball at the back of the net you’re no one.’ Lev is rapidly promoted.