Perhaps it is our ability to care for each other that underlies everything else.
He likes to be called Edge – not The Edge – though he quietly kids himself he plays as well as the U2 guitarist. Of course he doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong: he’s good enough with an open G tuning. What’s good enough for Keef is good enough … etc. But no, he’s not up there with The Edge. (And he probably doesn’t even know about Michael Brook’s infinite guitar.) I know all this because I sold him, Edge, a vintage (70s) Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress, which is nowhere near as exciting as the name was trying to have you believe. I didn’t use mine; one day Edge happened to mention old guitar pedals and you can piece the rest of it together yourself.
As for Danni, well, for a start that’s her real name – as far as I know. And if you think there’s poetry in nominative determinism, she’s not too bad an example. She’s a 3rd Dan Black Belt in Karate. Dan, Danni. Probably as good as it gets.
Anyway, you might argue that that’s all neither here nor, indeed, there. But it is context and we all exist in one context or another. We all understand each other a little better if we know something about each other’s background.
They – Edge and Danni – used to provide top-end food to private jets. That must have looked good on their passports. But things move on and now they own and run a coffee shop. I came to know them a little because I walk a lot, like a coffee en route and their place is often en route. I’m as happy to talk as I am to walk, and I’m even happier listening, so on quiet days the me-Edge-Danni small talk feels both natural and kind-of inevitable. I’m supposing you need to be comfortable to chat to run a coffee shop. (Though, that said, the gaffer at the pub up the road from them is famous for being taciturn. But I digress. Again.)
So. Chat. Personal histories. One quiet Monday afternoon the conversation included Danni’s relatives in Poland (as well as employment options for academics and adventurous eating out).
I don’t have any Polish relatives but I’ve had Polish friends all my life in England – some school friends; a pilot who made his way to Britain to fight in the Second World War; quite a few linguists who came to the UK to work with their Polish-English skills; at least one cold-war era dissident and, I’m pretty sure, more besides.
Hearing about Danni’s family, I mentioned that one member of the Polish diaspora that I was friends with, who I know as Antek and who never in my earshot at least called himself Antoni, used to smuggle Orthodox relics out of communist-era Russia. That was when both professing a religion and smuggling were risky activities. And it turned out that, back in the day, Danni’s relatives used to help an Antek who smuggled icons. And that they lived – and still live – in the right border area.
The incidence of coincidence can be a wonderful thing but are we talking about the same person? I have no idea and I don’t want to even try to find out. I’m still just occasionally in touch with Antek but what’s done is done. The last time I heard from him was about a year ago. It was a tough one – it was to tell me his wife had died. She’d been ill for a long time. It wasn’t a surprise but that doesn’t make things that much easier. I was pleased it was a private funeral – I’d have struggled to have attended, it would have been too raw. She was beautiful by any measure. I first knew her when she’d not long escaped from the USSR, an escape that was anything but simple. An escape with high costs. But Antek will have ensured she knew she was loved throughout her life with him. Antek has always been dependable – and that matters.
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