We chat for a little longer, mostly idle pleasantries. He can tell I’m a stranger in a strange land, and he seems keen to ensure that I feel at home here. It’s something you get in a lot of places – locals determined to want you to love their city.
‘You have accommodation?’ he says, pointing to my rucksack. He must presume I’ve got all my gear in here – it’s actually packed out with polystyrene and plastic wrapping to make it look good on display in the shop, but he doesn’t need to know that.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I mean, I stayed in a hostel last night but I don’t have anything permanent. And I don’t have enough money for anything permanent.’
The bartender holds eye contact with me and nods, expressionless. ‘You looking for work?’
I raise my eyebrows and drop them again. ‘Possibly,’ I say, taking a sip of my beer. It’s ice cold and feels fantastic. ‘Although it’s going to be difficult.’
‘You can be in Europe ninety days in six months without visa,’ he says. ‘My brother, he has a building company. An Australian guy worked for him for a few weeks.’
‘Oh right.’
‘From . . . Melbourne,’ he says, suddenly remembering the name. ‘You know it?’
‘A bit,’ I reply. ‘Not far from me.’
He smiles. ‘Where you come from before Slovakia?’
‘Italy,’ I say. ‘That’s where I flew into. Then I went to Slovenia and Hungary before here.’ I thank my lucky stars that my European geography is pretty sound. He seems convinced.
‘All in Schengen Area. So nobody knows you are in Slovakia, no?’
I swallow heavily. ‘No.’
‘Okay, so rule is ninety days in six months in Schengen, yes? So you can be ninety days in EU, then ninety days in Romania. Same rule, but not Schengen. Many people do this.’
‘Oh right,’ I say, not wanting to tell him that it’s completely irrelevant as I’m an EU citizen and can stay here as long as I like. ‘That’s handy.’
‘But if you have job, you can stay for long, long time.’
‘I couldn’t even stay for ninety days without a job,’ I tell him.
‘How much you pay for hostel?’
I see no harm in telling him. ‘Forty euros a night.’
‘Two hundred eighty euros a week,’ he says, doing the maths immediately. ‘Very expensive.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I have room here,’ he says, still not taking his eyes off of me. ‘One hundred eighty euros a week. Also, I can help with job.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That’s very kind. I might take you up on the room, but I’ve never worked behind a bar before so I’m not sure if—’
The man laughs. It’s a deep, guttural belly laugh. ‘No, is not bar work. Bar is not busy enough for extra work. My brother, he have some work. Is good pay.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t have any experience in building, either. I don’t think I’d be much help to him.’
‘It is a different work,’ he says, taking my beer and topping it up for me. ‘Delivery.’
‘Delivery?’ I ask. ‘For a builder?’
He smiles. ‘My brother, Andrej, he has many businesses. He is very well known here in Bratislava. With many customers, he need many deliveries. You can ride motor scooter?’
It’s not a question I’ve been asked before. ‘Uh, I guess.’ I mean, how hard can it be?
‘Okay. Room here is cheaper anyway, yes? I must tidy, but you come here after lunch and you can have room. Save lots of money.’
I smile at him, thankful for his generosity. I’d always been led to believe that people in Eastern Europe were far more generous and kind than we are in the West, but I hadn’t realised quite how true that was until now.
‘I will. Thank you.’
The man holds out his hand. ‘I am Marek.’
I take his hand in mine and shake it. ‘Bradley,’ I say. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
41
One of the benefits of wrap parties was the free bar. Not only did it mean the hard work of filming had finished and it was time to hand over to the editors in their warm, cosy studios and suites, but it was an excuse to let their hair down and celebrate the fact that they’d done a bloody good job.
For Dan, the free bar was something he looked forward to through the closing days of filming, knowing that it’d be a perfect opportunity to get hammered without having to worry about the additional next-day headache of checking his credit card bill. What he liked most was that everyone was invited and everyone seemed to be on a level playing field, from the camera operators and the actors, to the costume department and the researchers, such as the particularly glamorous one he was talking to at the bar.
She wasn’t what Dan would call a classic beauty – she was curvier than his usual type, but certainly not fat. Her fiery red hair was what first enticed him to talk to her, combined with the charisma and air of sexuality that she seemed to exude. Many people in the TV world had that sort of way about them – particularly the ones who were keen to get out from behind the camera and one day end up in front of it.
‘He seemed to understand that, though,’ she said, having come to the end of her really not very interesting story about how she’d managed to apply for her job in the first place.
‘So what sort of stuff do you enjoy doing?’ Dan asked, trying to change the subject away from talking shop. Although lots of people were impressed by the perceived glamour of TV, to him it was just another job. A job that meant he got to see a lot of the country – and further afield – and which paid fairly well, but it was a job all the same.
‘Funnily enough, I’m in a field hockey team,’ she said, even though it wasn’t particularly funny in the slightest.
‘Are you? That’s really cool,’ Dan replied, not wanting to ask the difference between field hockey and normal hockey. ‘What position?’
‘Fullback, but just recently I’ve been playing as a sweeper because our regular one’s been injured.’
Dan nodded, trying to look interested, but instead only thinking that perhaps her curves weren’t curves, but the muscular build of a hockey – or field hockey – player. He’d never been with a muscular woman before. He wasn’t sure if he’d like it or not.
He could feel his mobile phone buzzing in his pocket. He didn’t know why he even bothered bringing it out with him – no-one ever called him unless it was the most inconvenient moment possible. Like now. He looked at the screen. It was Lisa. He put the phone back in his trouser pocket.
‘Sorry about that. Don’t know why I even carry the bloody thing.’
‘Don’t you find it handy?’ the girl asked.
‘No, I find it a pain in the arse. So. Field hockey.’
Luckily for him, the redhead didn’t want to stay the night. He was never keen on waking up next to a woman – almost as if that made it worse. To Dan, having them leave that same night and then sleeping alone in his hotel room meant that he stayed just the right side of the moral line. It was a moral line that he often blurred, but it was still one he recognised.