Chapter 1 - Version 2 - better?

Are sure you that you’ve packed everything?  Did you remember your tablets? You know what you’re like, you’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on. 

Max smiled indulgently as he straightened his tie, dear Rosie always fussing but what would he do without her, she was his rock, his soul mate and still his sweetheart even after all these years.  She was the reason he was taking this trip.  He had promised her that he would take young Dom on a trip up to Liverpool.  The city of her birth, the city she called home.

Rosie had wanted them all to make the pilgrimage up north for Liverpool’s year as The European Capital of Culture, she knew that John would want to find any excuse to stay behind but she was determined that they should all go especially her only son and when Rosie was determined then it took a brave man to cross her.  

All his life Max had been surrounded by strong woman, his own dear sweet Mother might have been a tiny lady with mop of hair that refused to stay pinned to her head but she ran their little farm in Poland, no matter what his Father thought.  It was she who sold their spare produce in the local market because she knew that her Janusz would end up giving it away to anyone with a sob story.  It was Matylda who was in the dairy at 5 o’clock every morning so that her children would have fresh warm milk for breakfast with the smell of freshly baked bread filling her little kitchen to tempt them out of bed on even the coldest morning.  And when she was old enough to help, his beautiful sister Anka would organise her brothers making sure they had their books ready for school and that they had finished their chores before hurrying them along the country lanes for the 3 kilometre walk to school.  She might have been younger than Marek and Pawel but Max knew that his big brothers would have no sooner argued with Anka then they would with their Mother.

It was different now of course, he hadn’t seen their little farm just outside Warsaw since the day he kissed his Mother and promised her that he would find Anka and bring her home, a promise easily given but harder to keep.  

Max you’re daydreaming again, get a move on, Jim’s outside waiting.

It mightn’t be the family trip that Rosie had planned but Max still wanted it to be special.  He had planned the whole weekend with his old efficiency.  He’d arranged for Jim to drive them in the Daimler, he’d booked 2 suites in the new hotel in Castle Street and had even arranged a small supper party tonight in one of their private dining rooms.  Just because it was only to be him and Dom making the trip didn’t mean that Max was going to miss out on entertaining some of their friends from the old days to show off his handsome young grandson. 

While Rosie wouldn’t have a bad word said about their only son even she had to admit that as they grew older John seemed to find any excuse not to spend time with them.  ‘The curse of youth’ she would tell Max ‘is to forget that your parents were young themselves once’ But John wasn’t going to spoil this weekend with his constant griping, this weekend was going to be special, he owed it to Rosie.