There are more Poles on my street than real English people. And my newspaper tells me that more are coming.
I had to wait for ages for a doctor’s appointment about my migraines. Weeks of pain and suffering. When I finally got an appointment the waiting room was full of foreigners. Even the receptionist was Romanian or something. I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. I told her, ‘I can’t understand you! Speak proper English!’
She gave me a dirty look, but I didn’t care. It’s a free country, I can say what I like. That’s why they all come here! They live in dictatorships at home, so they come here for democracy and the National Health!
When the receptionist told me my doctor was away, and that Dr. Anasenko was substituting him, I nearly died! Bloody Russians, they’re all oligarchs and poisoners.
It turned out she was a lady doctor and she didn’t have an accent. That made me even more suspicious – she’d probably been to spy school or something. I tried not to touch anything while I was in the room, in case it had nerve agent on it. She gave me a prescription for some strong painkillers and said she would refer me to a specialist.
I asked the chemist to check the ingredients of the painkillers, in case there was something dangerous in there. I told her a Russian doctor had prescribed the medicine, but she didn’t understand why I was worried.
Two days later I had the worst migraine of my life. I was half blind with pain, so I had to take the painkillers. Then I went and lay down on the bed. The telephone woke me up about five hours later. The pain was a lot better, but I was feeling very disorientated.
It took me a while to get downstairs and pick up the phone and when I did, for some reason, I said, ‘Da!’ Da! What a stupid thing to say. I don’t know why I said it. It just came out. So then I said ‘Hello?’ only it sounded a bit like ‘Hallo.’ Anyway, I heard my little granddaughter, Emma, say, ‘Oh, sorry. I’ve got the wrong number.’
‘No, no, darlink,’ I said, in a strange voice. ‘It’s me, Grenny.’
‘Granny?’ Emma sounded hesitant. ‘Is that ... you?’
‘Of course, who do you sink it is?’
Emma started to cry and shouted ‘Mum, there’s a strange woman at Gran’s house!’ and to tell the truth, I felt like crying myself. Every word I said came out with a horrible Russian accent.
‘Don’t worry, darling.’ I tried to say, but it came out ‘Don’t vorry, darlink.’
My daughter came straight round. ‘Are you all right, mum,’ she asked, looking at me strangely. ‘How’s your head?’
I didn’t dare speak, and she went on. ‘You frightened Emma earlier on.’
‘I didn’t vant to frighten her,’ I said. ‘Zer is nussing I can do. It vas ze Russian spy doctor. She poisoned me, vis a Russian accent drug.’
‘What are you talking about, mum?’
‘Nerve agent. Is true!’
Well, my daughter took me to the hospital for tests. It turned out I had ‘foreign accent syndrome’. It’s really rare, less than seventy cases since 1941. The doctor said strong migraines can cause it. I told him about the Russian spy doctor, but he wouldn’t listen.
In fact, all the time I had a Russian accent, which was about six months, not many people did listen to me. People in shops could be quite rude. They thought I was a foreigner, see.
One day, I was having a check up at the hospital and I was talking to the receptionist and I heard a woman behind me say, ‘Bloody foreigners. They come here for our National Health’. Can you believe that?
Well, I’m almost back to normal now. But the Russian accent does pop out, sometimes. I got really angry with my Polish neighbour, yesterday and I tried to shout at her that she should go back to her own country, but I got as far as ‘You should go beck...’ and I had to stop. She laughed at me. I suppose it was quite funny.
One good thing. I’ve got this carer, Viktor. He’s from Ukraine or somewhere. And you know what, when he talks, I can understand him really well.
