London

London enters the story through the geography of Ollie’s life and the way others locate him. Its references connect his Polish childhood to his later home in West London, while Stanmore supplies a nearby point of orientation in his conversation with Shay.

A Geography of Childhood and Home

Ollie explains that his accent is Polish, like his name, and that he lived in Warsaw for about ten years as a child before moving to Waltham, in West London. London is therefore part of a layered personal history rather than a simple marker of national identity: Ollie describes himself as a mixture shaped by distinct places and periods of his childhood. When Shay says he likes Ollie’s accent, Ollie briefly acknowledges the compliment, then redirects the conversation away from himself.

London and Its Surroundings

The novel also invokes London through Stanmore. Ollie begins to locate it as a few miles north, but Shay recognizes the place before Ollie finishes explaining. The exchange makes geography a small sign of familiarity: Shay already knows the area Ollie is trying to describe. Together, the references to West London and Stanmore establish the city through lived connections and nearby places, not through an extended physical description of London itself.

Narrative Function

London’s significance in these passages is relational and biographical. It helps articulate how Ollie’s Polish background and childhood residence in Warsaw coexist with a later life in West London, resisting any single-place definition of him. The brief mention of Stanmore shifts that geography from personal history to shared recognition, giving Shay and Ollie a point of common knowledge without turning London into the scene of a major plot event.