“I don’t think he’s mad, Vera; he’s just eccentric. Too eccentric to live in a home.”
Somehow, I can’t see my father with his apples and his tractor talk and his strange habits fitting easily into the routine of a residential home. I suggest that sheltered housing, where he will have a greater degree of independence, might be more suitable, and Vera agrees, adding with strong emphasis that this is what should have happened in the first place. She thinks she has scored a victory. I let it pass.
After Valentina and Stanislav had left, I cleared out enough rubbish from their rooms to fill fourteen black plastic bin bags. Out went the soiled cotton wool, the crumpled packaging, the cosmetics bottles and jars, the holey tights, the papers and magazines, mail-order catalogues, junk mail, discarded shoes and clothes. Out went the half-eaten ham sandwich and several apple cores and a decayed pork pie which I found under the bed in the same place I had once found a used condom. In Stanislav’s room I discovered a little surprise-a carrier bag full of porn magazines under the bed. Tut tut.
Then I turned my attention to the bathroom, and with the help of a wire coat-hanger pulled out a sticky clump of matted blonde hair and brown pubic hair that was clogging the bath outlet. How was it possible for one person to generate so much mess? As I cleaned I realised with a flash of insight that Valentina must have had someone to clean up after her for most of her life.
I set to work in the kitchen and pantry, clearing off the grease from the cooker and surrounding walls-it was so thick I scraped it off with a knife-throwing out scraps of food, mopping up sticky patches on floors, shelves and worktops where unidentified fluids had been spilled and never wiped up. Pots, jars, tins, packets, had been opened, started, and then the contents left to fester. Ajar of jam left open in the pantry had cracked, turned rock hard, and stuck to the shelf so fast that as I tried to pull it away it shattered in my hands. The shards of glass fell to the floor among a debris of newspaper, empty boil-in bags, spilled sugar, broken pasta shells, biscuit crumbs and dried peas.
Under the sink, I found a stash of tinned mackerel-I counted forty-six tins altogether.
“What’s this?” I asked my father. He shrugged. “Buy one get one free. She likes.” What can you do with forty-six tins of mackerel? I couldn’t throw them away. What would Mother have done? I took them and distributed them to everyone we knew in the village, and gave the rest to the vicar, for the poor. For several years afterwards, tins of mackerel turned up in little heaps before the altar at harvest festival.
In the outhouse, in a cardboard box, were several packets of biscuits. All had been opened, and crumbs and bits of wrapping were everywhere. In another corner were four mouldy loaves of white sliced bread. Again, all the packets were torn open and their contents scattered. Why would someone do that? Then I noticed something large and brown scurrying in the corner.
Ohmygod! Call the council, quick!
In the sitting-room, kitchen, and pantry, saucers of food and milk had been put down for Lady Di which had not been to his taste, and they too had been left to rot in the August heat. One was infested with brown mushroom-like growths. In another, white maggots were squirming. The milk had soured to a green cheesy slime. I put the saucers to soak in bleach.
I am not usually the sort of woman who finds cleaning therapeutic, but this had the feel of a symbolic purging, the utter eradication of an alien invader who had tried to colonise our family. It felt good.
I am cautious about mentioning to Vera that my father has talked about reconciliation with Valentina, for I know that if there is one thing that will surely drive him back into her arms, it is a confrontation with Big Sis. But somehow I let it out.
“Oh the fool!” I can hear her intake of breath as she chooses her words. “Of course you social workers are familiar with this syndrome of abused women clinging to their abusers.”
“I’m not a social worker, Vera.”
“No, of course, you’re a sociologist. I forgot. But if you were a social worker that is what you would say.”
“Maybe.”
“So I think it’s so important to get him out of harm’s way, for his own sake. Otherwise he will simply fall victim to the next unscrupulous person to come along. Weren’t you supposed to be looking for some sheltered housing, Nadia? Really, I think it’s time you started taking some responsibility, as I did for Mother.”
But my father is determined to make the most of his new freedom. When I raise the possibility of sheltered housing, he says he will stay where he is. He is far too busy to consider moving. He will get the house in order, and maybe even rent out Valentina’s old room on the top floor to a suitable middle-aged lady. And then he still has his book to write.
“Did I ever finish telling you about the half-tractor?”
He reaches for the narrow-lined A4 notepad, which is now almost full with his masterwork, and reads:
The half-tractor was invented by French engineer by the name of Adolph Kegresse, who had worked in Russia as technical director to the Tsar’s automobile fleet, but at the time of the 1917 revolution he made his way back to France, where he continued to perfect his designs. The half-tractor is based on the simple principle of normal tyred wheels in front of vehicle, and caterpillar tracks at back. The half-tracked tractors, cavalry cars and armoured cars were especially popular with the Polish military, where they were deemed suitable for driving on the country’s poorly maintained roads. The historic union of Adolph Kegresse with Andre Citroen is said to have given birth to the whole phenomenon of all-terrain vehicles. In their time these seemed to promise a revolution in agriculture and heavy transport, but alas they have become one of the curses of our modern age.
After my big clean-up, only two things remained to remind father of Valentina, and they were not so easy to remove: Lady Di (and his girlfriend and the girlfriend’s four kittens) and the Roller on the lawn.
We all agreed that Lady Di and his family should stay, as they would be company for my father, but that their eating and toilet habits should be taken in hand. I was all for getting a litter tray, but Big Sis put her foot down.
“It’s utterly impractical. Who’s going to empty it? There’s only one thing to do-they have to be taught not to make their mess indoors.”
“But how?”
“You grab them by the scruff of the neck and rub their noses in it. It’s the only way.”
“Oh Vera, I can’t do that. And Pappa certainly can’t.”
“Don’t be such a milk-sop, Nadia. Of course you can do it. Mother did it to every cat we had. That’s why they were all so dean and docile.”
“But how will we know which cat made the mess?”
“Every time there is a mess, you rub all their noses in it.”
“All six of them?” (It sounded like something out of Russia in the 19305.) “All six.”
So I did.
Their feeding was rationalised, too. They were to be fed in the back porch only, twice a day, and if they didn’t eat the food, it was to be thrown away after a day.
“Can you remember that, Pappa?”
“Yes yes. One day. I leave for only one day.”
“If they’re still hungry, you can give them dry cat biscuits. They won’t smell.”
“Systematic approach. Advanced technological feeding. Is good.”
The council came round and put down rat poison, and soon four brown furry corpses were found lying belly-up in the outhouse. Mike buried them in the garden. The cats were banned from sleeping in the house or in the Rolls-Royce, and a box lined with an old jumper of Valentina’s was provided for them in the outhouse. Lady Di protested at the new regime, and tried to scratch me once or twice during nose-rubbing sessions, but he soon learnt to obey.