Lady Di’s girlfriend turned out to be a star-friendly, affectionate, and clean in her habits. My father decided to call her Valyusia after Valentina, and she would curl up purring on his lap while he snoozed in the afternoon, as no doubt he had hoped the real Valentina would. Notices were put up in the village post office advertising delightful kittens free to good homes. An unexpected bonus was that a number of elderly ladies in the village, who had been friends of my mother, dropped by to admire the kittens and stopped to chat to my father, and after that they continued to call in from time to time, lured perhaps by the air of scandal which still surrounded the house. He commented rather ungraciously to Vera that he found their conversation tedious, but at least he was polite to them, and they kept an eye on him. The vicar called round to thank him for the tins of mackerel, which had been donated to a family of asylum seekers from Eastern Europe. Gradually he was being reintegrated into the community.
On the car front, things were not so straightforward. Crap car disappeared mysteriously one night, but the Roller remained on the front lawn. Although my father paid £500 for it, Valentina had both the keys and the documents, without which it could not be sold or even towed away. I telephoned Eric Pike again.
“Could I speak to Valentina please?”
“Who am I speaking to?” said the gritty oily voice.
“I’m Mr Mayevskyj’s daughter. We spoke before.” (I should have prepared a false name and a cover story.)
“I wish you’d stop telephoning me, Mrs er…Miss er…I can’t imagine why you think Valentina is here.”
“You drove away into the sunset with her. And all her possessions. Remember?”
“I was just doing her a good turn. She’s not staying here.”
“Where did you take her, then?”
No reply.
“Please-how can I contact her? She’s left some things behind I thought she might want. And mail keeps arriving for her.”
There was a moment’s silence; then he said, “I’ll pass her a message to get in touch with you.”
A few days later my father got a letter from Valentina’s solicitor, saying that all correspondence should be forwarded to his office, and all contact was to be through him only.
I could understand the desolation my father must feel, because, strangely, I shared it. Valentina had become such a huge figure in my life that her disappearance left a gaping void, in which questions wheeled around like startled birds. Where had she vanished to? Where was she working? What was she planning to do next? Who were her friends? What man or men was she sleeping with? Was there a succession of sleazy pick-ups, or was it a special someone-a nice innocent English bloke, who found her excitingly exotic but was too shy to make a pass at her? And Stanislav-where was he laying down his new stash of porn?
The questions consumed me. My imagination created one scene after another: Valentina and Stanislav lying low in squalor somewhere in Peterborough in a rented room with chipboard furniture; or crammed with all their bin bags into the attic of a fly-blown boarding-house; or maybe living in style in a chic love-nest paid for by a lover; the pots and pans which had been my mother’s bubbling away, filling the kitchen with boil-in-bag steam, the small portable photocopier perched on the table beside them when they ate. When they have eaten, do they go out? Who with? Or if they stay in, who taps on the door in the middle of the night?
I drive past the Zadchuks’ house in the village again and again, looking to see whether Crap car is parked outside. It is not. I ask the neighbours whether they have seen Stanislav or Valentina. They have not. The man in the post office and the woman at the corner shop have not seen her. Neither has the milkman on his rounds.
I have become obsessed with finding Valentina. Each time I drive into the village or through Peterborough, I seem to catch a glimpse of Crap car disappearing up every side street. I slam on the brakes or perform wild U-turns, and other drivers beep annoyance at me. I tell myself it’s because I need to know what her plans are-whether she will contest the divorce, how much money she will ask for, whether she will be deported first. I convince myself that I need to find out because of the Roller and the mail that keeps pouring through the letter box for her-mostly junk mail offering dodgy get-rich-quick schemes and dubious beauty treatments. But really it’s a burning curiosity that has possessed me. I want to know her life. I want to know who she is. I want to know.
One Saturday afternoon, in a frenzy of curiosity, I go and stake out Eric Pike’s house. I find the address from the telephone directory and the A-to-Z. It is a modern neo-Georgian bungalow set back behind a sloping lawn in a cul-de-sac of similar bungalows, with white columns beside the door, lions’ heads on the gateposts, leaded windows, a Victorian gas-lamp in the drive (converted to electricity), plenty of hanging baskets spilling mauve petunias, and a large pond with a fountain and Koi carp. In the driveway are two cars-the big blue Volvo estate and a small white Alfa Romeo. No sign of Valentina’s Rover. I park up a little distance away, turn the radio on, and wait.
Nothing happens for an hour, an hour and a half. Then a woman emerges from the house. She is an attractive woman in her mid-forties, wearing full make-up, high heels and, I notice, a little gold ankle-chain under her tights. She walks over to my car and gestures to me to wind down the window.
“Are you a private detective?”
“Oh, no, I’m just…” My imagination deserts me. “I’m just waiting for a friend.”
“Because if you are, you can fuck off. I’ve not seen him for three weeks. It’s all over.”
She turns and marches back towards the house, her heels sinking into the crunching gravel.
A few moments later, a man emerges and stands in the doorway staring in my direction. He is tall and thickset with a heavy black moustache. As he begins to walk down the drive towards me, I quickly turn the key in the ignition and drive off.
On my way back, I have another idea. I make a detour to Hall Street, to Bob Turner’s house, where we once delivered the fat brown envelope. But the house is clearly empty, with a For Sale sign by the front gate. I peer in through the window; the net curtains are still up but I can see that there is no furniture inside. A neighbour sees me and sticks her head, bristling with curlers, round the door.
“They’ve gone away.”
“Stanislav and Valentina?”
“Oh, they went ages ago. I thought yer meant the Linakers. Left last week. Gone to Australia. Lucky sods.”
“Did you know Valentina and Stanislav?”
“Not much. Made a lot of noise, him and her romping about the house in the middle of the night. Don’t know what the lad made of it.”
“You don’t know where she’s living now?”
“Last I heard she married some old pervert.”
“A pervert? Are you sure?”
“Well, a dirty old man. That’s what Mr Turner called him-‘Valentina’s dirty old man’. ‘Appen he had a load of money-that’s what they said.”
“That’s what they said?”
The watery eyes below the curlers blink and continue to stare. I meet their gaze.
“She married my father.” The eyes blink again, and look down. “Have you tried the Ukrainian Club? ‘Appen she goes in there once in a while.”
“Thank you. That’s a good idea.”
I recognise the elderly lady on reception at the Ukrainian Club as a friend of my mother’s, Maria Kornoukhov, whom I had last seen at the funeral. We greet each other with hugs. She has not seen Valentina for several weeks. She wants to know why I am looking for her, and why she isn’t living with my father.
“Painted doll. I never liked her, you know,” she says in Ukrainian.