2005 - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (3 page)

My father lived in a different world. He went to work every day as a draughtsman, in a tractor factory in Doncaster. He earned his wage, bought the things the other men at work bought—new clothes (what’s wrong with that shirt? I could have mended it), a camera (who needs camera?), a record player and vinyl discs (such extravagance!), books (and so many good books in public library), DIY tools (for making crazy things in house), furniture (could get same cheaper in the Co-op), a new motor-bike (drives like a madman). Every week, he gave my mother a fixed, not ungenerous amount for housekeeping, and spent the rest.

So it was that after fifty years of saving, preserving, baking, and making, my mother had accumulated a small nest-egg of several thousand pounds from the money my father gave her every week. This was her poke in the eye to hunger, her comfy safe feeling in the night, her gift of safety to her children in case hunger ever came for us. But what should have been a gift became a curse, for, to our shame, my sister and I squabbled about how her little legacy should be divided.

After our stand-off at the funeral, my sister and I bombarded each other with hate-filled letters and teemed venom down telephone wires. Once it started, there was no stopping it.

She phoned me late one evening, when Anna was in bed, and Mike was out. She wanted me to countersign to release some money for one of her daughters who was buying a flat. I let the phone ring nine times before I picked it up, because I knew it was her. Leave it! Leave it! said a sensible voice in my head. But in the end I picked it up, and all the hurtful things we had never said before came tumbling out. And once they were said, they couldn’t be unsaid.

“You bullied and tricked her into signing that codicil, Vera. You stole her locket.” (Is this really me, saying such horrible things to my sister?) “Mother loved us both equally. She wanted us to share what she left behind.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.” Her voice snaps like ice. “She could only give the locket to one of us. She gave it to me. Because I was there when she needed me. I was always there when she needed me. And you—the favoured one, the little darling—you let her down in the end.” (Ouch! How can she say this to me, her baby sister?) “As I knew you would.”

We both subscribe to the best-defence-is-attack school of diplomacy.

“Mother loved me. She was terrified of you, Vera. Yes, we were all terrified of you—your sarcasm, your temper. You bossed me around for years. But you can’t boss me any more.” Saying it should make me feel grown up, but it doesn’t. It makes me feel four years old again.

“You just disappeared off the scene, as you’ve done all your life, Nadezhda. Playing at politics, playing your pathetic little games, being so clever and putting the world to rights, while other people get on with the real hard work. You just sat back and left it all to me.”

“You just barged in and took over.”

“Someone had to take charge, and it obviously wasn’t going to be you. You didn’t have time for Mother. Oh no, you were too busy with your fabulous career.”

(Bif! She has hit a sore point. I am consumed with guilt that I didn’t drop everything and rush to Mother’s bedside. Now she has me on the defensive, but I go straight back in for attack.)

“Oh, listen to you, who never did a day’s work in your life! Lived off hubby’s money,” (Baf! I aim a low punch.) “
I’ve
always had to work for my living. I have responsibilities, commitments.
Mother
understood.
She
knew about hard work.”

“That was proper work—not this namby-pamby molly-coddly waste-of-time do-gooding nonsense. It would have been more useful to grow vegetables.”

“You don’t understand work, do you, Vera? You always had Big Dick with his expense account, his share options, his annual bonuses, his clever little deals and ways of avoiding tax. Then when it all went wrong, you tried to fleece him for every penny he had. Mother always said she could understand why he divorced you. You were so nasty to him.” (Ha! I scored there.) “Your own mother said that, Vera!”

“She didn’t know what I had to put up with.”

“She knew what he had to put up with.”

The telephone spits and crackles with our rage.

“The trouble with you, Nadezhda, is that your head is so full of nonsense that you don’t know the real world.”

“I’m forty-seven, for God’s sake, Vera. I know the world. I just see it in a different way.”

“Forty-seven doesn’t make any difference. You’re still a baby. You always will be. You’ve always taken everything for granted.”

“I gave back, too. I worked. I tried to make things better for people. More than you ever did,” the whining four-year-old pipes up again.

“Oh, my goodness! Tried to make things better for people! How noble you are!”

“Well look at you, Vera—you just went out to feather your own nest, and sod everybody else.”

“I had to learn to fight for myself. For myself and my girls. It’s easy to be superior when you don’t know what hardship is. When you’re in a trap, you have to fight your way out.”

(Oh, please! She’s still going on about all that old wartime stuff! Why can’t she let it go?)

“What trap? What hardship? That was fifty years ago! And just look at yourself now! All bitter and twisted like a snake with jaundice.” (Now I put on the social-worker voice.) “You need to learn to let go of the past.”

“Don’t give me this new age hippy nonsense. Let’s just talk about the practicalities.”

“I’d rather give the money to Oxfam, Vera, than let you win by extortion.”

“Oxfam. How pathetic!”

So Mother’s little legacy stayed in the bank, and after that my sister and I didn’t talk to each other for two years, until a common enemy brought us together.

A fat brown, envelope

“So did you get the letter from the solicitor, Pappa?”

“Hmm. Yes. Yes.”

He’s obviously not feeling chatty.

“So what did you think?”

“Aha, well…” He coughs. His voice sounds strained. He doesn’t like talking on the telephone. “Well, I have shown it to Valentina.”

“And what did she say?”

“What she says? Well…” More coughing. “She says it is impossible that the law will separate a man from his wife.”

“But didn’t you read the solicitor’s letter?”

“Yes. No. But still, this is what she says. This is what she believes.”

“But what she believes is wrong, Pappa. Wrong.”

“Hmm.”

“And what about you? What do you say?” I struggle to control my tone.

“Well, what can I say?” There is a little helpless shrug in his voice, as though he has surrendered to forces beyond his control.

“Well, you could say you don’t think it’s such a good idea to get married after all. Couldn’t you?”

My stomach contracts with dread. I realise he really is going to go ahead with this marriage, and that I am going to have to live with it.

“Aha. Yes. No.”

“What do you mean, yes, no?” Irritation grates in my throat. I am trying my best to keep my voice sweet.

“I cannot say this. I cannot say anything.”

“Pappa, for goodness’ sake…”

“Look, Nadezhda, we are going to get married and that is that. There is no more point to talk about it.”

I have a feeling that something terrible is going on, but I can see that my father is alive and excited for the first time since my mother died.

This isn’t the first time he has harboured fantasies of rescuing destitute Ukrainians. There was once a plan to track down members of the family whom he had not seen for half a century, and bring them all over to Peterborough. He wrote letters to town halls and village post offices all over Ukraine. Dozens of replies came pouring in from dodgy-sounding ‘relatives’ who wanted to take him up on his offer. Mother put her foot down.

Now I see his energy is all redirected towards this woman and her son—they will become his substitute family. He can speak with them in his own language. Such a beautiful language that anyone can be a poet. Such a landscape—it would make anyone an artist. Blue-painted wooden houses, golden wheat fields, forests of silver birch, slow wide sliding rivers. Instead of going home to Ukraina, Ukraina will come home to him.

I have visited Ukraine. I have seen the concrete housing blocks and the fish dead in the rivers.

“Pappa, Ukraina isn’t like you remember it. It’s different now. The people are different. They don’t sing any more—only vodka songs. All they’re interested in is shopping. Western goods. Fashion. Electronics. American brand names.”

“Hmm. So you say. Maybe it is so. But if I can save one lovely human being…”

He’s off again.

There is a problem, however. Her tourist visa expires in three weeks, my father explains.

“And she still must get divorce papers from husband.”

“You mean she’s married to someone else?”

“Her husband is in Ukraina. Very intelligent type, by the way. Polytechnic director. I have been in correspondence with him—even spoken to him on telephone. He told me that Valentina will make excellent wife.” There is a smug lilt in his voice. The soon-to-be-ex-husband will fax divorce papers to the Ukrainian Embassy in London. In the meantime, my father will make arrangements for the wedding.

“But if her visa expires in three weeks it sounds as though you’ve left it rather late.” (I hope.)

“Well, if she has to go back, then we will be married when she returns. On this we are absolutely decided.”

I notice that I has become ‘we’. I realise that this plan has been developing over quite a long time, and that I have been permitted to know about it only in its very latest stages. If she has to go back to Ukraine, he will write her a letter and she will come back as his fiancee.

“But Pappa,” I say, “you read the solicitor’s letter. They may not allow her to come back Isn’t there someone else, someone a bit younger she could marry?”

Yes, this resourceful woman has an alternative marriage plan, my father says. Through a domestic care agency she has met a young man who is totally paralysed following a road accident. He, by the way (says Pappa), is a very decent young man from good family. Used to be teacher. She has been looking after him—bathing, spoon-feeding, taking to toilet. If she is rejected as my father’s fiancee, she will arrange to be invited back as an ‘
au pair
’ to look after this young man. This kind of work is still permitted under immigration regulations. During the year she is permitted to stay as an
au pair
, he will fall in love with her and she will marry him. Thus her future in this country will be secured. But this would be a life sentence of servitude for poor Valentina, for he is totally dependent on her, twenty-four hours a day, whereas my father’s needs are small (says Pappa). My father knows this, because she has invited him to the house where she works, and has shown him the young man. “You see what he’s like?” she said to my father. “How could I marry that?” (Only of course she said it in Ukrainian.) No, my father wishes to spare her that life of slavery. He will make the sacrifice and marry her himself.

I am riven with anxiety. I am consumed with curiosity. And so I put aside two years of bitterness and telephone my sister.

Vera is uncompromising where I am woolly-mindedly liberal. She is decisive where I am wavering.

“Oh my God, Nadezhda. Why didn’t you tell me before? We’ve got to stop her.”

“But if she makes him happy…”

“Don’t be so ridiculous. Of course she won’t make him happy. We can see what she’s after. Really, Nadezhda, why do you always take the side of the criminals…”

“But Vera…”

“You must meet her and warn her to back off.”

I telephone my father.

“Pappa, why don’t I come over and meet Valentina?”

“No no. This is absolutely impossible.”

“Why impossible?”

He hesitates. He can’t think of excuses fast enough.

“She doesn’t speak English.”

“But I can speak Ukrainian.”

“She is very shy.”

“She doesn’t sound shy to me. We could discuss Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.” (Ha ha.)

“She will be working.”

“Well, I could meet her afterwards. After she finishes work.”

“No, this is not the point. Nadezhda, it’s better we don’t talk about this. Goodbye.”

He puts the phone down. He’s hiding something.

A few days later I ring him again. I try a different tack:

“Hi, Pappa. It’s me, Nadezhda.” (He knows it’s me, but I want to sound friendly.)

“Aha. Yes. Yes.”

“Pappa, Mike’s got a couple of days off this weekend. Why don’t we come over and see you.” My father adores my husband. He can talk to him about tractors and aeroplanes.

“Hmm.
Tak
. That will be very nice. When will you come?”

“On Sunday. We’ll come for lunch on Sunday, about one o’clock.”

“OK. Good. I will tell Valentina.”

We arrive well before one o’clock, hoping to catch her, but she has already gone out. The house looks neglected, dispirited. When my mother was here there were always fresh flowers, a clean tablecloth, the smell of good cooking. Now there are no flowers, but used cups, piles of papers, books, things that have not been put away. The table is bare dark brown formica, spread with newspaper on which some chunks of stale bread and apple peelings are waiting to be thrown away. There is an odour of stale grease.

My father, however, is in great spirits. He has an intense, animated air. His hair, which is now quite silver and thin, has grown long and wispy at the back. His skin has colour and seems firmer, a bit freckled, as if he has been out in the garden. His eyes are bright. He offers us lunch—tinned fish, tinned tomatoes, brown bread, followed by Toshiba apples. This is his special recipe—apples gathered from the garden, peeled, chopped, packed into a pyrex dish and cooked in the microwave (a Toshiba) until they are sticky and solid. Proud of his invention, he offers us more and more and more, and some to take home with us.

I worry—is it healthy to be eating so much out of tins? Is he getting a balanced diet? I check the contents of his fridge and larder. There is milk, cheese, cereal, bread, plenty of tins. No fresh fruit or vegetables, apart from Toshiba apples and some very speckled bananas. But he looks well. I start to make a shopping list.