As they file out of the courtroom, I can hear him hissing beneath his breath to Valentina something like, "...you've made a complete fool of me..."

Ten minutes later, Mr Ericson conies back on his own.

"My client is withdrawing her appeal," he says.

"Did you see the way he winked at us?" says Vera.

"Who?"

"The chairman. He winked."

"No! I didn't see. Did he really?"

"I thought he was so s.e.xy."

"s.e.xy?"

"Very sort of English and crumpled. I do so like English men."

"But not d.i.c.k"

"d.i.c.k was English and crumpled when we first met. I liked him then. Before he met Persephone."

We are sitting side by side with our feet up on a wide sofa in Vera's Putney flat. In front of us on a low table are two gla.s.ses and a bottle of chilled white wine, almost empty. Dave Brubeck plays quietly in the background. After the alliance of the courtroom, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for me to come back here. It is a cool white-painted flat, with deep pale carpets and very little but very expensive furniture. I have never been here before.

"I like your flat, Vera. It's so much nicer than where you used to live with d.i.c.k."

"You haven't been here before? Of course not. Well, maybe you'll come again."

"I hope so. Or maybe you'll come up to Cambridge one weekend."

"Maybe."

When Vera lived with d.i.c.k, I visited their house once or twice-it was full of polished wood and elaborate wall-paper which I found pretentious and gloomy.

"What do you suppose it means, Vera-that she's withdrawing her appeal? Will she give up altogether? Or do you think it just means she will ask for another date?"

"Perhaps she will simply melt away into the criminal underworld where she belongs. After all, they can only deport her if they can find her."

Vera has lit a cigarette and thrown off her shoes.

"Or it could just mean she will go back and work on Pappa. Get him to back down on the divorce. I'm sure he would if she went about it the right way."

"He's certainly stupid enough." Vera watches a long finger of ash glow at the end of her cigarette. "But I think she will go to ground. Hide herself in a secret lair somewhere. Live off fraudulent benefit claims and prost.i.tution." The ash falls silently into a gla.s.s ashtray. Vera sighs. "Soon enough she will latch on to another victim."

"But Pappa can divorce her in her absence."

"Let's hope so. The question is how much he has to pay her to get rid of her."

As we are talking, my eyes wander around the room. There is a vase of pale pink peonies on the mantelpiece, and beside them a row of photographs, mainly of Vera and d.i.c.k and the children, some in colour, some in black and white. But one photograph is in sepia, in a silver frame. I stare. Can it be? Yes it is. It is the photograph of Mother wearing the hat. She must have taken it from the box in the sitting-room. But when? And why didn't she say anything? I feel an angry colour rising in my cheeks.

"Vera, the photograph of Mother..."

"Oh, yes. Delightful isn't it? Such an enchanting hat."

"But, it isn't yours."

"Not mine? The hat?"

"The photograph, Vera. It's not yours."

I jump to my feet, knocking over my winegla.s.s. A pool of Sauvignon blanc forms on the table and drips on to the carpet.

"What's the matter, Nadia? It's only a photograph, for goodness' sake."

"I must go. I don't want to miss the last train."

"But won't you stay the night? The bed's made up in the little room."

"I'm sorry. I can't stay."

What does it matter? It's only a photograph. But that that photograph! But is it worth losing a new-found sister over? These thoughts race through my mind as I sit on the last train home, watching my reflection in the window as it fleets over the darkening fields and woods. The face in the window, colours washed out in the dusky light, has the same shape and contours as the face in the sepia photograph. When she smiles, the smile is the same. photograph! But is it worth losing a new-found sister over? These thoughts race through my mind as I sit on the last train home, watching my reflection in the window as it fleets over the darkening fields and woods. The face in the window, colours washed out in the dusky light, has the same shape and contours as the face in the sepia photograph. When she smiles, the smile is the same.

Next day I telephone Vera.

"So sorry I had to rush off. I'd forgotten I had an early morning appointment."

Twenty-One.

The lady vanishes A few days after the botched tribunal, Eric Pike calls round at my father's house in a big blue Volvo estate. He and my father sit in the back room amicably discussing aviation, while Valentina and Stanislav run up and down the stairs piling all their possessions in black bin bags into the back of the car. Mike and I arrive just as they are ready to leave. Eric Pike shakes my father's hand and takes the driver's seat, and Stanislav and Valentina squeeze into the pa.s.senger seat together. My father hovers on the doorstep. Valentina winds down the window, sticks her head out and shouts, "You think you very clever, Mr Engineer, but you wait. Remember I always get what I want." few days after the botched tribunal, Eric Pike calls round at my father's house in a big blue Volvo estate. He and my father sit in the back room amicably discussing aviation, while Valentina and Stanislav run up and down the stairs piling all their possessions in black bin bags into the back of the car. Mike and I arrive just as they are ready to leave. Eric Pike shakes my father's hand and takes the driver's seat, and Stanislav and Valentina squeeze into the pa.s.senger seat together. My father hovers on the doorstep. Valentina winds down the window, sticks her head out and shouts, "You think you very clever, Mr Engineer, but you wait. Remember I always get what I want."

She spits, "Phphoo!" The car is already moving forward. The gob of spit lands on the car door, hangs for a moment, and slides slimily to the ground. Then they are gone.

"So are you all right, Pappa? Is everything all right?" I give him a hug. Under the cardigan, his shoulders are bony.

"All right. Yes everything all right. Good job. Maybe one day I will telephone to Valentina and seek reconciliation."

And now for the first time I hear a new tone in my father's voice: I realise how lonely he is.

I telephone Vera. We must make plans for how Father is to be supported now that he is on his own. Big Sis is all for getting him certified and carted off to a residential home.

"We must face the truth, Nadezhda, unpalatable though it is. Our father is mad. It's only a matter of time before he gets into some other lunatic scheme. Better put him where he can cause no more trouble."

"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 pa.s.s.

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 p.o.r.n 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 sc.r.a.ped it off with a knife-throwing out sc.r.a.ps 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 gla.s.s fell to the floor among a debris of newspaper, empty boil-in bags, spilled sugar, broken pasta sh.e.l.ls, 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.

OhmyG.o.d! 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 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.

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. c.r.a.p 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 doc.u.ments, 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."