A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian Part 11

Now my father starts drawing-ground-floor plans, upper-floor plans, doors that will be blocked, openings that will be made. He covers sheets of graph paper with spidery drawings. With help from the neighbours he brings his bed down into the apple-filled sitting-room, the room in which Mother died. He tells Vera it is because he has difficulty climbing the stairs.

But the room is too cold, and he is reluctant to turn the heating up because of the apples. He starts to cough and wheeze, and Valentina, fearful that he will die before her British pa.s.sport is consummated (so he says), takes him to Doctor Figges. The doctor tells him he needs to keep warm at night. His bed is moved into the dining-room next to the kitchen, where the central heating boiler can be kept on day and night. It was open-plan before, but he asks Mike to put a door up for him, because he is afraid Valentina will murder him in the night (so he says). In this room he sits, sleeps, eats. He uses the small downstairs toilet and shower room that was put in for Mother. His world has contracted into a span of one room, but his mind still roams freely across the ploughed fields of the world.

Ireland, like Ukraine, is a largely rural country which suffers from its proximity to a more powerful industrialised neighbour. Ireland's contribution to the history of tractors is the genius engineer Harry Ferguson, who was born in 1884, near Belfast.

Ferguson was a clever and mischievous man, who also had a pa.s.sion for aviation. It is said that he was the first man in Great Britain to build and fly his own aircraft in 1909. But he soon came to believe that improving efficiency of food production would be his unique service to mankind. Harry Ferguson's first two-furrow plough was attached to the cha.s.sis of the Ford Model T car converted into a tractor, aptly named Eros. This plough was mounted on the rear of the tractor, and through ingenious use of balance springs it could be raised or lowered by the driver using a lever beside his seat Harry Ferguson's first two-furrow plough was attached to the cha.s.sis of the Ford Model T car converted into a tractor, aptly named Eros. This plough was mounted on the rear of the tractor, and through ingenious use of balance springs it could be raised or lowered by the driver using a lever beside his seat. Ford, meanwhile, was developing its own tractors. The Ferguson design was more advanced, and made use of hydraulic linkage, but Ferguson knew that despite his engineering genius, he could not achieve his dream on his own. He needed a larger company to produce his design. So he made an informal agreement with Henry Ford, sealed only by a handshake. This Ford-Ferguson partners.h.i.+p gave to the world a new type of Fordson tractor far superior to any that had been known before, and the precursor of all modern-type tractors Ford, meanwhile, was developing its own tractors. The Ferguson design was more advanced, and made use of hydraulic linkage, but Ferguson knew that despite his engineering genius, he could not achieve his dream on his own. He needed a larger company to produce his design. So he made an informal agreement with Henry Ford, sealed only by a handshake. This Ford-Ferguson partners.h.i.+p gave to the world a new type of Fordson tractor far superior to any that had been known before, and the precursor of all modern-type tractors. However, this agreement by a handshake collapsed in 1947 when Henry Ford II took over the empire of his father, and started to produce a new Ford 8N tractor, using the Ferguson system. Ferguson's open and cheerful nature was no match for the ruthless mentality of the American businessman. The matter was decided in court in 1951. Ferguson claimed $240 million, but was awarded only $9.25 million However, this agreement by a handshake collapsed in 1947 when Henry Ford II took over the empire of his father, and started to produce a new Ford 8N tractor, using the Ferguson system. Ferguson's open and cheerful nature was no match for the ruthless mentality of the American businessman. The matter was decided in court in 1951. Ferguson claimed $240 million, but was awarded only $9.25 million. Undaunted in spirit, Ferguson had a new idea. He approached the Standard Motor Company at Coventry with a plan, to adapt the Vanguard car for use as tractor. But this design had to be modified, because petrol was still rationed in the post-war period Undaunted in spirit, Ferguson had a new idea. He approached the Standard Motor Company at Coventry with a plan, to adapt the Vanguard car for use as tractor. But this design had to be modified, because petrol was still rationed in the post-war period. The biggest challenge for Ferguson was the move from petrol-driven to diesel-driven engines and his success gave rise to the famous TE-20, of which more than half a million were built in the UK The biggest challenge for Ferguson was the move from petrol-driven to diesel-driven engines and his success gave rise to the famous TE-20, of which more than half a million were built in the UK. Ferguson will be remembered for bringing together two great engineering stories of our time, the tractor and the family car, agriculture and transport, both of which have contributed so richly to the well-being of mankind Ferguson will be remembered for bringing together two great engineering stories of our time, the tractor and the family car, agriculture and transport, both of which have contributed so richly to the well-being of mankind.

My father goes to Nottingham for Valentina's appeal after all. How does she persuade him? Does she threaten to tell the bureaucraczia about orals.e.x? Does she cradle his bony skull between her twin warheads and whisper sweet nothings into his hearing aid? My father is silent about this, but he has a cunning plan.

They travel to Nottingham by train. Valentina has bought herself a hew outfit for the occasion; it is a navy suit with a pink polyester silk lining that matches her lipstick and fingernails. Her hair is piled up on top of her head in a yellow beehive, secured with a clip and sprayed with lacquer to hold it in place. My father wears the same suit he wore at his wedding and a crumpled white s.h.i.+rt with a frayed collar and the two top b.u.t.tons sewn on with black thread. On his head he wears a green peaked cap which he refers to as his 'lordovska kepochka' (meaning 'cap as worn by aristocracy') which he bought in the Co-op in Peterborough twenty years ago. Valentina trims his hair with the kitchen scissors to tidy him up a bit, straightens his tie, and even gives him a peck on the cheek.

They are ushered into a cheerless beige-painted room where two men in grey suits and a woman in a grey cardigan sit behind a brown table on which are some sheafs of paper and a decanter of water with three gla.s.ses. Valentina is called to speak first, and is taken through a series of questions in which she details how she and my father met at the Ukrainian Club in Peterborough, how they fell in love at first sight, how he wooed her with poems and love letters, how they were married in church, and how happy they are together.

When it is my father's turn to speak, he asks in a quiet voice whether he may go into a separate room. There is some discussion among the Immigration panel, but their conclusion is that no, he must speak in front of everybody.

"I will speak under duress," he says. They take him through the same series of questions, and his replies are just the same as Valentina's. At the end when he has finished he says, "Thank you. Now I want you to record that all I have said is spoken under duress."

He is taking a gamble on her lack of English.

There is a flurry of note-taking, but none of the panel members looks up for a moment or meets my father's eye. Valentina raises one eyebrow by a fraction, but maintains her fixed smile.

"What it mean, this dooh-ress word?" she asks him, as they are waiting for the train to take them home.

"It means love," my father says. "Like the French, tendresse tendresse."

"Ah holubchik holubchik. My little pigeon." She beams, and gives him another peck on the cheek.

Twelve.

A half-eaten ham sandwich "How do you suppose Mrs Z knew about the annulment plan?" Vera asks. Mrs Divorce Expert and Mrs Flog'emandsend'emhome are putting their heads together again.

"Valentina must have seen the letter from the solicitor."

"She's going through his mail."

"Looks like it."

"I must say, with her devious criminal bent, I'm not in the least surprised."

"It's a game two can play."

Next time we visit, I abandon Mike to field the tractor monologues in the apple-filled sitting-room, while I disappear upstairs to rummage through Valentina's room. She has taken over the room which used to be my parents' bedroom. It is a sombre, ugly room with heavy 19505 oak furniture, the wardrobe still full of my mother's clothes, twin beds with yellow candlewick covers, mauve, yellow and black curtains in a startling modernist design of my father's choosing, and a square of blue carpet in the middle of the brown lino. To me this room, this inner sanctum of my parents' relations.h.i.+p, has always been a place of mystery and trepidation. So I am startled to find that Valentina has transformed it into a Hollywood-style boudoir, with pink nylon fur-fabric cus.h.i.+ons, quilted and frilled holders for tissue paper, cosmetics and cotton wool, pictures of wide-eyed children on the walls, cuddly toys on the bed, and bottles of perfume, lotions and creams on the dressing-table. It seems they have all come from mail-order catalogues, several of which lie open on the floor.

But the most remarkable thing about the room is the mess. There is a chaos of papers, clothes, shoes, dirty cups, nail varnish, pots of cosmetics, crusts of toast, hairbrushes, beauty appliances, toothbrushes, stockings, packets of biscuits, jewellery, photographs, sweet wrappers, knick-knacks, used plates, underwear, apple cores, sticking plasters, catalogues, wrappings, sticky sweets, all jumbled together on the dressing-table, the chair, the spare bed, and overflowing on to the floor. And cotton wool, everywhere blobs of cotton wool covered with red lipstick, black eye make-up, orange face make-up, pink nail varnish, strewn on the bed, on the floor, trodden into the blue carpet, jumbled up with the clothes and food.

There is a strange odour, a mixture of sickly-sweet scent and industrial chemical, and something else-something organic and bacterial.

Where to start? I realise I don't know what exactly I'm looking for. I reckon I have an hour before Valentina gets back from work, and Stanislav gets home from his Sat.u.r.day job.

I start with the bed. There are some photos, a few official-looking papers, an application for a provisional driver's licence, a?45 from her job at the nursing-home (I notice that the surname is spelt differently on both doc.u.ments), an application form for a job at McDonald's. The photographs are interesting-they show Valentina in a glamorous off-the-shoulder evening gown, elaborately coiffed, standing beside a dark stocky middle-aged man who is a couple of inches shorter than she. Sometimes he has his arm around her shoulder; sometimes they hold hands; sometimes they smile at the camera. Who is the man? I study the picture closely, but it does not look like Bob Turner. I pick one of the photos and slip it into my pocket.

Under the bed, in a Tesco's carrier bag, I make my next discovery: it is a bundle of letters and poems in my father's crabbed hand. Interspersed with the letters and poems, someone has supplied an English translation. My darling...beloved...beautiful G.o.ddess Venus...b.r.e.a.s.t.s like ripe peaches (for goodness'sake!)...hair like the golden wheat fields of Ukraina...all my love and devotion...yours until death and beyond. The handwriting of the translations looks like a child's, with large rounded letters, and the i's dotted with little circles. Stanislav? Why would he do this? Who is the intended reader of these translations? One of the letters, I notice, has numbers as well as words. Curious, I pull it out. My father has set out his income, giving details of all his pensions and all his savings accounts. The spidery numbers crawl up and down the pages. It is a modest amount, but enough to live comfortably, and all will be yours, my beloved, he has written at the bottom. All this has been neatly transcribed in the childish hand.

I read it through again, my irritation rising. My sister is right-he is a fool. I should not blame Valentina for taking his money-he has more or less thrust it upon her.

Now I turn my attention to the drawers. Here the same chaos prevails. I sift through the jumble of underwear, outerwear, sticky sweet wrappers, bottles of lotions, cheap perfume.

In one drawer, I find a note. "See you on Sat.u.r.day. All my love, Eric." Beside it, buried in a pair of knickers, is a half-eaten ham sandwich, its crusts grey and curled back, the pink dark-dry sliver of ham poking out obscenely.

At that moment, I hear the sound of a car pulling up. Quickly, I sneak out of Valentina's room and into Stanislav's. This used to be my room, and I still keep some things in the wardrobe, so I have an excuse to be there. Stanislav is tidier than Valentina. It does not take me long to realise that he is a fan of Kylie Minogue and of Boyzone. This 'musical genius' has a roomful of tapes of Boyzone! On the table under the window are some school books, and a writing pad. He is writing a letter in Ukrainian. Dear Daddy...

Then I realise there are two new voices-it is not Mike and my father, it is Valentina and Stanislav talking to each other in the kitchen. I close Stanislav's door behind me quietly and tiptoe downstairs. Valentina and Stanislav are in the kitchen poking at some boil-in-the-bag delicacies bubbling away on the cooker. Under the grill, two shrivelled sausages are starting to smoke.

"Hallo Valentina. Hallo Stanislav." (I'm not sure of the etiquette here: how are you supposed to talk to someone who is beating up your father, and whose room you have been rifling through? I opt for the English way: polite conversation.) "Had a hard day at work?"

"I always working hard. Too much hard," Valentina replies grumpily. I notice how fat she has grown. Her stomach has swelled like a balloon, and her cheeks have stretched and bulged. Stanislav, on the other hand, seems to have grown thinner. My father is lurking in the doorway, emboldened by Mike's presence.

"Sausages burning, Valentina," he says.

"You no eating, you shut up mouth." She flicks a wet tea-towel in his direction.

Then she throws the boil-in-bags on to a plate and slits them with a knife, spewing out their indeterminate contents, slaps the sausages down beside them, splatters some ketchup on top, and stomps back up to her bedroom. Stanislav follows mutely.

The pen is mightier than the tea-towel, and Father writes his own revenge.

Never was the technology of peace, in the form of the tractor, transformed into a weapon of war, more ferociously than with the creation of the Valentine tank. This tank was developed by the British, but produced in Canada, where many Ukrainian engineers were skilled in the production of tractors. The Valentine tank was so named because it was first born into the world on the day of St Valentine in 1938. But there was nothing lovely about it. Clumsy and heavy with an old-fas.h.i.+oned gearbox, it was nevertheless deadly, indeed a true killing machine Never was the technology of peace, in the form of the tractor, transformed into a weapon of war, more ferociously than with the creation of the Valentine tank. This tank was developed by the British, but produced in Canada, where many Ukrainian engineers were skilled in the production of tractors. The Valentine tank was so named because it was first born into the world on the day of St Valentine in 1938. But there was nothing lovely about it. Clumsy and heavy with an old-fas.h.i.+oned gearbox, it was nevertheless deadly, indeed a true killing machine.

"Ugh!" exclaims Vera, when I tell her about the ham sandwich. "But of course, what else would one expect from such a s.l.u.t?"

I cannot describe the smell. I tell her about the cotton wool.

"How simply ghastly! In Mother's bedroom! But didn't you find anything else? Was there nothing from the solicitor about her immigration status, or any advice about divorce?"

"I couldn't find anything. Maybe she's keeping it at work. There's no trace in the house."

"She must have hidden it. Of course it is only what one would expect from a highly developed criminal mind like hers."

"But listen to this, Vera. I had a look in Stanislav's room, and guess what I found."

"I haven't a clue. Drugs? Counterfeit money?"

"Don't be silly. No, I found a letter. He's writing to his Dad in Ternopil, saying he's really unhappy over here. He wants to go home."

Thirteen.

Yellow rubber gloves Of course Valentina finds out the true meaning of 'duress'. Stanislav tells her. Worse, she finds out on the same day that a letter comes from the Immigration Service, telling her that her appeal has been refused once more.

She corners my father as he is coming out of the toilet, bent over, fumbling with his flies.

"You living corpse!" she screeches. "I will show you dooh-ress!"

She is wearing yellow rubber gloves, and has in her hands a tea-towel, wet from was.h.i.+ng up, which she starts to flick at him.

"You useless shrivel-brain shrivel-p.e.n.i.s donkey." Flick flick "You dried shrivelled relic of ancient goat t.u.r.d!"

She flicks at his legs and at his hands that are stretched out for protection or in supplication. He backs away and finds himself pressed up against the kitchen sink. Over her shoulder he can see a pan of potatoes bubbling on the stove.

"You creeping insect I will stamp on." Flick flick! The steam from the potatoes is misting his gla.s.ses and there is a slight smell of scorching.

"Dooh-ress! Dooh-ress! I show you dooh-ress!" Emboldened she starts to flick at his face. Flick flick. The corner of the tea-towel catches the bridge of his nose, and sends his spectacles skittering across the floor.

"Valechka, please..."

"You morsel of old gristle that dog chewed dog spat out! Thphoo!"

She pokes him in the ribs with a yellow rubber finger.

"Why you still living? You should be long ago lying beside Ludmilla, dead beside dead."

His body is shaking and he can feel the familiar churning in his bowels. He is afraid he is about to soil himself. The stench of the burning potatoes fills the air.

"Please Valechka, darling, little pigeon..." She closes in on him, the yellow fingers now prodding, now slapping. The pan of potatoes is beginning to smoke.

"Soon you will return where you belong! Under ground. Under dooh-ress! Hah!"

He is saved by Mrs Zadchuk, ringing at the doorbell. She comes in, sizes up the situation and lays a plump restraining hand on her friend's arm.

"Come, Valya. Leave this no-good meanie orals.e.x maniac husband. Come. We go shopping."

As c.r.a.p car disappears round the corner, my father rescues the burnt potatoes and creeps into the bathroom to relieve himself. Then he phones me. His voice is shrill and breathy.

"I think she means to kill me, Nadia."

"She really said that, about returning to the graveyard?"

"In Russian. Said all in Russian."

"Pappa, the language doesn't matter..."

"No, on contrary, language is supremely important. In language are encapsulated not only thoughts but cultural values..."

"Pappa, listen. Please listen." He is still rabbiting on about the differences between Russian and Ukrainian while my mind is fixed on Valentina. "Just listen for a moment. Although it is difficult for you, the good news is that she has not been granted leave to remain. That means that maybe soon she will be deported. If only we knew how long it was going to be...But in the meantime, if you feel afraid of being in the house with her, you must come and stay with me and Mike." I know he will not come and stay unless he is really desperate-he hates any disruption to his routine. He has never spent a night under my sister's roof or mine.

"No, no. I will stay here. If I leave house, she will change lock. I will be out, she will be in. She is already talking like that."

After my father has said goodbye and retreated behind his bolted door, I make three phone calls.

The first is to the Home Office: Lunar House, Croydon. I imagine a vast pock-marked moonscape, empty and silent except for the eerie ringing of unanswered telephones. After about forty rings the phone is picked up. A remote female voice advises me to put the information in writing, and informs me that files are confidential and cannot be discussed with a third party. I try to explain my father's desperate situation. If only he could have some idea what was happening, whether Valentina can appeal again, when she will be deported. I plead. The remote voice relents and suggests I try the local immigration service for the Peterborough area.

Next I telephone the police station in the village. I describe the incident with the wet tea-towel and explain the danger he's in. The policeman isn't impressed. He has come across much worse.

"Look at it this way," he says. "It could just be a marital tiff, couldn't it? Happens all the time. If the police got involved every time a married couple fell out-well, there'd be no end to it. If you don't mind me saying so, you seem to be interfering in his affairs when he hasn't asked you to. You obviously don't see eye to eye with this lady he's married to. But if he wanted to make a complaint, he would have telephoned himself, wouldn't he? For all we know, he's been having the time of his life with her."

In my mind's eye I see a picture of my aged father, bent over, skinny as a stick, cowering under the blows of the wet tea-towel, and Valentina, large, voluptuous, gloved in yellow rubber, standing over him laughing. But the policeman has a different image in mind. Suddenly it's clear.

"You think it was a s.e.x-game-the wet tea-towel."

"I didn't say that."

"No but you thought it, didn't you?"

The policeman has been trained to deal with people like me. Politely, he diffuses my anger. In the end, he agrees to drop by when he is doing his rounds, and we leave it at that.

The third call is to my sister. Vera understands instantly. She is outraged.

"The b.i.t.c.h. The criminal s.l.u.t. But what a fool he is. He deserves everything."

"Never mind what he deserves, Vera. I think we need to get him out."

"It would be better if we could get her her out. Once he is out, he will never be able to go back, and she will have the house." out. Once he is out, he will never be able to go back, and she will have the house."

"Surely not."

"You know what they say-possession is nine tenths of the law."

"That sounds like a leaf from Mrs Zadchuk's law book."

"It was the same with me-when d.i.c.k started to turn nasty, I just wanted to run away, but my solicitor advised me to sit tight, else I could lose the house."

"But d.i.c.k wasn't trying to kill you."

"Do you think Valentina wants to kill Pappa? I think she just wants to frighten him."