“Nikoli he hit ball… where it goes noooooobody knoooooows!!!!”
[This is the 9th in a series of 12 episodes of THE GOVERNESS DIARIES. They should follow on in order, but if there is an episode missing, you will find them in ‘THE GOVERNESS DIARIES’ under ‘categories’ on the right side of this page, just scroll to whichever episode you missed.]
And the madness continued. Every night the family went out for supper and came home after 11:30pm and every night when they arrived back Lina screamed and performed. One night in particular, I came very close to intervening. Although I could not understand the conversation, it was obvious from tones of voice that Vladimir and Katja were having an argument and things were being said that should not have been said in front of the children. Nikoli was quiet (probably engrossed in his TV game) but Lina was crying and saying “net mamen… net mamen…” (no mommy… no mommy).
The next morning (knowing I shouldn’t) I asked Nikoli what was going on. “My muzzer, she acting crazy…” Realising that I shouldn’t have asked him, I just said, “Oh,” and changed the subject. I really felt for the children that day….
However, a few days later I could have happily murdered Lina again.
I went to fetch her as usual and Vladimir put her into the basket on the bike. For some reason he took her (brand new – very expensive) shoes off and put them in the basket. I suggested he put them behind the pillow in case they fell out. And off we went….
Me: “Ready… steady”
Lina: “Gooooooooooooo!”
Me: “Where she goes…”
Lina: “noooobody knoooows”
We did our normal ride, up and down streets and stopped for water but Lina kept throwing her water bottle out and I had to keep stopping to pick it up. I eventually got fed up and put it behind her pillow only to notice that there was only one shoe. I asked her where the other shoe was but she ignored me, so I unfastened her seat belt and looked under her but there was no shoe.
“Lina, where is your shoe?” I asked. She did not answer. I looked back the way we had come but there was no sign of it. There was only one thing to do… retrace. So in 32 degree weather, with the sun beating down on me, I began riding back the way I thought we had come, up and down all the streets, muttering all the way. Then Lina piped up, “House…Deni? House? Yes?”
Me: “Not yet, we have to look for your shoe.”
Lina: “Deni..house.”
Me: “Soon.”
Lina: “No soon…”
Me: “Yes soon.”
Lina: “No soon, house, please, house, Deni…house”
Me: “Lina! Enough! We have lost your shoe!”
Lina: “kokoroodaloo, myday aslostis shoo!”
After an hour of looking, I gave up and went ‘house’.
If you remember, Vladimir had asked me to stay on at the end of the contract. He had asked me again and I asked him to speak to the agency and draw up a contract so that I could see what he was expecting and then we could talk. The contract eventually came through on email:
The Housekeeper will provide 60 hours childcare/housekeeping a week over 5 working days with 2 days off on Sunday and Monday. The below timetable is for the guidance only and may be altered by mutual agreement.
7:30am – waking up the children, breakfast, taking them to school
8:30am-1pm – Running the errands, cleaning the house, cooking.
1pm – 3:30pm – Break
3:30pm/4:30pm- collecting the children from the school.
3:30pm/4:30pm- 6pm/7pm -helping children with their homework
3 evenings of babysitting a week on Friday, Saturday and Tuesday/Wednesday.
The Housekeeper will be entitled to 4 weeks of holidays a year, 2 weeks in Summer and 2 weeks in Winter. And will be entitled to receive 50% of salary payment for the duration of the annual leave period.
I told Vladimir we needed to discuss this. I said I was not prepared to work an average of 12 hours a day. I was not prepared to have my holidays split as I would like to visit my daughters every year and 2 weeks was not long enough. I would also not accept 50% pay during my leave and asked about bank holidays. I had to explain what bank holidays were and he said, “we don’t have this in Russia”. I then told him in the sweetest possible way, that the contract effectively took away most of my private time and that I valued time above anything else, especially time with my family and that I therefore could not accept this contract. He did his goldfish thing and said I should make the changes but that (his first mistake) “We will agree and then we don’t change, I don’t want you coming to change every five minutes.”
Nikoli continued to be arrogant and it was becoming more obvious every day where it came from when I watch the interactions between the parents.
During the last week in Italy, some friends of Vladimir came over. Vladimir decided to bring them to the house. The afternoon he brought them, I was in the house with Lina and he came in with three guys, who he introduced as “Alexander, Alex and Alexander.” Typical me, I raised an eyebrow and said, “you’re kidding right?” They all looked a bit confused so I just shook hands and said, “pleased to meet you Alexander” (once). It turns out their names were actually Alexander, Orlek, and Alessandro.
Anyway a few days later Vladimir and Nikoli were invited to play tennis with Alexander and Alexander’s son. Nikoli was very agitated that morning and couldn’t concentrate. I asked him what was wrong, knowing that he is a bad loser and presuming he was worried that the other bot would beat him, but he said, “I don’t want to do Eenglish, I will be late for tennis.” I told that he had nearly an hour before he had to leave and pointed out that he had never been late, but if he was I was sure his friend would wait. “No,” he said, “Ze coach, he can wait, but a friend must not wait.” I was rather disgruntled at the lack of respect for his coach and put him straight. “Nikoli, it is very rude to say that the coach can wait. You should always be on time for people. Now, I will set my timer to give you enough time to be on time and we will carry on with English.”
When they arrived home after the game I asked how it had gone (secretly hoping that the friend had thrashed him). “Not to good,” Vladimir said. “Yessss!!” I thought. “Oh? Why?” I said
“Well,” Vladimir said, “Nikoli won the match but he was not very sportman about it.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Yes, he shook hands and said to his friend ‘Some people are just meant to play tennis and some are not.’”
And the last little tennis story…
Nikoli’s coach was coaching him and a little Italian boy (guess what his name was?) and when the lesson was over, Alessandro (the little Italian boy) asked if I would let him stay and play a bit more. Lina was there too so I said he could play for 15 mins and then we had to go.
The two little boys were playing and Lina was watching through the fence. A high ball came at Nikoli and he hit it, but it wedged itself in the section between the handle and the racket so the ball seemed to have disappeared, The two boys were looking up into the sky and Lina came running to me:
“Deni! Deni!… the ball… it came high down. Nikoli he hit ball… where it goes noooooobody knoooooows!!!!”
Next episode – back to England and Vladimir makes some mistakes.
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