A Surrey State of Affairs Read Free Page B

strewn across her unmade bed and unvacuumed carpet willy-nilly, bottles of nail polish tipped over magazines, half-burned candles nesting with chocolate bar wrappers and pots of unidentifiable unguents. Even though Sophie says she wants to save the planet, there were shopping bags of new but unworn clothes from Topshop and Primark, all presumably made in some sweatshop in India or Cambodia then shipped halfway across the world. Much to my chagrin, I even spotted one of my French silk nighties, which had been slashed down one side and pieced back together with a row of large safety pins. I gesticulated toward it and she calmly announced that it was her new dress, but she wasn’t quite sure about the color. This adds insult to injury. Everybody knows that peach is very flattering on the complexion.
    It was useless trying to remonstrate with her against such a backdrop. I will instruct Natalia to clean the room from top to bottom on Monday. She could do with the exercise, instead of stretching out on the leather sofa in Jeffrey’s study at every opportunity. She may be slim for now but these Russian types are quick to develop a stout bottom.
       SUNDAY, JANUARY 13
    Sophie is gone. Jeffrey and I drove her to the airport this afternoon. We stood on the cold tarmac outside Gatwick’s North Terminal, the wind whipping around her overfilled drag-along suitcase. I gave her a firm hug, Jeffrey patted her on the back. She felt very thin and fragile in my arms. For a moment I thought she was crying, but just as I went to comfort her she claimed that her hair had blown into her eyes and swore disgustingly.
    When I got home, I tried to distract myself by talking to Darcy, but I fear that Natalia has been teaching him Lithuanian. Either that or he has bird flu. He made a strange, harsh noise when I tried to get him to say “She sells seashells on the seashore.” I called Rupert, who told me that unless Darcy shows other symptoms beyond talking funny I shouldn’t worry. Reassured, I asked him what he’d been up to today and he said he had been “downloading MP3s,” or something even less intelligible than a parrot’s Lithuanian.
       MONDAY, JANUARY 14
    Today, I finally decided to have words with Natalia. I have had enough of her attitude, her cold soups, her collapsed soufflés, her lackluster dusting, her scattered underwear. If she is to give Sophie’s room the deep clean it requires, she will have to raise her standards. I positioned myself in the leather swivel chair in Jeffrey’s study, then summoned her.
    She did not present herself with the air of anxious deference I had been expecting. Instead she sauntered in and leaned against the wall, with one hand in her jeans pocket, the other twirling the strange tawny streaks that thread through her long, black hair. I informed her that her cleaning was below par and that she had better buck up, but she merely shrugged and looked baffled. I told her to get her act together, but she just stared. I told her to stop leaving her undergarments on the radiator. Again, she looked flummoxed. In desperation, I drew a diagram. She was wide-eyed, but when I stabbed at the drawing insistently with my pencil, she nodded slowly.
    I believe that I have bent her will to mine.
       TUESDAY, JANUARY 15
    My attempt to discipline Natalia has backfired. Yesterday, Jeffrey came home from work and headed upstairs toward his study. I followed him so that I could tell him all about the latest Aga malfunction on the stairway. He opened the door to his study and we were both greeted by the unsettling sight of Natalia cleaning the room in her underwear, which was scant, black, and dotted with little shiny red hearts. It appears that as well as struggling with English, she is incapable of deciphering a simple diagram. Mother never had problems like this in her day. Jeffrey had to lie down to recover from the shock. Englishmen are not accustomed to such spectacles.
       WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16
    I bear grim