“She’s certainly succeeded there.”

There is a silence. In the background I can hear jazz playing on the radio. The music ends. There is a round of applause. Then Vera says in her Big Sis voice, “Sometimes I wonder, Nadia, whether there is not such a thing as a victim mentality-you know, as in the natural kingdom there is a hierarchy of dominance in every species.” (There she goes again.) “Maybe it is in his nature to be bullied.”

“You mean it’s the victim’s fault?”

“Well, yes, in a way.”

“But when Dick got nasty-that wasn’t your fault.”

“Of course that was different. In relation to a man, a woman is always the victim.”

“That sounds dangerously feminist, Vera.”

“Feminist? Oh dear. I just thought it was common sense. But when a man allows himself to be beaten by a woman, you must admit, there’s something wrong.”

“You mean it’s OK if the husband beats the wife? That’s just what Valentina said.” I can’t help myself. I still wind her up. If I’m not careful, this conversation will end, as in the old days, with one of us slamming the phone down. “Of course, you could have a point, Vera. But it might just be a matter of size and strength, rather than personality or gender,” I appease.

There is a pause. She clears her throat.

“This is all getting very confusing, Nadia. Maybe it’s not a victim mentality, then. Maybe it’s just Pappa who attracts violence. Did Mother never tell you the story of what happened when they first met?”

“No. Tell me.”

One Sunday in February 1926, my father set out across the city with his ice skates slung around his neck and a hardboiled egg and a slab of bread in his pocket. The sun was out, and a fresh fall of snow lay light on the ornate balconies and carved caryatids of the fin-de-siecle houses on Melnikov Avenue, muffled the Sunday bells that rang out from the golden domes, and settled as innocent as a baby’s pillow on the slopes of Babi Yar.

He had just crossed Melnikov Bridge and was heading towards the sports stadium when a snowball lobbed from the other side of the street whistled past his ear. As he turned to see where it had come from, another hit him full in the face. Nikolai gasped for breath and scrabbled in the snow for his cap. “Hey hey Nikolashka! Nikolashka cleverdick! Who do you fancy, Nikolashka? Who do you think of when you wank?”

His tormentors were two brothers called Sovinko, who had left school a couple of years before. They must have been about thirteen or fourteen-the same age as my father. They were big shaven-headed lads who lived with their mother and three sisters in two rooms behind the railway station. Their father had died in a forestry accident near Gomel. Mrs Sovinko eked out a living doing people’s laundry, and the boys wore cast-offs that their mother rescued from the laundry-bags of her clients.

“Hey brain-arse! D’yer fancy Lyalya? D’yer fancy Ludmilla? Bet you fancy Katya. Have you showed her your dick?”

The bigger boy lobbed another snowball.

“I don’t fancy anybody,” said my father. “I am interested in languages and mathematics.”

The boys pointed their red-cold fingers and bayed derision.

“Hey, he dun’t fancy girls: D’yer fancy the boys, then?”

“Just because I don’t fancy the girls, it does not follow logically that I must fancy boys.”

“D’yer hear that? Dun’t follow logically! D’yer hear that? He’s got a logical dick! Hey hey Nikolashka, show us your logical dick.”

They had crossed the road, and were following him along the pavement, getting closer.

“Let’s cool his dick down a bit!”

They broke into a careful run. The younger brother sneaked up and shoved a handful of snow down the back of his trousers. Nikolai tried to get away, but the pavement was treacherous. He fell on his face. The two boys pinned him down and straddled him shoving handfuls of snow into his face, down his neck, down his trousers. They started to pull his trousers down. The bigger brother grabbed his skates and began to tug. Nikolai, terrified, screamed and flailed about in the snow.

Just at that moment, three figures appeared at the top of the street. From where he was lying, face down in the snow, he made out a tall girl holding two smaller children by the hand. “Help me! Help me!” cried Nikolai.

The three hesitated when they saw the fracas. Should they run away or should they intervene? Then the small boy dashed forward.

“Geroff him!” he yelled, hurling himself at the legs of the smaller of the two brothers. The tall girl pitched in, and started to pull the bigger boy’s hair. “You geroff, you fat bully! Leave him alone!”

He shrugged off her assault and seized her wrists with both hands, allowing Nikolai to wriggle free.

“Is he yer boyfriend, then? D’yer fancy him?”

“Geroff or I’ll call my Dad, and he’ll slice your fingers off with his sabre and stuff ‘em up your nose.” Her eyes blazed.

The small girl rubbed handfuls of snow into their ears.

“Stuff’em up your nose! Stuff’em up your nose!” she shrilled.

The brothers squirmed and thrashed about, grinning and grabbing at the girls. There was nothing they liked more than a good fight, and they didn’t feel the cold. The sky above them was blue as a robin’s egg and the sun sparkled on the snow. Then adults appeared on the scene. There was shouting and sticks were waved. The Sovinkos pulled their caps over their ears and darted away, fast and agile as snow hares, before anyone could catch them.

“Are you all right?” asked the tall girl. It was his classmate Ludmilla Ocheretko, with her younger sister and brother. They had their skates slung round their necks too. (Of course the Sovinkos were too poor to have skates of their own.)

In winter, the sports stadium in Kiev was sprayed with water which froze instantly into an outdoor ice rink, and all the young people in Kiev got their skates on. They whizzed about, showed off, fell, pushed, glided and tumbled into each other’s arms. It didn’t matter what was happening in Moscow or on the many bloody fronts of the Civil War: people still met, skated a couple of laps together, and fell in love. So Nikolai and Ludmilla grasped each other’s mittened hands and spun around and around on their skates-the sky and the clouds and the golden domes spun with them-faster and faster, laughing like kids (they were still only kids) till they fell in a dizzy heap on the ice.

Next time I visit my father it is mid-week, mid-morning, and I come without Mike. It is a mild luminous spring day, with tulips bursting out in front gardens and new growth greening the tips of trees. In Mother’s garden, the peonies are already out, thrusting up their crimson fists through the rampant weeds in the flower-beds.

As I pull up outside the house, I notice a police panda car parked there. I walk into the kitchen to find Valentina and the village policeman sharing a joke over a cup of coffee. After the freshness of the spring air, it is unbearably hot indoors, with the gas boiler belting away and all the windows closed. The two look up at me resentfully, as though I have disturbed a private tryst. Valentina, wearing a lycra denim mini-skirt and a fluffy baby-pink jumper with a white satin heart for the pocket, is perched on a high stool, with her legs crossed and her peep-toe mules casually dangling on her bare toes. (Slut!) The policeman lounges on a chair against the wall with his legs spread. (Slob!) They fall silent as I come in. When I introduce myself, the policeman pulls himself up and shakes my hand. It is the village constable, the same man I spoke to on the telephone about the wet tea-towel incident.

“Just dropped by to check on your Dad,” he says.

“Where is he?” I ask.

Valentina gestures towards the makeshift door which Mike put up, separating the kitchen from the dining-room, which is now his bedroom. My father has locked himself into his room, and is refusing to come out.