My house stinks of white beans that are mid-way through the several hours' boiling they require. And of smelly feet. Just after OH got home this evening, and we were talking in the kitchen - facing one another, no less! - and celebrating our new-found space (and were actually in grave danger of reaching out to embrace one another) the brothers came through the front door, muddied up to the eyeballs. I had literally just said something along the lines of 'thank god we've established a new routine, because I was starting to fall apart at the seams.' Neither of us could quite believe that they were there, so we continued just standing, facing one another, trying to work out what to do or say. My mind was, if I'm honest, on all the sofa cushions and throws that I had washed yesterday afternoon.
Following our break-through conversation yesterday evening, OH went straight to OBrother and gave it to him straight: that they needed to start cooking and eating in their own place. He then came and told me that he was taking the brothers to the supermarket, to stock up. I guess he wanted to strike while the iron was hot. He looked exhausted and fifteen minutes later we'd agreed that he'd take them on Saturday instead, by which time he said he hoped they'd have earned some money and be able to pay for the shopping themselves.
I knew DBrother would be a harder nut to crack. He had become nearly hysterical on a previous occasion, after we came back from Mr Khan's together, when I'd said he'd have to bite the bullet and start using the kitchen. 'I can't, Sofia, I just can't.'
Well I'm sorry, but he's a grown man and he came here knowing it would be difficult. I shared a house with five people once before, when I was in my twenties. It was called being a student. I am now a woman in my forties and I can't do it again. Apart from anything else, I want to go bra-less in the evenings without feeling uncomfortable.
Yes of course if they were literally penniless I might re-consider, but having taken the room they are just going to have to put up with stained tiles in the kitchen and blinking well cook and eat round there as well. I can't be having them just dropping round when they feel like it. And as I said to OH yesterday, if I am going to be expected to sometimes-support, sometimes-lead on the employment, social and language problems that could last for years, then I won't find the goodwill in my heart to do so if the brothers are driving me to distraction on the home front.
DBrother also, incidentally, keeps talking about how when he opens a bank account his (grown-up) daughter is going to put money into the account and he'll then share it with me. I have told him repeatedly that I don't want or need gifts. But it does really irk me that he didn't come here with more cash in hand, seemingly expecting to doss with his brother and his wife for as long as it took, without contributing, when we have two small kids and not enough money to last each month as it is. In Greece he drives a BMW motorbike, he owns a plot of land in Albania overlooking Corfu, and he recently sold the house he owned there for enough money for me to presume he has something in the bank. I am starting to detest his round, open face, really I am. He did, today, give me a 200 Euro note to part-cover the training he did at the weekend.
When he showed up eventually yesterday evening, 'too stressed' to eat what I'd prepared but also more than happy to divvy out and then ravage the seafood with his brother, I could barely conceal my rage. Talk about an atmosphere that you can cut with a knife, I have created a whole new set of atmospheres that you'd need a veritable variety of sharp kitchen implements to deal with. So... OH dropped them off at their place after they'd eaten and when he got back promised me that he had also now discussed the new living arrangements with DBrother on the way and that DBrother himself had concurred that it was necessary. I am sure this conversation took place. The problem is that the brothers are thick-skinned, stubborn and frankly too used to having a woman to look after them to simply swap our home for their digs, just like that. So they are choosing what to respond to. Which means I am now going to have to ask OH to issue them with another ultimatum that will kick in this weekend after he takes them shopping.
Meantime, here I am, once again, in my dining room. Having made clear that I am once again royally pissed off. As it happens I have a report to write that I really should have been doing earlier today when I had the chance but decided to do housework instead. OH disappeared with DBrother on his way to the gym several hours ago and OBrother and his smelly feet are in the sitting room while the steam from the beans he is cooking permeates every scent-receptive molecule of our house.
The brothers will be turning up here again early tomorrow morning to get the bicycles, no doubt leaving a chilly breeze in their wake. At least they are working but they haven't been paid. The bloke who's giving them work is, I failed to mention in a previous post, a right notveryniceperson who owed OH hundreds of pounds for months, in the knowledge that we couldn't pay our mortgage without it, and who only produced the cash when I started legal proceedings against him. But beggars can't be choosers and we've got to take chances where we can in order to get their rent paid. Good grief.
Anyone who thought all this would be simple should, well, should have bloody well spoken to me first.
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