Bells of Bournville Green (13 page)

On her lap Greta had a copy of the
Bournville Works Magazine
which she had brought secretively upstairs
.
It contained news and articles about the Cad-bury factory and employees and she usually had a look through it, like everyone else. But today she had a special interest in it which she would have been very hesitant to admit to anyone.

Her fingers turned straight to the page. She already knew, of course, what would be there, but she had to see. It felt almost like a way of tormenting herself.

‘“Girl of the Year” Final,’ she read. ‘Miss Hilda Hurlbutt, the winner.’

The competition was sponsored by Wallis Fashion Shops, and as part of the final there had been a fashion show. The prize included a trip to Paris and a set of new clothes and luggage.

Above the photographs of the contestants at various stages of the competition there was a photograph of Hilda Hurlbutt in a stylish suit, her dark hair swept back, smiling happily.

Greta stared at her. ‘You cow,’ she murmured. ‘You lucky, lucky cow. I wish I was like you.’ She thought about going on an aeroplane and about all the visits Hilda had been promised: Paris, Versailles, visiting dress designers and perfumeries, being treated like a VIP. ‘I’m going to Paris in May,’ Greta murmured, in an affected voice. ‘To the Louvre, and to visit a couturier, you know . . .’

‘What the hell are
you
going on about?’ Marleen demanded.

Greta was so jarred by her bursting in like that when she’d been in another world altogether that she jumped, her heart pounding. She slammed the magazine shut at once.

‘What’re you doing?’ Marleen wanted to know, her eyes narrowing. She rushed at Greta and snatched the magazine off her, holding it above her head as Greta tried to pull it away from her again. ‘Let me see!’

‘No! Give it!’ Greta exploded with rage. ‘Give it me and mind your own cowing business!’

‘It’s only the stupid factory magazine,’ Marleen said, looking at it in disgust. ‘What’re you making such a fuss about, you prat?’

‘Nothing – just give it me!’ If Marleen saw what she had been looking at she would have mocked even more.

Marleen threw the magazine down on the floor in contempt. ‘Take it, you bloody nutcase. I only come up ’cause
he’s
here again, the fat old git.’

In the pause, Greta heard Herbert’s voice and rolled her eyes. For a rare moment, the sisters were allies.

‘I’m off out,’ Marleen said languidly. She rummaged among the litter of clothes for her cardi, then leaned close to the mirror on the dressing table, pulling her jaw downwards as she stroked mascara thickly on her lashes.

‘Where?’

‘I dunno. Anywhere.’

And she picked up her jacket and was gone downstairs. Ruby’s raised voice followed her to the front door, before it slammed behind her.

Greta picked up the magazine and opened it again to read the rest of the article about Hilda Hurlbutt. She was sick with envy, but what chance did she ever have of winning anything like that? What did she ever do with her life? She’d done so well at the Continuation School, but now she never did anything, even when there were all these opportunities available that Dennis was always going on about, his language class on Monday, cricket and football. Even Pat played hockey every Saturday morning at Rowheath. But she’d let everything pass her by!

She gave a deep sigh, staring out through the window at the grey sky. Dennis must think she was pretty feeble, as well as a fast worker. The thought of what had happened under the bridge still made her feel queasy with shame, even though Dennis had said they should put it behind them. She must try and do more, be more interesting. She should join some of the Cadbury clubs, get out more – set her sights on something!

But at that moment everything felt useless. She lay back on the bed. It was no good even going downstairs in this house. She could hear Ruby and Herbert laughing together. Even through the floorboards she recognized the flirtatious tone her mother used with him, with men in general. No wonder she knew no other way to be, with a Mom like that!

Clamping her hands over her ears, she turned on her side, staring at the wallpaper. How could she get out? Eyes fixed on the faded rosebuds on the wall, she knew, in a sudden flash, that the only way out was to have a man of her own. And that man was Dennis. If it was marriage Dennis wanted, then that was what they must do. They could set up on their own, out of the clutches of her family and of Dennis’s: nice as they were to her, she found them overwhelming, interfering. She and Dennis would be free of them – they’d make a better life all on their own.

Chapter Fifteen

A couple of days later, Greta arrived home from work into the middle of yet another row. Marleen, dressed in clothes far too skimpy for the weather, apart from a pair of black patent boots, and made up to the nines, was trying to prise a screaming Mary Lou from round her legs.

‘You can’t just keep taking off and leaving her!’ With a grunt Ruby squatted beside her granddaughter. ‘Come to Nanna, Mary Lou – Nanna’ll look after you, pet.’

Mary Lou just screamed all the more.

‘I could hear the pair of you from outside,’ Greta remarked, but no one took any notice.

‘You’re a disgrace!’ Ruby shouted over the screams. ‘You damn well stay in for a change, yer little minx!’

‘You can’t stop me going out!’ Marleen hoiked her coat off the hook and put it on furiously. ‘Anyway, what do you care? You’ve got yer fancy man round here all the time. Makes no difference to you if I’m here or not, does it?’

‘Poor little bugger. She’s your daughter!’ Ruby managed to pick Mary Lou up.

‘And your granddaughter . . . So you look after her for a bit!’ Marleen fastened the last of her buttons. ‘And don’t you carry on at me as if you’re better than me, with all the blokes you’ve had!’

‘Don’t you talk to me like that!’ Ruby began but Marleen wasn’t listening. And although Ruby shouted and carried on at Marleen, Greta could tell she didn’t feel in control or know what to say because she felt guilty about all that had happened, especially them having to live with Carl Christie and all he’d put them through. It often felt as if Mom wasn’t solid inside, and it wasn’t a very nice feeling.

‘Anyroad, I can’t stop in,’ Ruby changed tack, desperately. ‘I’ve got to go out . . .’

Marleen already had the front door open.

‘Well, tough tits – get
her
to stay in then. She never lifts a finger to help. I’m sick of it all. I’m off, and you can’t stop me!’

The door slammed, shaking the house. Mary Lou buried her face in Ruby’s shoulder and wailed all the more.

‘What the hell am I going to do with her?’ Ruby groaned. ‘Gret – can you mind this one for a bit? Edie’s had her babby – a little boy. I promised I’d go up the hospital to see them . . .’

‘Oh, all right,’ Greta said sulkily, thinking, more flaming babies!

‘Anatoli’s pleased as punch – he said they’ve called him Peter,’ Ruby said, settling Mary Lou at the table with a rusk. ‘I’m happy for her really – thank God it’s not me, that’s all.’

‘Are you going to marry that Herbert?’

Ruby was standing at the cooker, heating milk, and for a second Greta saw a hunted look on her face. Then her expression hardened.

‘That’s my business.’

‘How can you even go near him?’ Greta persisted.

Ruby turned back briskly to the pan of milk and in a hard voice she said, ‘Beggars can’t be choosers at my time of life.’

And Greta suddenly found she wanted to cry.

Marrying Dennis felt like her only way out. You had to have a man, otherwise you were a sad, dried-up spinster, and marrying was the only way she could see to leave. Dennis was a classy bloke, his family had money and he wanted her, didn’t he? He was the answer to all her problems – except for one. In everyone else’s eyes, it seemed, the whole point of marriage was children and family. And at the moment that was the last thing she wanted. The very thought filled her with panic.

‘You can get these pills now . . .’ She remembered a whispered canteen conversation. ‘It’s the woman who takes them and it stops you having to have a baby . . .’

The thought that she could be in control of whether or not she would have babies felt like a miracle. She could get married but it wouldn’t all just be that endless round of babies and nappies and washing! She could do other things! She had no clear idea of what those things were, only that her whole being rebelled against everything she could see around her about being a woman and a mother. Marriage to Dennis would be a way out of home all right – but she would marry and be different. Look at the mess Marleen was in already! Anything was better than that.

On her dates with Dennis now, she tried to be what she thought was his ideal kind of woman. She dressed prettily but in a demure style and was careful never to be forward with him in any way. She talked about her family as warmly as she could and told him about Dr Ferris and Janet, and Edie and Anatoli, talking about them almost as if they were relatives. Her fears about Dennis insisting on coming to her home soon faded. She always had some ready excuse when he asked: Mom wasn’t well, there was no one in or they already had visitors. It wasn’t hard to put him off. It soon became clear that Dennis was so wrapped up in his own family that he only had a passing interest in hers. She was always enthusiastic about the Franklin family, even though she found them very hard going.

Spring arrived, the verges in Bournville scattered with cheerful yellow, purple and white crocuses and clumps of daffodils, and Dennis’s Mom and Dad started going out to their caravan again. Dennis invited Greta to come too.

The site was in the country near Redditch, a long, sloping field edged with trees and with a stream running through it. As the caravan needed a scrub out after the winter, Greta helped Sonia Franklin, Dennis’s Mom, and his sister Lorna to give it a spring clean. Lorna was still not very friendly, but Dennis’s Mom seemed grateful for her help. Sonia Franklin, Greta learned, was always nice as pie as long as you did everything the way she wanted. Underneath the warm exterior she was as hard as nails and completely dominated her family, whether they could see it or not. Dennis had not said much about his mother’s life except once, when he let slip that she had come from a background of gruelling poverty and hardship. Whatever had happened to her, Greta could see it had left a rod of steel where her spine was, and chips of ice in her eyes.

On that sparkling spring afternoon, while Dennis and his Dad attended to things outside, the women scrubbed the ceiling and walls and the doors of the little cupboards and swept the place out. Mrs Franklin gave the orders, correcting the way Greta and Lorna were doing things. Greta had no choice but to do as she was told, so keen was she to please, but Lorna argued sometimes and there were flare-ups.

‘Oh, Mom – just leave me alone!’ Lorna would say, tossing her head so that her ponytail swung fiercely. ‘I know how to do it. I’m not six years old any more you know!’

Then, from being hard and overbearing, Sonia Franklin could change in a second to being warm and sweet again. That afternoon, as she scrubbed the wall of the caravan, she reminisced about her sisters in Lancashire and their childhood. She obviously enjoyed an audience and, whatever the grim elements of her past were, she did not disclose them. She described how she had come south for an adventure and to look for work, and met Dennis’s father.

‘I’ll never forget the first time I set eyes on Bill,’ she said, pausing with the cloth in her hand. She had a blue scarf tied over her hair and looked quite starry-eyed, a soft smile on her face. ‘I took one look at him – it was on the Green, in Bournville – and I knew he was the one. I must be one of the luckiest women in the world. I know it doesn’t happen for everyone like that.’

And she gave a Greta a sudden, penetrating look with her blue eyes, as if to say,
Don’t imagine you can match up to that for Dennis – oh no!

But then she smiled. ‘Oh – many years ago now, that was. When we were young and foolish.’

‘Sounds lovely,’ Greta said. And it did. But even though there were these softer intervals, or moments of laughter, she found it hard to warm to Sonia Franklin. She felt that deep down the woman didn’t like her and looked down on her. She talked endlessly about her family, especially Dennis, the high hopes they had for him, about his learning German and all the cricket he played, and Greta felt she was saying:
You may think you’ve got your talons in my son, but he’s far better than you.
She was the sort of person, if she’d met her, that Ruby would have said, ‘Oh, all her geese are swans.’ But Greta felt woefully inadequate. She
was
honoured that Dennis wanted to go out with her!

When they had finished washing the walls, Sonia asked Greta to wash the flowery curtains which she had taken down from the windows. Greta enjoyed squatting on the grass in her old pair of black slacks and her little pea-green blouse, a scarf tied over her hair, pounding the curtains in a big bucket of soapy water. As she was pegging them out on a line strung between the end of the caravan and a tree, she saw Dennis watching her, a smile of pleasure and approval on his face. Greta beamed back, genuinely enjoying herself. She was fitting in and it felt nice! At that moment she really began to believe she could be part of Dennis’s family, even if she had to become what they wanted her to be.

After the work was done they all sat out on deck-chairs and drank tea and ate cherry Madeira cake, watching what other caravanners were up to on the field, reminiscing about other caravan holidays they’d had and how marvellous they’d been, and even Lorna became more talkative.

‘It’s nice out here, isn’t it, Greta?’ Dennis’s Dad called across to her. ‘Puts the colour in your cheeks all right! You must come again.’

‘Oh yes,’ Sonia decreed, though there was a hard edge to her voice. ‘She must.’

She did go again, several times. And she began trying to improve herself. She applied for a ticket for the library in Selly Oak, and at Cadbury’s she joined the Girls’ Athletic and Social Club and went to some classes on cake decorating, which she found she was quite good at. She made sure she told Dennis and his mother all about it.