Bells of Bournville Green (32 page)

‘It’s because you’re going to be sixty this year, isn’t it?’ she said, patting his comfortable tummy. ‘You’re starting to get vain.’

‘Yes – I am going to be like Twiggy,’ Anatoli said, fluttering his eyelashes. ‘These young models have made me start to feel ashamed.’

But as the weeks went past, it was impossible to hide that he was losing weight fast and that something was seriously wrong. Edie confided her worries to Greta. The two of them were very close now, sharing the daily routines of work and each other’s children. They spent a lot of time together in the big kitchen of the Gruschovs’ house, preparing meals or sitting at the table over cups of tea with the children around them.

‘I’ve begged him to go and see the doctor,’ Edie said one gloomy February afternoon. ‘He’s usually quite sensible about things like that, but he keeps saying he’s perfectly all right. He doesn’t look all right at all to me. And d’you know what he said to me this morning? He said, “I think I’ll take the car into work today – just for a change.” He
never
drives!’

Greta wanted to reassure her but she was very worried as well. Anatoli’s thinness was upsetting: he was gradually beginning to look like someone different. And she saw, from his small movements, in the effort it seemed to take for him to climb the stairs, to hang his coat or lift his small son, that he was tired and weak. One afternoon she found courage while she was sitting with him, Francesca cruising round the room, pulling herself up to stand by the chairs and chuckling.

‘Anatoli?’

‘Umm?’ He looked up at her from his newspaper. The whites of his eyes seemed yellowish, she thought. Or perhaps it was the light.

‘It’s just – you don’t look very well. We’re all worried about you.’

‘Oh!’ he gave a dismissive laugh. ‘Not you as well, umm? Edith keeps fussing . . . You don’t want to be worrying about me.’

‘But I do . . .’ She felt tongue-tied. ‘Why won’t you go and see the doctor?’

Anatoli looked down at his hands. They were bonier than they had been.

‘Perhaps I should . . .’ he said vaguely, as if to himself. She was sure she saw a look of fear pass across his face and she found she had tears in her eyes. She had never seen him look like that before and she wanted to put her arms round him and tell him everything would be all right.

‘It might be better,’ she said. ‘You know – just to make sure there’s nothing serious.’

‘Yes, my dear,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I’m being silly.’

A few days later she came home from Cadbury’s, bringing her white gloves to wash as usual, and she went straight to the kitchen to soak them. Edie was standing by the sink, looking out of the window, and she didn’t seem to hear Greta come in.

‘Edie?’

When she turned, her face was wet with tears. She looked shrunken, as if something in her had collapsed. Greta’s heart seemed to stop.

‘It’s Anatoli isn’t it?’

Edie crumpled, nodding. She leaned back against the sink, hands over her face, and started to sob. Greta went and put her arms round her. The age gap between them, which had mattered less and less over these months, was nothing now. This was a man both of them loved.

‘He came in earlier . . .’ Edie brought her hands down and felt in her sleeve for a hanky to wipe her nose and cheeks. ‘He’s gone back to work now . . . I asked him not to, but he said he had to. He wouldn’t know what to do else . . .’ She turned to Greta. ‘He’s ill – very ill, Greta. The doctor said it’s cancer – of the pancreas . . .’ She struggled to say it, looking as if she’d been punched. ‘I don’t even know what a pancreas is . . .’

‘Oh my God,’ Greta breathed. She didn’t know what a pancreas was either. It was the word cancer which filled you with dread.

‘He said . . . They’re going to do an operation – soon. He’ll have to be in hospital and they’ll take out some of the tumour. I think that’s what he said.’ Her eyes started to pour tears again. ‘But he said . . .’ Her face contorted again. ‘There’s no cure. Nothing much they can do, in the end. Oh God, Greta – he’s going to die. My lovely Anatoli’s going to die!’

Chapter Forty-Three

Greta was afraid of facing Anatoli. She was afraid of breaking down. The thought of losing him was unbearable. And today, of all days, she planned to keep out of the way so that Anatoli and Edie could be alone together.

When he came home, she was upstairs. She heard the door open and close, and she was in such a state that she couldn’t seem to do anything except perch tensely on the edge of her bed, cuddling a wriggly Francesca. Softly, from downstairs, came the sound of voices. There was an ache inside her, like a heavy stone sitting in her chest. It was awful to dread seeing Anatoli. It was as if his illness had turned him into a stranger and she had no idea how to talk to him.

But within a few moments she heard his voice.

‘Greta? Are you coming to join us for our cup of tea?’

Cup of tea? As usual! How could anything be usual when the sky had fallen in? But his voice sounded much as ever. And it came to her that precisely because the sky had fallen in, Anatoli might want things to feel normal. She must pull herself together.

‘Yes – just coming!’ she called, getting shakily to her feet.

In the living room, Anatoli was already holding his teacup, and there was a Madeira cake on a plate, cut into slices. Peter lay on the hearthrug by the fire with his Dinky cars, close to Edie’s chair, and everything seemed just as it always did. Perhaps it was! Greta clutched at the idea. Perhaps it was all a mistake!

‘Here you go,’ Edie said, passing her a cup of tea. ‘Have some cake if you’d like, love.’

Edie’s face had the freshly washed look of someone who has wept for a long time, but she was calm and not crying now.

Greta sat down, trying to keep her hands from shaking, and was about to say something bright and conversational, when Anatoli put his cup down and looked from one to the other of them.

‘You both know the news that I have been given today.’ He gave them a moment to nod. ‘I don’t want to hide anything from you or for this to be something we have to whisper about, or pretend it is not true, that there is really nothing wrong and so on. I have been pretending to myself for too long. I have not been feeling well for some time, I know that now, but somehow it has crept up on me and I find that I am much sicker than I thought.’

Greta felt a lump forming in her throat and swallowed hard. She wanted to be calm, like him. She glanced at Peter, wondering if he knew what was happening, but he was playing, trying to stop Francesca pinching his cars, and did not seem to be listening. Every now and then Francesca let out loud roars of indignation as he tugged cars away from her, which made them all smile and helped the situation.

‘I shall go into hospital some time fairly soon. They can delay things a little, by an operation, but so far as I understand, that is really all they can do.’

Both Edie and Greta were fighting back their tears, and Peter suddenly looked up and saw his mother’s face. Without saying anything he climbed on to her lap and stared up at her. Edie held him tight and kissed his curls.

‘It’s all right, love,’ she said gently.

‘I just . . .’ Here, Anatoli’s own eyes filled with tears and the ache in Greta’s chest became so sharp she felt it might burst open. He wiped his eyes on his handkerchief, and looking at Edie, went on. ‘I have a life with you which is so good, so happy – all of you.’ He encompassed Greta in his loving gaze as well. ‘All I want is that, until I am too ill . . . Until I die . . . I just want to live, you understand? To carry on just as we are and be with you all – my loving family.’

Greta couldn’t help it. The tears flowed down her face. Edie was crying too, quietly, and Peter had buried his face in her chest. The only one in the room chatting happily to herself was Francesca, now she had all the toy cars to herself, and this made them smile through all the tears.

‘Now there is someone who knows what I mean,’ Anatoli said, wiping his eyes again. There was a pause, as he pushed his handkerchief back into his pocket. ‘I still have to let this sink in – we all do. And I’ll try not to be a dreadful nuisance of a patient . . .’ He held up a hand against their protests that they would look after him whatever, that they would do anything for him. ‘Let us try to be of good cheer.’ He gave a watery smile. ‘Life is for living while you have it – that is my way of looking at it.’

They continued as usual then, swallowing down their tears, Anatoli calling Peter to him and reading his favourite Thomas story. Greta sat with Francesca and enjoyed it all. Afterwards though, she went up to her room, lay on the bed and sobbed and sobbed. She had lost one father, now she was about to lose another, a real flesh-and-blood person, not a smile from a blurry photograph. Anatoli had been so kind and loving to her. It felt as if everything was falling apart. But it was so much worse for Edie, she knew, losing a husband who she loved so much. She resolved that she must be strong for Edie and help her as much as she could.

Within a short time, Edie had another shock. On one of the days she was at home, there was a knock at the door. When she found Trevor on the doorstep, still in his white overall from the barber’s, she knew there must be something wrong.

‘Greta’s not here,’ she said, leaning on the doorframe. She didn’t intend to ask him in, whatever he wanted. Edie didn’t think much of Trevor. ‘She works on Thursdays.’

‘No – it’s you I’ve come to see, Mrs Gruschov – it’s about yer Dad . . .’

Edie only noticed then that he looked pale and shaken.

‘He’s collapsed, just a while ago. They’ve taken him up the hospital.’

Edie’s father, Mr Marshall, had run the barber’s shop in Charlotte Road all her life.

‘Oh my goodness – is he going to be all right?’ She was putting her coat on, ready to go straight up to the hospital.

‘I dunno,’ Trev shrugged. ‘They took him off in the ambulance.’

Mr Marshall had had a stroke. It was a serious one and he only lingered for one day, dying in the small hours of the following night.

‘I suppose it was a mercy,’ Edie said to Greta. ‘He would’ve hated to be paralysed or anything like that.’

‘I’m ever so sorry,’ Greta said. She hadn’t heard until she came home from work. ‘You are having a rough time, aren’t you? Look, let me make the tea and everything tonight – you’ve got enough on your plate.’

‘No – I’ll do it with you, love,’ Edie said, as they went into the kitchen together. ‘I’ve only got a bit of liver. I thought it might build Anatoli up a bit. Tell you the truth I’d rather keep busy.’

She filled the kettle and then turned, her face thoughtful. ‘I wouldn’t want to give you the wrong impression. I was never close to my Dad – nor Mom. She was worse. A bitter, cruel woman she was, and I never found out why till she was dying herself. My dad had been through it with her all right. But he and I were never close either. He never said much.’

‘Yes – Trevor said that. It was the customers did nearly all the talking. Your Dad just told them how much they owed him!’

Edie laughed. ‘Yeah – that was our Dad all right. Funny thing was, he had quite a few pals. I s’pose he never argued back to them! It’s no wonder our Rodney has hardly a word to say for himself either. There was never anyone to teach him how to do it.’

‘He was still your Dad though,’ Greta said. That must mean something, she thought. Having a father at all still seemed something to envy.

‘Yes,’ Edie said flatly. ‘I suppose it’s the end of an era. He’s always just been there, in the same place, ever since I can remember.’

Greta went to the funeral, at the Crem at Lodge Hill. In fact Anatoli asked her to.

‘I want Edith to have as much help as she can,’ he said. ‘She has so little family now.’

It was a small occasion, the day very cold. A few customers came, who had had their hair cut for years at Marshall’s ‘Gentleman’s Barbers’. The family contingent was small. Edie’s younger brother Rodney was there with his wife, and Edie and Anatoli, and of course Trevor. Marleen stayed away, with the children. Dennis Marshall was dispatched quickly and with the minimum of ceremony and they were all outside again, walking off along the tree-lined path to make ready for the next funeral party.

Anatoli was with Edie of course, and Greta found herself beside Trevor. It was funny how familiar he felt, and yet she could hardly believe now that she was married to him and had lived with him all that time.

‘So,’ she said to him. ‘You’ll take over the shop now I s’pose?’

‘Yes,’ he said proudly. ‘Mr Marshall always said I’d step into his shoes managing the business.’

Greta saw that Trevor seemed to have grown in the past days. He was standing more upright, looked actually physically bigger.

‘Well,’ she said, with the usual mixture of fondness and irritation. ‘Good for you. Your own business.’

‘Yes—’ Trevor drew himself up even taller. ‘And Greta – Marleen wants us to get married. So you and me – we need to get a divorce. Do things properly.’

For a second she felt a pang of loss, then dismissed it. Of course they had to get divorced. She didn’t want to carry on being married to Trevor did she?

‘Our Marleen wants to get married does she?’ She was amazed.

‘She’s having another babby. It’s time we made it legal, like,’ Trevor said proudly.

They reached the road and Greta could see Anatoli waiting for her with the car door open.

‘All right then, if you want,’ she said lightly.

Chapter Forty-Four

Anatoli did not give up work at first. He went to the pharmacy in the mornings as he had always done. But he drove to work now, and more and more often he came home at lunchtime looking drawn and exhausted and had to rest, leaving the work to his trusted assistant.

Everything kept going almost as before – but nothing felt normal or the same. They knew they were waiting for Anatoli’s operation, clinging to the hope that this could make him better and save him. His face told the story of his increasing illness even though he was almost always cheerful and courageous.