Bells of Bournville Green (46 page)

‘I must go away. I’ve done enough damage already,’ he was saying.

But as he spoke there came a little sound from across the room, a sort of gasping sigh. Both of them rushed across to Anatoli and Greta immediately saw David transform into a doctor again, casting a hurried professional eye over his patient.

‘Something’s changed . . .’ His voice was tense. ‘I could do with a bit more light . . .’

Greta hurried to switch on the overhead light. David bent over Anatoli, feeling his pulse, listening to his breathing.

‘Right,’ he said after a short time. ‘This is it, I think. He really should be in hospital. I’m going to telephone Martin – and an ambulance.’

Chapter Sixty-Three

‘Look after him. Oh please be careful with him!’

Edie’s cry as the doors of the ambulance closed echoed in David’s head. Never had he been so glad that he was a doctor as that night. He might not be able to work, not for a little while yet, but that was who he was: a doctor. In all his confusion he could retreat into his professional life where he could make some difference to events. There were procedures, drugs, scientific answers: not like the rest of life, which was a whirl of emotional confusion.

And yet as he watched the ambulance drive away with Anatoli inside, accompanied by Martin Ferris, the thought that kept coming was,
I kissed her, I love her, God in heaven, what have I done?

Greta was the one to take Edie’s arm and lead her back inside. Edie needed to dress before going to see her husband later. David watched the two women from behind, the small, yet somehow indomitable figure of his adoptive mother, supported by the pretty, self-effacing woman whom he could not keep from his thoughts, day after day.

Anatoli was taken to Selly Oak Hospital and never regained consciousness. Edie sat with him all day, holding his hand, talking to him, even though he could not answer, and just after eight o’clock that night, he slipped away.

‘He left us very quietly,’ Edie told them, once she was home. ‘One moment he was breathing, and then he was gone.’

Over those days before the funeral all their care and attention was directed towards Edie, and also to Peter, who had lost his father so young. Francesca kept asking for ‘ ’Toli’ as well, and David heard Greta explaining gently that Anatoli was not coming back.

He came upon her one afternoon in the sitting room, holding the little girl on her lap, her other arm round Peter’s shoulders. The sight of them on the sofa in the pale afternoon light, this lovely woman with the children gathered to her, filled him with such longing that he said, ‘Oh, sorry to interrupt,’ and walked out of the room again.

He saw the hurt, confused look on her face when he treated her like a stranger, but he didn’t know how else to behave. He was in a storm of confusion and he was disgusted at himself for not being in better control. Why had he kissed Greta the other night? How could he let himself behave in such a way when he was still married to Gila, who had only been gone a few weeks, and when he too was about to go away across the Atlantic? Was this love? Surely he could not love again so quickly! All this turmoil made him panic and he tried to keep his distance from Greta. He was polite, but avoided being alone with her. During those days after Anatoli’s death that was not too difficult, as they were all looking after Edie. But once or twice he caught her looking at him with a sad, puzzled expression. When he saw it he looked away. He did not know what else to do.

There was a service for Anatoli at St Francis’s Church, on the Green in Bournville. The funeral was on a crisp March day, clouds flitting across the sun and the daffodils’ stalks round the Green swaying in a stiff breeze.

David was impressed at how many people came, how many lives Anatoli had touched in his kind way – employees from the pharmacy, neighbours and well-wishers, as well as close friends like Janet and Martin. He looked around as people came in, aware of the stiff, unfamiliar collar of the shirt he had bought for the occasion. He found himself observing, weighing up his responses, his place in it all. Edie was beside him, with Greta the other side of her. She had insisted that Greta was like a daughter to her, and should be included as family. Edie was dressed not in black but in a pale blue suit, which looked lovely on her.

‘Anatoli hated people wearing black at funerals,’ she’d told them. ‘He said someone’s life ought to be celebrated, not have everyone there looking miserable.’

At the moment she was composed, aware of being on view, but David knew the depth of her loss and grief and was glad to be able to be beside her and support her.

She turned to him as the organ was playing softly, and whispered, ‘The first time I set eyes on you, the night you were given to me – that was in a church!’

David nodded and gave a faint smile. He knew this, but hearing it still felt shocking. He had been handed to Edie one night during the Blitz when she was working in a church sheltering those who were bombed out. Handed over, his young life, like a parcel.

Martin Ferris nodded at him as he came in, and Janet smiled sadly and came over to have a word with Edie. David was so grateful to Martin Ferris, and full of respect for him. As they went to sit down, David glanced back and saw Ruby, Greta’s Mom, coming in with Mac beside her. Mac, stocky and strong-looking, was very spruce. Ruby, who was quite wide in the girth these days, was dolled up in a tight black outfit with an almost indecently high hem and was tiptoeing along the aisle, the way people seemed to feel they had to in churches. She wore a black hat with net over the brim, which gave her a rather rakish look, and was leaning on Mac’s arm. David felt his mouth twitch with amusement. Talk about mutton dressed as lamb! There was something about Ruby that he liked, but never quite trusted. She had a big heart but seemed to him unruly in some way. The sight of her filled him with admiration for Greta. How different she was from her mother!

He faced the front again. He wanted to lean round and look at Greta. There was barely a second when he wasn’t aware of her sitting there the other side of Edie. She was so upset at Anatoli’s death, and he longed to comfort her but didn’t know how without making a mess of it and hurting her even more.

At last the ceremony began and he was grateful to stand and struggle through a hymn, ‘Lead Us Heavenly Father Lead Us’, which he barely knew. As the service progressed, Edie and Greta were both weeping beside him and he fought the need to break down himself. What he most wanted was to be alone with Greta, to be in her arms, to hold her and be held himself.

After the simple funeral they left the church, he and Greta supporting Edie each side, and everyone milled around outside in the cool, sunny morning. David felt a tap on his arm and broke away to speak to Martin Ferris.

‘All right, old chap?’ Martin asked.

‘Not bad,’ David said. ‘He’s such a loss though.’

‘He is,’ Martin agreed, looking up at the basilica-style church. Martin wasn’t a man to discuss emotions. ‘Fine church this.’

‘Yes – very simple,’ David said. ‘I like it. It’s not gloomy and cluttered like so many.’

Martin frowned. ‘I thought old Anatoli was Orthodox – or a Quaker or something.’

‘No, he gave up the Orthodox Church years ago,’ David said. ‘I think he went to the Friends to be with Edie – he was very open like that. But so far as I gather he went into the Church of England when he was young – tried to embrace all things English.’

‘Except motor cars,’ Martin chuckled. ‘He was still driving that American box of tricks! It was one of the last things he said to me, with that little twinkle of his: “I never did get an English car. I think I might have left it a bit late in the day!” ’

David laughed, fondly. He was just about to say, ‘I must tell Greta that – she’ll like it . . .’ But he kept his mouth shut.

‘You getting anywhere with your decisions about your training?’ Martin asked. ‘You know they’ll have you here, at the medical school, soon as you like.’

David looked down for a moment, at his formal black shoes which made him look like a respectable English man.

‘Yes—’ He felt stronger saying it. ‘I’ve decided. I’m going to go to New York.’

Chapter Sixty-Four

He had gone now, really gone.

After all the weeks of waiting for and dreading Ana-toli’s death, when it came it was more desolating even than Greta expected. Each night she lay curled up in bed, at last able to weep and weep, knowing that never again would she come home to Anatoli’s presence in the house and the lovely sound of his voice saying, ‘Come here, my dear. Come sit and read to me!’

What made everything infinitely worse was that David had announced soon after the funeral that he was going to leave for the USA. Edie was more prepared for this than Greta, and although she was grieved about it, knew that she had to let David go his own way. She had lived with him settled abroad before after all, and she would have to cope with it again.

But for Greta the fact that he was really going was devastating. After that night when she and David kissed she had stopped pretending to herself. Here was the man she had waited for all her life, whom she loved as no one before and whom she had thought loved her – he too was to be snatched away. The sound of his voice around the house, that lovely, deep, well-modulated tone which before had made her heart skip with happiness, was a cause of pain now. She was terribly hurt by him. Surely she had seen the force of love and passion in his eyes – she had not been mistaken? And now he was snatching that away from her. It was far more cruel than if he had never said anything in the first place!

‘Why does everyone I love get taken away?’ she sobbed, night after night. It all brought back the wound of not ever knowing her father, Wally Sorenson, of death claiming him before he could ever meet his child. And death had taken her beloved Anatoli too young, too fast . . . But it was not death which was claiming David. What made it agonizingly worse was that David was choosing to leave her behind.

Pat could see how unhappy she was, but Greta didn’t feel she could say anything and let Pat believe that she was simply mourning Anatoli. She could not talk about David. It brought out all her insecurities: she felt rejected, ashamed. How could she have ever thought she would be good enough for someone like that? She had only a basic education, while he was a doctor. He had travelled and experienced so much and here was she, what had she ever done? And here was David, having so recently been bereaved after losing his little son, by his wife’s breakdown and her leaving him. How dare she expect anything of him when he was so hurt and confused? No wonder he wanted to fly halfway across the world to get away!

At times when she was feeling stronger she stopped feeling sorry for herself and tried to understand. And then she saw his grief and confusion and tried to stop expecting anything from him. All she could do to save her own feelings, she saw, was to keep away from him. She had to make a life of her own that did not include David, however much she loved him.

She did not really want to see John Foreman again, but he was persistent. As soon as the funeral was over, he asked her out, repeatedly, and after a while she agreed. She had to do something, after all. And John was a nice man. Most of the dates she had with him were quite enjoyable and she liked the Banana Boys and being included with him and his friends. She had also discovered how much she liked dancing, and it was fun to go out to hops in various halls, put on some trendy clothes, like her miniskirt, all the rage now, and leap about to the Rolling Stones and Marvin Gaye, to Neil Diamond and the Beatles. And sometimes they went to the cinema. It was all right most of the time, just having fun, until the slow numbers came up on the dance floor, or they were going home, and these were the times she dreaded. That was when John wanted more than just a nice friendly time. He wanted kisses, wanted her to declare far more about what she felt for him than she ever could.

‘I’m sorry, John,’ she said one night when she had failed to respond to his overtures again. ‘It’s not you – you’re a lovely fella. I s’pose I’m just feeling a bit sore and bereaved at the moment. I’m not really myself.’

John, who was basically a decent bloke, tried to understand and Greta felt she owed it to him to explain about Anatoli, what he had meant to her, especially as she had never had anyone else to call a Dad. About David, the other cause of her heartache, of course she said nothing. And in a way she felt badly about stringing John along. She just hoped she could spend time with him, get used to him, and that in the end it would all come right.

But all the time, David was now preparing to leave, full speed, as if he could not get away fast enough.

With Martin Ferris’s help, he had secured a place to continue his training at a Jewish hospital in New York, and flights were being booked and dates talked about for his departure. The flight was arranged for the fifteenth of April.

‘It’s so soon,’ Edie said, reeling from all the changes. ‘But I know I’ve got to let him go.’

‘I think now he might be best finishing and getting qualified,’ Greta heard Martin saying to her. ‘He’s been through a hell of a time. You never know, it might not be for long in the end. Once he’s qualified, who knows? Being over there might help him get things in perspective.’

Greta, heartbrokenly, realized she was one of the ‘things’ that needed getting into perspective, and she suffered in silence. Even Edie had no idea of her feelings. What made the situation even more poignant for Greta was that Anatoli had left David some money for his future, which had enabled him to finance his journey and his fresh start in America. Anatoli could never have guessed the pain he was causing her by giving David the means to go!

She came to wish that he would go straight away. His presence was an agony to her, while all the time she was trying to behave as if there was nothing wrong. She avoided him as he avoided her, pretending that anything she might have felt was over and done with. She went about with a brisk, cheerful air while her heart was as heavy as lead. And David was very busy making arrangements, having to buy clothes and organize accommodation for his new life.