Bells of Bournville Green (50 page)

‘Hello,’ he said softly.

‘I thought you were asleep. Did I wake you?’

He turned and they cuddled up together. ‘No – I was half there already. I take it his majesty’s still sleeping?’

‘Like a baby,’ she said.

Their little son was only ten days old and she was basking in the happiness of a safe birth and of being home from the hospital, in her own bed with her husband of a year, since their quiet Quaker wedding in Bournville. Her strong body was recovering well from the birth.

They lay under the high ceiling in the big back room of Edie’s house, their permanent home since their marriage, the summer dawn filtering through the pale floral curtains.

It had hardly taken any discussion for them to decide to call him Anatoli after the man who had acted as a father to each of them, and whom both of them had loved. Greta cried after he was born, remembering the last time, when she’d had Francesca far away in a London hospital and he was the person who had stayed faithfully with her and come to see her. She ached for him to be there and see her and David’s little son.

There had been no question either that they would live anywhere else than with Edie, in the big family home with its pretty flower garden at the back. And they knew their son would have a loving crowd of adults round him: Ruby and Mac and Janet and Martin, and David even hoped that Annaliese and her new husband Pierre would be able to visit later in the year. Annaliese’s letter from Haifa, full of loving greetings to them, was balanced on the mantelpiece downstairs, with the other cards of congratulation.

‘I understand why you do not wish to come to Israel, at least for the time being,’ Annaliese wrote. ‘That this is now such a place of sadness for you. I know you do not hear from Gila, but I do have news of her. She is working very successfully as a dentist in Jerusalem and is doing well in the practice. I gather that she has not remarried but I do not know, of course, what else she has going on in her life. I am told she is well enough though, to continue with life.’

There were cards from the Ferrises, from Pat and her mother and from all the Cadbury crew. There were others from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where David had just completed his training. He had qualified as a doctor shortly before little Anatoli was born.

Pat had come to visit Greta in hospital as soon as she heard that the baby was safely born, and had been quite emotional at the sight of him.

‘Sorry, Pat,’ Greta said, feeling badly for her. ‘It must be hard for you.’

‘No,’ Pat said, wiping her eyes and smiling sweetly. ‘It’s just lovely. He’s a beautiful babby, Gret. Well done you!’

Greta kept to herself the obvious remark that perhaps Pat could have a baby of her own if she’d get on and marry Andrew, who had asked her several times already. But Pat seemed intent on having the longest engagement in history and was not to be hurried.

‘I expect I’ll get round to it one day,’ she sometimes said. ‘I’m all right as I am for now though.’

As Greta and David lay snug in the warm, there was a tap at the door.

‘I couldn’t keep her away any longer!’ Edie said, as Francesca launched herself enthusiastically into the room to kiss her baby brother. She took her role as big sister very seriously. ‘Would you two like a cup of tea?’

‘Oh yes, please!’ Greta said fervently. Breast-feeding certainly gave her a thirst.

Edie returned a little later with a tray, just as little Anatoli was waking.

‘Stay and drink it with us won’t you?’ David said, smiling as he handed the baby, screaming in hungry outrage, to Greta for his feed.

Edie settled on the chair, watching the baby and smiling. Francesca watched, awed by the volume of the screaming.

‘He’s got a big voice,’ she remarked.

‘You wait,’ Greta told her. ‘He’ll be bigger than you one day!’

She took the little boy to her breast and the room went quiet again. David laid his hand on her thigh under the bedclothes, as if for comfort, and she looked round at Edie, her hair loose, girlish though she was a grandmother, at her little daughter and her husband, and thought that whatever else life might bring, today, here in this room, she had everything she ever wanted.

The Bells of Bournville Green

A
NNIE
M
URRAY
was born in Berkshire and read English at St John’s College, Oxford. Her first ‘Birmingham’ novel,
Birmingham Rose,
hit
The Times
bestseller list when it was published in 1995. She has subsequently written eleven other successful novels, including, most recently,
Where Earth Meets Sky.
Annie Murray has four children and lives in Reading.

A
LSO
BY
A
NNIE
M
URRRAY

Birmingham Rose

Birmingham Friends

Birmingham Blitz

Orphan of Angel Street

Poppy Day

The Narrowboat Girl

Chocolate Girls

Water Gypsies

Miss Purdy’s Class

Family of Women

Where Earth Meets Sky

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to the following for their help in my research for this book: Sarah Foden and her colleagues at the Cadbury archive and especially to Cadbury girls Marjorie Hill, Valerie Fletcher and her husband Brian and Pat Harrison, all of whom were so generous with their time and conversation.

For those who would like to find out more about my books and writing, you are warmly welcome to visit my website, at:
www.anniemurray.co.uk

First published 2008 by Pan Books

This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-0-330-52702-6 PDF
ISBN 978-0-330-52700-2 EPUB

Copyright © Annie Murray 2008

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Table of Contents

Title page

Author biography

Contents

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Part Two

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Part Three

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Part Four

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty