Bells of Bournville Green (8 page)

‘That was good,’ she said.

‘It’s always good when you’re around.’

‘Really?’ Greta blushed, touched by his simple sincerity.

‘Yeah. There’s no one like you, Gret. You’re so nice and so pretty. No wonder everyone wants to take you out.’ He looked down at his long fingers. Greta imagined them curled through the handle of a pair of scissors, trimming hair. ‘I mean I know I’m not much – but I do love you.’ He finished this sentence with sudden passion and looked into her eyes. His were grey and deep. ‘I do – honest.’

She looked back at him, drawn in by his adoration of her. Trevor was always seen as a bit of a clown in the neighbourhood, with his long gangly legs and proneness to accidents. But he’d always been a kindly boy, and now he was sitting here all sweet and familiar. She knew she didn’t exactly fancy him – not like Dennis – but if anyone wanted her she usually found she wanted them too, at least a little bit, and she was flattered and didn’t want to be unkind.

‘Oh, Trev,’ she looked back at him, feeling her cheeks burn pink. ‘That’s nice. I don’t know what to say . . .’

‘Don’t say anything—’ He moved closer and she could see he was going to kiss her. She left it just too late to move back and in a second his arms were round her, pulling her close, and Trevor’s mouth was eagerly fastened on hers. After a second she realized how nice it felt and she kissed him back. For minutes they were locked together before Trevor pulled away, gasping.

‘Oh God – oh, Gret . . .’ He looked awestruck, and a beaming smile spread across his face. ‘Oh, that’s lovely – oh I love you!’ Once again he put his arms round her. ‘Come out with me? Be my girl, will you? Let’s go out together.’

Greta felt panic rise in her. How could she say no to him on Christmas Day, when he’d been so sweet and given her a present? She couldn’t tell him about Dennis, not now – it would be so cruel. Maybe if she went out with him once, to be kind . . .

‘All right,’ she said.

‘Will you!’ he bounced up and down on the bed whooping with excitement. ‘Oh Greta – you’re the best!’

She stayed as long as she could at the Biddles’ house that evening, playing canasta with Trevor, Alf and April.

‘I can’t be doing with all those card games,’ Nancy said, sitting back, content to watch them and smoke her Embassy cigarettes. She’d switched to them to collect the gift coupons. ‘They get me all in a muddle.’

Then they watched television, Alf’s favourite,
Step-toe and Son,
and by ten o’clock Greta said she’d better be off home. Trevor jumped up immediately and said he’d walk her up the road.

It was snowing again and everything felt very cold and still outside, with cosy lights in the windows of the neighbours’ houses. He kissed her again on the doorstep.

‘Thanks for the best Christmas
ever,’
he said fervently.

‘Thanks, Trev – and for this.’ She patted the Beatles record.

‘See you tomorrow?’ he said hopefully.

‘I’ve got to go to Pat’s tomorrow,’ she remembered. ‘Her Mom’s asked me round for tea.’

‘Soon though – next week? We’ll go to the pictures or summat – whatever you want.’

With a pang of guilt, she said, ‘OK then. See yer, Trev.’

He backed away down the road, waving, skipping, twirling, until her laughter rang behind him.

Her spirits plummeted at the thought of going back into the house. The light was on at the front, and when she stepped inside she heard Ruby giggling and found her sitting beside Herbert Smail on the sofa, in a high old state, both very well oiled. Herbert’s tie had disappeared and his shirt had several buttons open and they were both pink-cheeked and very merry.

‘Well that was nice, running off and leaving us!’ Ruby said. But she didn’t really sound cross. She was having too nice a time to get angry. ‘Saw Trevor did yer? You’d like Trevor, Herbert – he’s ever such a nice boy.’

‘Where’s Marleen?’ Greta asked, trying not to look at Herbert at all. The sight of him sitting there with his legs splayed apart made her feel sick. He was making himself thoroughly at home.

‘Gone to bed,’ Ruby said. ‘She had a job getting Mary Lou settled.’

Greta rolled her eyes. Another broken night coming up, she thought.

‘I’m going up,’ she said abruptly.

‘Goodnight then—’ Herbert made a vain attempt to get off his seat and failing, bowed in a courtly manner anyway.

‘’Night,’ she said, and went to the back, shutting the door with a bang.

Filthy old sod, she thought.

Undressing silently in the bedroom by the light from the stairs, she thought about Trevor, her heart sinking. What had come over her? It was Dennis she wanted to go out with, not Trevor Biddle! What was she going to do now? It would have seemed too cruel to Trevor just to turn him down. She sank into bed – thank God today was over! – trying to block out the sounds of laughter from downstairs. She’d have to go along with Trev for a bit, just to be kind, and then get out of it somehow. Because she was in love with Dennis Franklin, wasn’t she, and he with her? And she mustn’t let anything spoil that.

Chapter Ten

‘You ready you two? Edie’ll be here any minute!’

Ruby was fussing at her hair by the mirror in the front room. Instead of peroxide blonde it was now bright copper. They were on their way to Selly Park for the traditional New Year’s Eve which they always spent with Janet and Martin Ferris. Edie, who had started work at Cadbury’s the same days as Ruby, and her husband Anatoli were giving them a lift. Greta had always liked going to the Ferrises’ house, especially when Janet’s mother Frances was alive, as she’d been like a grandmother to Marleen and herself. Though she was a bit shy of them, there was something so reassuring about Janet and Edie, and their calm houses full of books. She longed for her own home to be more like theirs.

‘Do we have to go?’ Marleen said sulkily as they came through for their coats.

‘Yes, of course we do!’ Ruby snapped through a cloud of hairspray. ‘It’s what we always do and we’ve said we’re coming. But listen you two—’ She turned, looking forbidding. ‘There’s some things I don’t want you saying to Edie and that lot – right?’

Greta put her head innocently on one side. ‘What d’you mean, Mom?’

‘You know damn well what I mean. I know I go back a long way with Edie, but she’s that flaming smug these days . . . I don’t want you mentioning things about my personal life.’

‘You mean Herbert?’ Marleen said, insolently chewing gum. If she’d said ‘dead rat’ instead of ‘Herbert’ she couldn’t have injected more disgust into the word.

‘Yes, of course I mean Herbert,’ Ruby snapped. ‘And for ’eaven’s sake spit that stuff out before we go.’

Marleen sulkily obeyed, and they were checking that everything was in the bag for Mary Lou when they heard the car outside. Anatoli had braked his old black Pontiac in the middle of the road, the engine still running, and climbed out, muffled up in a brown coat and rather moth-eaten Russian fur hat. He was born in Russia and had come to England as a small boy.

‘I am not going to stop her!’ he called to them. ‘It is so cold, you never know if we will ever get started again. Come, let me help you!’ He greeted each of them by kissing each of their hands with a bow, in his old-fashioned Russian way, and they all giggled with pleasure.

Edie wound the window down and smiled out at them as they stepped over the heaped snow in the gutter. She had her collar up, her vivid ginger hair was swept back and her face was very round and freckly. She was six months pregnant and looking bonny on it.

‘Ruby – your hair!’ she exclaimed, laughing with surprise. ‘God, I hardly recognized you! Suits you! Did you have a nice Christmas?’ It was obvious that she had enjoyed hers.

‘Oh yes, lovely ta,’ Ruby said breezily. ‘You get in first with Mary Lou, Marleen.’

‘I am hoping the roads have been cleared at the bottom of the hill,’ Anatoli said. ‘Or this princess of mine is going to struggle.’

Greta loved riding in Anatoli’s car. It was long and sleek, with a sun visor over the windscreen, and the radiator grille at the front made it look like a shark baring its teeth. It made her feel as if she was in an American film. She got in last, squeezing in so they could shut the door, on to the slippery old seat. As she did so she felt something against her leg and realized it was a bag with a bottle and some packages in it. Edie and Anatoli had brought presents. Of course Ruby hadn’t brought anything for anyone, she thought, with a sinking feeling.

They had to drive extremely slowly down the snow-clogged hill to the Ferrises’ house in Selly Park, beyond the big convent. Anatoli chatted cheerfully, mostly about the driving.

‘Ah, now we are about to be swallowed up by this drift here . . . No – I have averted a crisis. Ah – now a precipice for us to fall over! Oh – no! I have saved us! You ladies owe me your lives several times over!’

‘Anatoli, stop it!’ Edie kept saying. ‘You’re frightening everyone!’

Greta couldn’t help smiling. It would have been impossible not to like Anatoli, with his twinkly eyes, his old-world ways and quaint English. Mary Lou jiggled up and down on Ruby’s lap, interested in the experience of being in the car. Only Marleen looked glum, her constant expression these days.

Martin Ferris opened the door as they pulled up. He was a gaunt, long-limbed man with a gentle face.

‘So – you made it!’ he said, with a warm smile. ‘Welcome!’ As they all scrambled out of the car and slipped and slid over to the house, he teased, ‘I say, Gruschov, when are you going to get rid of that old kettledrum you’re driving and get yourself a decent English car?’

Anatoli took off his fur hat in the hall to show his magnificent head of steely curls.

‘I didn’t expect that I would come and live in the city of English car makers, did I?’

‘What about Coventry?’ Janet said, smiling as she appeared, hearing the men’s habitual sparring. She was holding each of the four-year-old twins by the hand and they stared up, awed at the sight of so many people.

‘All right – one of the car cities,’ Anatoli conceded, kissing her cheek. ‘The city of cars and
roads.
Soon, it seems, it will be easier for cars to move round the place than people. Now – you young ladies—’ He bent down and kissed Ruth, the taller of the two girls, then Naomi, then briefly held each of their faces lovingly between his hands. ‘I do believe you get more beautiful each time I see you.’

It took some time before all the greetings were over. Everyone exclaimed over Ruby’s suddenly copper-beech hair, Janet kissed Edie warmly, and laid a hand on her friend’s round stomach, smiling in wonder. It was one of the great sadnesses of her life that she and Martin had not been able to have children of their own. They had adopted Ruth and Naomi when they were working in the Congo.

‘Only three months to go!’ she said. ‘I’m so excited for you, Edie.’

‘I can’t wait,’ Edie said, beaming back at her.

Greta found herself kissed by everyone in turn and Marleen, who had stayed uncertainly close to the door, holding Mary Lou, was greeted warmly by Janet.

‘Do come in, dear – bring Mary Lou in by the fire. I’m sure Ruth and Naomi will help look after her. They’re fascinated by children younger than themselves.’

The light was already fading outside and the Fer-rises’ big house felt cosy and comfortable. There was a fire burning in the front room and chairs arranged round it. Janet made tea and cut up a big square Christmas cake with reindeer on top, a Father Christmas pulling a sleigh and three Christmas trees. Mary Lou was captivated by the sight.

‘I’ve saved it for today,’ Janet said. ‘There’s always rather too much to eat round Christmas Day isn’t there? And look – you girls can each have one of the things off the top. They’re made of marzipan.’

‘Did you make them?’ Ruby asked, amazed.

‘Me? No – of course not!’ Janet laughed. ‘I have a neighbour who makes them. They’re lovely aren’t they?’

While they sat eating cake, Janet found toys to occupy the little children, moving about the room in her calm way. She was wearing a dress in a deep plum colour which hugged her elegant figure, and court shoes with slender heels. Like her mother, Frances, Janet had always dressed with flair.

‘I may be going out to work with the missions,’ she had said before she and Martin went to work in Africa, ‘but that doesn’t mean I have to dress like a missionary!’

Ruth and Naomi sat on the fluffy rug by the fire with some little dolls and a basket of tiny clothes. Every so often they came to the grown-ups, asking for help with a sleeve or poppers which needed fastening. At first they went to their mother, but then Ruby said, ‘Why don’t you go and help ’em, Gret? And you, Marleen? Look, Mary Lou wants to have a look what they’re doing.’

Greta was glad of something to do, and she and Marleen settled on the hearthrug with the twins. She quite enjoyed dressing the dollies herself because she’d never had anything like that when she was little. And the girls were sweet. Naomi was shyest and looked at her out of the side of her eyes with an impish expression when she wanted help. Ruth was more direct and dumped the doll on Greta’s knees, saying, ‘Dress doll, p’ease.’ Greta had found the African girls so strange at first, their very dark brown skin, the pink palms of their hands and their frizzy hair which Janet had learned to keep oiled and tie in tiny plaits. Now she barely gave it a thought.

Mary Lou sat with Marleen, and there was an occasional squawk when she wanted something the others had, but she wasn’t crying so much these days. Tonight her attention was too taken up by all these new people, the toys and the fire.

Greta sat with the young ones, listening to the conversations round her. The men, off to one side, spent a good while discussing medical matters, as Martin was a doctor, with his practice on a new estate in Nechells, Anatoli a pharmacist. Edie was seated next to Anatoli – the two of them were almost inseparable – with Janet and Ruby the other side of her, and they all caught up on Cadbury news. Janet had worked in the offices there and still knew a few people on the secretarial side.

‘Oh, it’s a wonderful place to work.’ Janet sighed. They all knew she missed working, but she had her children now. ‘I hope you’re making the most of it, Greta?’