by Annie Murray
‘Yeah, thanks, Nan,’ Marleen said. She sat huddled in the chair looking cold, her thin arms wrapped round her. She stared blankly at the floor and wouldn’t look any of them in the eye. As her Nan spoke though, she managed a thin little smile. Ethel had always been kind to both of them.
‘I’m a bit tired now, Nan,’ Marleen said, getting up. ‘I think I’ll go up and have a bit of a sleep.’
Everyone started clucking over her. ‘You do that, bab,’ Ruby said. ‘We’ll see to Mary Lou – she’s fine down here with us. You have a good sleep.’
‘Look at her,’ Ethel exclaimed. ‘So thin you could snap her in half!’
Without another word to anyone Marleen went off upstairs.
‘Where’s she sleeping?’ Greta asked, a sudden suspicion gripping her.
‘In with you of course,’ Ruby said. ‘She’s got the put-you-up in your room and Mrs Robinson’s let us have the cot – little Carol’s just out of it – she’s a good neighbour,’ she said, turning to her mother. ‘Do anything for anyone, she would.’
‘But there’s not the room for two beds and a cot in there!’ Greta protested. ‘We shan’t be able to move!’
Everyone was staring at her, shocked.
‘Your sister’s just come home – I’d’ve thought you’d be pleased to see her and share your room for a bit!’ Ruby said. ‘Where exactly do you think she might sleep if not in there?’
Greta went red. She was horrified at the thought of sharing with Marleen, but everyone thought she was being cruel and unloving. Unlike her, none of them had ever shared a room with her sister. They seemed to have conveniently forgotten what she was like!
‘’Ere, have a fruit jelly – it’s Christmas.’ Ethel leaned over, seeing Greta’s downcast face, holding out a box of coloured sweets. She knew her Nan had always had a soft spot for her.
‘Thanks, Nan.’
‘Take two while you’re at it, go on,’ Lionel said, chuckling. ‘Makes a change from all that chocolate doesn’t it? Do you good.’
‘It ain’t her that needs fattening up,’ Ruby remarked, tartly.
Greta smiled gratefully at Lionel and took a strawberry and a lemon jelly. Lionel held one out to Mary Lou, who stared at it in alarm, then started snivelling. She seemed to cry whatever happened.
‘Here, come to Nanna,’ Ruby said, and tried to pick up the child, who screamed more loudly, squirming and kicking. ‘Eat your sweetie, darlin’!’ She pushed the jelly towards the child’s mouth, who went quiet at once when she tasted the sugary coating.
‘There, you like that, don’t you?’ Ethel said in a baby voice. She lit another cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke across the room. It felt warm and cosy with the snow outside.
‘So Marleen won’t say anything – about where she’s been?’
‘Not a word,’ Ruby said, draining the dregs of her tea. ‘Here – fetch us another cup Gret, will yer?’
Greta got up and did as she was asked and ended up making more tea and filling up her grandparents’ cups as well while they talked in low, gossipy voices about Marleen. What had happened to Marleen’s husband? He was Mary Lou’s father after all. And what about the Sorensons, Greta’s grandparents – had they had anything to do with this? Where had Marleen been all this time? No one had any answers. Ethel looked at an old picture of Marleen propped on the cluttered mantel. It was taken in 1959 when they were in America and Marleen was in a pretty sundress, smiling.
‘Shame,’ Ethel said.
Greta hated hearing them talking about her grandparents, who she was so fond of, as if they might have done something wrong. Whatever had happened, it would be Marleen’s fault, of that she felt certain. She didn’t want to sit and listen and her feet were still cold and wet. She crept round to the stairs.
‘Where’re you going, Gret?’ Ruby called. ‘Don’t go waking Marleen will you? She needs her sleep.’
Greta ignored her. In the back bedroom she found the put-you-up bed half folded away and Marleen cuddled up in her bed, her eyes closed. Greta felt enraged for a moment at the way Marleen had just helped herself to her bed, but then she found herself feeling softer towards her. She didn’t know if Marleen was really asleep or just pretending, but her face, with her eyes closed, looked very young and vulnerable. Suddenly she looked as she had done when she was about six, her dark lashes like two crescents, her skin pale and fragile-looking and her shrewish look relaxed by sleep.
Well, we’ve never been close, Greta thought, but there were some good times, when we were kids. The old hunger rose in her for her sister, for a proper family. Maybe things could be better, they could be real sisters, close and sharing things.
She moved quietly round the bedroom, finding a pair of socks to put on to warm her feet, and her slippers, and crept downstairs again.
Everyone turned to look at her.
‘I hope you didn’t disturb her?’ Ruby said, busy opening a bottle of port.
‘She all right?’ Ethel asked.
‘She’s all right – she’s fast asleep,’ Greta reported. ‘Out like a light.’
Marleen stayed out of the way for most of the rest of the day, leaving everyone else to look after Mary Lou. Ethel and Lionel went off quite early, worried about driving in the bad weather, with lots of ‘Happy Christmas’ and ‘See you before the New Year’ greetings. They were going to two of Ruby’s five brothers for Christmas, to be with their younger grandchildren. Ruby’s family never saw much of them.
As they left, Mary Lou set up a steady mewling, puckering up her little face.
Greta went to her and picked her up. She wanted the little girl to like her – after all, she was her auntie – but Mary Lou bawled even more loudly.
‘I ’spect she wants her tea,’ Ruby said, almost snatching her from Greta. ‘Come on – I’ll make her summat.’
Greta gathered up the teacups and plates and took them to wash up. Mary Lou was sitting at the table while Ruby heated some milk at the stove and was still crying, even more loudly now.
‘She blarts a lot, doesn’t she?’
‘She’ll be all right with some slops inside her,’ Ruby said. ‘Must all be a shock, the poor little mite.’
Mary Lou quietened once Ruby sat with her at the table and fed her morsels of bread soaked in sugary milk.
‘Pretty little thing, isn’t she?’ Greta said, watching Mary Lou, whose cheeks were tearstained and her blue eyes still watery.
Greta needed to catch her own mother’s attention, to talk, instead of her going on and on about Marleen and Mary Lou. She wished she was close to her mother, the way Pat was, and could talk to her about anything. She would have liked to tell her about Dennis, but she’d never felt she could talk to Ruby. Ruby had always had too many problems of her own, and whenever they talked they always seemed to get on the wrong side of each other.
‘It’ll be nice having a little baby here at Christmas, won’t it?’ Greta said, trying to please.
‘Ooh yes – lovely.’ Ruby laughed at the sight of Mary Lou, her cheeks bulging with food. ‘Seems a long time since you two were this size.’
Greta tried to continue this positive wave of communication by adding, ‘It’s a shame we won’t be with Nanna and Lionel. But it’ll be cosy, won’t it, just the four of us here.’
There was a pause, before Ruby slowly turned her head.
‘There won’t just be us four,’ she said carefully. ‘I’ve said to Herbert that he can come and spend the day with us.’ Seeing the look on Greta’s face she defended herself quickly. ‘It’s no good looking at me like that. He’s coming and that’s that – I don’t want any argy-bargy from you, my girl. Herbert’s a single man with no family to speak of and he’ll pass a lonely Christmas without an invitation. Now it’s up to you to show some Christmas spirit and make him welcome!’
Greta went to the sink and finished washing up the cups. She had barely begun to come to terms with Marleen coming home and what that might mean, and now Herbert Small-Balls
would be sitting at the Christmas dinner table with them. Not that anyone ever asked her what she might want, she thought, slamming one of the teacups down hard on the wooden drainer. In this house, she might just as well not exist!
Chapter Seven
It certainly was going to be a white Christmas. There was no let-up in the bone-achingly low temperatures at night. Greta found herself tossing and turning trying to keep warm. In the morning the bedroom windows were frozen on the inside, white patterns like ice flowers. Beautiful, but not much of an encouragement to get out of bed.
‘I never thought I was coming home to this,’ Marleen moaned. ‘It’s as bad as America!’
‘Oh, so there are some bad things about America are there?’ Greta said. Marleen was ‘America this, America that,’ all the time, until she wanted to say, ‘Well, if it’s so blooming fantastic, why didn’t you stay there?’
Marleen sat up, grimacing. She looked very pale, and with a groan she got out of bed and dragged herself to the bathroom.
Greta got up to mash some tea. She crept out, not wanting to wake Mary Lou, who was still asleep, little mouth half-open. As soon as she woke she always started bawling. Greta got a bottle of milk ready just in case. The child’s constant crying grated on everyone’s nerves.
It’s enough to put you off having any kids, Greta thought, huddled up close to the stove. The kettle seemed to take an age to boil, in the cold.
All she could think of was seeing Dennis later that day. They’d arranged to meet up in town, see the lights and have a bit of a walk round and a drink somewhere before getting back to their families for the evening. And she had a little present for him. She’d asked him what she could give him and to her surprise he’d asked for a book.
‘What d’you mean, a book?’ She hadn’t expected him to say that.
‘You know – one of those things with pages with print on them,’ Dennis teased.
She felt a sudden longing. She had been clever at school, so the teachers said, and she’d been complimented on her abilities at the Continuation School at Cadbury’s where they were released from work for a day of lessons every week until they were eighteen. She’d loved it there and had been sad to leave. But as soon as they had been launched fully into the world of work and the factory, it felt as if things like reading had to stop. She never saw her Mom reading a book. Of course, people round her when she was little read things. When they stayed with Frances Hatton, Janet, Frances’s daughter, had read books, and there was Edie, with her painting. Edie’s son David, who lived in Israel now – he had always had his nose in a book. But somehow they were different. They weren’t like her family. People like them didn’t go in for reading. Yet here was Dennis asking for a book!
‘I know what a book is,’ she retorted witheringly.
‘Surely you’re a reader, aren’t you?’ he asked.
‘Well . . . Yes.’ She was confused. The fact was she barely ever read anything now, but she felt as if really she was someone who liked reading, so it was hard to be truthful. ‘But what book d’you mean?’ she added tetchily. ‘There are quite a lot of them out there you know!’
‘Nothing expensive – there are second-hand bookshops down the hill in Bournbrook, near the university. I just want something that’s a good read – something to get my teeth into.’
On Saturday she had ventured down the hill and found a dark, secretive-looking shop with books displayed in the window. With butterflies in her stomach Greta pushed the door open. It gave a homely ‘ting’, and she was in another world! There were all those shelves of books all round the room, and freestanding shelves in the middle, and mixed with sweet tobacco smoke was the special smell of old pages that was both forbidding and exciting at once. At the back of the shop, a mild-looking man in half-moon glasses was sitting behind a desk puffing on a pipe and reading a book himself.
‘Can I help you?’ He looked up rather absently, taking the pipe from his mouth. ‘Or are you just browsing?’
‘I’m browsing, thank you,’ Greta said timidly.
The man seemed relieved to get back to his book and, to Greta’s intense relief, soundly ignored her. She looked round in bewilderment. What on earth should she buy for Dennis? A good read, he’d said. That must mean a story, she thought, passing shelves which had books on arithmetic, on religion and the basics of logic. She found poetry, history, books on trains and aeroplanes, books for children. Then she found the literature: Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot and Evelyn Waugh. Then a title leapt out at her. Kidnapped by R.L. Stevenson. That sounded exciting. Dennis had said he wanted a good read. The cover was dark blue and inside the price was marked in pencil at 2/6d. She decided to buy it – otherwise she might be here all day, still not able to make up her mind!
‘Ah – very good!’ the man said when she handed it to him. ‘A nice edition too. That’ll be half a crown – no, actually, as it’s Christmas I’ll let you have it for two shillings.’
‘Oh – thank you!’ Greta smiled.
‘I tell you what—’ He looked at her eager face. ‘You look to me like a keen reader . . .’
She was about to contradict him but he didn’t give her the chance.
‘If you give me the half-crown I’ll throw in this as well – you might like to give it a try.’
‘Oh – thanks ever so much!’ Greta said, as he slipped another book into the paper bag.
She left the shop with its tinkling bell, and on the way back up the hill into Selly Oak she pulled the two books from the bag. In the daylight her choice of book for Dennis looked a bit faded, but she liked the gold print on the book’s spine.
She turned the other book over, a slim, red-covered volume, and peered dubiously at the spine. Bonjour Tristesse it said, by Françoise Sagan. Afraid that the book was in French, she turned the pages, but saw to her relief that it was in English after all. It was a short book. Perhaps she’d give it a try.
Now she just had to worry about whether Dennis would like the book she had bought for him.
She saw him waving, among the crowds in Corporation Street who were out enjoying the lights and Christmas trees and the bustling atmosphere, before everything closed down for Christmas Day.
‘Greta!’ he called, and she felt a smile spread across her face. Dennis always looked so happy to see her, and she ran up to him.
‘Thought I might miss you,’ he panted. ‘I got held up back there and there’re that many crowds.’ He drew her to the side of the street, close to Lewis’s department store, and stood looking at her for a moment, in delight, before folding her in his arms.
‘I’m going to miss you,’ he said, drawing back to look down at her again. ‘I wish you could come and spend Christmas with us. You’d love it!’
‘So do I,’ she said, more sincerely than he realized. She would have loved to be almost anywhere else than with Mom, Marleen and the dreaded Herbert tomorrow. Suddenly it dawned on her that she’d better buy little presents for Marleen and Mary Lou.
‘Ah well,’ Dennis said, very correctly. ‘All in good time. Mustn’t rush things.’ He often did that, she noticed. He would seem exuberant, carefree when he first saw her, then very quickly he would become rather stiff, as if he had put a brake on somewhere in himself. ‘How about we go and find a place to sit down – have something hot to drink? We could go in here.’ He nodded at Lewis’s.
‘All right,’ Greta said. ‘I’d like that. I’m blooming freezing. And I need to look round.’
Arm in arm they walked into Lewis’s, and on the way to the tea rooms Greta picked out a pretty brooch for Marleen with red stones and, in the toy section, a little blue stuffed rabbit for Mary Lou.
‘Who’s that for?’ Dennis asked.
‘My sister,’ she said airily. ‘She was living in America and she’s come home with her little girl.’
‘You never said you had a sister!’ Dennis frowned. In fact he never asked her much about herself. ‘Well, that’s nice – and just in time
for Christmas!’ Greta smiled, while shuddering inside at the thought of him meeting Marleen.
They sat down at a table in the warmly lit room, where ‘Jingle Bells’ was piping out around them.
‘What d’you fancy?’ Dennis asked.
‘You,’ Greta said with a mischievous grin. ‘But I’ll settle for a cuppa.’
‘Cheeky minx,’ Dennis said. ‘D’you always talk to your boyfriends like that?’
‘No,’ she said truthfully. ‘But then I’ve never had a boyfriend like you before.’
She actually saw Dennis blush. ‘Well, there’s a compliment,’ he said.
They drank their tea, gratefully warming their hands round the cups, and Greta talked a bit about Pat and how they were going to her family on Boxing Day.
‘What’ll you be doing?’ she asked.
‘Oh, Boxing Day we always have the Walk,’ Dennis said. ‘Christmas Day’s always a lazy day – nice big dinner, our Mom always does a big turkey with all the trimmings, and all the family squeeze in. And then we talk and sing and play games – well on into the evening, with the kids there – all my sisters’ kids – and everyone gets very merry . . .’
Greta remembered the nice times they used to have at Frances Hatton’s house and the one really lovely Christmas they’d had their first year in America when things had not been spoilt, with Ed and Louisa Sorenson, and her heart ached. These were the memories of childhood that she treasured, and she held on tight to the past as it seemed so much better than now. If only Frances hadn’t died so young and Mom and Marleen hadn’t messed everything up in Minnesota!
‘Anyway,’ Dennis was saying happily, ‘by Boxing Day everyone’s ready to get moving and walk off the Christmas pud. So we all meet up for a walk – up the Clent Hills. My brothers-in-law have all got cars so there’s no problem getting everyone up there.’
‘Sounds lovely,’ Greta said wistfully.
‘Well—’ Dennis became solemn and looked at her very tenderly. ‘I do hope that eventually, when the time’s right, you might be able to join us.’
