The Bells of Bournville Green

by Annie Murray

  As she was lost in these thoughts, she became aware of a strange sensation in her left leg. As she came back to reality with a bump, she realized it was a hand, stroking her. Herbert was sitting at the end, on her left, talking to Ruby as if with all his attention, but all the time his hand was on her thigh under the table. Greta froze. She tried to move away but there was no space. The hand kept stroking. So she picked up her fork and jabbed the prongs into the back of his hand.

  Herbert let out a yelp and pulled his hand away.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Ruby asked. ‘Have you hurt yourself, Herbert?’

  Greta looked up, innocently.

  ‘No, no – it’s nothing!’ he said, avoiding Greta’s eye. ‘I just caught my knee under the table, that’s all.’

  ‘Well as long as you’re all right,’ Ruby said, patting his shoulder. ‘Now then – who’s for plum pudding?’

  Chapter Nine

  Teeth chattering, Greta rapped her knuckles on the cracked yellow paint of the Biddles’ front door. She’d been in such a hurry to get out, and as they only lived a short way down Charlotte Street, she hadn’t thought to put her coat on. Icy air bit into her cheeks, snow lay trodden in uneven lumps, and more was beginning to fall.

  The door opened a fraction to reveal Trevor’s seven-year-old sister Dorrie, a plump, eccentric little girl, who was a smaller version of their Mom. Behind the door she could hear voices and the television and there was a mixture of smells: cooked meat, sprouts, dog and cigarettes.

  ‘Trevor said you’d never come,’ Dorrie announced. She was wearing a vivid pink dress with a tiered skirt, each layer trimmed with bands of white lace.

  ‘Well, I’m here aren’t I?’ Greta said. ‘That a new dress?’

  ‘Yes – it’s my fairy dress . . .’ Dorrie twirled proudly round. By the look of things her podgy arms had only just squeezed into the sleeves.

  ‘Who is it, Dorrie? Is that Greta?’ Nancy Biddle conducted most of her front-door conversations from her chair, whether she could see the person or not. ‘Hello, Greta, if that’s you – let ’er in yer silly wench, she’ll freeze ’er bones out there. TREVOR – GRETA’S HERE!’

  As she entered the familiar stuffy room she saw Trevor’s Mom and Dad, Nancy and Alf, sitting either side of the fire, where the dog, an old brown mongrel called Trigger, lay on the fag-burned hearth rug. April, who was thirteen, was poring over a new Bunty annual. There were cups and plates on the hearth and side table, the remains of a fruit cake and a scattering of boiled-sweet wrappers. The Biddles greeted her warmly.

  ‘’Ullo, Greta.’ Nancy smiled through a haze of cigarette smoke. She was a cheerful woman in her late thirties with chopped, shoulder-length black hair. Freckles dotted her upturned nose, and made her look good-tempered and friendly, which she was. ‘Nice of you to call in, bab – I hope yer Mom doesn’t mind you coming out?’

  No – it’s all right,’ Greta said.

  ‘Having a nice Christmas?’ Alf asked. He had a long, bony face, a toothy smile, and had given Trevor his long, lean frame.

  ‘Yes, ta.’

  Greta could hear feet running eagerly down the stairs.

  ‘Here ’e comes.’ Nancy rolled her eyes.

  ‘’Ave a chocolate?’ Alf said, holding out a box of Roses.

  ‘Oh – no, ta.’ Greta smiled.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Dad!’ Trevor said, appearing from the back.

  ‘Oh – sorry,’ Alf laughed, showing his big square teeth. ‘You ’ave quite enough of it at work I s’pose! How’s yer Mom?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I hear she’s got company for Christmas,’ Nancy said, winking. ‘Is ’e nice?’

  Greta hesitated and Nancy gave her chesty laugh. ‘Oh I see, like that is it!’ She stubbed her cigarette out on the saucer by her chair. ‘I’m going to make another cuppa – d’you want some, Greta?’

  ‘Yeah, go on then.’

  ‘I’ve got summat for you, Gret,’ Trevor said with eager bashfulness.‘’Ere, Mom – I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Nancy had been about to get up but she sank back with a grin.

  ‘Go on then, Trev – you take Greta through.’

  The back kitchen of the Biddles’ house was in need of a lick of paint and was in a chaotic state, cascades of greasy pans from Christmas dinner stacked all over the tables and in the sink.

  Trevor suddenly seemed overwhelmed at finding himself alone with her and just stood awkwardly the other side of the table, on which the remains of a joint of beef lay in a pool of bloody liquid. Greta saw a cigarette end floating in it. Trevor chewed his lower lip for a moment.

  ‘You look nice,’ he said, at last. Greta had on a skirt in red tartan and a cream jumper. ‘But you always do . . .’

  ‘Oh – ta,’ Greta said. She looked into Trevor’s eager face. ‘That’s a nice thing to say.’

  Then they both stood at a loss, until she said, ’You going to put that kettle on for your Mom then?’

  ‘Oh – yeah.’

  He filled the kettle and stood it over the flame.

  ‘I got you a present,’ he said, going to a shelf where he had hidden something between two storage tins. ‘Here – that’s for you, Greta. Happy Christmas.’ He was holding out a thin, square package. She thought of Dennis’s present, a delicate silver chain with a tiny silver flower pendant which was resting now in the cleft between her breasts.

  ‘Oh, Trev!’ It was her turn to blush now. She hesitated to take it from him. ‘You shouldn’t have. I feel bad now – I haven’t got you anything.’

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, and she couldn’t tell if he was really disappointed or not. ‘Go on – open it.’

  She took it from him. The wrapper had holly leaves on a white background. Inside she found a 45 single.

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, doubtfully. ‘The Beatles. Thanks Trev.’ She’d never even heard of them. The song was ‘Love Me Do’. When she turned it over, the B side was ‘PS I Love You’.

  ‘It’s a really good song!’ Trev’s face was bashful, but serious. ‘I do, you see, Greta. I really love you. I think I always have.’

  ‘Oh, Trev . . .’ She was touched and embarrassed at once. She’d always liked Trevor. He was nice in a daft sort of way. But she’d never really thought of him in that way – not as someone to go out with or anything. She couldn’t think what to say to him, so instead she asked,

  ‘You got a record player?’

  ‘April’s got one – it ain’t much good. Have you?’

  ‘Yeah – Mom’s got an old one. But let’s ask April if we can put it on.’

  April sprang to life at the thought of hearing the new record and took them up to the room she and Dorrie shared. Dorrie came up as well, not wanting to be left out, and they put the record on the turntable. Soon the four of them were jigging about in the girls’ messy room with ‘Love Me Do’ pouring tinnily out into the room. Greta was glad April and Dorrie were there too because they just had fun and didn’t have to talk about anything. They laughed at Trevor’s gawky dancing in the narrow space and Dorrie got a bit too excited, twirling round in her fairy dress, and at the end they all fell back laughing on to the beds.

  ‘Thanks, Trev!’ she panted. ‘That’s the best present!’

  ‘Let’s put the other side on,’ April said.

  For the next hour or so they kept playing the record and dancing to the two songs in turn until they knew all the words to them and were pink and hot. Then the two younger girls drifted down to watch the television and Greta was left alone with Trev, perched on the mauve flowery coverlet on April’s bed.

  ‘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.’