Bells of Bournville Green (7 page)

‘That’ll be Herbert,’ Ruby said, as if they couldn’t have guessed. She took her pinny off, revealing a new terylene dress in swirls of maroon and white, and patted at her hair, which she had touched up at the roots and sprayed into place. She hissed at Greta, ‘Now, listen here – Herbert means a lot to me. You’d better be
nice.’

From the kitchen Greta heard Ruby greeting Herbert Smail as if she had not a care in the world, laughing and joking with him.

‘Oh, you’re a tonic, Ruby, you really are!’ he said in his smarmy voice, stamping the snow off his shoes. ‘A salve and balm for the weary.’ She heard the smacking sound of him kissing her mother’s cheek, and then he must have noticed who else was in the room.

‘Who’s this?’ Herbert sounded really thrown by the sight of Marleen and Mary Lou on the rug by the fire, near the little Christmas tree. In the background there was music coming from the television.

‘Ah, now, Herbert,’ Ruby explained, speaking in a light, sparkly way that made Greta clench her fists. ‘We had a little surprise a couple of days ago. This is my other daughter Marleen and her little girl Mary Lou – they’ve come home from America.’

Greta found a wicked grin spreading across her face at the thought of Herbert getting the Marleen treatment. She had to see this. She went and stood in the doorway. Herbert was dressed in a blaringly loud tan and black check suit, the jacket buttons unfastened to reveal an immense, bilious-green shirt.

‘Say hello, Marleen,’ Ruby said brightly. ‘This is my friend Herbert.’

Marleen, still obviously feeling sick, raised her eyes to Herbert as if she had just been asked to inspect a blocked drain.

‘’Llo,’ she grunted.

‘How delightful to meet you, Marleen,’ Herbert oozed. ‘Well what a nice surprise – a familial Christmas festivity. Aren’t I a lucky boy?’

Greta wondered whether Herbert had even known Marleen existed. Most likely not, she decided.

‘I’ve had the privilege of visiting the United States of America myself,’ he told Marleen. ‘Detroit, to be completely precise and accurate. Which part of that great and esteemed country have you been living in?’

Marleen stared at him blankly. ‘What?’

‘Don’t be dense Marleen,’ Ruby said sharply. ‘Herbert’s asking you where you were living in America.’

All he got in reply was another withering stare from Marleen.

‘She’s not feeling too good today,’ Ruby said. ‘Any road, here’s Greta to see you!’

‘Ah, the lovely Greta!’ Herbert turned to her. ‘Allow me to offer Christmas felicitations by kissing your fair and delectable cheek!’

Before Greta could either decipher this sentence or move away, Herbert had swooped towards her. His wet lips smacked against her cheek.

‘Happy Christmas,’ Greta said hastily. ‘I’ll just check on the spuds, Mom.’

She retreated to the kitchen, wiping her cheek. Then she got the giggles and stood snorting helplessly into her hands by the cooker. Herbert kissing her had been like being mauled by a giant slug. God Almighty, what a day, and it was only twelve o’clock!

‘Come through and I’ll get us a drink, Herbert,’ Ruby said. ‘I’ve got some nice cider – I know you like that.’

As soon as Ruby and Herbert came into the kitchen Greta went back into the front room and sat down next to Marleen. She started building a brick tower for Mary Lou.

‘Who the bloody hell’s that?’ Marleen asked.

‘Mom’s new boyfriend.’

Marleen stared at her. ‘What the hell was he on about?’

Within two minutes of sitting down at the table for Christmas dinner, Greta wondered how she was going to get through it, never mind the rest of the day.

Ruby had cooked a sumptuous meal: turkey and trimmings, potatoes, carrots and parsnips and cabbage, and the room was full of steam and the smells of food. There were crackers on the table, which Mary Lou was very taken with and cried when Ruby took hers away.

‘You could hurt yourself, bab,’ she said. ‘We’ll have it later!’

Mary Lou was setting up for a big wail when Herbert leaned down to her. ‘Coochie-coochie!’ he said, blowing cidery breath into her face. ‘There’s a coochie-coochie little girl, aren’t you?’

Mary Lou’s mouth opened in astonishment at the sight of his great big red face and she forgot to cry. Greta caught Marleen’s eye and for a moment they were on the same side when Marleen smirked back at her.

‘You’ve got a way with children, haven’t you?’ Ruby said, piling potatoes on to Herbert’s plate. ‘It’s nice to see that.’

‘Oh, I do my best,’ Herbert said, laughing and looking round the table. ‘I’m a bit out of practice, with my own being grown up and gone.’

Greta stopped in the middle of pouring gravy and looking sharply at her mother.
I thought he was single,
her look said.
What’s this about children?

‘In America they have Thanksgiving, not Christmas,’ Marleen volunteered suddenly.

‘That’s most true, they do,’ Herbert said, and this was his cue to go off on a long speech about the Pilgrim Fathers and the good ship
Mayflower
landing in America in the seventeenth century. ‘It’s really a harvest celebration,’ he finished.

‘Ooh, don’t you know a lot?’ Ruby said, beaming at him. ‘Can I top up your glass, Herbert?’

‘You can top me up any time,’ Herbert said, with a suggestive grin, and he and Ruby laughed for a long time at this.

‘You are a scream,’ Ruby said, her cheeks very pink from cooking and generous amounts of cider. ‘Ain’t he a scream, girls? There’s no one like Herbert for a good joke.’

As the meal continued, with Herbert boasting about how much money he was earning, about the car he was about to buy, not to mention the new house he planned to buy too, and Ruby’s behaviour became more and more flirtatious, Greta sat feeling more and more outraged and embarrassed. She was ashamed of her mother, of her being tipsy, of her past, the way she had to fling herself at men and usually the wrong ones. Men were only after one thing, Ruby often said. So why give it to them all the time then?

The joking and laughing made her feel sick. The longer the meal went on, the more she felt wound up, tighter and tighter. She wanted to get up and run from the house. She looked round the table at her Mom, puce-faced and making up to this fat creep, her sister, sulky-faced and sickly, no more than a child herself and trying to cope with Mary Lou and some other unknown man’s brat in her belly. And this was her family.

Suddenly she felt very distant from them, as if she was seeing them on telly, like a film. She didn’t want to be where they were.

I’m never having children, she thought. Never, never, never.

She was the one who was going to be different. She wasn’t going to get caught out like that – she was going to get somewhere in her life. But she hated feeling like this about her family: she wanted to be bursting with pride, the way Dennis was over his.

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.