Read Bells of Bournville Green for Free Online Page A

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