Poppy Day

by Annie Murray

  The first time she had seen them was long ago in 1898 when she was a tiny girl, four years old. Olive had come out to Budderston to her sister Louisa’s house, the old cottage next to the Forge.

  They came on one of the trains that Jess could hear each day chugging across the far side of the farmland, stepping on to the platform, skirts catching the breeze, hands going up to hold their hats on. After a moment of looking, bewildered, round the country station, Olive was waving, other arm corkscrewing high in the air, her voice carrying right along the platform.

  ‘’Ello, Louisa – ooh, and look at little Jessica – ain’t she got your hair!’

  ‘Listen to that, Jess,’ her mother had tugged at her arm. ‘Them Brummies are ’ere! That’s your auntie, that is. Oh Olive!’ Her voice was thick with emotion. It was the first time they had seen each other’s children.

  Jess felt herself caught up in Olive’s sturdy arms, face pressed against the soft cotton of her frock. She smelt of smuts and lavender.

  ‘She’s beautiful, Louisa – a proper little pet. Ooh—’ holding Jess away from her. ‘Yer bonny, you are!’ She studied Jess’s face, and for a moment her eyes met her sister’s.

  Louisa was exclaiming over Bert, a stolid toddler with an expression of pure cheekiness, and skinny little Polly, socks a-dangle over the top of her boots.

  ‘Oh Olive – it’s lovely to see yer, it truly is!’ The sisters linked arms and walked out of the station chattering about their husbands and their children, who trailed behind. Polly dragged Bert along by the hand. Jess was too young to notice, but as well as these two children who came with Olive, her aunt must have been expecting then, because later the child was born – the one before Sis – a boy who died very soon after. They learned this news by post. Jess’s mother cried after she read the note in Olive’s childish copperplate, and stood for a long time staring out of the back window over the yard.

  That first time they came was during summer. In the hayfield over the wall, the seeded tips of grass reached higher than Jess’s waist. Jess was several months older than Polly, and taller. The two of them stood apart, giving each other sidelong looks, each fishing for fistfuls of their mothers’ skirts: Louisa’s a buttercup cotton, Olive’s a cream background with mauve swirls which cheap soap and wear had reduced almost to grey.

  ‘Oh go on with yer, Poll,’ Olive ordered her wearily. ‘Look – ’ere’s our Jess to play with. She won’t bite yer!’ She groaned, a long-suffering smile directed at her sister. ‘Proper titty-babbies they can be when they want to, can’t they?’

  ‘She’ll come round,’ Louisa said. ‘’Ere, Jess – take our Poll ’ere and show ’er the pig.’ Jess felt her mother unlock her fingers from the skirt. ‘I’ll get yer some scraps to give ’er. Off yer go – ’er Mom and I want to have a good natter!’

  Jess sized Polly up without saying a word. The girl had pinched cheeks, a pasty face and squinty grey eyes. Her hair was brown rat’s tails and she wore a tunic dress in a sludgy brown and sagging button up boots. To Jess she looked foreign and unwholesome. Jess with her plump, tanned arms, pink cheeks and her mop of thick curls, shiny as a newly polished saddle.

  ‘Come with me,’ she commanded. Polly followed, a finger in her mouth.

  Carrying a paper bag of food scraps, Jess strode off, sturdy legs pushing through the grass at the edge of the cottage garden. Louisa was a townie, but she had taken to growing things as if born to it. Potato plants lay tilted over, arms open, rows of beetroot shoots, their spines river valleys of maroon: cabbages, leaves a silvered green. The air was heavy with risen dew, bees knocking against flower heads, tiny, tight apples on the orchard trees.

  ‘What a stink!’ Polly said in a reedy voice. You could smell the pig long before reaching the sty: urine and rancid food trampled to a mush on the brick floor.

  ‘’Ere y’are, Sylvia.’ Jess ignored Polly and tipped in the bag of apple peelings.

  Sylvia lurched to her feet grunting throatily and trotted over, pushing her wet, wiffling nose between the wooden bars of the gate. Polly squealed and stumbled backwards.

  ‘Down there, yer dafty,’ Jess addressed the pig. Polly was already well beneath her contempt.

  Ecstatic snorting and squelching noises came from the pig. Jess reached through and scratched a bristly shoulder.

  ‘Now—’ she turned to Polly. ‘What d’yer wanna do then?’

  But Polly was kneeling in the orchard picking flowers, already grasping buttercups and a lacy head of cow-parsley in her fist.

  Huh! Jess thought.

  For most of the day, in rapt silence, the little Brummie girl gathered clumps of blossoms from the orchard, the lane, the hayfield. Buttercups, moon daisies, poppies, bunches which she presented to Olive and Louisa, flecked with blue viper’s bugloss, shaggy with tough shreds of ragwort.

  ‘Why don’t yer play with Polly?’ Louisa said to Jess now and then.

  ‘She don’t want to play,’ Jess said sulkily.

  The sisters agreed that the girls were both ‘daft little nibs’ and went back to their chatter, sitting out on the grass at the edge of the orchard. Louisa sat with her legs stretched out, arms behind her taking the weight, a gold seam through the orchard green in her buttery frock. Her hair was gathered up at the back, soft tendrils of it round her face. She liked to decorate it with flowers, or bright hips and haws, lustrous jewels, in season. Today she took three of the big field daisies from one of Polly’s bunches and threaded them in so they rested over one ear. Olive was so much more sober, her bent knees pulled up to one side, skirt covering her feet, lank hair fastened in a bun with a straight fringe.

  For some reason – Jess always connected it with the flowers, although that couldn’t really have been it – Olive became suddenly furious, face screwing up with anger.

  Their heads had been close together, faces long, talking in secret, grown-up whispers. Earlier on Jess had seen tears on Louisa’s face. Olive reached over and clasped Louisa’s hand, talking, talking, words a half-whispered jumble to Jess, but Jess thought it must be babbies they were talking about because her mom had lost two and that always made her cry. Then Polly sidled up and presented her aunt with a bunch of flowers from which she dressed her hair, and after, for no reason Jess could see, Olive’s face was red and puffed up with anger as if she was going to burst, and they were arguing, straining to keep their voices lowered.

  Snatches reached her like torn up notes – ‘That’s not how it was . . . I was the one always kept in the dark . . .’ and, ‘. . . you should’ve put it behind yer . . .’ from Louisa.

  ‘Yes – you were always the one who . . .’ and Olive’s voice sank too low for Jess to hear, then rose, finishing, ‘. . . to be together. That’s what I always wanted.’

  But later, again, as if some solemn business was over, they relaxed, joking and giggling. Jess couldn’t remember seeing her mother laugh like that before, and never saw her do so again, her head back, having to wipe tears from her eyes.

  Nothing else they said stayed with Jess, and she was too young to understand how deeply troubled the two sisters were by their past. What she did keep, though, as a memory from the midst of that green orchard, along with Polly’s dumb quest for flowers and Bert having to be retrieved sweaty and truculent from the hayfield, was a sense of rightness. That blood ties counted, no matter what. She had no memory of her father being there that day. He must have greeted Olive, shyly stroking his beard the way he did. Perhaps he ate with them too. But what she remembered was seeing Louisa as enlarged, strung as she had been in Jess’s mind until then, between the cottage, forge and village, between her father and herself. There was more to her mom: a past, relatives, Birmingham, which as she grew up she heard spoken of as a huge manufacturing town, way over there, further than she could ever see, beyond the soft curves of Warwickshire.

  It was winter the next time, 1900, icicles hanging from the eaves, tongues of ice between the furrows. That morning, which cruelly sliced one part of
Jess’s life away from the other, had begun full of excitement. The Shires were coming from the farm to be shod!

  ‘If yer can walk without fidgeting about, you can help lead ’em down,’ her father said. He was gentle then, although unsure how to talk to her even in those days, as if she was not his business. She was her mother’s province and Louisa made sure it stayed that way. Jess was her one, precious child.

  The farm boys helped walk the ‘big girls’, Myrtle and Maisie, the two black and white Shire horses, along from Lea End Farm, their fringed hooves striking on the frost hardened track, breath furling from their nostrils.

  Jess tore along to meet them, hair a crazy bird’s nest, holding up her thick winter dress. The arrival of the Shires felt like a dignified royal occasion. Jess’s father was ready for them, with Philip Gill. The forge was open on one side, facing the yard. Smoke curled out into the sharp air. The furnace was stoked high and it was dim inside even in the winter sunshine. Rows of tools hung on the main ceiling beam, and alongside the fire.

  William Hart, clad in his working apron, tucked the end of his long beard between the buttons of his shirt to keep it out of the way.

  ‘Can I hold Maisie while you shoe her – please? Dad, Philip, let me!’

  Philip, eighteen then, stood rubbing one of his enormous ears, making hissing noises of amusement through his teeth. ‘You know ’ow to keep on, don’t yer?’

  William Hart said nothing.

  He prised the old shoes off, working his way round the horse, clicking at her and leaning against the hard flanks to make her lift her hooves. Jess talked to her, kissing her nose. Maisie tolerated this for a time, then lifted her head with an impatient jerk.

  ‘Eh now,’ Jess said, trying to sound grown up. ‘There’s a good girl.’

  When it happened, she was standing with a hand on Maisie’s neck, wrapped in the hot smell of horse. A shaft of sunlight cut into the dark forge, shot through with motes of smoke and dust. William, a shadowy silhouette in the firelight, hammered a glowing cresent of iron.

  From the doorway of the cottage her scream broke along the yard.

  ‘William! Help me – for God’s sake!’

  There was Louisa, doubled up, gasping on the step, face contorted in agony, hands thickly smeared with blood, and William Hart was running, hammer slammed down, the air abruptly emptied of all other sounds but his boots along the yard. Even the horses stared, rock still.

  Jess felt her mother’s agony and fear pass into her and her limbs turned weak.

  ‘Mom! Mom!’ She was struggling, crying, everything else a fog around her. Strong arms caught her. Philip carried her into the forge, sat her on a stool.

  ‘There now – there,’ he said, mopping her cheeks. Jess screwed up her nose at the smell of him.

  She was not allowed in the house all day, freezing as it was. The widow Mrs Guerney was sent for from the village, and the doctor. William stayed inside and Philip shod the horses. All day there was a dreadful quiet over the place which frightened her as much as her mother’s screams. Left alone, wrapped in her old coat, Jess wandered to the back gate which led to the path, then the hayfield. Atop the wall, on that diamond-hard day, cobwebs had frozen, crystalline and perfect across clusters of blood-red berries. Jess whimpered, hugging herself. Nothing felt right or safe any more. She kept seeing Louisa’s red hands, hearing that bloodcurdling cry, the last sound she would ever hear her mother utter.

  Late that night she saw Louisa laid out. Her hair was arranged loose on the pillow. She was cold and there was no expression in her face.

  Jess looked up accusingly at Mrs Guerney. ‘That ain’t Mom,’ she whispered. Then screamed, ‘What’ve yer done to my mom – that ain’t ’er! Where’ve yer taken ’er?’

  Sarah Guerney made clucking sounds with her tongue, led Jess briskly downstairs again and fed her bread crusts dipped in sweet milk. Her father sat by the range, staring ahead of him. He didn’t speak to her, didn’t even seem to see her.

  ‘Your mother’s gone to Heaven to be with the angels,’ Mrs Guerney told her. Jess thought she looked pleased about this, and hated her.

  When they took Louisa to be buried, the dead child, a daughter, who had cost her her life, was laid to rest in the same coffin.

  And Olive came. The only break between her black garments was her face, raw with grief, the mole on her cheek very dark against her pallor. Louisa was her younger sister by two years.

  With her she brought Polly. The girl was still bone thin and pallid from city life, but she had more presence now, and a wry look in her eyes.

  William Hart, Philip Gill and a group of neighbours carried the coffin from the curtain shrouded cottage, their feet moving to the toll of the church bell. William was dressed in his Sunday best, his beard brushed flat. He kept his gaze ahead, not looking at anyone. The love of his life was gone, a small daughter no substitute at all. That morning, when Jess tried to go to him, looking for comfort, he had pushed her away.

  ‘Leave ’im be,’ Mrs Guerney commanded her. ‘He’s in no fit state to talk to yer.’

  Olive walked holding the girls’ hands. Jess was dressed in navy, her thick hair gathered into two plaits. She insisted on picking up a brown, stiff leaf and holding it. She had to hold something or she would float away, lost. Her toes roared with the pain of chilblains. Now and then the stiff black stuff which swathed her aunt’s arms brushed against her cheek. Olive squeezed Jess’s hand with her own.

  Friends and neighbours walked with them. At the church Olive waited with the girls at the end of the path as the coffin withdrew. The backs of the men carrying Louisa moved in a stately sway along the little path, and as they disappeared inside, Jess felt Olive’s hand tighten convulsively and a strange shudder seemed to go through her. She drew herself up.

  ‘Come on. That’s men’s work in there. Time to go ’ome.’

  Jess sobbed, distraught as they turned from the church. Looking up she saw tears coursing down her aunt’s face. Olive’s hand kept clenching and unclenching on hers.

  Olive could only stay one more day before going back to Birmingham. She organized for Sarah Guerney to help out in the house. And she tried to take William Hart to task.

  ‘You’ll ’ave to take a bit more notice of ’er,’ she said, eyeing Jess. ‘’Er’s only six and yer all ’er’s got now.’

  He was numb with grief, spoke like a winded man.

  ‘I can’t be a mother to her, now can I?’ Jess heard him say. ‘’Er needs a mother.’

  While Olive was there she seemed like part of Louisa, and was the woman of the house for now. That second day Jess was kept away from school, and played with Polly. Jess took her up the track to meet the farmer’s boys, but they were wary, as if death followed you round like a smell. She and Polly went and cracked the ice at the edge of the pond on the green.

  ‘’Ave yer got nits?’ Polly asked conversationally, shifting a brittle triangle of ice with the toe of her boot.

  ‘No. Don’t reckon so.’

  ‘I wish I ’ad hair like yours. It’s ever so nice, yours is.’

  They were drawn to each other this time.

  The night after Olive and Polly left, Jess lay in bed, cuddled in the deep dip of the mattress. The house was quiet and dark. After a time the stair treads creaked as her father came up, a candle stuck on a saucer. The door squeaked as he crept into her room, the flame wavering.

  Jess pretended to be asleep. Through her lids she sensed the light thinning, bulbing outwards as he held the candle high over her. He looked down at her for a time, then sighed, a massive expulsion of breath from the depths of him. In a moment he went out again, crossing the landing to his cold, silent room. It was the closest he ever came to trying to comfort her.

  Jess lay still, the blackness seeming to pulse round her. She thought about the dark yard below her window: outside it, black fields lit only by an ice-flake moon . . . And beyond them more darkness reaching on forever . . . She began trembling, sobbing, cur
ling into a tiny, tight ball, crying out her distress into her pillow.

  ‘Mom! Oh Mom . . . Mom . . .!’

  Five

  Sarah Guerney was in her late thirties when Louisa died, a lanky woman with black hair, rather hooded brown eyes and a surprisingly thin neck, giving her head an unbalanced, chicken-like appearance made more pronounced by the pecking little nods she gave when nervous or irritable. Jess had never taken to her, even at the beginning.

  Sarah had married first at twenty and been left a widow two years later with a daughter to bring up and a grocer’s shop to run. As time passed she took on an assistant in the shop and started to attend births in the village, supported the women until they were Churched, and laid out the dead. As well as gaining a certain status, she earned a small fee for each attendance, or a basket of eggs or fresh vegetables if money was short.

  ‘I see ’em in and I see ’em out,’ she would say, full of her own importance.

  She set her sights on William Hart almost as his lovely young wife was breathing her last. She did not expect her objective to be achieved quickly, nor did she expect love. What Sarah saw before her was an opportunity for combining assets – she had the shop, he the forge.

  So in the year after Louisa’s death she left her daughter in charge among the tins, packets of Bird’s Custard and motley array of local produce, and set out to make herself indispensable to the Hart household.

  She worked for William Hart with the tireless commitment of someone who’s after something. She carried water from the pump, cleaned, cooked and tended Louisa’s kitchen garden (the spare produce from which she could sell in her shop). She took brisk – not unkind, at the start, but never tender – care of Jess. She scrubbed, washed and darned, her gaunt energy adding a domestic pace and wholesomeness to a house which would otherwise have been bereft. As the months passed, like sand trickling into a hole she began in some measure to fill the space Louisa had left.