Poppy Day

by Annie Murray

  ‘I’m awright.’ Jess lay on her side. Bert had the smallest room, and there was just enough space to squeeze three proper beds into theirs. The wall in front of her eyes was covered with a cream paper patterned with trailing blue roses.

  The house was quiet. Olive, feeling more herself since the move, was bolder about going out, and had gone with Sis up the road to the Baptist Church. She wasn’t fussy about the denomination, but liked to go to church somewhere. She said she’d had help from all sorts and she’d pray with all sorts, and Sis liked a singsong when it was on offer. Bert was outside, below their window, slopping whitewash on to the little wall of the yard.

  Polly was, as usual, tidying up. They had a small chest of drawers between the three of them, and she was kneeling in front of it taking everything out, folding and refolding their few garments, even the stockings, which Jess had patched and darned until they were almost unrecognizable.

  Jess wished she’d go down and leave her alone.

  ‘What yer doing that for?’ she snapped. ‘Yer always fussing and fidgeting – yer’ve done that I don’t know ’ow many times before and no one’s touched it since.’

  Polly sat back on her heels. Her mousy hair was scraped back and tied with a piece of string, her face pale and strained. She also looked annoyed at Jess’s attack.

  ‘It makes me feel better, that’s all. Keeping the place a bit nice. What’s wrong with that? If it was left to you we’d live in a right heap. When Ernie and I . . . when we ’ave our own ’ouse I’ll keep it nice I can tell yer.’ She got up and went to sit beside Jess on the bed. ‘Look – you’re not yerself. What’s ailing yer, Jess? It can’t be that bad yer can’t tell me?’

  This wasn’t the first time they’d had a conversation like this. Jess’s moods had been up and down for weeks, sometimes calm, sometimes silent and withdrawn, and at others viciously irritable.

  How could she tell them about Ned? There was no one she could confide in. And all the time she was eaten up with sorrow, with longing.

  If I can’t have him, there’ll be no one else, she vowed to herself. I won’t be with anyone just for the look of it, or because that’s what everyone else does. I won’t have second best. Not like Sarah. My dad never loved her. He was scared stiff of the woman. It wasn’t like that with Louisa, not with Mom. If I can’t be with Ned, what’s the point – of anything?

  There were a couple of lads at the works who’d taken a shine to her and asked her out. They were all right, except she found nothing to interest her in their company. She wouldn’t go again and they told everyone she was a bit hoity-toity.

  ‘Cor – daint yer like Billy?’ Evie goggled in amazement. ‘I’ll ’ave ’im off of yer!’

  ‘Yer welcome to ’im.’ Jess smiled at her eagerness. If only she could feel the same.

  People were noticing she’d lost her vitality, Polly especially. She was always on at her, like now, trying to worm out of her what was wrong.

  ‘Jess—’ Polly touched her cousin’s back which was turned away from her. ‘Is it yer family – them not writing or nothing?’

  Jess shook her head. ‘No – I never really thought they would. I mean if they’d left it that long . . .’

  ‘Is it – well, summat we’ve done to upset yer?’

  Another shake of Jess’s head.

  ‘Yer can’t go on like this – yer getting scrawny like me – ’ere, I can feel all yer bones! When yer came yer were all bonny and strong. I wish there was summat I could do to help yer. Yer acting as if yer pining for summat . . .’

  There was a long silence, then Jess’s broken voice suddenly burst out, ‘Oh Polly!’ She buried her face in the bed.

  ‘What’s up, eh?’ Polly patted her agitatedly. ‘You can tell Poll. Just get it out – you’ll feel better.’

  Eventually Jess spluttered out, ‘It’s Ned!’

  ‘Ned?’ Polly actually started laughing. ‘Jess, yer not still hankering after ’im, surely to goodness? I knew yer ’ad a flame lit for ’im when yer first came. I mean everybody goes for our Ned – me included, once upon a time. I know Mary’s the last sort of person yer’d think ’e’d go for, but ’e’s married ’er and that’s that! Yer can’t go on like this over ’im. I mean you hardly know ’im, do yer?’

  Jess rolled over and sat up, hair in a mess and her face wet.

  ‘I do – more than you know. I’ve seen ’im – a few times. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about me and he – kissed me.’ She saw Polly’s face sober up in shock. ‘I love him, Poll, and I know he loves me! Babby or no babby, it’s me ’e should be with. If you feel that way about someone, that’s where yer belong, ain’t it? I can’t stand the thought ’e’ll be with her for ever more. In the wrong place with the wrong wife!’ She put her head down on her knees and started crying all over again. ‘I feel as if I’m losing my mind over him!’

  ‘Oh for pity’s sake—’ Polly took hold of her shoulders and shook her furiously. ‘What the flaming ’ell’re yer going on about? This ain’t some threepenny romance – this is life going on ’ere, Jess – they’re married with a babby . . .’

  ‘Don’t—’ Jess shook her off. ‘I know it’s bad of me – that’s the worst of it, but I can’t get over it! I can’t stop wanting ’im . . .’

  Polly got up and stumped over to the pile of clothes on the floor. ‘I’ve no sympathy with yer, that I ain’t. Never ’eard such a load of clap-trap. Yer just want to pull yerself together. There’ll be someone else. Plenty of men about. Too many if yer ask me. Yer can’t go after someone else’s, that yer can’t. Yer’ve no right.’

  They heard the door rattle open downstairs. Olive and Sis were back. Sis was singing a bit of a hymn with her sweet young voice.

  ‘Don’t let on to our mom about this,’ Polly hissed. ‘That’s the last department you’ll get any sympathy from!’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve ’ad a lot from you neither,’ Jess sniffed.

  ‘Well—’ Polly turned, angrily. ‘What the hell d’yer expect? ‘Ooh – Mom, look who’s paying us a visit. Oh, and the babby – ’ark at ’er blarting!’

  The tiny hall was crammed full of people all of a sudden, vying for a space on the lino as Sis opened the door. Dinner was over and the house still smelt of tasty stew. They were all sitting having a cuppa to finish off the meal. Ernie was there, as usual now, on a Sunday.

  Polly’s eyes whipped round to meet Jess’s, full of warning. Jess looked away. She could hear Ned’s voice in the hall and she was paralysed. Her hands turned clammy, heart feeling as if it was hammering a path out the front of her. She put her cup down, clattering it on the saucer.

  Somehow she managed to stand up and do the expected things that the others were doing.

  ‘’Ere she is then, after all the waiting!’ Mary held her out to be admired as if everyone’s lives had been spent in anticipation of this moment. She beamed round at them.

  ‘You sit down, wench,’ Olive said, guiding her to a chair.

  Jess took in the sight of Ned as he came round the door. Had he changed? Thinner, a bit. Tired. But still the person she loved, and longed for.

  ‘Poll. Jess.’ He nodded at them. He didn’t hold Jess’s gaze. He looked quickly away, but so did she.

  Everyone stood round Mary, cooing over Ruth, even Bert.

  ‘She’s a bonny one, Ned. Ain’t yer?’ He held Ruth up, making playful faces at her. ‘’Ere y’are, Poll – I can see you’re dying for a hold.’

  Polly was drawn to the child in spite of herself. She smiled stiffly at Mary and said, ‘She’s a lovely babby,’ and Mary beamed like a cat with the cream and said,

  ‘She’s the prettiest babby I’ve ever seen and I don’t think it’s just me being partial.’

  Jess’s thoughts raced elsewhere. She could read nothing in Ned’s face. He was like a stranger, his expression closed. Had her lips touched this man’s? Had he aroused such feelings in her? But her body remembered, making her flushed and unsteady, even if her mind had
doubts. She prayed no one would notice, especially not him. Oh, but the effect he had on her. Even a look from him!

  She had to go and admire the baby. In any case, she was curious to see what Ned’s child would be like. Mary was chatting on, cheerful.

  ‘She’s a right greedy little thing,’ she told Olive. ‘On and off of me all day long. I never knew it’d be like that. Ooh, I was sore to start with . . .’

  ‘It’ll settle down.’ Olive couldn’t take her eyes off the infant. She lifted Ronny up to look. ‘See what our Mary’s brought to show us – she’s called Ruth, look, Ronny.’

  ‘Babby!’ Ronny shouted reaching out to her, hands smeary with gravy. ‘Babby, babby!’

  Jess watched quietly. She found she was standing next to Ned, although she was sure he hadn’t intended to come close to her. She felt she must say something. ‘She’s a lovely babby, Ned. Congratulations to yer both.’

  ‘She is.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Ta, Jess.’ He looked round at her. Jess didn’t know if her eyes held any of the hurt she felt. In his she saw . . . something. Longing? Sorrow? Or did she imagine that? Then Olive was saying,

  ‘We can’t just stand about all afternoon – park yerselves on a chair if yer can find one. There, Ned – pull up one of these from the table.’

  ‘I like yer new house,’ Mary said, eyes roving the room. This was one of the things that aggravated Polly about Mary, always poking round to see what you’ve got. Always after more. She had an eye for the main chance marrying Ned, Polly always said. Her family wasn’t much, after all.

  ‘It was time we ’ad a bigger place,’ Olive said quickly. ‘Now Jess’s stopping with us, and Ronny getting bigger.’

  ‘That Regency stripe in the front’s lovely, ain’t it, Ned? We could do with some of that in ours. This is pretty in ’ere, an’ all . . . I like a pretty paper on the wall I do. Gives the whole place a clean look . . .’

  She chattered on, Jess barely listening, until she realized Mary was talking to her.

  ‘D’yer want to ’ave a hold?’

  ‘Oh – yes. Awright then.’

  Blushing, she took the little scrap on her lap, supporting her head. Ruth peered up at her with pebbly blue, still slightly crossed eyes. Her face was covered in pink blotches. A moment after Jess took her she screwed up her face and started crying.

  ‘’Ere—’ Thankful, Jess held her out to Mary. ‘It’s you she wants, not me. I ain’t no good to her.’

  She’s going to look like her mom, Jess thought. It was as if there was nothing of Ned in her. She glanced up at him, and he smiled for a moment, rather absently, then turned his eyes towards his wife. Jess saw him quickly look away again as Mary began to suckle the baby.

  Jess found those two hours an agony. His being there, so close to her, yet they couldn’t talk and were afraid to look at each other. She wondered if his feelings for her had died, now he had a child.

  She barely took any notice as talk turned to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, to the threat of war. Outside was so warm, so breathlessly still that it seemed an impossibility on this summer day, a distant dream, despite all the sabre rattling.

  ‘We must be going,’ Mary said eventually. ‘It’s quite a walk and our mom’s expecting us back. Said she’d cook us tea tonight.’

  ‘That’s very nice of ’er,’ Olive said, a bit sarkily Jess thought, as if to say, it’s all right for some. ‘Sis – you get the pram outside for Mary, will yer? None of us’ll get out the door else.’

  Mary got Ruth bundled up in her blanket and they heard Sis struggling down the step with the pram.

  They were going through the ‘lovely to see yer’s and ‘come again soon’s, Ned nodding round at Polly, and Jess – ‘T’ra then’ – when Olive shrieked,

  ‘Ronny? Where is ’e? ’E’s gone – oh my God ’e’ll be in the ’orse road by now!’

  ‘Oh Lor’!’ Polly cried. ‘’E must’ve got past Sis when ’er opened the door!’

  There was a rush to the front, Polly and Ernie, Mary holding Ruth, Olive yelling at Sis – ‘Where’s yer brother, yer idle wench?’

  Jess was on the point of following, when she saw that she and Ned were the only ones left standing in the back room. She turned at the door. All the desperate emotion she had been holding back all afternoon flooded into her face.

  ‘Ned—’

  ‘Jess—’ He quickly moved closer. ‘I didn’t want to come today. It was Mary – you know, the babby . . . I . . .’

  ‘D’yer love me? Do yer? Say it, Ned. Or say yer don’t and yer never did.’ Her gaze burned into him. He could feel her trembling, but there were voices outside. He gripped her hand tightly for a moment.

  ‘Meet me – Tuesday night. Snow Hill. Under the clock. Can yer do it?’

  There were voices coming to the front door, Ronny’s loud, indignant yells.

  Jess nodded. ‘Course I can do it.’ How would she let anything stand in her way?

  They loosed hands as the others came in, Olive with Ronny grasped under one arm.

  ‘Oh stop yer blarting – yer lucky not to be under a tram, yer little bugger. Found ’im outside the Friends Meeting ’Ouse! Moves like a clockwork engine, when ’e gets going.’

  ‘You awright, Ronny?’ Jess turned and picked him up, kissing him. In a moment when Olive’s eyes were turned away she looked at Ned and mouthed, ‘Half past seven?’ He acknowledged it with a tiny movement of his head.

  ‘Lovely to see yer, Auntie.’ He kissed Olive. Jess watched, full up with feeling. He was so handsome, so lovely, and above all, he loved her . . . For the first time in ages, she found herself smiling, joy swelling in her.

  ‘You look after ’em both, my lad.’ Olive clapped him affectionately on the back. ‘That’s your job now.’

  ‘I will – don’t yer worry on that score.’

  They all stood waving them down the road, Mary pushing the pram.

  Polly turned to go inside.

  ‘Never seen such a scrawny little scrap of a thing,’ she said. ‘I’d’ve fed that one to the cat.’

  ‘Poll!’ Ernie sounded disappointed in her. ‘That ain’t very nice.’

  ‘Huh,’ Polly said.

  Twelve

  ‘Evie’s invited me back to meet ’er family,’ Jess said on Tuesday morning. ‘So I’ll not be back for tea.’

  ‘Where’s she live then?’ Olive grunted, bending to pick up a cloth from the floor.

  ‘Off Constitution Hill somewhere.’

  ‘She got any brothers?’ Sis asked with a cheeky grin. ‘Maybe she’ll get yer set up, like.’

  ‘As a matter of fact she has – she’s got two. One’s fifteen—’

  Sis groaned.

  ‘—and the other’s twenty-one.’

  ‘’S’e married?’

  ‘Not as I know of.’

  ‘Oooh!’

  ‘What’s ’e do for a living?’ Polly asked.

  ‘I don’t know, fer ’eaven’s sake!’ Jess laughed. ‘I ain’t set Evie up as an official matchmaker – for all I know ’e might look like Frankenstein’s monster!’

  ‘Good match for you then,’ Bert said.

  ‘Oi – watch it . . .’ Jess grinned. She was aquiver with excitement, but was trying to act normally.

  ‘It’s put you in a better mood, any’ow,’ Polly observed.

  It felt terrible, lying to them the way she was. But what choice was there? All day long she was full of pent up nerves. She had difficulty keeping her mind on her work. Each hour seemed longer than the last. Every few minutes she looked up at the clock on the wall. Maybe it had stopped? It scarcely seemed to move.

  When work was finally over she clocked off and stepped out into the hazy summer evening. Smells of cooking drifted from the back yards.

  She got there five minutes early. Standing under the enormous clock in Snow Hill Station getting her breath back, she looked round at the other figures moving back and forth to the platforms. Every so often one of the trai
ns gave a shrill whistle, and there came the powerful chuffing noise of it getting up a head of steam.

  Two men were standing near her. She saw them greet the people they were waiting for one by one and she was left alone, pacing up and down, looking up every few seconds to see the big spider’s leg of a clock hand edge past the six and up, up the other side. Twenty-five to eight, twenty to eight. The light outside began to dim as the sun went down. Jess looked round, straining her eyes to see who was coming into the station. Twice, unable to keep still, she went to the entrance and looked out, each way.

  By a quarter to, her throat was aching with unshed tears. Stupid fool she was, rushing here to meet a married man who wasn’t going to come. MARRIED. The word thundered in her head. She leaned back against a poster advertising Fry’s Chocolate and closed her eyes, aware of her heart’s painful hammering. All the tension she had felt these months, the waiting, this long, difficult day she had had, and now this. Tears began to well up under her eyelids.

  ‘Everything awright, miss?’ Jess jumped, heart pounding. A young man dressed in the Great Western uniform stood in front of her.

  Jess stood up straight, tried to make her voice normal.

  ‘Yes ta – er, thanks. I’m just waiting for someone.’

  ‘Right. Only I kept seeing you there – thought you was looking poorly.’

  Over his shoulder, in that moment, she saw Ned’s face.

  ‘Oh—’ She burst into tears, unable to hold back her emotion. ‘Oh my God – I thought you weren’t coming!’

  ‘Jess . . . love.’ He wrapped his arms round her. ‘I was worried yer’d have left. Only Ruth wouldn’t settle and Mary’d got behind – there was no tea ready. I couldn’t just go ’cause I said I was going to the pub and I never do that without ’aving tea first . . .’