Poppy Day

by Annie Murray

  Evie looked doubtful. ‘I’d come with yer, only I said to Mom I’d shop for ’er – look, if yer don’t ’ave any luck, yer know where we are.’ She squeezed Jess’s hand. ‘Yer shouldn’t ’ave a problem round ’ere. Lots of folk in need of a few bob, and you looking so respectable!’

  Carrying her bundle, Jess walked out of the Jewellery Quarter feeling sick and exhausted. On the way she passed Albion Street, and hovered for a few moments outside the fire station. Seeing the place set her off crying uncontrollably. How could he have written to her as he did? She felt destroyed by his words.

  Just two weeks ago she’d gone to watch him march with the other lads, all soldiers now. Ned was in the Second City Battalion, the 15th Service Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The three City Battalions were made up primarily of the more educated young men of the city: office workers, accountants, librarians, and Ned had said he felt like one of the nobs! The lads were given a grand send-off with church services, parades, and Jess waited among the crowd along the road to watch them march from the General Hospital to Edgbaston Park, their Commanding Officer on a fine dappled grey horse. Everyone cheered and shouted, their breath white on the air. Jess had stood on tip-toe, straining to catch a glimpse of him as the body of men streamed past, still dressed in civilian clothes and singing a new song, ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’. He passed quite close to her and she called out to him, saw him look round, just catching sight of her as she blew him a kiss.

  She sobbed bitterly at the memory, there in the dark, head pressed against the rough side of the building. She felt as if her life was over. There was no hope in anything. Nothing but trouble, fear and shame.

  Come back to me, she found herself begging. Please, Ned. She wanted rescue and shelter from being abandoned and alone. But of course he wasn’t there: he had no idea of the state she was in and now he didn’t want to know either. She was alone, and alone was how she would have to cope. Scarcely knowing where she was going, tears half blinding her, she walked on.

  She had decided to look for lodgings on this side of town, because it was nearer work – and nearer, somehow, to him. His place. His area of town. Polly had slipped her ten shillings to help her out. Jess tried to argue: she knew the money was from Polly’s savings for her life with Ernie.

  ‘Take it – don’t be so daft. It’s now we need to worry about. The future’ll come when it comes.’ She told Jess to let her know as soon as she’d found somewhere. Polly’d be over to see her, whatever Olive thought.

  She walked out along the Dudley Road. On one side there were houses, and she kept peering at their dingy windows in the poor light to see if any of them had ‘Room To Let’ signs up. Across the road were high walls, and when she came opposite the gates she saw it was the Workhouse, a huge building which seemed to loom towards her in the dark. Jess felt the hairs on her skin stand up and a shudder went through her. If she wasn’t careful she might end up in there! Fallen girls went in there and sometimes never came out! What made her different from any of them in anyone else’s eyes? And even if she wasn’t thrown into the Workhouse, what in heaven was she going to do after the babby was born? She certainly couldn’t hide it then. All the problems she faced swirled in her head like a leaf storm until she was rigid with panic.

  She gripped her bundle tighter. Just think about today, she told herself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Sarah used to say that. Sufficient unto the day . . .

  She turned back. I ain’t looking for lodgings facing over the Workhouse, she thought. Along a side street men were coming out into the slate-grey evening from the factories, a rolling mills, a varnish and colour works. The road crossed over the canal. Jess stopped and looked down at the sludgy line of it. It appeared solid, more like dull stone than water.

  How many girls like me have ended up in there? She started to imagine it: turning off the road down that path there, under the bridge, all dark and echoing. Feeling the water first over her boots, fitting close, like freezing stockings sliding up her legs, then her waist, neck . . . Lying down in it, taking it into her and everything would be black, and there would never be anything else but black, and nothing more of her. She found she had been holding her breath and took in a gasp of air as if she really were drowning and hurried over the bridge. No – not that. Not while she had strength and Ned was somewhere in the world. She had to try and survive.

  Further on were houses, close-packed little terraces. She knocked at the first one with a sign in the window, where a man appeared, snarled, ‘It’s already taken,’ and slammed the door shut again. In the window of an end terrace squeezed in beside a chapel, she could just make out a card in neat, but shaky writing. ‘Room to Let. Single Person. Female Pref.’

  She waited such an age after knocking that she was about to move on, but then the door opened a crack. Peering at her was a thin face, wrinkled as an old paper bag, with long white hair straggling down either side. Jess could tell there was a candle burning in the hall behind. A frowsty smell seeped out.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I saw the sign,’ Jess said fearfully to this witch-like creature. ‘I’m looking for a room to rent.’

  The door opened further, and Jess saw that the old lady was supporting herself on a crutch. Her left leg hung, severed off at the ankle, a useless stump with a sock on the end of it. She looked Jess up and down.

  ‘Well, it’s not much, I’m afraid.’ Her voice was soft, surprisingly well spoken and polite, with a trace of Black Country. ‘I can’t get about very easily, you see, to keep the place as it should be. But if you’d like to go up and see . . .’

  She lurched backwards to let Jess in. ‘Have you work round here?’

  ‘Blake’s,’ Jess was tearful with relief at being treated at least kindly. ‘In the Jewellery Quarter.’

  ‘Ah yes. Not far. Well look, dear – take this candle. I shan’t come up – takes me too long. My bedroom is at the front – left at the top. If you turn right you’ll see it. It hasn’t been used for a few months since my last lodger left.’

  The lady stood watching as Jess climbed the stairs. A thin runner of green carpet covered the middle of the staircase which creaked loudly at each step. The paper in the stairwell was hanging off the walls and the place smelled of damp and mildew. In the spare room, Jess saw a bare floor, uncurtained windows, an iron bedstead and a wooden chair. The walls were painted white and though it was icy cold and cheerless, it was not unpleasant.

  This’d do, Jess thought. And the lady seems kind enough.

  She went back down into the front room, which was also sparsely furnished with a table, two wooden chairs, and a small, glass-fronted cupboard. Apart from that was only a little blue and green rug by the unlit grate, and some faded pink curtains. But the old lady, despite her ragged grey frock which hung limp and shapeless on her, and her obvious poverty, had an air of gentility about her which made Jess feel both shy and respectful.

  ‘How much is the rent?’

  ‘Five shillings a week.’ She said this with some awkwardness, as if it pained her to talk about money. ‘With an evening meal. But not tonight, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’ll take it then.’ Jess handed her a week’s rent in advance.

  ‘Thank you.’ The gnarled hand closed over the money with a slow dignity. ‘Now we had better know each other’s names.’

  Jess hesitated. ‘Jess. Jessica Green,’ she said. ‘My husband and me we’re – well, hanging on ’til we can afford a proper place like. ’E’s joined up, you see, doing ’is bit – ’e’s away at the training camp.’

  ‘I see.’ The woman’s pale eyes stared back at her. Jess sensed she didn’t believe her. There was a kind, homely look to her wizened face, Jess saw. It was her hair made her look like a madwoman.

  ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ she said grandly. ‘My name is Miss Iris Whitman.’

  Once she had taken her things up and unpacked them, Jess was almost fainting with hunger. She found Iris Wh
itman sitting in her back room, which was as bare and chill as the front.

  ‘I’m going out to get some chips,’ Jess told her. Even if she hadn’t been hungry she’d have had to get out. The thought of sitting in that freezing room all evening, when she was a bag of nerves, was terrible. ‘D’you want me to bring yer anything back?’

  Iris’s face brightened. ‘Yes, a penn’orth of chips would be very nice, dear.’

  Iris told her the nearest place to buy chips, and when she came back, her newspaper parcels smelling of hot vinegar, Iris said, ‘Perhaps you’d like to stay down and eat them with me, dear?’

  The back room was barely warmer than it had been outside. Not a spark of light or warmth came from the range. Jess was longing for a cup of tea, but it was obvious there wouldn’t be any on offer. Miss Whitman sat on her hard chair huddled in a shawl which draped her sufficiently to hide her bad leg. Jess wondered whether she was unable to get down and see to the range.

  ‘Would you like me to build a fire?’ she asked timidly.

  ‘I would,’ the woman said, in her measured way, ‘if I had anything to build it with.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jess had not met anyone so poor before that they didn’t even have a few handfuls of slack to burn. ‘Well maybe tomorrow . . .?’

  ‘Yes.’ The lady smiled suddenly. ‘Things will look up tomorrow, dear. You’ll see. They have a way of doing that.’

  Jess suddenly had the oddest feeling that Miss Whitman knew all about her, could see into what she was feeling. But there was no nosiness, no sense of judgement. She asked no questions, but ate her chips, delicately from the newspaper as the smell of them filled the room and warmed both of them.

  ‘If you look in the bottom drawer there, you’ll find a little bedding.’ Miss Whitman pointed at a battered chest of drawers. ‘I’m afraid it’s not aired.’

  How could it be, Jess thought, in this dank room?

  ‘Not to worry.’ She was relieved just at the thought of lying down, never mind aired sheets. But she was grateful to Miss Whitman for the company, for distracting her from her own misery.

  She found two sheets and a blanket in the drawer. Turning, she dared to ask,

  ‘Miss Whitman, don’t you have no one to ’elp yer – get coal and food and that?’

  ‘Oh yes – there’s Miss Davitt from next door—’ Iris nodded in the direction of the chapel. ‘They’re very good people. But I believe she’s ill this week. I haven’t seen her. And I haven’t been any too well myself. Things aren’t usually quite so cheerless as you see today.’

  Jess was relieved to hear it. ‘I was thinking – I could fetch in coal and some groceries on my way back from work tomorrow if yer like.’

  Iris Whitman was pulling herself awkwardly to a standing position. She looked across at Jess, as if assessing her.

  ‘Well, that’s a kind offer. I believe you’re a good girl, aren’t you? A little help tomorrow would be very nice, I must say.’

  Jess looked into Iris’s pale eyes for a second, then lowered her gaze. She could feel herself blushing.

  ‘I’d be glad to help yer if you need it. Goodnight then.’

  Upstairs, she made up her bed by candlelight. There were no curtains, and the windows were solid rectangles of black. She laid her coat and other few garments over the blanket for a minuscule bit of extra warmth. She wondered what Iris Whitman had to keep her warm. Precious little no doubt.

  Once in bed, she took out Ned’s letter again. The pain and confusion of her feelings overwhelmed her. Grief, hurt, but also a sense of injustice and frustrated anger.

  He loves me, he told me so, and I’m never to see him again! It was madness, all of it! She wanted to run to him, pour out everything to him, about the child, their child she was carrying, that she’d been thrown out of home and all her troubles. Have him say he belonged with her, not Mary and Ruth. It was her he loved . . . But then an awful chilling thought ran through her mind. He doesn’t love me at all – he was only saying that to let me down gently, to get out of seeing me again. He was just using me the way Olive says men do. I’ve no sense, none at all – I’ve been living in a dream! Of course he wasn’t going to leave her and come to me. He was always going to stay with Mary, that was the harsh truth of it. And even if she wanted to see him she couldn’t: how could she go to him, force him to come to her when he had a wife and he had rejected her? And when he wasn’t even here? Choked with emotion she lay down still holding the letter. She couldn’t think clearly about anything, the future, the reality of it. Sleep came down on her suddenly, like a blind.

  Eighteen

  Polly was already waiting for her the next afternoon, after work. She saw Jess coming and ran to her.

  ‘Oh Jess – I’ve been that worried. I ’ardly slept a wink thinking about yer last night – I should’ve come with yer, that I should!’

  The tears Jess had been suppressing all day welled in her eyes. Everything felt vicious this evening, the hunger in her belly, a cold wind grating on her face like sandpaper. ‘I’m awright. Look – ’ere’s the address where I’m lodging.’

  Polly squinted at the scrap of paper. ‘Crabtree Road? Where’s that?’

  ‘Near the Workhouse – off of Dudley Road.’ She told Polly about Miss Whitman. ‘Poor soul. She’s quite nice really, I think. Got hardly two farthings to rub together, and she ain’t nosey or particular like.’

  ‘So yer set for a bit? Oh thank God for that. Now yer mustn’t worry, Jess.’ Polly felt the hollowness of her words. If she was Jess she’d be more than worried. Scared half to death more like. ‘We’ll see yer awright, and we’ll try and talk our mom round. I don’t know what’s got into ’er. She wouldn’t treat a dog the way she’s turned on you. I can’t seem to get through to ’er. I kept on at ’er to change ’er mind, and Sis has, but she won’t even listen. Kept shouting at me, telling me she didn’t want you anywhere near ’er, and if I didn’t keep quiet, I could go an’ all!’ Jess could see Polly was in almost as bad a state as she was. ‘She ain’t going to stop me coming to see yer though. I’ll come round Friday, awright? Bring yer a few things.’

  ‘Thanks, Poll. Evie said she’d come an’ all. But yer don’t need to worry yet – I’ve still got my earnings. Auntie needs yer money, to look after Ronny and that.’

  ‘Oh she’s getting ’er usual. I just can’t stand to think of yer all alone the way you are—’ Polly started to cry. ‘It’s just not like our mom, Jess. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know who I’m most worried about – you, her or Ernie!’

  Through those dark days of November and December, Jess went to work at Blake’s every day, secure at least in the knowledge that her pregnancy was not yet showing. The sickness left her and she had more energy, but not having the wretchedness of feeling ill to distract her, the full misery of Ned’s absence overcame her. She lay in bed at night crying for him, for what they had had before. It had not been much, after all, but to her it seemed like the world now that her existence had become a lonely, dragging round of drudgery and unhappiness, with no hope to lighten it, no love from him to see her through.

  Every evening she spent in Iris Whitman’s spartan little house. But she did make sure a fire was lit and that they had food. Miss Davitt, the kind lady from the chapel, came to help Iris with her shopping, and Jess would fetch any extras which were needed, so the house was never quite as wretched again as the night when she first arrived. Sometimes Evie came to see her for a while, and Polly and Sis, who Jess introduced as friends of hers, and Iris Whitman let them sit downstairs if they wanted to, to keep warm. They’d tell her any news about Bert and Ernie, who were both still safe training in England. Of course, with Iris about there were things they couldn’t say, so sometimes after a cup of tea they’d go up to Jess’s room for a private talk. Sis was very sweet, always bringing a little something – a chunk of cake, a couple of apples – and saying, ‘It ain’t the same at home without yer, Jess.’ But so far, nothing they’d said had been able
to shift Olive. Jess was still an outcast.

  After a few weeks, she got to know more about Iris Whitman. Iris did not have visitors, except for Miss Davitt and Beattie, another elderly woman across the road who looked out for her, when she was well enough to venture out herself. Iris was not able to move far outside the house on her crutches without completely exhausting herself.

  Iris was lonely and liked Jess to sit with her, and Jess felt sorry for her and was glad of the distraction of company. Now the evenings were bitterly cold, they sat close to the range cradling cups of tea in their hands, Iris in her shawl, hair straggling round her face so that Jess itched to get the scissors and give it a good cut. She found Iris a strange, disconcerting woman. For days on end their talk consisted of trivial detail about the weather, food, little incidents about Miss Davitt or Beattie, Jess’s work, the state of the house . . . Iris hopped from subject to subject like a sparrow. Jess never asked her leading questions, hoping Iris would not ask any of her. But one evening, after a long silence, Iris said,

  ‘I was a schoolteacher, you know.’

  Jess looked across at her, startled out of her own miserable thoughts. For a second she nearly laughed. Miss Whitman looked so unlike the neat, strict teachers she had had at school! But the well-spoken voice, the gentility of her, once you looked past the eccentric way she was dressed – yes, you could imagine it, almost.

  Cautiously, she asked, ‘Were you?’

  ‘A trained teacher of young infants, I was. Always liked children. Taught in several schools across Birmingham – one in Sutton Coldfield. Until this.’ She straightened her damaged leg, the stump poking out from her shawl, dressed in a sludgy green, handknitted sock. ‘They wouldn’t have me back afterwards. Said I wasn’t fit to be associated with small children.’

  Jess tried to control her expression of astonishment.