* * *
‘Listen, what harm can the kid do, even if she hears?’ Auntie Jessie said as Poppy went disconsolately up the stairs, her new clothes and pencil box carried carefully before her. ‘Why keep secrets? Kids don’t understand half what you say in front of them anyway.’
‘Poppy understands a great deal more than you might think,’ Mildred said. ‘She’s exceedingly quick.’
‘I know,’ Jessie said fondly. ‘Sharp as a tack, that one. But all the same, what harm if she knows? Secrets ain’t good in families.’ Her face darkened a little. ‘Believe me they ain’t. And I got something to tell you, on account I don’t reckon secrets – I don’t care what he says –’
‘You see, Jessie –’ Mildred hadn’t been listening to her. ‘You see, I do have to make up my mind what to do, and quickly, and for once I’m –’ She shook her head. ‘I just can’t think clearly. I need to be told what to do –’
Jessie laughed. ‘You? No one tells you what to do, or what not to do. I thought you were potty, you know that, when you started this cake lark? What did you know from cooking, after all, only what I’d taught you while you lived with me? And I’m not a great cook – but you were right and I got it wrong. You’re making a marvellous living here, marvellous –’
Mildred went a little pink. ‘I have no complaints. Business is steady and quite good.’
‘Quite good? Don’t tell me! Someone as careful as you are to go and buy a piece of frippery like that fur hat and muff for Poppy? This is me, Jessie Mendel, Millie! Not the cat to be turned off with boobahmeisers – none of your tales for me! You must be coining it.’
‘I’m doing quite well,’ Mildred said, looking down at her hands. ‘I’m thinking of taking over the house next door, as a matter of fact, and putting in extra ovens and taking on some girls to help full time. I can sell all I bake, so why not bake more? But that isn’t the problem – what do I do about Basil?’
‘What does he want you to do?’
‘He wants me to go to Leinster Terrace,’ Mildred said baldly and sat and stared lugubriously at Jessie. ‘It’s been five years and I’ve heard nothing from them, and now suddenly he just comes here and tells me to come to the house and see Mama and the boys –’
‘Why? I mean what’s happened all of a sudden? Is there someone ill? Your father maybe? I wish no man ill, naturally, but if he should die, please God, that would be useful, hey? Then you could get your inheritance and no problems!’
‘Don’t be wicked, Jessie,’ Mildred said, but the rebuke was perfunctory. ‘It’s not that. It’s this war. Basil and Claude and even Wilfred – they’re all joining the army and going to South Africa and Mama, it seems, is in a terrible taking over it and he wants me to come and sort it out –’ She grinned crookedly. ‘Although what I can be expected to do is quite beyond me. Basil thinks I can make Mama feel better about it, but how can I? If she does not want them to go – well, it will be Wilfred she is concerned about, of course. She won’t mind if Basil and Claude go –’
‘Go and see her,’ Jessie said decidedly.
Mildred stared at her. ‘But didn’t you hear me, Jessie? What can I do? If I thought I could really be of some value, it would be different, but I remember Wilfred well enough. A most stubborn boy, who did what he wanted, neither more nor less. If he says he is going, go he will. So what use is there in getting myself all – I have not been there for five years. It’s a long time. A great deal has happened –’ Her voice trailed away. ‘A great deal –’
‘Poppy has happened, and they have a right to see her.’ Jessie was sitting very straight in her chair and her round cheeks had become rather pink. She had even stopped eating her raisin and treacle tart. ‘And what’s more she has a right to see them.’
‘What?’ Mildred looked startled.
‘Never mind what your Mama wants or your brother wants, Millie. You don’t owe them nothing – not a thing, the way they was with you, not caring nothing for you, not ever, but Poppy – now, that’s different. She’s a person, ain’t she? A person with relations. But as far as that poor little mite knows she’s only got you and me – and not much of me. No, I’m not complaining. I dare say I would encroach more than I should if I did come round more often. I have to be kept at a distance or I eat everything up. I know me as well as you do, Mildred Amberly, so don’t go thinking I’m daft. But that ain’t the point. What matters is Poppy and a kid’s got the right to know her own blood. She ought to know her grandparents and her uncles and that.’ She stopped very deliberately. ‘And she ought to know her Poppa and her other grandparents an’ all.’
Mildred became very still. ‘I told you. I don’t want to talk about that,’ she said in a flat voice.
‘Well, maybe you don’t. But I do. An’ you’re goin’ to listen, like it or not. Hear what I got to say and then you can decide what to do about your brother and going round to their place. But first I got to tell you that Lizah’s back.’
There was a sharp little silence and then Mildred said carefully, ‘Oh. Is he?’
‘You’ve every right to be angry, every right to feel like what you do. But that don’t alter the fact that he’s that little mite’s Poppa and she got a right to know him. He’s changed, Millie –’ Her voice softened, became less strident. ‘It’d really upset you to see him, and that’s the truth of it. He turned up at my door three weeks ago, looking like – well, I don’t know. Been in America, would you believe? Boxing and that, and not doing too good. And now he’s back, skint again, and looking real sorry for himself. Or did. He’s feeling a bit better now he’s had some o’ my good food in him, and looking better too.’
‘Three weeks?’ Mildred said. ‘And this is the first I’ve heard of it? Am I supposed to be pleased to know now, grateful to be told at last? And ready to welcome him like a conquering hero or some such?’
‘I knew you’d be angry. So did he. But that wasn’t why he said not to tell you. He’s ashamed, that’s what it is. Dead ashamed. He’s even too ashamed to live at Momma’s house – not till he gets on his feet proper, he says. Till then, he’s livin’ with me – and he used to be so cocky.’ She shook her head and her eyes shone with the easy tears of nostalgia. ‘Such a strutter, that one, so full of himself. But now – he looks like someone pulled the plug out of him and half his innards drained away. He asked about you and the baby, first thing he did, that was, but said not to tell you. Not till he can get himself on his feet again, he says, and come round like a mensch – like a real man, you know? With presents for you and Poppy and a bit of gelt in his pocket, like he used to be –’
‘As if I cared tuppence for that!’ Mildred blazed, anger boiling over at last. ‘How dare he treat me as though I were – like some sort of – I was never one of those people he set such store by who count a man’s worth only in the contents of his pockets! He insults me by thinking it –’
‘No, he doesn’t. But he would insult himself if he did not come to you as a man of some property. Until you understand that about him, you understand nothing. But like I said to him, and I’m saying it to you now, what you two wants is beside the point. It’s Poppy.’
‘Poppy is perfectly happy as she is.’
‘That’s as may be. I’m glad to hear it. But she ain’t going to be a little one for ever. I used to think that, but I know better now. She’s going to get older, ask questions, want to know this and that. Like who her Poppa is. And she’s got a right to know. Well, why not get it all over and done with? Go and see your people at Leinster Terrace, and come and see Lizah at my house. And then you ought to take Poppy to see my Momma. She’s not been the same since my Poppa died, believe me. She’s an old lady after all – she won’t behave bad to you – and she’s entitled to see her grandchild, ain’t she? Entitled?’
‘She could have seen her any time she wanted to, if she’d asked. Any time, this past five years. But she never called, never said a word – why should I –’
‘Oh, Millie, Millie, don�
��t be that way! Sure people ought to do things different. Sure they ought to be good and kind and nice. And no one ought to be poor and no one ought to have to work all the hours God sends baking cakes to keep herself and her baby, and no one ought to have to work in a stinkin’ sweat shop and no one ought to be a widow that no one wants and who gets fatter every time she turns round. But the world ain’t like that. It’s full of things and people that aren’t what you’d like ’em to be. So do you have to be the same? Can’t you go there? Make an effort? Take your Poppy to see her rich relations and bring her to see the poor ones and tell her they’re both as good as each other. Different, but just as good. Teach your Poppy to be a mensch – a good person – and you can’t do that if you ain’t one –’
She was still sitting there very straight, with her round face stained with red patches on the cheeks and Mildred looked at her and blinked and then suddenly got to her feet and went over and bent down and hugged her.
‘Jessie, you really are – I’m sorry. I should let you come more often, and I don’t really know why I don’t –’
‘Because a little of me goes a long way. I’m like salt herrings – one you can enjoy, two keeps you awake with a raging thirst all night –’ But she looked pleased and lifted her great arms and put them round Mildred’s narrow shouders and hugged her.
By the time Mildred had gone upstairs to tell Poppy she could come down again she had fallen asleep, lying curled up in her bed hugging her book and with her new pencil box clutched in one hand. So, together her mother and her aunt undressed her and tucked her into bed and went downstairs to spend the rest of the evening planning what Mildred was to do next. And if by the time Jessie left, wrapping her purple cloak around her to keep off the chill September mist in the dark streets outside, Mildred was relieved to see her go, she would not have dreamed of saying so. A little of Jessie did indeed go a long way, but the exhaustion she left behind her was well worth it, Mildred thought as she stood on her doorstep and watched the large shape dwindle away into the darkness. She does make me remember the things I could so easily forget.
24
The exciting week went on next day, right from the morning. Poppy woke as usual to the smell of baking but today didn’t wait till Mama came to fetch her for breakfast as she usually did. She got up and put on the wrapper Mama had made for her out of her own old blue one, and which had frills round the edges which Poppy liked very much, and went downstairs, her bare toes curling a little on the cold lino, and pushed open the kitchen door and stood looking in.
It is strange, Poppy thought, looking at the small room, bright and warm and smelling so sweet. I think this room is inside my head as well as outside, in front of me, and she closed her eyes and she was right. She could still see the room in every tiny detail: the shiny black range with the glowing fire and mantelshelf over it with its pink china clock and matching candlesticks and the pretty purple and blue vases with spills of curly paper which Mama used to carry a flame from the grate to the gaslight over the table; the shelves on each side of the range, tucked away alongside the chimney breast, where the blue and white dishes were displayed and the cups hung on hooks; the big scrubbed wooden table in the middle where the cakes stood, too many of them to count, waiting on their racks to be cool enough to set on the trays ready for the delivery men, and beyond, in the scullery, Mama apron-wrapped at the copper, tugging out the freshly boiled plum duffs and meat puddings with her great wooden tongs, her hair tied back and her face shining with the water from the steam that curled round her like a cloud. And somewhere inside her head Poppy knew that always and always the kitchen would be there; wherever she went and however old she grew, she would always be able to close her eyes and walk into Mama’s kitchen and smell the good smells of fresh cakes and pies and puddings.
She opened her eyes and found it was a little different, after all; Mama had come out of the scullery, drying her hands on her white apron and was standing looking at her, her head tilted a little, and seeming – not exactly cross but not very pleased, either, and Poppy smiled and said, ‘Hello, Mama.’
‘Slippers. Where are your slippers, naughty girl?’ Mama said, but she wasn’t really cross after all. Poppy could tell from the sort of not-quite-there sound in her voice and she ran across the room to stand on the rag rug in front of the fire.
‘I forgot,’ she said. ‘Mama, can I wear my hat and muff today? Can we go somewhere so that I can wear my hat and muff?’
‘Come along, I’d better carry you – next time remember your slippers,’ Mama said and held out her arms and Poppy jumped into them and let Mama carry her out to the lavvy in the back yard.
‘If I promise to be very good and not get them at all dirty, can we go somewhere, Mama, please? It’s the only thing I ever want to do, ever, ever –’ All the time she chattered, until Mama brought her back inside to sit by the fire while she got ready the bowl for Poppy to wash her face and hands and brush her teeth, but not once did Mama say anything. Yet somehow Poppy knew it was all right to go on chattering. There were times to be quiet, and there were times to talk. And this was a talking time.
When she had finished her breakfast bowl of bread and hot milk with a little butter and a spoonful of honey in it, and had had her hair brushed and tied back into its ribbons, Mama took the last cakes out of the oven and set them on the table and then, at last, sat down to drink a cup of tea from her own special big cup. Mama had once told Poppy how hot the baking made her and how thirsty she became and explained that was why she needed such a big cup, and Poppy sat on the small stool that was her special one, set at the end of the fender, and watched Mama drink her tea and knew the time had come not to talk. And sat quietly.
‘Poppy,’ Mama said at last, and so suddenly that Poppy almost jumped. ‘Poppy, we shall go out today.’
‘Oh, Mama, thank you, thank you so much –’ Poppy jumped up and was about to hurl herself across the room at her mother, but she held up her cup warningly.
‘It will be a – oh, heavens, how do I explain? We are to visit some people.’
‘In my hat and muff?’
‘In your hat and muff, if you wish. Why not? Let them see how charming a child you are –’ And Mama leaned forwards and touched her hair, tucking back one of the curls which had escaped from its ribbon.
‘I’ll go and get ready!’ Poppy cried and ran to the door, but Mama called her back.
‘Don’t you want to know who they are? The people we are to visit?’
‘Er – oh, yes,’ Poppy said, thinking only of the hat and muff calling her so loudly from her cupboard in her bedroom upstairs. ‘Yes, please, Mama.’
‘Your grandmother,’ Mama said it slowly and rather loudly. ‘And your uncles. And perhaps – possibly your grandfather.’
Poppy stood at the door and stared and then shut her eyes to make sure the kitchen was still inside her head and was safe and comfortable still and then opened her eyes again. The outside kitchen looked safe and comfortable too, but it didn’t feel it. Not with Mama looking at her so seriously.
‘Oh,’ Poppy said, not knowing what else to say. It was very odd to be talking about grandmothers and uncles when she had never heard of them before, but everything was like that really, changing all the time and being strange. New people came, like Nellie Milner, and old people went, like the delivery men, and it was all very peculiar, but it didn’t matter so long as when she shut her eyes she could see the kitchen safe and familiar inside her head –
‘You must be very polite and quiet when we are there,’ Mama said. ‘They are very – it is a different sort of house, you see, from this one. Rather big.’
‘As big as Gamage’s where we got my hat and muff?’
‘Not quite – oh, how do I make you understand? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see. We’ll go on the omnibus –’
And there it was, another wonderful day beginning. Her new clothes and an omnibus as well. And the first day at school to look forward to tomorrow as wel
l – it was almost more than any person could think about, Poppy told herself, and ran to get ready.
It wasn’t hard to be quiet when they got to the place they were going to. All the way in the omnibus, sitting at the front downstairs where Poppy could look out and see the backs of the horses, she had chattered happily, pointing out to Mama all she saw, from shops to beggars, boot boys to elegantly dressed ladies, but when they reached the end of the journey and Mama shepherded her out onto the street and the bus conductor lifted her down before the driver whipped up the horses again to make them go clattering off down the road, she fell silent. The street they were in was so very wide and the traffic so very heavy and the houses that towered over her so very large that she began to feel rather alarmed. And when she turned her head and saw that on the other side of the road there were no houses at all but very high railings – much higher than those outside Baldwin’s Gardens School – and very tall trees and a great deal of grass she found herself even more alarmed and shrank closer to Mama’s side and took one hand out of her muff and took Mama’s gloved hand and held on tightly.
Mama stood there very still, making no attempt to move onwards and Poppy looked up at her and saw her staring over the railings into the Park, and she looked herself to see what Mama was staring at; but there was only grass and little knots of trees under which the grass looked dark and shadowy and Poppy pulled on Mama’s hand and said in a small voice, ‘Shall we go home again now, Mama?’
Mama seemed to start and then glanced down at her, and Poppy looked up at her and decided that she looked particularly well today, in her dark stuff dress with the neat jacket over it to match and her new hat with the little veil in front. Poppy smiled at her and said, ‘I do like your hat, Mama! Not as much as I like mine but you look very well in yours!’
And Mama laughed and bent down and hugged her and then began to walk along the road, beside the houses instead of by the big frightening Park. And Poppy was glad of that.
Jubilee (Book 1 of The Poppy Chronicles) Page 26
