Poppy Day

by Amanda Prowse

  For the first decade or so of his life, Martin could not have told you the colour of his dad’s eyes, having never looked him directly in the face; his gaze always either averted or downcast. He became a quiet child; experience taught him not to offer his opinion. On the few occasions he shared a viewpoint his dad had laughed, mocking his childlike suggestions, guffawing loudly and repeating his son’s words with a feminine lilt to his booming voice, ‘Do what, you useless little poof? How would that work? You bloody idiot!’ He would then bring back his hand, sometimes to hit him, but just as often he would raise his hand quickly, then let it fall to his side. Martin would never know if this gesture was going to end in a smack or not, he would flinch and yelp just the same. This his father would find funny, in fact not just slightly funny, but absolutely HILARIOUS!

  The fear of violence became so acute that Martin’s dad could move his hand a fraction too quickly and the boy would jump out of his skin. When the man did actually hit his son it was almost a relief, confirmation that Martin wasn’t mad. He would think, ‘See, Mart, you were right to be scared, he does hit you; you didn’t imagine it and it does really hurt.’

  His nicotine-addicted mum did nothing to stop her husband. Martin didn’t blame her; whilst not exactly thanking her for the life he had, he understood that she had her own battles to win, her own struggle every day. Martin would hear her cry out in the night, the pitch informing that it was a cry of pain, not pleasure. He would put the pillow over his face and sob into it, trying to make it all go away. It made him feel worthless. He would think, ‘Look at you, Mart, lying under your pillow crying, not doing anything to help Mum. He’s right; you are a useless little poof.’

  It was in this atmosphere of tension, dread and cigarette smoke that Martin lived; he couldn’t see an escape, exit hatch or light at the end of any tunnel. Poppy, however, proved to be all three. She liked listening to him and she didn’t laugh. He would never forget the day in school when he had opened the door as she approached the dining hall, stepping slightly ahead to get to the handle before her. He couldn’t explain why he did those things, he just knew that he wanted to do every little thing that he could to make her happy, make her life better. Before stepping through the door she looked at Martin, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head to move her fringe from her eyes. ‘You make me feel very safe.’

  Martin thought he might burst. It was as if she had given him the moon in a box, something so wonderful, rare and unbelievable that he didn’t want to share it with anyone. He walked home from school as though gliding. He reasoned that if he made someone as smart and beautiful as Poppy Day feel safe, he wasn’t a useless little poof after all. He was twelve years of age.

  Martin walked into the flat that same afternoon; his dad was in the usual spot, rooted to the chair and TV. Without looking up from the set, he greeted his son, ‘Oh, here she is back from school, how was netball?’

  Martin stood between him and the telly. His dad flexed the beer can in his hand; the aluminium popped under the pressure. ‘Getoutothebleedinway!’ Martin didn’t flinch, didn’t move. He stared at his dad, noticing that his eyes were of the palest blue. His dad’s fingers balled into fists, twitching with temptation, ready to launch an assault, but Martin, the bigger man, stayed calm, his hands remained by his sides.

  Mr Cricket was strangely silent, no clever comment or insult. He looked at his son and knew that there had been a change, enough was enough. Martin wasn’t going to take his shit any more. It was all down to loving Poppy. She made him feel like he could take on the world and win.

  The next time the two were sitting on the swings, gripping rusted chains, she said, ‘You’re my best friend in the whole world, Martin.’ It was dark, but Poppy knew that he was smiling. ‘And I would be very sad if ever you moved away or couldn’t play with me any more.’

  ‘That’s never going to happen, Poppy. Where would I go?’

  She had shrugged in response, unable to picture where he might disappear to.

  ‘I promise you, Poppy, that I will always be your best friend. It’s like we are joined together by invisible strings that join your heart to mine and if you need me, you just have to pull them and I’ll come to you…’

  Poppy had laughed out loud, loving the idea of their invisible heartstrings. ‘And if you pull yours, I will come to you, Martin. That way, I’ll always know if you need me.’

  He reached out a hand in the shadows until he found Poppy’s small fingers and placed them inside his own.

  Martin glanced at Aaron’s foam-covered jaw and thought about what it might be like to have a little boy of your own who would draw you a picture. He and Poppy had so much to look forward to; it was all ahead of them, out there for the taking.

  Breakfast, like everything else inside the camp, quickly became routine for Martin. His footfall was no longer hesitant along unfamiliar paths, it was now normal for him to tread duckboards wearing heavy armour in the middle of the desert in search of Weetabix. At first, he found life in theatre exciting; there was a particular thrill in everyone being dressed the same and looking the part. He felt like a member of the ultimate gang, exactly as he had seen in countless films and magazines. Martin felt bonded to his unit in a way that no one at home could begin to understand. The routine, rules and privation governed everything from when he and his unit used the loo to how they worshipped, and the only people that could relate to that were his comrades.

  For the first couple of weeks, Martin was tense, waiting for something to happen, one ear permanently cocked for that bloody siren. The odd rocket attack kept him on his toes, especially in the middle of the night. Blissful dreams of Poppy would be shattered in seconds as his instinct kicked in. When his body hit the deck with his face buried in the ground, he would hold his breath, waiting to see if he was in luck or out of it.

  He lived with an expectancy that wasn’t dissimilar to the feeling he had as a child on Christmas Eve. He didn’t know whether the next day all his dreams were going to come true or whether it would be a rubbish day like any other. Christmas for Martin was usually a rubbish day like any other, but that didn’t stop him being excited. There was always the smallest possibility that the rumours were true, that if you’d been good you would get lots of great stuff.

  Martin was always a smart child, quickly learning that the whole Santa thing was a rotten lie, but for an hour or two before bedtime, the anticipation would be almost painful. He liked the possibility that there might be some magic, somewhere. The first few weeks of his tour were a bit like that, the rumours and the possibility of danger.

  After a fortnight, however, reality sunk in. His job and his life in that place were going to be monotonous and predictable. There was nothing glamorous, thrilling or fun about being bombarded with rockets and possible injury at any hour of the day or night. It wasn’t vaguely exciting; it was in fact totally shit. He was stuck. There was no way to leave without giving a year’s notice, no pulling a sicky, no going slow, no walking out on the job. Martin also believed that the future for him and Poppy would be rosy if he could just get through this bit, get some service under his belt. Promotion would mean a house, a garden, possibly a posting somewhere hot. It would make up for all the holidays that they had never had…

  Martin’s arm muscles spasmed, yanking him from his recollections into the present. He twisted his body, trying to get comfortable on the mattress. He saw the irony that he now longed for the monotony and fatigue of life in camp. Whatever it threw at him, it was one million per cent better than where he was now, wherever the hell that was.

  There was a sudden surge in his bowels. ‘Oh no,’ he howled, louder than he had intended, ‘please, I need a bathroom! I need to move, please…’ His begging fell on indifferent ears.

  Two silent guards, as yet unseen by Martin, sat either side of the door with their guns in hand. They had, only hours before, dumped a decapitated body at the gates of the base. A note with their demands was stuffed inside the mouth; the re
lease of four hundred prisoners loyal to their cause, incarcerated across three continents, in exchange for the soldier they had in their possession. The British government had twenty-four hours to respond. The couriers, sitting with their feet on the bundle in the back of a car, had cared little for the twenty-one-year-old father of Joel, whose corpse they had hauled inside a rolled carpet for most of the journey. Long sausages of ash from their cigarettes had fallen onto his remains. They cared even less that Martin Cricket needed the loo.

  It was another couple of hours of watching Martin lie in his own waste before his captors were convinced he wasn’t much of a threat. An unseen hand cut the plastic tie around his neck, easing the cloth over his head. The skin of his chin was nicked by the knife that freed him. Martin could feel the warm trickle of blood running down, but with his hands tied, there was very little that he could do about it.

  His breath came in large bursts, dry sobs of relief as he blinked without hindrance or the musty smell that had been his companion. He was inhaling air that was thick with a particularly male aroma, a combination of sweat, piquant breath and musk. It was the stale atmosphere of a fetid room, but compared to having to draw each breath through the filthy sack cloth, it was wonderful. It took a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to seeing without their filter, they darted everywhere, trying to establish the environment.

  The room was approximately a fifteen foot square. The walls were whitewashed with the lower half painted an orangey-brown. They were pitted, damaged. Chunks of plaster had fallen away beneath the unmistakable peppering of bullet holes. On the far wall, someone had scrawled some Arabic text in a sloping hand.

  Martin would over time study the loops and lines, trying to decipher the dots and dashes of the ornate script. He would, however, end his days without ever interpreting the ancient phrase or appreciating the irony of, ‘The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.’

  A trailing loop of electrical flex hung ominously from the ceiling, a reminder of the electricity that had been promised by benevolent benefactors, but never materialised. A small, high window had been shuttered with the remnants of an old wooden crate. The cheap slats were nailed randomly across its frame, in the same haphazard way that a cartoon character might bar a door in haste, only to turn around and find their nemesis already in the room. Martin studied the square eighteen-inch opening. Could he fit through? How would he reach it and remove the wood? What was on the other side?

  Apart from the bed, the only other furniture were two plastic chairs, the kind you find stacked in DIY hypermarkets at the start of barbecue season. They were positioned either side of the door frame, both empty, their occupants standing in front of Martin. When his eyes stopped running, he was able to study the two men. Their identical garb meant they looked similar at first, but were in fact quite different. ‘Thank you.’ It was the first time he had spoken without an obstruction in quite a few hours; his voice sounded strange to his ears.

  His relief was instantly replaced by fearful questions. Why had they taken the sacking off? What came next? Were they going to hurt him? What should he do? Say? Did Poppy know he was missing?

  His face was raw, eyes watering. The guards and their captive studied each other with equal interest. The men had beards and wore traditional Afghan hats. One was significantly older, toothless, and looked as if life had got the better of him on more than one occasion. Scars and ingrained dirt indicated an existence with little comfort. The other was better groomed with brushed hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He gave Martin some water and treated his charge with indifference, both aspects for which Martin was extremely grateful.

  He removed the ties from Martin’s wrists. After the initial agony of the blood rushing back down to his limbs from their vertical position, it was wonderful to be able to run his hands through his hair, to scratch his face and rub his eyes. His hands were numb bundles of flesh on the end of clumsy arms.

  Martin shifted his weight until he was in a sitting position, propped against the wall. He pulled at the material of his combat trousers, unsticking it from his skin. He was a mess. Instinct told him not to make a request, but simply to be thankful for the small freedom that he had been given.

  The guards ignored him, retaking their places either side of the door, continuing their conversation in the guttural Arabic that excluded him.

  Martin closed his eyes, relishing the change of position. He had never believed that he would find himself in this predicament; aware that it was one of Poppy’s biggest fears, he used to laugh at her as the odds were so much against it. He’d spent a large part of his leave over the last year trying to convince her that the chances of him being taken were practically non-existent. He had to concede that maybe it was him and not her that had been naive.

  His life in the military was very different from what he thought he was signing up for. Until the night before he joined up he had never thought about the army, army life or what being a soldier might mean. He had never met anyone that had been in the army, apart from the old men that had done their bit and, quite frankly, he found their recollections a bit boring.

  There was only one reason that he even considered joining up; he thought it was a way that he could do better for him and Poppy. He hated the flat they lived in, the noise from the traffic, the graffiti and the junkies in the corridors. He disliked the fact that her job was in the precinct, a stinky lift ride away from home, where she stood for eight hours a day washing and placing rollers in old ladies’ hair.

  Martin worried that the life that she had, the life that he had given her, might not be enough, that maybe he wouldn’t be enough. She was worth so much more than standing in a grotty salon every day, working for a daft tart, and he wanted to give her more.

  He had seen adverts on the telly and in the papers, might even have read some literature, but if you asked him why he actually joined up, his first answer would be that he didn’t know. The truth was, he did know, but avoided thinking about the reasons why.

  When he first left school Martin took a job in his local garage. He had visions of becoming a mechanic and in more fanciful moments could picture himself running the place. His was not a conscious career plan, but rather a path that offered the least resistance, an opportunity that had presented itself when alternatives were sparse. He eventually realised after a couple of years of making the tea, running back and forth to the bookies for the owner, answering the telephone and sweeping up the crap at the end of the day that he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Martin worked hard, really hard, in the way that a shire horse does, blinkered and no matter what the conditions, ploughing on. He did it willingly, because he thought it was his future, and he honestly thought that he would be rewarded.

  The boss kept telling him ‘in about six months’ time your training will start’; like an idiot, he believed him. He wanted to believe him, he needed to believe him. One winter morning, something happened to change all that.

  The owner’s son, aged sixteen, started work at the garage. On the lad’s first day, he was given his very own overalls and a set of tools in a blue, metal carry box. It was a box that Martin coveted, with little compartments and a mini padlock. He was also given a peg on which to hang his clothes and coat. Not like Martin’s peg on the back of the door in the office, but a peg in the garage with all the mechanics’ and body shop repairers’ pegs.

  Martin watched the gang pat him on the back at the end of his first day. He saw the lad admire the telltale ring of black grease under his fingernails. Martin looked at his own soft, clean hands that had filed invoices and answered the phone all day and he knew. He knew what he had been trying to deny for the last two years; he was never going to get that pat on the back, his training was never going to start and he was never going to get a peg in the garage. He felt sick and more than a little bit stupid.

  That night, he walked home slowly and quietly with the taste of bitterness filling his mouth; it ran down his throat, seep
ing into his veins. He was crying on the inside, angry and let down, his dad’s words filled his head: ‘useless little poof’. This was the second reason. He joined up, to show his dad, his nasty crappy dad, that he was something, that he was capable of being someone. There was a third reason, he wanted to show his Poppy that he could be a better man, a man that could provide the house in the country that she wanted, a man that could earn enough for them to start their family.

  He walked down the High Street, not noticing much, his shoulders hunched over, his mouth turned downward at the corners. The recruiting office stood out. Martin must have walked past it a thousand times without really noticing it, but tonight the whole building seemed to pulse, lit up against the gloom. In the middle of the rain-soaked street, the grey concrete and litter, the sign called to him. Be the Best it said, and it was as if it had been written just for Martin, that was exactly what he wanted; to be the best that he could be.

  He pushed his nose against the window, captivated by pictures of people in exotic, sunny places and a list, Learn one of these trades. His eyes drank the words written in alphabetical order; everything from Chef to Mechanic and hundreds of roles in between. Martin couldn’t believe it! It was the answer to his prayers.

  He ran home, literally, ran all the way, full of energy and anticipation. He burst into the flat. Poppy was standing in the kitchen with her back to her husband. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, with pointy tendrils that had worked their way loose hanging down against her pale skin. He grabbed her by the waist and spun her around. He looked into her eyes that were so clear he could see his image perfectly reflected in them.