Poppy Day (20 page)

‘Is ’e kicking?’

Polly nodded. ‘Got ’is feet under my ribcage and ’e don’t half thump about.’

‘Let’s ’ave a feel . . .’ This was one of Sis’s favourite pastimes at the moment. Polly took her sister’s hand and laid it in the right spot. Sis waited, leaning forwards solemnly, long hair falling over one shoulder. She looked sweet, and was always the most carefree of them, although her young man, Perce, had now joined up as well.

‘I can’t feel . . . ooh yes, there! Oh, and again! Blimey, Poll,’ she laughed. ‘Getting a belly like a cow on yer – I ’ope it goes down after!’ Sis had the kind of laugh that made everyone want to join in and even Olive looked round and smiled rather dryly.

‘You just shurrup—’ Polly whacked at her and Sis dodged. ‘Wait ’til it’s your turn.’

Jess watched, forcing herself to smile, but her feelings were very mixed. How did it feel when the baby grew that big? When you could really tell there was a robust life in there? She knew things were infinitely easier for her than they would have been with a child of her own, that her loss was really for the best, but that little person who had inhabited her was like a shadow that still followed her. An unseen ghost. Who would it have been?

Polly gave another huge yawn.

‘Go to bed, why don’t yer?’ Sis said.

‘When I’m ready.’

Polly sat back with a disgruntled expression. She was used to being the bossy elder sister: she wasn’t having Sis telling her what to do. And she felt tired and vulnerable. Her ankles were swelling up in the evenings and her back ached. She wanted Ernie. Sometimes, just for a second, she envied Jess. Losing a babby was a terrible thing, but at least she didn’t have to have it and bring it up on her own with a war on, not knowing if its father was ever coming home. She tried to push away such wicked thoughts, but she hadn’t reckoned with the way carrying a child made you feel so tired and uncomfortable and at the mercy of everything. So old, suddenly.

‘I s’pose I’d better get up there before I end up spending the night down ’ere.’

She was just hoisting herself out of the chair when Olive made a strange, involuntary sound. A gasp or moan, it was hard to tell. Her back was to them, head bent over the paper. Everyone looked at her.

‘What that, Mom?’ Sis looked over her shoulder at the paper.

Olive had one hand over her mouth, as if to stop any further sound escaping.

‘Deaths . . .’ Sis read. ‘What’s up – is it someone we know?’

Polly and Jess both moved in closer.

As if reluctant, Olive slowly moved her finger to a name on the page.

‘Arthur Tamplin, seventy-two, of South Road, Erdington,’ Polly read, slowly. ‘January the ninth. Leaves wife, Elsie and four children. Well who’s that then?’

All eyes were on Olive. Without meeting their gaze she said, ‘Your grandfather.’

Polly straightened up, wincing at the pain in her back.

‘But we ain’t got a grandfather – I mean, we never have had one. They’re dead, you’ve always said – ain’t they?’

‘Well they are now,’ Sis said.

Polly frowned furiously at her.

‘Four children,’ Olive murmured. ‘I don’t s’pose ’e ever knew about Louisa passing on . . .’

‘But why . . . whose . . .?’ Polly couldn’t get a whole sentence out.

‘My father, that was. Gone now then. Well, well.’

The loathing in her voice was barely concealed. Jess’s eyes never left her aunt’s face. Their grandfather.

‘But I thought ’e’d been dead years. Didn’t you think ’e was dead, Jess?’

‘I s’pose – yes,’ Jess said. There’d never been any mention. But then she’d barely managed to get Olive to talk about the family at all. It was just as if they’d never existed. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘So ’e was living just nearby and we never even met him! Why the hell not – didn’t yer get on or summat?’

Olive stood up, closing the paper, pressing her hands down on it.

‘After our mother died – Louisa’s and mine – our father remarried. ’E didn’t want us and ’e threw us out. It were his sister, Bella, brought us up, in Sparkbrook. So no – I never went and saw ’im after that. Why should I? I weren’t wanted.’

Jess watched her aunt, full of pity.

‘Well, how old were yer when she died?’ Polly’s tone was still harsh, as if she felt cheated.

Olive’s expression became guarded. She seemed to calculate in her head. ‘About twelve or thirteen, I think. Yes, thirteen. Louisa would’ve been ten or eleven.’

‘So were there any more of you? Any other cousins or missing relatives we ain’t been told about?’

‘Poll—’ Sis said softly. She had tears in her eyes. ‘Don’t be like that.’

‘No. No others.’ Olive moved from behind the table and thrust the newspaper into the fire. Jess saw that her hands were shaking. Sis went and stood beside her as the paper caused a brief blaze, but didn’t touch her.

‘It wouldn’t’ve gained yer nothing if yer’d met ’im.’ She turned, including Jess as she spoke. ‘None of yer. Some things are best left dead and buried. Now I don’t want to talk about this no more.’

‘But—’ Polly began, but was silenced by the look on her mother’s face.

Polly worked all the day her baby arrived. That morning she was flushed in the face, the picture of health in fact, even with her jaundiced skin. She was also very restless and talkative.

‘You got the chats today, ain’t yer?’ one of the older women said, grinning at her. ‘That’s a sign the babby’s on the way, that is.’

‘I ’ope so,’ Polly grimaced at her swollen belly. ‘Be glad to get shot of it now, that I will.’

The timing was perfect. Soon after she got home the pains started.

‘Oh Lord,’ Olive said, ‘’Ere we go.’

Jess saw that despite her gruff attempts to seem matter of fact about it, Olive was nervous, and flustered. Jess felt her own stomach turn with dread at the sight of Polly as she sat by the window, face screwing up with pain. She remembered that pain, the agony which had spelt loss for her. It was going to get a lot worse. They had to keep Ronny away from Polly as he kept worriting at her.

‘Come ’ere,’ Jess said, feeling sorry for him. He couldn’t understand what was happening. To Olive she said, ‘Shall I take ’im to fetch Mrs Cooper?’

‘D’yer think yer need ’er yet?’ Olive was laying the table, the forks all upside down.

‘No, I’ll be awright for a bit. You ’ave yer tea. I don’t fancy none just yet.’ Polly sat back with a sigh and Jess went and rearranged the cutlery, getting Ronny to help her. His freckly face, topped by the carroty hair, was only half visible above the table.

‘I’ll go and ’ave a lie down for a while.’ Bent forwards, Polly carefully went to the stairs.

‘You shout if yer need anything, won’t yer?’ Sis said. She touched her sister’s shoulder nervously. ‘Never mind, Poll – soon be over now, won’t it?’

None of them had much appetite, except Ronny who tucked into pie and potatoes, oblivious of what was going on. Olive tried to behave as normal, but after a few mouthfuls, laid her fork down. They were all quiet, listening for sounds from upstairs.

‘Ooh Mom – it’s exciting!’ Sis said, all aquiver. ‘I can’t eat – shall I go and see if she’s awright?’

‘Leave ’er. We’d soon hear if she wasn’t.’

As they finished there was a wail from Polly and Sis and Jess rushed upstairs, Olive panting behind them.

‘I must’ve gone and wet myself!’ she cried, mortified. ‘I dunno how – I never meant to – oh!’ She was seized by a severe pain.

‘That’ll be yer waters,’ Olive said, nodding her head at Sis to run down the road for Mrs Cooper. ‘Yer awright – that’s natural. Should get yer on the way that should. Jess and me’ll give yer a clean bed. We’ll get Ronny down for the night after.’

From then on things happened quickly. Mrs Cooper was a cheerful little lady with fading blonde hair who talked non-stop, so much so that at the height of her pain, when Mrs Cooper was gassing unstoppably on, Polly croaked,

‘Can’t yer just bleeding well shurrup for a bit?’

The lady seemed not the least offended.

‘Everyone likes to curse a bit when it comes on bad,’ she said. ‘They don’t remember a thing about it after.’

‘Well I bloody sodding well will!’ Polly yelled.

Jess watched her cousin writhing around. It was all so ungainly and undignified and she trembled at the odd sounds of pain she made. She wondered if Polly minded them all in and out but she didn’t seem to care. They took it in turns to keep an eye on Ronny downstairs. He was wide-eyed and full of questions. Sis had a hard job getting him to go to sleep as the night wore on.

But soon after three in the morning, the baby arrived, long, mauve and shrieking.

‘Another lady of the house!’ Mrs Cooper told them. ‘Yer got a healthy little wench there, Poll – ’ark at ’er!’

Jess cried. They all cried, standing in a snivelling ring round the bed until Polly, who was now quite composed, looked up and said, ‘What the ’ell’s got into you lot?’ and they all started laughing and crying at the same time.

Mrs Cooper washed the baby in a basin and wrapped her carefully.

‘There yer go—’ She handed her over to Polly who took her confidently as if she was born to it. Her face was transformed – exhausted, dark under the eyes, but smoothed out and happy.

Once Mrs Cooper had gone they sat round in the candlelight, listening to the baby’s tiny, fluttering breaths. Their sense of wonder filled the room like incense. Jess saw that Olive’s tough face softened at the sight of her first grandchild.

‘I wish Ernie was ’ere to see,’ Polly sighed tearfully.

‘Yer’ve good news to write and tell ’im anyway,’ Sis said. ‘And p’raps ’e’ll be home soon. Yer never know.’

Polly smiled down at the little one nestling close to her. ‘I think I’ll call ’er Alice . . .’

‘No!’ The harshness of Olive’s tone cut into the serene mood, making Jess jump.

‘Mom?’ Sis looked round, startled.

Olive lowered her voice. ‘No, Poll – not Alice.’

‘Why not for goodness sakes?’

‘Just not Alice. It’s . . .’ For a moment she couldn’t speak, as if the words had to be found from somewhere deeply buried. ‘Your grandmother was called Alice, if yer really must know. It’s unlucky . . . I won’t ’ave yer calling ’er that.’

She sounded really upset at the idea. Jess’s eyes met Polly’s. Another of those areas of knowledge about their family that had been kept from them, about which Olive refused to speak, and almost violently resisted their asking.

‘Well awright – not Alice then,’ Polly said carefully. ‘It’s just I know Ernie likes it. What about Grace?’

‘That’s pretty,’ Jess said.

‘Lovely,’ Sis added.

They looked at Olive. She nodded, reclaiming her dignity.

‘That’s a good enough name. I’ve nothing against Grace.’

‘Grace Violet – after Ernie’s mom. That’ll please ’er.’ She leaned down and kissed the child’s head. ‘So soft,’ she murmured.

‘D’you know what?’ Sis said. ‘I’m starving.’

Polly looked up. ‘So’m I! My belly’s gurgling like mad!’

They ate bread and jam in the bedroom at four in the morning, laughing like children on a forbidden picnic.

Jess had the job of relaying the good news at work. The other women were overjoyed for Polly.

‘Tell ’er to stay home as long as she can,’ one of them said. ‘Old Stevenson’s quite good about that sort of thing.’

That week, they had another inspection visit from the Woolwich Arsenal. A party of officers would arrive every few weeks to check the work, explode a few detonators and, as some of the women put it, ‘hang about poking their noses in everywhere.’

Jess was hard at work rotating the handle on the drum when they came. She got quite a sweat up doing it now spring had arrived, and she wasn’t looking forward to the summer heat. The elastic holding her cap rubbed, making her forehead itch. She finished turning and stopped the machine, breathing hard, and wiped her face on her handkerchief.

She heard voices in the varnishing section of the shed. She didn’t think much of this and carried on emptying the drum of the last of the detonators, when there came a bang from next door. She ran through to see what had happened.

‘Oh my God!’ she heard one of the other girls cry.

One of the inspectors, a woman, was standing, stunned, blood pouring from the end of her finger down into her sleeve.

Jess pulled out her handkerchief and gave it to the woman who wrapped it round her finger.

‘I’ll go for Mr Stevenson!’

She ran out of the Rumbling Shed, her feet slapping across the yard, trying not to trip over the rubber overshoes, and wondering whether Mr Stevenson would be in the office or in one of the sheds with other inspectors.

She knocked softly on the office door and immediately pushed it open. Mr Stevenson was sitting side-on to her, bent over on the chair, and for a moment she thought he was searching for something in the bottom drawer of the desk. But as he straightened up on hearing her, she saw that she had disturbed him sitting with his head in his hands.

‘What is it?’ He looked dazed, she thought, as if trying to remember who she was.

‘There’s been an accident. One of the inspectors.’

He ran ahead of her, his long stride far outstripping her, the First Aid box clenched under one arm.

The woman was still standing, ashen-faced, trying to staunch the flow of her blood.

‘A chair – please,’ she said. It was only as Mr Stevenson examined her that Jess saw the tip of her finger had been blown right off.

The girls told Jess afterwards that the woman had been examining one of a new range of tiny detonators which they had been processing of late, which was placed in a fuse cap to explode a larger detonator.

‘She picked up this one, and she must’ve seen summat on it – looked like a hair. Anyroad, she went and took off this brooch she ’ad on and started prodding at it to get it off – I mean I should’ve stopped ’er, but I couldn’t believe my eyes! The thing just went up in her hand!’

Afterwards, when they’d gone, Mr Stevenson came and spoke to Jess. ‘I should’ve been there myself really. I’d’ve been able to stop her.’ He shrugged. ‘But there it is. I can’t think why she started messing about like that. You did well fetching me so promptly.’

‘That’s awright.’ Jess smiled shyly.

Something resembling a smile fleetingly passed across his face as he walked away.

‘Oh—’ he turned. ‘Those overshoes’ll need a clean up.’

That evening, when Jess thought back on the day she remembered the expression on Mr Stevenson’s face as he looked up at her in his office. She sensed, without knowing the cause, that what she had witnessed was a moment of private desperation.

10th Royal Warwicks

2.6.1916

Dearest Poll,

I’m happy to hear you’re recovering well and our little Grace is coming along. We’ve drunk to her health a few times, I can tell you! I’m sad at the thought of how long ’til I see her but what you’ve said gives me a picture. My eyes, has she? Quite a thought that. Give her kisses from her loving dad for me.

Weather’s warm here – a nice change from sleeping in the wet and snow. The mud’s drying out at long last. We’re still as lousy as a load of old rooks – one favourite pastime is burning the so-and-so’s off our clothes with a candle! Good bunch of lads here though.

We moved on again in the last few days and much talk of build-up to what’s ahead. Not sure what we’re in for but it feels like high time to give them a good pounding – we’re ready after waiting all this time.

I’m being used as a delivery boy at present, better than all the waiting. You know me, I like to be on the go. Up and down the trenches with supplies day and night. We bought a pig off one of the farms nearby a couple of days ago. What a feed that was, I can tell you. One nearby’s got a cherry orchard. Next it’ll be . . .

The door flew open and Polly jumped. Grace stirred at her breast.

‘I won, I won – I got the Lucky Potato!’ Ronny shrilled into the room with the natural ecstasy of a three-year-old who’s just acquired a stick of sugar-pink rock, no charge.

Polly swallowed her irritation at being interrupted and smiled. ‘You get the Lucky Potato number? Lucky old thing, ain’t yer?’

Ronny already had the wrapping off and was going at the end, cheeks hollowed with sucking.

‘Keep yer quiet for a bit any’ow.’ She looked across and saw Olive’s face, felt a moment’s terror clutching at her innards. Ernie! No, it couldn’t be – she had his letter in her hand . . .

‘Kitchener’s dead. Drowned. Ship went down off the Orkneys.’

‘Oh—’ Polly sighed with relief, then saw it was indeed awful news. General Kitchener, hope of the nation. ‘Oh Lor’,’ she said.

Olive went to the mantel, picked up the brass moulding of Kitchener’s head and leaned it face to the wall.

Ned had passed some of the winter of 1915 on a quiet part of the Western Front, firstly around Suzanne, camped in the grounds of the Chateau, but also later spent a month in the appalling trench conditions of the front line at Maricourt. Now summer was here and the war had moved on once more. Jess still collected his letters from Iris, who said, ‘Here you are dear,’ with some pleasure whenever there was one. Jess was touched by her loyalty to her and Ned, when she could have been bitter on her own behalf.

15th Royal Warwickshire Battalion

10th June 1916

My dearest Jess,

A few days’ rest and clean-up once more, so time to write. I hope you’re all right, all of you, and Polly’s little one?

Things got very lively here Sunday. Such a pounding the trenches in parts are all knocked for six and quite a few losses of our lads. At the same time it made you feel full of it, somehow. Never felt anything like it before. Shook me after, when I thought about it and roll call was—

There was a sharp jerk of the pencil, scraping a line across the page.

That’s some silly sod in the barn behind me. Shooting rats, I’d take a guess, made me jump. Anyway – we’ve had a memorial service. Poor lads. But don’t worry about me. Everything’s all right and it’s very pretty round here now spring’s come. Birds in the hedges. Larks over the fields, rooks. A couple of the lads are good on naming birds so I’m picking up some knowledge. I wish I could show it all to you – without the company we’ve got watching out for us in the trenches over the other side, of course.