Poppy Day (20 page)

‘Right, Poppy, time being of the essence and all that. Let’s get down to business, shall we?’ He sat in his chair and leant forward onto the desk. His expression and tone were now
completely
different, as if he had switched into work mode. ‘I cannot begin to imagine what you are going through, it’s a horrendous situation. I want to give you and your family all of my
sympathy
and best wishes…’

She nodded, not sure how else to respond.

‘How are you bearing up?’

Poppy had looked up the term that very morning. The
dictionary
definition had read:
To withstand stress, difficulty, or attrition; To hold up; support; Raise one’s spirit, not despair…
So how was she bearing up? Not too well actually, but what did she say? ‘Fine.’ But you knew that, right?

‘When exactly was Martin taken, Poppy?’

She was impressed. Without referring to notes, he had
correctly
assumed that she had never been married to Aaron, and managed to recall her husband’s name, so far so good. ‘It’s nearly a couple of weeks now.’

‘A couple of weeks? That must feel like an eternity.’

‘It does.’

‘I can imagine. Are the army supporting you, Poppy, keeping you up to date?’

‘Yes, yes they are, not that there is much to report…’

‘I heard about the attempt to recapture him, bit of a disaster by all accounts.’

‘You could say that and what is worrying me, sir—’

‘Tristram, please,’ he interrupted.

‘Thanks. What is worrying me, Tristram, is that no one can give me any concrete proof or any information that makes me believe that he is ever going to come home.’ Poppy felt the tears gathering at the back of her throat.

He placed his hand over his mouth, splaying his fingers and holding the bottom of his face. He nodded, deep in thought.

Poppy carried on, liking the feeling that he was interested in her and what she had to say. Inside she was thinking, ‘You’re right, Poppy, this rallying of support for Mart is the right thing to do, you go, girl!’

‘I don’t want to sound ungrateful for what the army is doing, Tristram, and I don’t want to put anyone at risk, or demotivate anyone.’ Anthony Helm’s words flashed into her mind. ‘I just want to get my husband home and I would be grateful for any suggestions as to how I can do that.’

He spoke through his fingers after a pause, ‘The first thing to say is that you can’t do that. It is up to other people to get him home, I know how tough that must sound. It’s not an easy situation, Poppy, as I am sure you can appreciate. Being
completely
honest with you, whilst I can give you a sympathetic ear, the best I can do is put you in touch with someone that might be able to help you better.’

‘That’s what Tom Chambers said, that’s how I ended up here.’ Poppy was beginning to find the lack of progress frustrating; she wanted an answer, a solution, a way to get Martin home.

‘I can imagine what it feels like, that you are being passed around or fobbed off, but that is not the case. One thing you have to realise is that, whilst this is your absolute priority, it might not be for others and that will prove to be your biggest frustration.’

She liked his honesty, he was right, of course. ‘It is my biggest frustration, but how do I make Mart’s return their priority, Tristram? I am genuinely worried that no one cares apart from me, almost as if he is expendable, currency that can be spent for the cause.’

He stood up and looked out of the window with both of his hands on his waist, his elbows stuck out at right angles, more pre-highland jig than little teapot. He spoke to her without turning around, ‘Maybe you can’t, Poppy. Maybe you will have to accept that the wheels turn slowly, but you must accept that they ARE turning. Does that help at all?’ He turned to face her again.

‘Truthfully?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, not even a little bit.’

‘Thought not. You are a determined girl. I admire your tenacity. Don’t give up on me. I will give it some serious thought and I will get back to you.’

‘Thanks for seeing me today, I know you are busy and—’

‘Not at all, I have really enjoyed meeting you.’ He sounded sincere.

‘I’ll wait to hear from you, Tristram.’

‘You are an extraordinary person, Poppy Day. Martin is very lucky to have you on his side.’

This made her smile, not because of the compliment, but because she doubted that Martin felt very lucky about anything at that point in time.

He carried on, ‘You are a real tour de force. Maybe it
is
down to you, maybe you should go and get him back yourself!’

He laughed and she laughed, but unbeknown to both, a tiny seed had been sown. A small kernel of a solution that over the next few hours would be fed, watered and would grow until it had legs. Then Poppy would have no choice but to run with it.

Poppy headed straight to The Unpopulars, still in her finery.

‘What’s the matter, Poppy Day?’

‘Nothing, Nan, I’m fine.’

‘I know you’re not fine, so don’t say that to me if it isn’t true.’

Her voice was slightly sterner than usual. She hated Poppy not being straight with her, knowing her well enough to sense when she was not.

‘I’m a bit worried about Mart, Nan. You know Mart? Mart, my husband.’ She added the little memory jogger in case his was one of the names and faces that was lost. Poppy pictured Dorothea’s memory like a big fishing net, with the holes getting bigger and bigger, wider and wider apart, so more and more stuff fell through. What was left sitting on top were the biggest, most important fish that wouldn’t disappear until the net had almost gone. Poppy figured she must be like one of those
enormous
tuna fish that took three Japanese men to haul over the side. When they do it’s amid a tidal wave of blood and guts as the filleting begins. That was Poppy; a giant flapping tuna fish, caught in her nan’s net, not going anywhere, not just yet.

‘I know who Mart is, for Gawd’s sake.’ It was the stern voice once again.

Poppy thought carefully about how to phrase what came next, searched for the right tone and level of detail, avoiding at all times the full-blown horror. She mentally edited her response, ‘You know that he went to visit Afghanistan?’

‘Fighting, wasn’t he?’’

‘Yes, Nan, fighting, well, he has only gone and got himself lost!’ She tried a small giggle to show Dorothea that there was nothing to worry about, that she was fine, that it was all fine.

‘Lost?’

‘Yes, Nan, lost.’

‘What on earth do you mean, girl? Do you mean he needs a map or do you mean lost in action, killed, dead.’

‘No! No, not killed and not dead. He’s…’ Poppy struggled again to find the right tone and wording.

She pictured him them, his frightened eyes, the blow to the stomach. She bowed her head until her chin was on her chest. She always thought of him tethered, with a rope or a sheet and always in a makeshift blindfold. She pictured him dirty, ingrained with filth and needing a wash. She couldn’t stop the steady flow of tears that slid down her face and snaked
unbidden
into her mouth. ‘Oh Nan!’

Exhaustion and worry caught up with her; Poppy dropped to the floor. She knelt on the lino at her nan’s feet, where the scrub marks of a thousand little accidents were etched on its surface. She placed her head on Dorothea’s lap as the old lady stroked her hair. It was exactly what she needed, to be six again, to have her nan pet her hair and tell her in between ‘shhhhh’s’ that everything was going to be all right. The skin of her knees stung against the cold hard floor, but Poppy didn’t care. She could have stayed there for hours. She wanted to stay there for hours. It felt wonderful, not to be the person that held it all together, but instead to be taken care of, even if it was just for a minute.

Her nan’s knobbled, bent fingers stroked her hair and face as she cried into the crimplene trousers with their elasticated waist. It made Poppy smile to think that she would leave a damp patch that later might be misconstrued. Nathan would tut as he changed her for bed. At least he had the joy of knowing that all his hard work and effort would be rewarded when he got his hands on those million pounds.

‘Now, Poppy Day, sit up straight and tell me what this is all about? Why the tears? This isn’t like you at all.’ She cupped her granddaughter’s face in her crooked hands and made her look up. Poppy sidled off the floor and took her place on the creaky plastic chair. Dorothea took Poppy’s hand into her cold, smooth palms and for the second time that night, the girl was grateful for her nan’s contact. ‘Come on, Poppy Day, whasamatter, darlin’?’

Poppy drew a sharp breath and shared her burden with the only person in the world other than Martin who might care about what she was going through. ‘Mart is missing, Nan. Well, that’s what they say officially, but the truth is they know where he is. He is being held by a religious fundamentalist group…’

‘Baddies?’

Poppy smiled, ‘Yes, baddies. The worrying thing, Nan, is that I don’t think that anyone is trying very hard to get him back, almost like they are going to let him be lost and hope that he just, disappears.’ The horror of these words spoken aloud caused her tears to spring again.

‘Is he still alive, darlin’?’

‘Yes.’ It was as definitive as she could make it. Poppy had to believe that he was. She still thought that she would ‘feel’ if anything else were true, her husband, her love.

‘Are people helping you? You know, his work people?’

‘Yes. In fact I had a meeting at Downing Street today; imagine that, Nan, me at Downing Street! I met with the foreign secretary; fat lot of good it did me.’

Dorothea ignored this inconsequential piece of information. Loopy or not, she had little regard for title, money or status. What would she say, in her more lucid years? ‘I couldn’t give a rat’s arse if he was the Queen of Sheba, Poppy Day. People is people. We all come into the world the same way, we all leave it the same way and that makes us all equal.’

‘And you think you know where he is?’

‘Yes, Nan, not exactly, but roughly whereabouts.’

She bent towards her granddaughter as though they were co-conspirators. Speaking slowly after a few seconds’ pause, she whispered, ‘You need to go and get him, Poppy Day. You need to go and find him and bring him home. He is your husband and he loves you. When I’m gone he is all that you’ll have left.’ She was direct, she was lucid and she was far, far from crazy.

Poppy stared at her. The tears stopped falling. She laughed and her nan laughed back. She was right, he was her husband, he loved her and when her nan was gone, he would be all that she would have left. It struck her as more than a coincidence that two people had said the very same thing to her in as many hours. A quirky twist of fate? To some maybe, but not to Poppy, to her it was a sign.

Poppy’s future without Martin was unthinkable. If you asked any of their friends about the Cricket/Day duo, they’d say that it was hard to think of one without the other, like an old couple that have been together for so long they are viewed as a single unit. So much so, that when you said one of their names, your lips automatically form the shape to say the other, like fish ’n’ chips or Fred ’n’ Ginger.

They had been a proper couple from the age of fourteen, as opposed to best mates since they were six. Was this sweet or a little bit sad? How did they know if they were with the right person if they hadn’t looked anywhere else, or tried loving other people? Did they simply settle for what was on offer? These would be fair questions, but it would be wrong to assign them any credence. Very wrong.

As with the Jackie Sinclair in the playground episode, any sense of danger, embarrassment or harm that could possibly come to Poppy and ping! Martin would be there like a genie from a magic lamp, to soften the blow, make sure she wasn’t hurt and comfort her when and wherever she needed it. They may have known each other since they were six years old, but what they shared was deep, dedicated love. She would die for him and him, her. That’s just how it was. To the ears of the cynical this might sound clichéd, but for Poppy and Martin it was the foundation of their love, a deep, unspoken commitment to be there when they were needed, wherever they were needed.

Poppy considered the idea of going out to Afghanistan and the possibility that she might be able to bring him back. Strangely it didn’t feel stupid or implausible; in fact, quite the opposite: it felt possible and necessary. It was the solution that she’d been searching for. Poppy knew, without any shadow of doubt, that there was no one in the whole wide world who would have the same vested interest in bringing Martin home as her. No one else would lose sleep or the will to live because he was missing. It was down to her, she had to be the one to bring him home. Her, Poppy Day, she would go and get her husband back! Practicality started to creep into the idea,
blurring
the edges of the plan. ‘I won’t be able to see you every day, Nan, if I have to go and get Mart. I might be gone for a little while and I don’t know how long.’

Dorothea shrugged her shoulders. These words were of little interest, as if not seeing her for a while was a sacrifice that they would both have to be make. She was right.

‘Oh, ’ello, Nathan!’ He stood in the doorway. ‘I’m so glad you are here. There is someone that I would like you to meet…’

Nathan stepped forward and shook Poppy’s hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Poppy Day.’ Nathan realised as soon as he had spoken that they had not yet been ‘introduced’.

They paused, mid-handshake, both staring at Dorothea, waiting for her reaction. She looked down at the wet patch on her trousers and looked back up at Nathan. ‘I appear to have pissed myself.’ Nathan and Poppy laughed long and hard as Dorothea sat stony-faced, unmoved by their hysterics.

Later, when she was ready for bed, resplendent in her
flannelette
pyjamas and bed jacket, Poppy stood and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Goodnight, Nan, I’ll see you tomorrow. Have sweet dreams.’

‘You have sweet dreams too, my Poppy Day.’