The Poppy Factory (16 page)

On Saturday it was warm enough but a bit overcast so we went on the funfair at the end of the Promenade and in the afternoon to the music hall on the pier, before getting fish and chips and a couple of pints and then falling into bed worn out from having so much fun.

Next day turned out sunny and very hot, and I really wanted to go in the sea but Alfie wouldn’t get undressed in public so I went paddling instead and we hired deckchairs on the pier and read the newspapers and I had my first-ever ice cream (delicious). We even watched a Punch and Judy show, feeling like big kids again. There was a gentle breeze and the sun sparkling on the sea made the whole world seem so bright and cheerful, as if the fear and sadness of the past few years had never happened, the dark days and bombings, the grafting in the munitions factory and the grim hospital visits.

Ray and Johnnie are never far from my mind of course, and I wish they had lived to see that peace – what they gave their lives for – could make a world as beautiful as this.

Sunday teatime we went to a little café down the road that our landlady recommended. She must have warned them in advance, because we were treated like royalty. Nothing was too much trouble, and we ate so much steak and kidney pudding and apple crumble that I thought I might actually burst.

It was hard, come Monday, to leave such a magical place. But it’s helped us find ourselves again. I felt silly and carefree for the first time in years, he told me he loved me a dozen times, and whispered that he wants us to have our own children, now that the world has a chance of peace. Even though we have a hard road ahead of us in getting jobs and finding our own flat, I know that Alfie and me will definitely pull through.

BOOK 3

Rose Barker - PRIVATE

Sunday 21st September

It’s been the hottest week of the year: 89 degrees on Thursday. People are fainting in the streets. But I’m not complaining because on Saturday, at last, Alfie and me moved into our own place.

It’s hardly The Ritz – just two rooms on the ground floor of a small terraced house just around the corner from Trafalgar Road – but we have our own ‘front door’, which is really the back door, leading out into the garden and down the alleyway out to the street.

Ma, Pa, and the Barkers all came round to inspect and were very envious of our ‘facilities’. The alcove under the stairs in the back room – which will be our parlour – has been converted into a kitchen area with a butler’s sink and a paraffin stove for cooking, and linoleum on the floor. Pa has offered to put up shelves and build a cupboard for food. Best of all, we have a proper water closet in its own brick shed just outside the back door, that’s been converted from the coal hole.

At the moment we are sitting on boxes and sleeping on our old single mattresses on the floor, but Mr Barker, who’s a bit of a jack of all trades, knows someone who deals in second-hand furnishings and says he can get a good deal for us.

Sitting here, in our own little parlour, with Alfie outside in the yard having a cigarette, I have to pinch myself to believe that my dream has come true. This is our first home.

How can we afford it? Well, Alfie’s finally got a job!

When we got back from Brighton there was a letter waiting for him from his old employer, the warehouse on Cumberland Wharf, offering him a job in the packing room, and asking him to report for work the following Monday. Of course Alfie was made up, and set off extra early to make sure he was there on time – it’s only a few miles away but it’s a difficult journey with two buses and quite a walk at the other end.

He returned completely exhausted and fell into bed without any tea the first day, but gradually he is getting stronger and more used to the work, which seems to involve packing boxes and wrapping parcels, and making sure they are shipped off to the right places. He says most of the lads there are demobbed Tommies, and a couple have war wounds like himself, so they have a few laughs and he reckons he’ll fit in pretty well.

It’s only been three weeks but Alfie is like a new man, cheerful and cheeky, making plans and playing jokes on people. He only goes to the pub every now and again instead of every day, and is talking about going back to watch his old football team. His face is filling out, his cheeks are still rosy from our weekend by the seaside, his curls have grown back and his chest and arms are strong as a weightlifter’s because he has to use them so much to compensate for his leg.

I have never loved him more.

The only thing missing from my life now is my best friend. Freda’s been quite distant ever since the incident with Claude on Peace Day. He’s still very much around, more’s the pity, but they don’t come down The Nelson any more (hardly surprising, I suppose) and she’s got herself a job, something Claude fixed up for her. When I asked what it is she put on a posh voice and said she was doing ‘office work’ which sounds very grand but for all we know it could just be stuffing envelopes.

Sunday 5th October

Freda’s finally been to visit our new home! She just blew in this afternoon wafting perfume and the first thing I noticed was the great gaudy stone on her engagement finger.

‘Me and Claude are getting married,’ she announced, ‘next year probably.’

What could we say? Alfie and me just looked at each other, not knowing how to react, but finally I managed to crack a smile and give her a big hug to congratulate her and Alfie shook her hand and offered to make tea.

She babbled on about how excited she was and how she was already planning her wedding dress – like the one she’d seen Mary Pickford wearing in a magazine – and would I be her maid of honour? Of course I said yes, although Alfie was scowling (he told me afterwards he was afraid she was going to insist on him being Claude’s best man, though thankfully she didn’t).

When we’d shown her around the flat – it doesn’t take long – and she’d made all the right noises about how envious she was, we sat down on our new (second-hand, thanks to Mr Barker) chairs around the kitchen table for tea, and shared out the scones I’d made with our coupons, and I asked her how the job was going. She brushed it off – ‘Oh, they’re a very dull lot after the canaries,’ she said – and then rabbited on for about half an hour, barely taking a single breath, about how she and Claude went to the new Palais de Danse in Hammersmith last night.

It went something like this:

‘You wouldn’t believe the size of the place. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It’s all decorated in Chinese style, with a pagoda on columns and in the middle of the dance floor – honestly, I hardly believed my eyes – they’ve built a miniature mountain! Yes, a real mountain, out of rocks, and waterfalls with real water cascading out of it. I know it sounds crazy, you
must
come and see for yourselves.

‘They haven’t got a boring old orchestra, it’s a jazz band and they play this American ragtime music, and when they start up you literally cannot keep your feet still, you just
have
to get up and dance! I’m lucky I’ve got Claude who knows all the latest dances anyway, so I just copy him, but you don’t have to come with a partner because you can hire one for just sixpence! You can even have lessons there, too, and there’s a special area of the floor for people who’re learning.

‘It’s so fast and exhausting, that kind of dancing, but when you’re worn out you can sit at one of the little tables around the edge and have tea or lemonade, and watching the other dancers is like going to the movies because some of them are just as good as any of the Hollywood stars. No, it’s even better than that because you’re actually
in
the movie itself.

‘Oh my goodness, it’s so much fun, you simply
must
come.’

When she’d gone, Alfie and me had an argument, the first we’ve had in our new home. He said Freda was a silly little girl and nothing good would come of it with a wide boy like Claude. I said he could be right, but she was my friend after all, and it didn’t stop me wanting to see the Palais de Dance for myself, and have a go at these new dances, and we could learn together, perhaps.

He told me not to be an idiot, how would he ever be able to dance properly with his leg? And I said he could stand and walk perfectly well so he could at least try, and he shouted back that he wasn’t going to make a fool of himself in front of all those thousands of people and why didn’t I just go on my own and rent myself a dancing partner like Freda said, and I said I might just ruddy well do that, and walked out and slammed the door.

I went home to Trafalgar Road and had a bit of a weep till Ma told me I had to make allowances and perhaps dancing was something me and Alfie wouldn’t be able to do together, but didn’t we have so many other things going for us? She’s right, of course, but it doesn’t stop me wanting to try out the new dances, all the same.

Sunday 19th October

I finally persuaded Alfie to go dancing with me, and we went to the Palais de Danse in Hammersmith last night. It was even more fun than Freda had described.

Alfie only agreed because he knew Claude was not going to be there. Freda came round in the week to ask a favour: Claude had invited her to go away with him for the weekend and she’d told her parents that she was going to stay with one of the girls from work. So, in case they made enquiries, she wanted me to cover her back (or lie for her, as Alfie put it later).

She’s a fool to sleep with Claude before they’re married (actually, she’s a fool to sleep with Claude at all) but I can’t claim Alfie and me were pure as driven snow, so who are we to judge? On her way out I told her, ‘if you can’t be good, be careful’, and she winked at me cheekily.

Anyway, I saw this as an opportunity to get Alfie dancing, so spent the rest of the week dropping heavy hints until, finally, he caved in. Ma ran up a dress for me from some cotton she’d bought at the market, in the modern straight style with a hemline just below the knees like the newspapers say is absolutely vital if you are to do the new dances. It felt so fashionable, and so free, not having fabric tangling around your ankles. I really wanted a pair of sheer silk stockings like Freda’s, but I’ll have to save up for them. When he saw me togged up and wearing my new red lipstick, Alfie’s eyes nearly fell out of his head!

I loved every bit of the Palais, the pagoda and the lights and the huge dance floor with the mountain and its cascades in the centre. We took one of the little tables and drank lemonade (they don’t serve alcohol) until the music started up and everyone else took to the dance floor, but Alfie refused to budge. He wanted to watch the dancers before having a go, he said, which was fair enough.

Freda was not exaggerating: it is simply
impossible
to sit still with that music playing. My feet were jiggling under the table, and I could see Alfie’s foot tapping, so I knew he was enjoying it too so after a couple of numbers I couldn’t bear it any longer, and dragged him onto the floor with me.

‘All you have to do is wriggle your bottom and wave your arms about,’ I shouted. ‘You don’t need any fancy footwork.’

The wonderful thing about these new dances is that because you are not dancing in each other’s arms, you really don’t have to know what you’re doing. Of course some do, and make a great show of it, kicking up their heels and swinging each other around, but many simply jiggle about, and that is what we did. We managed just fine. I had to pinch myself once or twice – here I was, dancing with Alfie! There have been many times when I’ve wondered whether we would ever go dancing again.

The band took a break and we had a pleasant conversation with two lads and a girl who joined us at the table. When the band started up again, the girl and one of the lads went onto the floor, leaving the three of us still sitting. Alfie said his leg was too painful to dance any more so the boy politely asked whether he could invite me to partner him. Alfie seemed agreeable enough and said it was up to me to decide, so I took him at his word and accepted the offer.

I knew it wasn’t fair to leave Alfie on his own for long, and that I should go back after a couple of dances, but it was such fun I stayed on the floor far longer than I’d intended. When I got back, he was in quite a strop and said he was ready to leave, with me or without me.

On the bus home I apologised for dancing so long and after a bit he thawed out and forgave me. We agreed it had definitely been great fun and good value for the shilling entrance fee and, when I asked whether he might go another time, he said, ‘Perhaps. We’ll just have to wait and see.’

Which is a whole lot better than a definite no.

Tuesday 11th November – The Great Silence

Today the most extraordinary thing happened – and we were actually there to witness it.

A few days ago there was an announcement in the newspaper that the King had asked for today to be a special Remembrance Day, and that at eleven o’clock in the morning, everyone and everything should go silent, to mark the very moment that the war ended, a year ago. He has decreed that, ‘All locomotion should cease, so that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.’

Much as we respect the King, none of us believed that daily life would really stop on a working day.

‘What about the traffic and the trams?’ Alfie said. ‘Are they going to stop in the middle of the street? And the trains, are they going to screech to a halt in the middle of nowhere? Anyway, I can’t see my boss letting us stop work – he’s such a slave driver.’

Ma suddenly got it into her head that she would like to go to the new Cenotaph for the event, so’s she could remember Ray and Johnnie in what she called ‘proper reverent company’, meaning other people who had come especially for the purpose. Anyway, since Pa said he couldn’t shut up shop all day just because of a two minute silence, I said I’d go with her.

We set off early, well wrapped up since it was bitter cold and foggy, with snow still on the ground in places from the falls we’d had earlier in the week. The buses were slowed by all the traffic, so when we finally got there around ten o’clock Whitehall was already knee-deep with crowds and I felt sure we’d never be able to see anything at all.