The Poppy Factory (24 page)

There wasn’t any point in pretending any more. I told them that Mr Mitchell had given me notice.

They were all very shocked and began asking What? Why? and When? all at once. I pointed to my belly, which is now unmistakably tubby. One of the girls had noticed and, though I denied it, word got round and he’d called me into the office this afternoon and asked me straight. There wasn’t any point in lying – he’d have found out sooner or later. He said I’d have to leave at the end of the week because he never allows pregnant women to operate the machines for fear of accidents. I pleaded with him, saying I still had over three months to go and felt perfectly healthy, and he knew my work was good. But he said it was company policy and I’d have to come off the machines but I could work in the packing room for another couple of months if that’s what I really wanted.

‘That’d be better than nothing, you’d have to leave when the baby comes anyway,’ Alfie said. I was feeling close to tears now, but angry too. I told him that wasn’t the point. Having a baby’s a normal thing, not an illness. I’ll only get unskilled wages in the packing room. It’s just not fair to treat us like that just because we are women.

I asked Pa if he’d sack a girl who worked for him because she got pregnant, but he said that would depend. When I asked him what it would depend on he thought for a bit, then said he’d never employed a girl so it had never come up, but he supposed he’d have to be sure she was still capable of doing the job, in her condition. It wasn’t any help.

When we got home Alfie tried to reassure me by saying he was earning good money and what with his war pension we’d always be able to muddle through, as he put it. But it’s so unfair. I’m still
perfectl
y capable, but there’s no law against being treated like this, so there’s nothing I can do to stop it. And I don’t want to have to ‘muddle through’. I want to give our baby a lovely home with holidays by the seaside and enough for a few luxuries. Otherwise, what’s it all been for, fighting this war and all those hardships we’ve endured?

He gave me a cuddle and said we should go to bed, but I feel so churned up I need to sit here and calm my thoughts for a while. Writing it down helps, but I still can’t get over the unfairness of it all, and how powerless we are to change anything.

Saturday 28th May

Three weeks in the packing room and I am bored out of my mind and so resentful I can hardly bring myself to socialise with the other girls. And we used to be such a friendly bunch. The lads I work with in the packing room are nice enough, but dull as ditch water. Still I suppose I ought to be grateful for a job of any kind at the moment.

All hell is breaking loose in Ireland; a bunch of Irish men attacked the British Army and tried to burn down the government building. I really don’t understand the ins and outs but people are killing each other again, which makes my stomach turn – how could we start another war so soon after the horrors of the last one? When will we ever learn?

Saturday 11th June

More than two million people are unemployed, and I’m soon going to be one of them. Mr Mitchell says I’m getting too big to work in the packing room and have to leave at the end of the month.

We talked about cancelling our holiday to Brighton but Alfie says he’s going to spend some of his war savings to make sure we have a bit of fun, as he puts it, before the baby arrives. So we have just postponed it until after I finish.

Haven’t told him yet, but ‘fun’ is the last thing on my mind. I’m so exhausted that I’ll probably spend most of the time sleeping.

Freda told her parents about the baby yesterday and Alfie says his pa was all for throwing her out into the street, but his ma prevailed and said she could stay with them until she gets married or it starts to show, whichever is the sooner.

Sunday 17th July

Alfie and I are both brown as chestnuts and I’m round as one, too. The sun shone on Brighton every day and we didn’t have a drop of rain, so we spent much of our time in deckchairs under an umbrella on the beach. Every now and again I would heave myself up with Alfie’s help and waddle down to the water’s edge to ease my swollen ankles in the cool sea. Bliss.

Trust me to be eight months pregnant in the hottest July for years. Back in London there’s no air and even walking leaves me sweating and breathless, so I’ve spent the past week skulking indoors. And there’s still no sign of the weather breaking.

Freda is worried about Claude. He went away on ‘business’ at the start of the month and was supposed to return last week. They were meant to be married by now and even though she’s taken to wearing baggy blouses her condition is pretty obvious.

Plus, she’s been given notice at work for the end of September, so will have no income of her own after that.

Bank holiday Monday 1st August

Claude has disappeared and Freda is beside herself.

Five weeks ago he said he was off to Paris ‘on business’ and would be back in a fortnight. Since then, no-one seems to have seen neither hide nor hair of the man. She’s been round to his lodgings three or four times and his landlady is going up the wall because his July rent was due.

Alfie is ready to murder Claude if he ever reappears. He’s wretched with worry for his sister and furious with his pa for not telling him that some of the ‘fetching and carrying’ work he’s been doing is actually part of a job that Claude had commissioned. And now he’s disappeared, owing Mr Barker a fair amount of cash, so that he can’t pay Alfie. He said it wasn’t even so much about the money but the fact that the work was for that creep and probably wasn’t even legit. ‘Whatever was Pa thinking about?’ he said.

This morning Freda arrived at the flat in tears, convinced that the blessed Claude, of whom she will hear no wrong, has come to some mortal harm – an accident on the roads, perhaps, or on the ferry crossing. She talks to her belly as if the child can hear her: ‘Whatever has happened to your dear papa,’ she says, and, another time, ‘What are we going to do without daddy Claude, my little darling?’ I tried my best to console her by saying that he’d probably been held up on business.

If that was the case, why hadn’t he written to her by now, she asked, and I had no answer for that except to try to reassure her that if anything bad had happened, the authorities would surely notify her, or his family, before long.

‘But that’s the thing,’ she said, starting to sob all over again. ‘He hasn’t been in touch with them for years. His father died and his mother went back to her family in France, but he hasn’t seen her since before the war.’

‘No brothers or sisters?’

It seems not, at least none that Claude is admitting to. He’s always been such a mystery, that man – and I don’t believe half of what he’s told her. Later, Alfie put into words the thoughts I’d been trying not to admit. ‘He’s probably done a bunk,’ he said. ‘I expect the authorities have caught up with him at last, and he needs to lie low for a while.’

‘Surely he wouldn’t just desert her with the baby?’

‘What do
you
think?’ was all he’d say, and I’m afraid he’s right – Claude looks after number one and would cheerfully sacrifice the lot of us to save his own skin.

Poor Freda. Six months gone and no husband in sight.

Today is my due date, but there’s no sign of any activity.

Sunday 7th August

A week overdue and I keep dreaming that the baby is trying to climb out of my belly button! I’m so huge that I can barely think, let alone move around in this heat.

Alfie’s keeping it from me so as not to alarm me, but I can tell he’s worried as hell about Claude and the money he owes. If he doesn’t come back soon and repay his debts, Mr B won’t be able to keep up the never-never on the van, let alone pay Alfie’s wages.

Wednesday 24th August

Johnnie Raymond Barker was born at six o’clock in the morning on Friday 12th August, weighing a whopping nine pounds twelve ounces. Little wonder it took forever and was sheer agony, but just to look into his beautiful blue eyes, rub my face into the little blonde curls already forming at the back of his head (like Alfie’s) and breathe in his sweet baby smell makes it all worthwhile.

I was in labour so long they sent for an ambulance to take me into the hospital. Everything happened fairly fast after that, but I was in quite a bad state afterwards, so they kept me in for a week to allow my insides to heal a bit. The hospital bill might be waived, they said, on account of Alfie being an unemployed, disabled Tommy. Heaven knows how we will pay it, if not.

Coming home was truly the best moment of my life. Just to have our little chap in our own little flat, with Alfie tucking us both up into bed and then going to make cocoa. The sound of the bolts in the door as he locked up for the night made me feel so safe and secure – I was quite weepy with the happiness of it all. Johnnie is a darling and sleeps much of the time so what with Alfie around to help with the shopping and washing, I am gradually starting to recover my strength.

That’s not to say everything is rosy, quite the opposite. Claude is still missing, as is the money he owes Mr Barker, Freda is devastated, Mr B’s creditors are chasing him and there’s no work or wages for Alfie. Mrs B is beside herself with the shame of Freda’s now very obvious bump, but is still refusing to bow to Mr B’s demands that she should be sent away. Where would she go, anyway?

For the moment, Alfie and me are trying to live on his pension but we’re also having to nibble into our savings, and they won’t last forever.

Thursday 1st September

What a black day.

Alfie went to the pub at lunchtime with Pa to talk with Mr Barker about their predicament. The landlord visited the Barkers last week in person, and threatened to send in the bailiffs unless they pay the rent by the end of this week. Of course since Claude disappeared there’s been little trade and no money coming in, plus his creditors know that Mr B was working for him so they’re turning up and demanding to be paid or given back their goods that are now long gone.

Alfie offered some of his war savings to tide them over, but they refused because they know we’re both unemployed and will need it till he gets new work. So then Pa said he would lend them fifty quid, which is a huge sum, but he knows Mr B is honest as the day is long and a hard worker to boot, so he will get it back some time, somehow.

Alfie came back home rather the worse for wear, and fell snoring in the armchair while I fed and settled Johnnie, who seems to have a sudden great hunger on him and has been waking frequently for the past couple of nights.

I was just catching forty winks myself when there was a loud hammering on the door and Freda’s voice shouting, ‘Alfie, Alf? Come quick!’ He jumped up like a rocket and dashed off leaving me stranded with the baby asleep in the crib and worried sick that she might have gone into premature labour. She’s not due until November and, much as I disapprove of Claude, I wouldn’t wish any further unhappiness on my dearest friend.

I considered waking Johnnie and walking round with him to the Barkers, but the little lad needs his sleep and by the time he began to stir Alfie was back, looking paler and more upset than I’ve seen for a long time. I made him a good strong cup of tea while he told me the story.

The long and short of it is that this afternoon two coppers turned up at the Barkers’ house asking whether they knew of Claude’s whereabouts. They proceeded to inform them that the lying b****** was wanted for theft and fraud, and that Mr B could be charged with ‘handling stolen goods’ for which he could be sent to gaol. By the time Alfie got there, his Pa was busily protesting his innocence and looking to him to confirm that neither of them had the first clue that the second-hand household goods they’d been selling were anything other than legitimate. Alfie was furious. If he’d known they were doing business for Claude he would have refused right out, long ago.

Of course this alerted the police to the fact that Alfie had also been working for his pa, albeit cash in hand, and at that point it was all looking so serious he daren’t lie. ‘Anyone would confirm it,’ he said, ‘and then where would I be?’ What he didn’t expect was they then turned to him and said that he too could be charged for the same crime, along with his pa.

‘It’s a bloody disaster. The business is in ruins and both of us could end up in prison. And all for that effing crooked b*****.’ He used a great deal more colourful language, but it’s not pleasant to repeat in writing.

Then the coppers asked to visit the warehouse but after firing a million questions seemed to be satisfied that the Barkers had no further information about Claude’s whereabouts, and said they would be back once they’d tracked him down.

But what about Freda, I wanted to know? She’s supposed to be his fiancée, after all, and is having his child? But she sensibly kept out of the way, he said, and no-one mentioned it so they thought it best to say nothing and pray the policemen didn’t make the connection.

I wish now with all my heart that I’d been more open with Freda about what I thought of Claude, right from the start. You could tell from a hundred paces that he was up to no good, but she was blinded by love and it would have caused a rift between us. Besides, you can’t really go round accusing people on the basis of a ‘sixth sense’, unless you have proper evidence.

Well, we’ve got that now, in spades. Apparently his way of operating was to travel around the country visiting large country houses which looked a bit down at heel, offering to help the owners raise the money to cover their repair bills. He’d wheedle his way into their trust at first by selling a few pieces of ordinary furniture (through Mr B) and coming back with the cash, usually. Then he’d turn his attention to the more valuable antiques and works of art, saying he needed a second opinion on something and persuading them to let him take it away, and then of course he’d never return. Mr B suspects that some of the items were sold on the continent – hence his frequent ‘business trips’ to France and elsewhere – so that they couldn’t be traced so easily.