Jenna scowled at Rob as their paths crossed in the hallway; she too wanted someone to blame. Poppy thought it funny that her environment was subject to such extremes, silent and morgue-like when she was alone or bustling with activity. She tried to remember what it felt like when it was her and Martin; normal.
‘How are you today, Poppy?’
‘OK, I think. Cup of tea?’
‘Ooh yes, lovely.’ Rob removed his cap and leant against the kitchen cabinet.
Poppy was grateful he didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with small talk, happy that they both had thinking time. It made her relax. ‘I’ve seen the news, Rob.’ She decided to preempt his question.
‘I guessed you might have. What d’you think?’
‘It’s really weird to think that they are talking about Mart, very surreal. His capture is obviously smaller news than the fact that Aaron has been killed, so it’s masking it for the moment.’
‘Why do you say for the moment?’ Rob placed his index finger over his mouth and moustache, he looked thoughtful.
‘… because I think when people really start to listen and register another death, that’s when they’ll turn their attention to the fact that a soldier has been taken hostage. I think some people will find it a bit exciting. It will become more important.’
‘I think that you are exactly right, Poppy.’
‘I noticed that they didn’t say who’d taken him, even though we know.’
‘That’s quite standard. These groups want media coverage and we don’t want to give them any more publicity than we absolutely have to. We’re hoping that they get in touch with some demands, which will force an announcement about who they are and give us a way forward. By announcing it now, we’d be playing into their hands.’
‘I see. It’s strange for me, Rob, talking about publicity and acting as though it’s something invented; a game. Yet, my husband is in the middle of it, being held somewhere and going through God knows what.’
‘I can only imagine how difficult this must be for you, Poppy.’
‘It’s not so much that it’s difficult, it’s more frustrating. I feel useless. I’m not used to sitting back and letting someone else fix my problems. But I don’t know how to fix this and that’s what’s driving me nuts.’
‘You have to believe that the right people are doing the very best thing for Martin.’
There was something in his tone that made her abort the tea making. She placed the box of tea bags on the counter next to the empty mugs and folded her arms. It was something as innocuous as a small catch in his voice. Poppy didn’t know where the question came from, but she asked it anyway,
‘Rob, do you believe that the right people are doing the very best thing for Martin?’
He hesitated, his mouth went to form a response, but he remained silent until his lips formed a different shape as though his mind had changed direction, rejecting ‘yes’. ‘Maybe. I don’t fully understand the negotiation process, Poppy, so I’m not the best person to ask.’
Poppy stared at him. ‘That means no.’
He was quick to answer, ‘No, it doesn’t. It means that there are probably things going on behind the scenes that I don’t know about, things to secure his release that if I did know could endanger him or others. Our intelligence on the ground will be talking to intermediaries, and as soon as they have anything concrete to go on we will act.’
‘I get that, Rob, but I am still unsure of what the actual plan is. How are they going to get him back? What are they doing right now to get my husband back?’ Poppy was aware that she had raised her voice.
‘I don’t know, Poppy, but we have to believe that they are doing something.’
‘You mean that there is a chance they are doing nothing? Is that what you think, Rob?’
‘No!’ He was emphatic, but Poppy saw the look in his eyes. She had learnt enough about Rob over the last couple of days to see a very real fear in his face. This was precisely what he was thinking. That’s the thing about being smart, sometimes you can be a bit too clever for your own good. This was definitely one of those times.
The tinny transistor on the shelf belted out golden oldies as Poppy washed setting lotion from plastic rollers in the back sink. Her foot tapped involuntarily along to ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’. She considered the previous day, taking great solace from the fact that Jenna knew. It wasn’t that she could do anything to make the problem go away, but it helped, knowing her friend was thinking about her, sharing her burden and sending love and support. Poppy also thought that it was better for Martin; her theory being that the more people willed him to be OK, sent him love across the miles, that he might somehow feel it.
Poppy had never been overly concerned with the existence of God. Religion was a background idea that she hadn’t properly analysed, an undercurrent of which she was aware, but avoided its pull. Yet now, in this time of need and reflection, she not only explored the idea of an omnipotent being that could help her, but welcomed it. She prayed for her husband, open to the possibility that her words might reach a force able to respond. Her requests were both small and large, ranging from ‘let him be comfortable tonight’, to ‘send him home to me’.
Poppy smiled to see the tongues of the blue rinse brigade wagging as they tried to figure out why she was being met from work by a soldier that wasn’t her husband. Rob hovered on the pavement, waiting for Poppy to finish. He could hold his own on the battlefield, was trained in jungle warfare and knew how to handle attack from bullets and artillery. But he was reluctant to enter the realm of the middle-aged and elderly, where the weapons of choice were perm curlers, gossip and scalding tea.
Poppy shrugged her arms into her cardigan and left without saying a word. She decided to keep them guessing for a bit longer. The nosy old cows.
‘How are you today, Poppy?’
‘You always ask me that, Rob; it’s the first thing you say.’
‘Do I? Yes I guess I do, and do you know why?’
Poppy shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Because I’m worried about you and when I go to bed at night, I wonder if you are OK.’
‘Do you and Moira talk about me?’ It intrigued her to think that these people, who knew so little about her, would chat about her life and situation. She found it strangely interfering, yet also quite comforting.
‘Yes we do.’
‘What does she think about all of this?’
‘Moira thinks that you are very brave and strong to be coping in the way that you are. She’s sad that someone of your age has to go through this at all. Things like this were always her worst nightmare when I was on tour and she is very grateful that it was just a horrible idea. She never had to live through it like you.’
‘What do you think, Rob?’
‘I think I agree with her, Poppy.’
‘That’s because she’s your wife. Legally you have to agree with her!’
Rob laughed, ‘You know it.’
‘I’m off to see my nan. You can walk me there if you like, or do you want to go and get a coffee?’
‘I’m OK walking and talking if you are?’
‘I think I can manage that. So, what’s happening?’
‘Well, no real change I’m afraid. Major Helm would like to come and see you tomorrow. I said I would arrange a time, if that’s all right.’
‘Why does he want to see me? Does he have news?’ Poppy couldn’t keep the excitement from her voice.
‘Not so much news as an update and, before you ask, no, I don’t know what he wants to discuss.’
‘I didn’t warm to him when I met him last time.’
‘You don’t say?’ Rob’s smile was wide.
‘Was it obvious?’
‘Not to him I don’t think, so don’t worry.’
‘I don’t know what it is about him, the way he spoke to me, as though he was really superior. I hate that.’
Rob was silent, but she could tell by his expression that he wanted
to agree with her, even if it was just a little bit.
‘Tomorrow will be fine, Rob. I’ll be at the flat at lunchtime if that’s any good.’
‘Yup, that’s great. If there is anything to tell you before then, I’ll give you a shout.’
It was only a short walk; they quickly arrived outside The Unpopulars.
‘Here we are.’
‘Right then, Poppy, I’ll say goodnight. Will you be all right getting back on your own?’
This made Poppy laugh; he was referring to the streets where she had lived her whole life, where she had wandered solo since the age of six. ‘I think I’ll be fine.’
He nodded and strode off towards the tube.
Poppy walked up the path and knocked on the front door. Mr Veerswamy met her in the hallway. ‘Ah good evening, Poppy!’
‘Good evening, Mr Veerswamy. How are you?’
‘Very good, Poppy, very good. Miss Dorothy will be pleased to see you as usual! I have some small news; Mrs Veerswamy and I are going overseas next week, so we won’t be around for a while.’
‘Ooh how lovely! Are you going somewhere nice? Not another one of your cruises?’
‘No! No such luck, but yes, somewhere very nice. We are going home to Pakistan to bring back my daughter’s husband. He is living in Peshawar and when we come back there will be the biggest wedding a father can give his daughter, she will bankrupt me for sure!’ Mr Veerswamy threw his hands above his head; it was his favourite joke, to talk about his impending poverty while jangling the keys to his enormous Mercedes, as his Rolex glinted on his wrist. ‘I am sure it is the same with your daddy, Poppy! I bet he spoils you rotten!’
Poppy didn’t have the heart or the desire to tell him that she had never met her daddy, much less be spoilt by him. ‘Yes, Mr Veerswamy, that’s me, a right little daddy’s girl!’
‘I knew it, Poppy! I knew it. I can tell.’
Poppy thought about his trip. She pictured the globe on the shelf in the geography room at school and could visualise the region of Pakistan he would be visiting. The Veerswamys would be a mere mountain range away from Afghanistan. Her heart lurched inside her ribcage. Why did everyone travel apart from her? It was that luck thing again.
As a child, Poppy knew that it didn’t matter how strongly you yearned to be like the posh girls whose mums were never fat, were rarely tattooed and whose dads dropped them off in flash cars. The girls with shiny, blond hair and straight white teeth, who would go to university to become all the things that Poppy could only dream of. Why? Because that is just the way it is. Think of it as luck, or lack of luck, or bad luck or unlucky. It was luck who you were born to and the place you were born in.
The shiny blonde girls at school were lucky. They would marry the super smart or really gorgeous boys because they all belonged to the same secret club. It’s a club that Poppy could never join because she had been brought up in the flats. She had never been abroad, said ‘me nan’ instead of ‘my granny’, ‘afters’ instead of ‘pudding’, ‘lounge’ instead of ‘sitting room’ and ‘settee’ instead of ‘sofa’. There were a million other examples. She watched QVC not the BBC. She went ‘up the dogs’ instead of ‘to the races’. None of her class mates had been called Phoebe and she wouldn’t think twice about wearing her slippers up the Spar. Her dream home consisted of a picture she had seen in a catalogue of a shiny, faux leather, brown sofa with two fluffy cushions, a cream rug on a laminate floor and a large vase with twigs artfully poking out of the top. She never ate sushi, preferring a nice Chinese takeaway which she and Martin would eat on their laps whilst watching soaps. It was like having working-class Tourette’s, a reflex she couldn’t escape, hide from or even disguise. She gave herself away every time she opened her mouth and Poppy opened her mouth a lot.
These are just a few of the many reasons that would deny Poppy entry. Her teeth weren’t that straight or white. She didn’t look or sound right, and her family were representative of those you found on cheaply produced TV shows. The ones where the impoverished go to not only wash their dirty laundry in public, but to iron, fold and put it away as well. That meant no entry, barred for life. Did she mind? Only sometimes.
Poppy remembered one of the wealthy girls in her class, Harriet, who sent a postcard to her class from the south of France. Their teacher read the card out. It was full of the usual uninteresting facts; the villa was nice, the weather hot and Harriet had tried frogs’ legs. Poppy and her classmates had been indifferent; Harriet’s experiences were so remote from their lives and concerns that they may as well have been snippets from a story book.
Poppy cared less than most about the random bits of information that were being shared, or the fact that Harriet and her family jetted off to places that she could only locate on a globe with no hope of ever visiting. What she could do, however, and what she wanted to do was hold that postcard. Towards the end of the lesson, tiptoeing up to Miss West’s desk, she asked in a small voice if she could hold the card; it took all of her courage. Miss West understood; she smiled as she reached into the drawer. Handing over the rectangular card, she spoke in an equally small voice, ‘You can keep it, Poppy.’ She briefly raised her eyebrows. It was their secret. Poppy suspected that she was just as uninterested in Harriet’s antics as they were; she was a lovely teacher and knew that life was pretty tough for most of her class. She was kind and never patronising. Poppy liked her a lot. Miss West was one of the few people in her life that told her she was smart, that she could do and be whatever she wanted to, and that the only thing that would hold her back was her lack of confidence. Ha! That and the fact that she was tethered to her family by an invisible thread woven from guilt and duty.
Poppy kept that card for years. In fact, it’s probably still lurking in a drawer somewhere. She would often hold it, looking at the picture on the front of a very straight avenue lined with tall trees and vineyards on either side. The postmark read ‘SAINTES’. She looked it up in the geography book in school and learnt that it was near Cognac, where the drink came from. This was all fairly interesting to her, but the biggest fascination was that this actual piece of paper had travelled from that faraway city and ended up in her hands; amazing! When she was a little girl and her whole world comprised of three streets, it was truly incredible.
Poppy wanted to ask Mr Veerswamy to go over the mountain, to get close to Martin and give him a message. Could he please tell her husband she loved and missed him, that she wasn’t complete without him and she wanted him to come home? Poppy swallowed to flush the hard ball of tears that had gathered at the back of her throat. She stared at Mr Veerswamy’s shiny shoes, blinking hard; she counted the tiny perforated holes that formed a pattern around the toes. It was a diversionary technique that she used to distract her emotions. ‘Have a lovely trip, Mr Veerswamy.’
‘I will, Poppy Day. See you when I get back.’ He nodded to indicate conversation over.
Poppy trod the corridor until she reached Dorothea, sitting silently in her room. The telly was off which was most unusual.
‘Hello there. You all right, Nan?’
She looked up quickly. It took a fraction of a second to recognise her granddaughter, the biggest indicator that she was tired. It intrigued Poppy, the things that bothered her nan, the moments when she was completely lucid and the things that slipped through her net of reality. There seemed to be little justification for her various fixations.
Standing proudly on the bedside table was a picture of her and Wally on their wedding day. Poppy could see by the set of Wally’s face and measured stance that his nature did not creep up on him over the years. He was a misery guts at twenty-three and a misery guts at seventy-three, just older. It was a black and white photo, but her nan’s mouth and eyes had been crudely painted in crimson and turquoise, making it look more Andy Warhol than Uncle Harold’s Kodak. Sometimes Poppy pointed to it. ‘Who’s this, Nan?’
‘Oh that’s a very pretty lady!’
This made Poppy smile because she
was right, it was a very pretty lady and one that bore no resemblance to the woman slumped in front of her, whose features hung, having slipped from their anchor points. It made Poppy sad that Dorothea didn’t remember, but worse still was when she did remember and Poppy glimpsed her sorrow.
On these occasions, she clutched her granddaughter’s hand in desperation. ‘How did I end up here, Poppy Day? Where did everyone go?’
Poppy would blot the tears that ran unchecked down her face, and stroke the crêpe-like skin on the back of her hand. ‘I don’t know, Nan. I don’t know what happened.’ That was the truth. Poppy never lied to her, never would.
Dorothea’s face was crumpled in agitation. ‘Yes, Poppy Day, I’m fine, just having a bit of a think.’
‘Oh right. What are you thinking about?’
‘I’m sitting here thinking about that other baby.’
‘What other baby, Nan?’
‘The baby that our Joan had before she had you, the one she put up for adoption. I’ve been thinking that if she hadn’t, then I would have two grandchildren, wouldn’t I? I’d still have my Poppy Day, but there would be one a year older an’ all.’
Poppy was stunned. It was the first time she had heard the idea of another baby. It might have been one of her nan’s stories; the fusion of an articulate tongue and a slippery grip on reality meant this baby could be dismissed as easily as her claim on Joan Collins’ parentage. No doubt that is what most would think, but Poppy knew differently. Dorothea’s eyes were the biggest clue to her state of mind, often appearing glazed or unfocused when she was uttering fancies. Tonight, however, they were sharp and clear; her mind, despite her fatigue, was not only present but ordered.
Dorothea continued, ‘I guess he is out there somewhere, isn’t he? I wonder what he is doing right now. Do you think he could be close by?’
‘I guess so, Nan.’
‘I mean just because your mother didn’t want him, doesn’t mean that I didn’t. He went to a good family. I know she made sure of that. I’ve got a funny feeling he’s not far away, Poppy Day. Imagine that, he might be living right around the corner. You might see him every day and you wouldn’t even know it!’
No Greater Love - Box Set Page 11