Poppy Day

by Annie Murray

  Fleetingly, she smiled. ‘That’s kind of yer.’

  He wanted to say, I’d do anything for you, Jess. Instead he said, ‘I’d be glad to. It’d help make him feel part of things again, wouldn’t it?’

  They helped Polly gather up the children and went back up to eat dinner. Jess was conscious of Peter striding tall at her side once more. She found herself noticing the warmth in his eyes when he smiled at her, and was suddenly cheered and comforted by his presence.

  Forty

  ‘It’s over!’

  Sis came tearing into the Rumbling Shed, bursting with the news, her face pink through the canary yellow. She threw her arms round Jess, jumping up and down in excitement.

  ‘Oh Jess, I can’t believe it – it’s finished, over at last! And Perce can come ’ome!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ But she could already hear the shrieks of excitement from outside.

  ‘Yes – definite – they signed this morning! ’Ere, come on – everyone’s out!’

  They pulled off their caps and overalls. All the other women had come out from the sheds and were hugging, laughing, shouting all at once in a great commotion. Jess saw Peter Stevenson among them, being grasped hold of and kissed by all and sundry, all of which he seemed to be rather enjoying.

  ‘Go on!’ Sis shouted down her ear. ‘Go and give ’im a kiss – make ’is day!’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Jess shouted back.

  ‘You blind or summat, Jess? Ain’t yer seen the way ’e looks at yer?’

  Jess shook her head. ‘No!’ She’d been so wrapped up in her hurt, her misery over Ned, that nothing much else had got through. At the edge of the crowd with Sis she watched him, standing at least a head taller than the women, in his khaki overall, his eyes crinkling with laughter as a group of them milled round him. She saw he was looking round, searching, and after a moment his eyes rested on her for a second, with a questioning, uncertain look. Jess managed to meet his gaze, equally uncertain. Was Sis mistaken, and was she imagining the special tenderness in his eyes when he looked at her?

  She saw he was coming over and she felt panic rising in her. But Sis saved her, launching herself at Peter Stevenson, throwing her arms round him and just managing to reach up and kiss his cheek.

  ‘Ain’t it bostin!’ she cried. She couldn’t keep still at all.

  Peter laughed, pretending to stagger with her hurling herself at him. ‘Yes, Sis – it’s bostin all right – couldn’t be better. Could it, Jess?’

  ‘No.’ To her annoyance Jess felt a heavy blush spread across her cheeks and hoped Peter Stevenson would think it was just excitement about the news. ‘It couldn’t, could it?’

  ‘Why don’t yer come round ours and help us celebrate later on?’ Sis said irrepressibly.

  ‘Sis!’ Jess reproached her. ‘Mr Stevenson’s got his own family . . .’

  ‘Well – Davey can come with him, can’t ’e? The more the merrier!’

  Peter Stevenson came round that evening to join in the celebrations, which spread out all along the streets, with singing and dancing, drinking and cheering. But the poignancy of the occasion, its combination of joy and grief, was too much for Polly and she broke down during the evening. The truth that Ernie would never come home now peace had broken out hit her even harder.

  When they had all been out partying in the cold long enough, Olive suggested everyone go in for ‘a cuppa tea and a nip of the hard stuff’. They crowded into the back room, Ronny and Davey both up long after their bedtime although Grace had given up the battle with sleep some time before and was tucked in upstairs. Olive poured celebratory tots of brandy, they had glasses of ale and later on, boiled up the kettle.

  ‘It’s nice to ’ave yer with us,’ she said to Peter Stevenson. ‘I ’ope you’ll come and see us, even when the factory’s gone and that – they won’t be needing it no more, will they?’

  ‘I s’pose not, no. I haven’t had time to think yet, to tell you the truth!’

  ‘Poor old John,’ Sis said. John had got a job making Lee Enfield Rifles – now there wouldn’t be much call for them.

  ‘What’ll you do then?’ Jess asked Peter.

  ‘Look for another job, I s’pose – even start summat up myself in the long run. I’ve always fancied that.’

  It was a happy, if poignant evening, so much ending, so much lost, yet such an enormous relief still tinged with disbelief that it was finished. Eventually, when David was beginning to look glazed with sleepiness, Peter stood up.

  ‘Come on, my lad. High time we were off.’

  ‘Jess’ll see you out,’ Sis said, wickedly. Jess glowered at her, blushing, but stood up.

  Once they had coats on, Peter picked David up and the boy leaned his head thankfully against his father’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Peter carried him carefully out through the front door and turned to say goodbye. Jess stood on the step. A candle was burning in the hall and against the soft light she looked so sweet, so soft and deliciously feminine. He could just see her face, her teeth gleaming as she smiled at him.

  ‘Goodnight then,’ she said softly. There was a wist-fulness in her voice that he was unsure how to interpret.

  ‘Jess?’ Thank God I’m holding Davey, he thought, otherwise I’d be unable to stop myself taking her in my arms.

  ‘Umm?’

  ‘When the factory closes – I mean it’s bound to be soon – I wouldn’t want to – not see you – and the family, of course.’ He paused, then added, ‘But especially you.’

  Jess was deeply touched by his care for her, but in her own heart there was still such hurt and confusion. She wasn’t sure exactly what Peter felt for her, let alone what she could feel in return.

  ‘I—’ she swallowed. ‘No – course not. You must come and see us. I’m glad you came tonight. It’s hard to believe it’s all over.’

  ‘Yes—’ All evening they had been saying things like this. ‘Maybe tomorrow it’ll sink in.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Jess pulled the door closed a little. ‘Goodnight then. Give Davey a kiss from me.’

  ‘Jess, I . . .’ He saw her hesitate at the door. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Peter.’

  His face didn’t register his disappointment. He heard her shut the door gently behind her.

  After all, what else could she say? he demanded of himself as he carried his sleeping son home through the streets still full of jubilant, carousing people. There were moments when he thought he saw her eyes respond to his, to his feeling, but so fleetingly that he wasn’t sure.

  I’m so flaming old, he thought. Maybe I’m just making a fool of myself. Why should such a lovely girl want a man more than ten years her senior? And when she’s grieving for someone else? I ought to keep away. Leave her alone. But I can’t.

  He let out a groan of longing and frustration that got lost in the clamour around him.

  God, I love her, he thought. I do – I just can’t help it.

  The following weeks were spent adjusting to the idea of peace after the long, dark years of war. The munitions factories closed or reverted back to pre-war production and all the cousins had to look for new jobs. Polly managed to get taken back on at Clark’s Pens, Sis found a job at Wicker Carriage and Basket Manufacturers, and Jess found a firm needing experienced enamellers that was the right side of town, not in the Jewellery Quarter. She knew, guiltily, that if she’d gone back over there to work, she could have seen more of Iris. But fond as she was of her, she had avoided going over there too often. Iris was sympathetic about what had happened, but for Jess, Iris’s house held too many memories of Ned.

  As the weeks passed, the boys came home. First one of Mrs Bullivant’s remaining sons, Ed. The other, Lol (short for Laurence), was wounded and in hospital in France, but would be following later.

  The family were waiting on tenterhooks for their loved ones to come back. Perce was the first. There was a knock at the door one evening after they’d finished tea.

  Polly led him th
rough to the back crying out, ‘Look who’s here!’

  Percy looked bigger and broader in the shoulders, blond hair cropped, a man suddenly, instead of a boy. He stood beaming in the doorway, arms outstretched.

  ‘Perce!’ Sis shrieked. ‘Oh my God, Perce!’ She almost flattened him, hurling herself on him with full bodied ardour and covering his face with kisses which he enthusiastically returned. Everyone else might just as well not have been there. Polly and Jess grinned at each other and even Olive’s face softened at the sight.

  ‘Sis—’ Perce held her by the shoulders as soon as they both got their breath back, although Sis couldn’t keep still.

  ‘What?’ She was tearful and giggly all at once.

  He had been about to say something else but he stopped. ‘Bloomin’ ’ell! Yer’ve gone all yeller!’

  Sis laughed, wiping her sleeve across her eyes. ‘It’s the powder goes in those grenades – it’ll go in the end!’

  ‘I should ’ope so, yer look like a flaming budgie! Anyroad, Sis – you’re my girl and I want to ask yer, ’ere and now – will yer marry me?’

  ‘Oooh yes! Yes I will, Perce!’ Her arms snaked round his neck again and she squealed with excitement, then burst into tears all over again.

  ‘’Ere – steady on,’ Olive said. ‘You’ve only just got through the door!’

  ‘I know, Mrs Beeston – but it’s been a long, long war and we’ve had time enough to think,’ Perce said seriously. ‘I spent hours sitting in them tanks, sick to me stomach from the stink in there, thinking, when I get out of ’ere, the first thing I’m gunna do . . . I love yer daughter and we’ve lost enough time. I don’t want to waste another second. That’s with your permission, of course.’

  ‘Oh Auntie!’ Jess said, more animated than she’d looked in ages. ‘Of course you’ll give yer permission – look at them!’

  Olive, on her dignity, paused before nodding, though a smile was spreading over her face.

  ‘I reckon the pair of yer are sensible enough after all this time.’

  ‘Oh Mom!’ Sis cried in delight. ‘Oh Perce! When shall we fix the day for?’

  ‘’Ow about sitting the poor lad down and offering him a cuppa tea?’ Olive said. ‘After all – ’e’s come a long way to ask yer!’

  The next thing, a week later, while Olive was alone with Grace, was the door opening and a lean figure walking in, a greatcoat over one arm.

  ‘Mom?’

  ‘Bert?’ For a second she didn’t recognize him. ‘Oh Bert, at last!’ She flung her arms round him, more emotional than he’d ever seen her before. ‘What’s ’app-ened to yer – you’re all skin and bone!’

  ‘Oh I’ll be awright, Mom, with some decent ’ome cooking inside of me.’ He was in good spirits. ‘Eh – I’m dying for a decent cuppa tea. You got the kettle on?’

  As she heated up some food for him and brewed tea Bert sat at the table looking round, chattering to her, although his face looked grey and drawn with exhaustion.

  ‘The ’ouse looks smaller, Mom. It’s a queer thing but yer come home after all this time and everything looks the same but different some’ow.’

  Olive was watching him, frowning. ‘What’s the matter with yer, Bert? Yer look like a death’s head.’

  ‘Oh I’ll be awright. It were just one damn thing after another out there. Poxy bloody place the east is – I never want to set foot there again, what with the heat and the flies – and I was sick like you’d never believe. Fever and dysentery and Christ knows what. Blokes dying all round – not just from the fighting, mind – from all the diseases out there. Terrible. Anyroad . . .’ He sat back, breathing in contentedly. ‘Home at last. I wouldn’t go back in the army if yer gave me a fortune to do it, I can tell yer!’

  PART V

  Forty-One

  Spring 1919

  ‘You go,’ Polly said to Jess. ‘I’ll stay and mind Ronny and Grace. Might cheer you up a bit.’

  It was Saturday morning and Olive and Sis were off to town to choose material for a wedding dress for Sis. Polly stared commandingly into Jess’s pale face. ‘Go on with yer – get yerself out. I’ll trust yer to get summat nice for Gracie.’ Grace, now three, was to be Sis’s little bridesmaid. ‘You’re the one that’s doing the sewing anyhow. And you never know who yer might meet!’

  Jess managed a wan smile. ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’

  ‘Look, Jess—’ Olive buttoned up her coat with her gnarled fingers. ‘It’s high time you put it all be’ind yer, instead of mooning and mooching round ’ere. Ned’s gone and now ’e needs to be forgotten. You’ve got yer own life to lead. Get yer coat on and come and give us a hand.’

  ‘Awright,’ Jess said listlessly. She knew her aunt was right. They had all been nothing but kind over the winter. She owed the family everything. But she felt so low and raw inside, as if Ned had taken away her youth and energy, her capacity to love.

  For Sis’s sake she tried to put on a cheery smile.

  ‘Two weeks!’ Her cousin could barely prevent herself from skipping along the pavement. ‘Two weeks and I’ll have a ring on my finger and be Mrs Bolter!’

  ‘An old married lady,’ Jess teased her.

  ‘With her own little house!’ Sis hugged herself.

  ‘Ar – and ’er own scrubbing brush and mangle,’ Olive added.

  Listening to Sis, Jess felt such a pang of longing. How close she had thought herself to a settled life with Ned, and how much joy the thought of that had given her. To be loved, to have a home and feel secure!

  ‘You make the most of it,’ she told Sis. ‘Scrubbing brush an’ all.’

  Sis grinned gladly at her. ‘Ta, Jess. I will. I know I’m one of the lucky ones.’

  The three of them walked along companionably in the bright March sunshine. A few trees they saw along the way were coming into leaf and though the sunlight still had the thin, strained feel of winter, it was good to feel its warmth on their pale faces.

  ‘I still can’t get used to it,’ Olive said. ‘Having time to walk about and shop – not queueing for hours for everything. Just not ’aving the war on.’ Things had returned, in so far as they could, to normal. Bert was one of the fortunate ones who had his old job back at the rolling mills. The three girls had all squeezed into one room to let him have a bed, although Sis would soon be gone, and the house had settled into a routine again.

  ‘It’s lovely, ain’t it!’ Sis was truly full of the joys of spring and everything else too. ‘Ooh – this time in two weeks! Let’s hope and pray none of us go down with the influenza.’

  ‘There’s a lot bad with it,’ Olive said. ‘No good thinking about that.’ She made a wry face at Jess. ‘Come on – let’s go an’ put ’er out of ’er misery.’

  They spent a leisurely few hours combing through the rag market and along the shops, looking at bolts of cloth, hats and shoes, weighing up what Sis had already and what would need to be bought. When it came down to a choice between two materials, Olive favoured a plain lilac cambric.

  ‘Oh no!’ Sis protested. ‘I’d look like a flaming nursemaid or summat in that. Look – what about this? It’s really pretty – for a spring wedding.’

  She ran her hand over a soft lawn with a pattern of honeysuckle and roses on it. Jess smiled. Despite Sis’s desperation to get married, she’d said she wasn’t going to do it in December, oh no. It had to be in the spring with flowers and sunshine. Jess could immediately imagine Sis in the floral material, flowers, or perhaps even a little tulle veil in her hair . . .

  ‘Oh Auntie!’ she cried. ‘That’s Sis to a tee.’

  Their eyes met for a moment and Jess knew they were both thinking the same thing: Louisa. It was just the pretty, romantic sort of stuff Louisa would have chosen.

  Olive fingered the price label. It wasn’t too expensive: Sis had made quite a simple choice.

  ‘It’ll be easy to work with, that will,’ Jess cajoled her aunt. In the end, Olive nodded.

  As the morning progress
ed, Sis chose a pretty straw hat which she could decorate with flowers, and settled for a pair of second-hand shoes, white, with a ribbon bow on the front.

  ‘They’re a bit scuffed.’ She eyed the toes of them.

  ‘We can stick some whitener on ’em,’ Jess encouraged her.

  ‘They’re ever so comfy.’ Sis was clearly delighted with them. ‘Must’ve been pricey new.’

  ‘I could do with a sit down,’ Olive said, after all these deliberations. ‘Let’s treat ourselves to a cuppa tea and a bun.’

  As they sat together chatting and sipping tea, Jess looked at her aunt. If there’s one good thing, she thought, that’s come out of Ned leaving me like he did, it’s me and Auntie getting on again. That tension between her lover and her family which had torn at her for so long was gone now. She felt a great surge of affection for the stout woman in front of her with her worn face and hands. Her sad past. As Sis chattered on about Perce and the house they were going to rent together in Balsall Heath, Jess thought, she’s been my only real family, Auntie has. I owe her everything.

  ‘My treat today,’ she said, handing over the money for the tea. ‘Since you’ve got to put up with me about for a bit longer yet.’

  ‘Oh—’ Olive hauled herself up from the table. ‘That’s awright, bab. I shan’t like an empty ’ouse, that I shan’t.’

  They ambled down along Spiceal Street and Sis, catching sight of the flower ladies, surrounded by their bouquets and all yelling in raucous competition, moved on to the subject of what sort of posy she was going to carry. Jess was just about to remark that she’d already have flowers in abundance all over the dress, when she noticed Olive was no longer walking beside her. She turned.

  ‘Auntie?’

  Olive had stopped and was standing quite still, one hand laid over her heart. Her eyes were stretched wide with an expression which Jess read as pain, and she hurried back to her.

  ‘You feeling poorly, Auntie?’ she asked, frightened. She took Olive’s arm and her aunt didn’t shake her off.