Poppy's War

by Lily Baxter

  ‘That was kind of her.’ Poppy clutched the basket handle tightly in her hands, staring down at the starched white table napkin that covered the contents. ‘Thank you. It was good of you to come all this way.’

  ‘Well, I must confess I wasn’t too happy when my mother sent you back to London without so much as a word to any of us. You were good to Rupert and he misses you. I’m afraid he hasn’t taken too kindly to Nanny, although she’s a most competent and experienced woman.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I miss Rupert too. He’s a lovely little boy.’

  ‘Yes, well he’s going through a rather naughty stage at the moment, but Nanny is very strict and doesn’t allow him to get away with tantrums. I’m sure she’s right.’

  Before Poppy had a chance to say anything, Mabel stuck her head round the kitchen door. ‘D’you take sugar, Mrs Pallister?’

  ‘No, too kind, but I really can’t stay for tea. I must be toddling along.’ She turned to Poppy. ‘I almost forgot to tell you. Guy sends his very best wishes.’

  Suddenly Poppy was finding it hard to breathe. ‘He came home?’

  ‘He had a twenty-four-hour pass. I think he only wanted to see that wretched horse of his, but he was quite upset to think you’d been sent back to London with the Blitz and everything. But then he always took your side. I suppose it’s his instinct to look after helpless creatures like animals and small children.’

  ‘I’m glad he’s all right anyway,’ Poppy said, ignoring Pamela’s patronising remarks.

  ‘Yes, but I think they’re sending him abroad. He didn’t tell us, of course, that wouldn’t have been the done thing at all, but Hector says there’s going to be a push in the Western Desert, but don’t you dare mention that to anyone else.’

  Flattered to be taken into her confidence, Poppy shook her head. ‘No, I won’t say a word. Cross my heart.’

  ‘Yes, well I really must go now. Good luck and merry Christmas, Poppy.’

  Poppy stood in the doorway, watching Pamela teeter down the path. Harper leapt out of the car to open the gate for her. He moved swiftly to hold the door while she took her seat in the limousine. The net curtains in the house across the road fluttered as old Mrs Marshall peered out of the window. It would be all round the street by teatime that the Tanners had a posh visitor. Poppy could not have cared less, but she imagined that Mrs Tanner would be secretly delighted. She stepped back into the hallway almost bumping into Mabel who was standing close behind her.

  ‘Well, I never did.’ Mabel snatched the basket from Poppy’s hands. ‘What a turn up for the books. Close the door, love, it’s perishing freezing outside.’

  Poppy did as she was told, but her mind was elsewhere. The fact that Guy was safe and had not completely forgotten her was the best Christmas present anyone could have given her. She did not know much about the Western Desert, in fact she was not quite certain where it was, but she had complete faith in Guy. If he flew a plane with the same dash and expertise as he rode a horse, then he would be a more than able pilot. She followed Mabel into the front room feeling much happier than she had done since she left Squire’s Knapp.

  Mabel placed the basket on the tea table. ‘Let’s see what they sent you. I must say that Mrs Pallister’s a bit posh, but at least her heart’s in the right place. It was decent of her to come all the way out here to bring you a present.’ She gave Poppy a gentle shove towards the table. ‘Open it up and let’s take a peek inside. You go first. After all, it’s for you.’

  ‘I hope it’s something to eat,’ Mrs Tanner said, taking off her glasses and wiping them on her skirt. ‘Why didn’t you bring that woman in here to see me, Mabel? Anyone would think you was ashamed of your old mother.’

  ‘Nonsense, Mum. She was in a hurry.’ Mabel nudged Poppy in the ribs. ‘Get a move on. Whatever’s in there won’t bite you.’

  Poppy peeled off the napkin, passing it to Mabel who felt the cloth and passed it on to her mother for her inspection. ‘Irish linen, Mum. I bet that cost a bob or two.’

  Mrs Tanner laid it across her knees. ‘It’ll do nicely for me when I have me tea. I haven’t seen anything as good as this since I was in service, which is when I met your mum, Poppy. She was a good bit younger than me, but we got on all right.’

  Poppy was barely listening as she took out a Madeira cake wrapped in a tea towel and placed it on the table. Underneath there were three small packages wrapped in brown paper bearing labels from Edie, Jean and Mavis and a note bearing the legend Do not open until Christmas.

  ‘How kind of them to remember you,’ Mabel said softly. ‘They sound like lovely girls, Poppy.’

  ‘They were. I mean, they are. I really miss them.’

  Mabel patted her on the shoulder. ‘Is there anything else?’

  The last item in the basket was a white envelope with Poppy’s name written on it in bold italic script. She had seen his name written on the flyleaf of the books left in the nursery often enough to recognise Guy’s handwriting. Her fingers trembled as she plucked the envelope from the bottom of the basket.

  ‘Open it then,’ Mabel said cheerfully. ‘I expect it’s a Christmas card.’

  ‘A fiver would be more useful,’ Mrs Tanner said, eyeing the cake. ‘Let’s have a taste of that cake. It’s hours since we had our dinner.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, it’s ages until teatime,’ Mabel protested, but a look from her mother sent her scurrying out of the room. ‘All right,’ she called from the kitchen. ‘I’m just fetching a knife and some plates.’

  Poppy went to sit in a chair by the window where the light was better. She opened the envelope and took out a single sheet of deckle-edged paper that must have come from Mrs Carroll’s study. She doubted if you could buy anything of this quality now that paper was in short supply.

  Squire’s Knapp

  10 December 1941

  Dear Poppy,

  I was very sorry to learn that you have had to return to London, but I hope you have settled in with your sister-in-law. Goliath misses you very much and I’m sending you something to remember him by.

  Very best wishes for your future.

  Guy.

  PS Your St Christopher has got me out of some tight squeezes.

  She shook the envelope and a snapshot fell onto her lap. It was a photograph of Goliath standing beneath the oak tree at the edge of the spinney. She would have liked Guy to have been in the frame too, but knowing how much he cared for the horse this was the next best thing. She slipped it into her skirt pocket before Mrs Tanner had a chance to see it and demand to have a look.

  Mabel brought plates and a cake knife and Poppy’s letter was forgotten as the cake was cut and the tasting began.

  ‘There’s not a drop of liquid paraffin in this,’ Mrs Tanner said happily. ‘I can taste real butter.’

  ‘They’ve got a farm, Mum,’ Mabel said through a mouthful of cake. ‘I expect they make their own butter and cheese. What a pity they threw you out, Poppy. You’d have had a better time down there and you wouldn’t have had to slog away cleaning bedpans and lavvies.’

  Poppy shook her head. ‘It’s hard work on the land too, and long hours. I love the countryside but I’m very grateful to you both for taking me in.’

  ‘La-di-dah,’ Mrs Tanner said, wiping her lips on the napkin. ‘It’s a pity they ever sent you to that place. You got ideas above your station, girl. I liked you better when you was plain Poppy Brown, not Poppy with a plum in her mouth.’

  ‘Mum, that’s not fair,’ Mabel said in a low voice. ‘You take that back. Poppy’s a good girl and she works hard at the hospital. And you wouldn’t be stuffing your face with Madeira cake if it wasn’t for Poppy’s friends in the country, posh or not.’

  Christmas was a quiet family affair. Uncle Fred had somehow managed to get hold of a large capon, which Poppy suspected had been bought on the black market, but he had done his usual thing of tapping the side of his nose and saying ‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies.’ Black market or not, it had ta
sted good, and Mabel said she planned to make the carcass into stew next day. Poppy washed the dishes while the others slept off their meal, which had included the best part of a bottle of port that Uncle Fred had produced from a poacher’s pocket inside his greatcoat.

  The presents were arranged on the table beneath the imitation Christmas tree that Mabel said had come out every year since she could remember. The branches were slightly twisted and there were bald patches where the fake pine needles had rubbed off, but these were mostly hidden beneath the tarnished tinsel. To Poppy it was a poor substitute for the real tree that had graced the hall at Squire’s Knapp. What she missed most of all was the resinous smell of fresh pine, and the scent of apple logs burning on the fire in the entrance hall. She had tried to push aside the memories of a life that had never really been intended for a girl from West Ham, but then she remembered Christmases spent with Mum, Dad and Joe, and that was even more painful.

  Although she was paid a mere pittance at the hospital, Poppy had saved every penny she could spare and had bought Mabel a Tangee lipstick in Woolworth’s, and for Mrs Tanner a handkerchief with the initial M for Maggie embroidered on one corner. She had laboriously unpicked an old jumper that Mabel had bought in a jumble sale but never worn, and using the wool Poppy had knitted a scarf for Uncle Fred and a pair of mittens for the two aunts, although she doubted whether fussy Ida would stoop to wearing anything handmade. She had standards, as she was fond of telling anyone who would listen, but in Poppy’s opinion Auntie Ida might change her mind about wearing woollen mittens during cold nights spent in the Anderson shelter in their back garden in Leytonstone.

  Having finished her chores, Poppy was eager to open her presents from the girls, but she had to wait until the others woke up and even then they would do nothing until they had consumed several cups of tea and the last slice of Mrs Toon’s cake.

  Ida licked her fingers delicately. ‘Now that’s what I call a Madeira cake, but then you wouldn’t expect anything less coming from a country house kitchen. I don’t suppose they have to worry about ration books and coupons; so much for everyone being treated the same.’

  ‘There’s always a way round things if you have the money.’ Uncle Fred patted his round belly and the bottom button flew off his waistcoat, landing on the hearth rug.

  Mabel retrieved it and handed it to him. ‘I expect that capon cost a bob or two, Uncle Fred.’

  He grinned. ‘I have my sources, ducks. Say no more.’

  ‘You could do with cutting down anyway.’ Ida stared pointedly at his corpulent figure. ‘You always were a pig, Fred.’

  ‘Don’t start on him, Ida.’ Mrs Tanner wiped her lips with the table napkin from Squire’s Knapp. ‘Irish linen,’ she said, waving it under her sister’s nose.

  Mabel rose hastily to her feet. ‘I know, let’s open our presents. Poppy, love, will you do the honours?’

  Poppy had been waiting for this moment. She handed round the gifts, all of which were in brown paper parcels, apart from the ones from Ida and Fred which were wrapped in tissue paper and tied with red ribbon.

  ‘I save my paper from year to year,’ Ida said smugly. ‘Waste not, want not has always been my motto.’

  ‘Some might call it being stingy,’ Auntie Dottie muttered beneath her breath.

  Poppy sat in a chair by the window to open her presents. There was a sparkly brooch from Edie, a woollen scarf from Mavis and a bottle of Evening in Paris perfume from Jean. Mabel had given her two pairs of Aertex knickers, which might not be the most exciting present she had ever received but were most welcome as the elastic had perished in the ones that Amy had bought for her, which were too small anyway. Auntie Dottie gave her a diary and Mrs Tanner said the panties were half from her as she was now a pauper living off her meagre life savings and could not afford the luxury of giving presents. Poppy noticed that she was not too proud to accept them. Auntie Ida and Uncle Fred gave her a fountain pen, which was quite a magnificent present, but Ida rather spoilt it by telling Poppy that she must work hard and take the examinations set for Red Cross cadets, and then maybe she would get a decent job and not spend the rest of her life scrubbing floors. This was so patently aimed at Mabel that Poppy felt like giving Auntie Ida a piece of her mind, but she knew it would lead to a row amongst the volatile Tanner sisters, and she said nothing.

  The remainder of Christmas day passed without any upsets. There were mince pies for tea, although Auntie Dottie rather spoilt the treat by prophesying gloomily that preserves would soon be rationed and this was probably the last time anyone would see mincemeat until the war was over. Auntie Ida went in on the attack as usual and told her sister in no uncertain terms that she ate too much sweet stuff anyway, and that it would do her good to cut down on sugar and starch. At which Auntie Dottie stood up, her bottom lip trembling and the rolls of fat squashed between her corsets and her brassiere wobbling, and demanded an apology. Uncle Fred rose to his feet like a leviathan rising from the sea. ‘Time to go home, ladies. I’ll drop you off on the way, Dottie.’

  The argument was forgotten in the ensuing rush to pick up presents and the scramble to find coats, hats and scarves. Suddenly everyone was hugging and kissing and wishing each other a happy New Year even though it was days away. Poppy said her goodbyes and went upstairs to the boxroom at the front of the house, which had been used for years as a junk room. Mabel had cleared away most of the battered old suitcases, disused handbags, odd shoes and an umbrella with broken spines, but it still did not feel like home to Poppy. The room was simply furnished with a bed and a chest of drawers. The narrow divan had a lumpy mattress but Mabel had seen to it that Poppy had as many blankets as she needed and an eiderdown covered in a rather sickly pink material which clashed with the orange and brown pattern on the linoleum. The curtains were floral cretonne in varying shades of purple and blue, and the bare walls, which were distempered in a particularly putrid shade of pink, cried out for adornment with pictures of film stars, but Mabel had warned her against sticking things on the walls and ruining the paintwork. Blushing, she had said that one day she hoped this room would be a nursery, but this remark only served to make Poppy remember the two large rooms she had shared with Rupert at Squire’s Knapp. Old-fashioned and slightly shabby they undoubtedly were, but homely all the same with echoes from past generations of children who had occupied the nursery suite. She could imagine Guy and Pamela larking around in the day nursery when they were supposed to be doing lessons with their governess, or having pillow fights when they were supposed to be asleep in their beds.

  But that was all in the past now. She must forget that part of her life, which was well and truly over. At least this small space was hers for the time being, and she had somewhere to store her few possessions, although these did not amount to very much. She had grown a couple of inches during her year in the country and none of her clothes fitted properly, apart from the tweed hacking jacket that had belonged to Pamela, a grey flannel skirt which was fashionably short, and a couple of jumpers that were a bit too tight across her bosom. Mavis had given her a brassiere, which was a bit on the large side but would do until she could save up enough to buy one that fitted properly. And when it came to shoes, the only pair Poppy had were the stout lace-ups that Amy had bought for her when she started school. Luckily they had been too big then but now they cramped her toes and she could not walk far without getting blisters on her heels. If she wanted to buy a new pair of shoes she would have to save every penny she earned after deducting the amount of housekeeping money she gave Mabel each week.

  Poppy flopped down on the bed. She would have to get used to being poor again, but her brief taste of life on a country estate had unsettled her in more ways than one. She knew that she would no longer be satisfied with the sort of life that her mother had accepted as being the lot of women; the daily drudgery of housework and eking out a living on a working man’s wages, never thinking that there might be something better or that she could achieve anything on her own. She
could see Mabel going down a similar path, but it was not for her. Even though such thoughts made her feel thoroughly disloyal and ashamed, Poppy could not help making comparisons. Whereas she had once felt like an alien in the Carroll household she was now experiencing a similar sort of feeling in the small suburban house that Joe and Mabel were happy to call home.

  She took Guy’s letter out and read it several times before folding it and putting it under her pillow with the photo of Goliath. The past was over and done with. Tomorrow she would be back at work and with an early start she needed to get her rest. Rising to her feet, she went across the landing to the tiny bathroom and did a quick strip wash in lukewarm water. Mabel was very strict about the amount of coke they burned each day, more out of necessity than for the sake of conserving coal stocks, but she said that it seemed almost inevitable that fuel would soon be rationed and they might as well get used to it.

  Shivering, Poppy put on the winceyette pyjamas that Amy had given her and made a dash for her bed, cuddling down beneath the covers and grimacing as her bare feet touched the icy sheets. She closed her eyes, wishing that someone had thought to give her a pair of bedsocks for Christmas.

  Next day, even though it was Boxing Day there was no day off for the hospital workers. It was still dark when Poppy and Mabel left for work and dark when they trudged wearily home. Three days later, it was Sunday and Poppy’s day off, but Mabel was not feeling very well and Poppy volunteered to take her afternoon shift. She was glad to have an excuse to get away from Mrs Tanner’s constant moaning, which was always worse on Sunday when she had a captive audience.