She could hear a ripple of laughter spreading across the tarmac. It started at the wiggly painted snake puzzle and finished at the middle school girls’ toilet block.
Poppy’s face felt hot and sweaty, her heart boomed and shook in her chest. She couldn’t figure out why they were all laughing, but she wished they would stop. Twisting her leg, she tried to burrow deep down into her scuff-toed shoes, she wanted to disappear.
Martin Cricket didn’t laugh. Instead, he pulled her to one side, gave her a slow hug and two slightly tacky cola bottles, peppered with fluff, that had been nestling deep in his pocket. He told her it wasn’t a good idea to tell people that her dad was a No Hoper. She told him it was the truth, it was his religion. Martin shook his head. He looked her in the eye and told her that it wasn’t his religion, her dad was just a useless bastard, but she wasn’t to worry because his dad was a useless bastard too. He suggested that they stick together. She popped the sour cola bottles on her tongue. A bargain had been struck.
Poppy would never forget standing with her head under the crook of Martin’s arm; he was solidly built, a pre-cursor to the short, stocky man that he would become. It was the only time in their life when he was significantly taller than her. She surreptitiously sniffed his jumper; it smelt like food, a school dinnery smell of wool that needed washing. He noticed for the first time how her straight, freckled nose wrinkled when she concentrated. How her toffee-coloured hair hung limply against her pale complexion; yet when the sun found it, a myriad of colours was revealed from red to gold. It reminded him of Bonfire Night. He thought she was beautiful; fifteen years later, he still did.
Poppy changed his world. She had a certain look about her. Martin was a little boy, yet old enough to recognise her expression as the one that stared at him every morning from the mirror as he cleaned his teeth. She, like him, was frightened, confused and constantly looking over her shoulder to see where the next blow or disappointment was coming from. He loved her instantly without measure and knew that, no matter what, he wanted to look after her.
Martin’s revelation made Poppy grow up and wake up all at once. She knew then that her dad didn’t see her because he didn’t want to. Even though she was only six and had never seen him, she suddenly felt very sad, rejected and lonely. She didn’t know that was how she was feeling at the time because she didn’t have the words. She only knew it when she got older and was able to identify that feeling of hunger that is nothing to do with food and that cold ache inside you that can’t be warmed.
Up until the point that Martin told her the harsh truth, she thought that maybe one day she would meet her dad and he would take her in and take her away from her mum, the constant stream of different boyfriends and her sleeping grandad.
Poppy had already given up on her mum so this made her mythical dad her last hope of a decent, respectable family. Like the one in Little House on the Prairie, with the mum baking bread, occasionally wiping her floury hands on her pinny and carrying her little wicker basket, while the dad chopped logs, drove his wagon and played the fiddle in his red checked shirt.
Now that hope was gone and ironically her dad did become a No Hoper, only now it meant no hope of ever seeing him and no hope of rescue from her shitty life. Until Martin offered her friendship and love, Poppy’s life had indeed been shitty.
The doorbell clattered its familiar herald. Poppy flicked on the lamp before poking her head through the gap between the safety chain and frame. Bloody pointless those chains; she had seen many a bloke in anger kick a door similarly tethered and they snapped like the multicoloured paper links that you made at playschool.
‘It’s me, Poppy.’
She knew it was him, but still no harm in making doubly sure. She nodded, slipped the chain from its mooring and opened the door fully.
He came into the hallway and took off his beret, still in uniform. ‘How you doing?’
Again she offered the moronic response, ‘Fine’. Why she kept repeating it she didn’t know. It was so far from the truth. It was the same response she had given her whole life, even when she was little. Whether she was hungry, cold, miserable or lonely, whoever was asking and wherever they asked it, ‘How are you, Poppy?’ the stock response was always ‘fine.’ What was the alternative? ‘Thanks for asking, lady in the lift. Actually, I haven’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime. I haven’t got any clean pants for tomorrow. I’m frightened to go to sleep because my mum is always out somewhere and I need to be awake in case we get burgled, or the house catches fire, or in case Nan does something stupid or dies…’ ‘Fine’ was definitely easier.
Rob followed her into the lounge. Sitting on one end of the sofa, Poppy placed a cushion over her chest, a subconscious gesture to shield her from the information, protect her from the blows. He sat at the other end.
‘Have you told anyone, Poppy? Have you got someone that could be with you?’ Rob seemed genuinely concerned that she was not surrounded by tea and tissue-toting relatives.
She shook her head, again, no on both counts. She thought about Jenna, but decided against mentioning her. Poppy now understood that some things were so unbelievable, even though you knew them to be true, that you had to keep them contained until you could make sense of them. Only then might you be able to explain them to others.
‘We’ve had a bit more information come through, Poppy.’
She nodded, hurry up, hurry up! Tell me what you know!
‘As we told you earlier, Martin went out in a patrol of twelve and only ten men came back.’ He paused. ‘We can now account for eleven of the men on that patrol.’
Poppy placed the nail of her index finger between her front teeth and ripped. The pain was a welcome momentary distraction. She hated the way Rob was trying to disguise the facts. She wanted clear and concise information; it was frustrating, but she knew that he was just following procedure. ‘Is it Mart?’
The expression on his face told her that the news was not positive. ‘No. It isn’t Martin.’ There was more to come. ‘It was Aaron Sotherby, Martin’s colleague. I am sorry to say that he is deceased. His next of kin have been informed.’
Poppy exhaled through bloated cheeks, unaware that she had been holding her breath.
‘We expect the details to be released to the media tomorrow. There’s a news blackout on it at the moment, but we can only do that for so long, then the world will want the details. What we must do, Poppy, is make sure that you know as much as we do so that there are no surprises for you.’
‘Was he killed by the people that have taken Mart?’ The words tumbled out, unplanned.
Rob gasped; she watched him trying to order his thoughts. ‘How…? Poppy, we…’ It was his turn to be lost for words.
‘I saw it, Rob. I know it sounds completely crazy, but I saw him. I know that he has been taken.’
Rob groaned as he pushed his thumbs into his eye sockets, trying to figure out what to do next. Poppy had no way of knowing that Rob had been thoroughly briefed; he not only knew that Martin had been taken, but also by whom, and the answer to Poppy’s question was yes, the people that had killed his colleague had taken Martin. He faced a terrible dilemma; who in his organisation would believe that he hadn’t given her the facts that she appeared to be in possession of?
‘Poppy,’ she could see that he was trying to think, fast, ‘there are reasons why information is given out in the way that it is. I am going to ask you to trust me. I know it’s a big thing to ask you at a very difficult time, but you can trust me. I promise that I will tell you everything that I can, when I can.’ They were silent for some seconds, equally matched chess players considering their next moves.
‘Are you married, Rob?’ She could see him thinking about his family, his wife. They had wanted children, but had not been so blessed. His wife was his family, his life.
‘Yes, yes I am married, to Moira.’ He smiled broadly when he said her name aloud. Poppy would learn that this was always the case; it was a reflex, the very mention
of her name, the woman who was his wife, made him happy. She knew what that felt like.
Poppy’s had been an unremarkable wedding, lower than low-key, but, despite the lack of pomp, Poppy and Martin made a solid and binding commitment to each other. Poppy knew instantly that she felt differently. She loved being married, finding herself unexpectedly excited and comforted by it. Three years later, she still glanced down at the little gold band on the third finger of her left hand and smiled with a rush of exhilaration in her stomach because she was someone’s wife and someone was her husband. It made her feel special; someone had wanted to marry her! Her; Poppy Day.
‘Can you imagine what this is like for me, Rob? Imagine something had happened to Moira, something terrible and people knew what had happened. They knew where she was, whether she was dead or alive, and what was likely to happen to her. The only person that didn’t know was you, her husband, the person she loves. The person that she exchanged wedding vows with…’
Rob looked away, envisaging just that; his Moira, his wife and a buttoned-up major like Anthony Helm, who would conduct himself in accordance with the rule book, withholding that information. It was an unbearable thought; unbearable for him, for any man, for any person.
‘Please, Rob. I’m not stupid, and I want to tell you that, even though you don’t know me either, you can trust me too. I will not reveal what you have told me until you tell me I can. I promise you.’
Poppy could tell that at that precise moment Rob hated his job, hated the fact that she was being forced to negotiate, to bargain, when it was she that was the victim. He looked at her like she was a brave little girl who had every right to know about her husband, the person that she had exchanged vows with.
‘Poppy, I can see that you are far from stupid, but you must understand that it’s not only my career that is on the line here, but possibly other people’s safety; maybe Martin’s safety. Do you understand the implications of that?’
She nodded, understanding that this was real. He did have more information. This was no bluff; her instinct was right, Martin was still alive, but he was in danger. Her Mart, her beloved; hang in there, baby…
Rob shook his head as though he couldn’t believe that he was going to fly in the face of his superiors and against all he had been trained to do. He was doing it to give information to Poppy Day, a young girl, on nothing more than a hunch. She was very glad that he did.
‘When Martin’s patrol went out, it was with an American sortie into the mountains. The Americans knew that it was a hot spot, a recognised enclave for insurgent activity, they had all been fully briefed.’
‘You make it sound exciting, like Mart would have wanted to go, but I bet he was shit-scared.’
Rob smiled at her, drawing from experience, thinking back to his last tour. ‘You’re probably right. It’s difficult to describe exactly what it’s like in theatre. You are shit-scared sometimes, but it’s also exciting, and if it’s not exciting then it’s usually boring, so you almost welcome the excitement to escape the boredom. Ultimately though, you are doing what you are trained to do and you feel invincible…’
‘Shame no one told that to Mart’s colleague, the one that’s deceased.’
Rob nodded. Touché.
‘So what happened on this sortie or whatever it’s called?’ Poppy felt her face flush, embarrassed to be using army terms. It made her feel like she was hamming it up in some crappy American war movie, or was one of those nutters who live with their mum until they are fifty, who love guns and combat magazines. She started to chew the nails on her other hand. Her stomach was in knots.
‘They were in a convoy of vehicles. The one in front got surrounded by locals and contact was made—’
‘They made contact?’ Poppy pictured the soldiers and locals shaking hands and swapping details: ‘Hello there! Lovely day!’
‘—contact as in exchanged fire.’
‘Oh.’ Rob’s clarification caused the images of the hand-shakers to turn red and slip Dali-like until they formed a pool of blood.
‘The soldiers from some of the other vehicles dismounted and went to the aid of the first, but it was a carefully planned ambush. The group were surrounded and two soldiers were taken, Martin and Aaron. It seems the purpose was to take hostages. The feeling is that one soldier has been killed to show they mean business, but that means, Poppy, that Martin is alive and they will keep him alive as he is their bargaining chip.’
She tried to filter the information. Hostage. Prisoner. Captive. Try as she might to make sense of it, the words felt alien, especially when referring to her husband. She once again saw the image of Martin shouting and then winded as they struck him. She could guess that much, but what with? Was he hurt? ‘Who are they, the group that has taken him, do you know?’ She wanted the detail; knowing this would help her understand and she wouldn’t sleep until she knew as much as the army did.
‘It is a group that’s named after its founder Zelgai Mahmood – the ZMO, or Zelgai Mahmood Organisation. We know that they are extremists who are feared, well-funded and organised, but currently we don’t know exactly why they have taken Martin or what it is that they want.’
‘It’s probably money though, right? Or if he is a bargaining chip, as you say, then maybe they want to exchange him for some of their prisoners.’ Poppy was trying to think of all the possibilities, knowing that this would be where the answer lay; she was already thinking of a solution, there had to be something that could be done.
Rob smiled at her again and was glad that she was thinking along the right lines. ‘That’s probably about the sum of it, yes, Poppy.’
She felt exhausted, but needed to keep alert, needed to know more. ‘And do you know where they are holding him, Rob?’
He shook his head. ‘We don’t. It is very likely that he is still in the region where he was taken, as moving him around would be deemed too risky.’
‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Can’t we just send in those Special Forces blokes or Ross Kemp or whatever and get him back?’ Poppy’s fatigue allowed her to fuse the fiction with the reality. She regretted sounding naive, young.
‘It’s not that simple. The region where Martin was taken is mountainous and dangerous, even without the possible threat from ZMO supporters.’
‘I can’t believe people actually support them when they do such bloody horrible things.’
‘It’s hard for us to understand, but the people that live there are so poor, they have nothing. The ZMO looks after them in exchange for loyalty and help; it’s a system that works. Even if we could get close enough to take him, he might be moved or sold on quicker than we could get to him. It’s better that neither of those things happen.’
‘Better why?’
He didn’t answer.
Poppy accepted his silence, trusting him enough to assume if he thought it better that she didn’t know, then maybe it was. ‘I don’t know what I should be doing, Rob. It’s like I’m in a horrible dream and I wish I’d wake up.’
‘I know it’s easy to say, Poppy, but try not to worry.’
She smiled; yes, it was easy to say…
‘Poppy, I don’t think that you should be here alone. Is there someone that you can call? I’m happy to wait with you until they arrive.’ He was insistent.
It was her turn to shake her head. ‘There’s no one, but I am going to visit my nan now, so I won’t be alone.’
Rob visibly brightened. She didn’t spoil the illusion, but rather let him picture her sitting in front of her nan’s fire, being fed fruitcake from a doily-laden plate, while the two drank tea from dainty, floral china cups. The reality was Poppy changing her nan’s pants for the umpteenth time that day and helping to brush her dentures, while her nan rummaged in her knitting bag for stray mints and plucked at invisible lint on her cardigan.
The residential home for the elderly was called The Poplars, which Dorothea pronounced ‘The Populars’ and which quickly became known as ‘The Unpopulars’
as she hated it there, or so she said. Poppy’s not so sure. It was owned and run by Mr Veerswamy and his family, at least twenty members of which Poppy has met over the last few years. Mr Veerswamy called her nan ‘Dorothy’, which drove her crazy, no pun intended. In her current state it was curious, the stuff that bothered her, the moments of lucidity and the things that slipped from her loosening grasp on reality.
The old lady, in whatever state the day might find her, always, always knew Poppy; she knew that she loved this gift of a granddaughter and that her love was reciprocated. For this, Poppy was entirely grateful. Dorothea also had a strange, misguided belief. This was one of those bits of information that to anyone outside their immediate circle sounded bizarre, humorous even, but wasn’t at all strange to Poppy. This was either because she was used to it or she too was one currant short of a bun. Either way, Poppy’s nan, Dorothea Day, was utterly and totally convinced that her daughter was Joan Collins. Poppy didn’t know when this belief first manifested itself or where it came from. The fact was, she told anyone who would listen how tough it was bringing up a wilful character like her Joan. As far as Poppy could tell, the only connection between Joan Collins and her mother was that they had both played The Bitch.
Dorothea was also convinced that Mr Veerswamy and his entire retinue were trying to poison her. Despite this ingrained belief, she polished off the food they presented her with each mealtime, ending with ‘Ha! You didn’t get me this time!’ Often followed by, ‘Any more of that apple pie going spare?’
She was also in love. Nathan, the object of her affection, was the nineteen-year-old gay nursing assistant, who tended to her every need. She told him every day, several times a day, ‘… such a good boy, you need a nice girlfriend.’ To which he replied, several times a day, ‘I don’t need a girlfriend, Dorothea. I’ve got you.’ But she didn’t remember.
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