Martin felt like he could explode with all the possibilities. ‘I love you, Poppy. Things are going to start getting a whole lot better for us!’ He kissed her on the lips.
‘Well I am glad to hear that, Mart. Now, wash your hands because your tea’s ready.’ She continued to retrieve cutlery from the murky depths of the sink, wiping it with the tea towel. Poppy was calm and unflustered, despite her husband’s uncharacteristic display of enthusiasm for their future. It was how she worked, remaining cool until the detail unfolded and she would then decide whether to get excited or not. Poppy had learnt that if you contained your enthusiasm until you were absolutely sure that there was something to be excited about, it avoided a lot of unnecessary disappointment. Martin bumped her out of the way with his hip and washed his hands, pushing the soap under his clean fingernails, no longer irritated by their softness and cleanliness. Instead, he was happy because he had a plan and a future. Tomorrow he would take the first steps to sorting it all out.
Martin leapt out of bed, jumping up as soon as the alarm went off. The day started without the usual groaning or wishing for an extra ten minutes’ grace. He’d slept lightly in anticipation of the beeping of his clock, eager for the day to begin. He felt as if he was on the verge of something amazing, the start of all good things for him, for them.
He decided against phoning the garage to say he wasn’t going in. He had never been unreliable, but wanted to show them that he couldn’t be pushed around. It was a meagre protest, pathetic really, but it was important to make a stand, no matter how small.
Martin left the house in his suit, feeling ten feet tall, swaggering down the High Street, smiling at anyone that caught his eye. He felt powerful, fantastic, like one of the cocky blokes down the pub who stand at the bar and never get out of the way, who know everyone and always have enough cash. He felt like them, like he knew all the answers.
The recruiting office, now open, was again lit up, a beacon. He walked through the door with confidence, thinking about all the men that had ever joined up; he was about to become part of something unique and important.
Two men in uniform sat behind two desks. Martin walked to the one on the right. What would have happened if he had chosen the one on the left? A different regiment? A different posting? Where would he be at that point? Playing five-a-side within the compound walls? Quite possibly, but contemplating what-ifs didn’t help anyone.
It was as though the recruiting sergeant had been expecting him. Three newly sharpened pencils sat to the right of his hand on top of a pristine white pad.
He smiled at Martin, gesturing to the chair in front of the desk. ‘Please take a seat.’ Before asking his name or why he was there, he was treating Martin with respect and he liked it. He liked it a lot.
‘I’m Sergeant Keith Edwards, of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment or the PWRR for short. Can I take your name?’
‘I am Martin Cricket.’ He waited for the usual smirk, raised eyebrow or full-blown laugh, but there was none, as though being called ‘Cricket’ was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to mock. This was a serious business. The sergeant’s lack of response gave Martin the confidence to stay put, no one was laughing, his plan was right on track.
‘What can I do for you today, Mr Cricket?’
What could he do for him? Martin wanted to leap across the table, hug him and shout, ‘Take me away from this shit life! Make me into something better! Make me into “The Best!” Give me a life that Poppy and I can be proud of! Give me a peg in the garage, let me get grease under my fingernails, let me train to be a mechanic, let me prove that I am not a useless little poof!’
Thankfully for them both, he did neither of these things. Instead, linking his hands together at the knuckles, he laid his fingers across the back of the opposite hand and placed them in his lap. Primarily this was to stop them shaking, but it was also an unconscious act, giving the whole exchange gravitas.
Before Martin had time to hesitate, contemplate or run, he looked Sergeant Keith Edwards squarely in the eye. ‘I am thinking of becoming a soldier.’ His voice sounded more confident than he felt.
The sergeant didn’t laugh, but nodded his head slowly as though he had been given the correct answer, the answer he was expecting. He had encountered thousands of blokes that were desperate and didn’t know where to go or what path they should be treading. Blokes that wanted something more than the hand life had dealt them, blokes that only saw the value of education once the school gates had been locked behind them forever. That was exactly what he was looking for, a bloke just like Martin who wanted the opportunity to start over, who wanted to be given a chance. The process was relatively quick and administrative, like renewing your passport or registering a death.
Martin didn’t tell Poppy where he was going or what he was planning. He wanted to show her that he could use his initiative, could take control of a crappy situation and turn it around. Having left the flat suited and booted, Poppy knew that it was something or somewhere important. Suspecting a job interview, she played along like a wise parent, letting him keep his secret, allowing the suspense to build, not wanting to spoil the big surprise.
When Martin arrived back at the flat and told her where he had been and what he had done, Poppy couldn’t believe it, asking over and over like a broken-down robot, ‘What? You have what? Why? Why, Mart?’ Her smile collapsed as she folded her arms around her middle. His answers were full and honest, yet she kept repeating, ‘You have what?’ followed by, ‘Why?’ as though he spoke in a foreign tongue.
Martin couldn’t hide his disappointment, his confusion. He thought she would be as happy as he was and that she too would see it as the answer to their prayers instead of the beginning of their nightmare.
The moment he walked through the door beaming and excited, Poppy saw one word, ‘separation’. To her it was obvious and instant. They were going to be apart, isolated, alone.
She felt swamped by a wave of sadness. Worse still, she couldn’t believe that he didn’t get that! It was as if it hadn’t occurred to him exactly what this would mean for them. Poppy bit her bottom lip to avoid calling him a useless idiot, knowing that it would remind him of his dad. Besides, it wasn’t true.
Martin was stunned. It was as if she didn’t know him at all, didn’t understand why he had done it, couldn’t see that it was all about getting a better life for them. He gripped her arms. ‘I want to become someone that you can be proud of.’ In his head he added, ‘… so you don’t find anyone better, so you never leave me. I want a career that pays us enough to start our family. I don’t want to sweep up any more, Poppy, it’s killing me.’ These words would have made all the difference to Poppy, but they were not easy for Martin to say. So much more than a collection of syllables, they were an admission of unhappiness, a statement of insecurity.
‘But Mart, I’m already proud of you.’
He knew she meant it, making him feel guilty and a little bit sad.
She shook her head. ‘What’s going to happen, Mart, what have you done to us?’
They stood facing each other, bit players in a low-budget drama, playing strangers. It was awkward, embarrassing, all the things you don’t expect to feel when you are with your spouse, your soulmate. Martin could hear the faintest whisper of a little voice on his shoulder, ‘Nice one, Mart, you’ve really ballsed things up, just when you had it pretty perfect.’
Martin thought he’d get a house with a garden, be well paid and learn a trade. He planned on taking that skill and setting up for himself somewhere. He was undecided between plumbing and mechanics. He thought wrong. His spur-of-the-moment decision meant there had been little time for research. He was an infantryman; the pay was low, barely enough, less than he had been getting at the garage. He had been told that he could transfer to another trade at a later date. Martin hoped that this was not another empty statement, designed to lure him. There were no houses, or even flats, available for them; not in their area, not yet, and moving
away was out of the question for Poppy. Unlike other army wives, she couldn’t set up home in barracks close to where her husband trained, not when she was needed elsewhere. They were stuck in their council flat, albeit with the army paying some of the rent.
Martin was used to being treated like dirt, it was how he had grown up, yet he didn’t expect it now. Not at his age, not now that he was someone’s husband, someone that had been tasked with protecting Queen and country. He was out of practice at taking crap. He quickly got used to it again.
The basic training was dull, repetitive and physical, designed to flex his will if not break it, to help him see that doing what he was told when asked was the most important thing in the world. He learnt that lesson fairly quickly, taking orders and literally keeping his head down. It was only when deployed in theatre that Martin understood the full value of his instruction. The last one to follow an order, the last one to react, the man that questioned the task was the one that risked not only his own safety but that of his entire unit.
Martin wasn’t interested in being the funniest, the most outrageous or the one that pushed the boundaries until they almost got thrown out, although he worked very closely with the aforementioned three.
His agenda was different. He wasn’t looking to make friends, but that happened by default. He wasn’t searching for a replacement family like some of the loners and weirdos; Poppy was all the family that he would ever need. Instead, he wanted to see where being good at something might take him. Martin smiled when he thought of where it had taken him, where he had arrived. So much for that theory.
Martin’s date to leave for Afghanistan had been set. At every encounter during his basic training it sat between him and Poppy like an invisible tumour, never mentioned, yet acutely felt, in the vain hope that it would somehow disappear through neglect. The day arrived sooner than either of them was prepared for; hitting them squarely on the breastbone with such force, it left them breathless. Unspoken angst bubbled behind every sentence, rendering normal speech and action impossible. A new and awkward formality had existed between them for some weeks; both were so concerned with avoiding the topic, it became a verbal dam that stopped words and sentiment from flowing freely.
He knew that Poppy made a conscious decision to try and put things right, to try and make it as special as she could. She had bought a bottle of wine, washed her hair and liberally applied perfume. He was grateful, wanting to somehow bridge the gap from anger and despair to a place of calm acceptance. It was not to be.
Their arguments were so infrequent that Martin could recall them all, word for word. In the weeks ahead, he wouldn’t remember exactly how it started, but would recollect what was said and how it ended.
Martin was far from happy. He was scared, anxious and would have given anything not to have been packing for a trip that he did not want to take. It was the first time his wife had voiced her fears with such clarity. It made him feel like shit.
He wanted to fall into her arms, pull his fingers through her hair and feel the weight of her against his chest. He wanted her to grant him forgiveness.
Martin wished that he had explained it better, told her that it was too late for him to fix things, he had to go. He wanted to shout out that he didn’t want to go to Afbloodyghanistan. He didn’t want to go anywhere. He was thinking of what to do or say next when she folded her arms around her waist and crept into the bathroom. Martin walked into the dark lounge and lowered himself onto the sofa. He rubbed his flat palms over his two day stubble, giving his wife a few minutes to get into her nightie and under the covers before creeping into bed beside her. He lay far out of reach without touching or speaking; he felt the opportunity for repair diminishing and was swept by a new wave of despair.
They spent their last night together on a cold mattress with a large space between them. Despite his exhaustion Martin didn’t sleep, he listened to Poppy moving and breathing, knowing that he wouldn’t be hearing the telltale noises of her presence for some time, missing her before he had even left. The atmosphere was so strained it was as if the air had physical weight, bearing down on them as they each struggled to escape through slumber.
This was the sad reality of their last night together. The bottle of wine remained in the fridge, its screw top firmly in place. Poppy’s clean hair absorbed the tears that ran over her nose and towards her pillow. The pain at his leaving was so great; both wanted it to be over. It couldn’t have been any further from what Martin had imagined their last night together might be.
Now, in this dingy room, he wished with his whole being that he could go back to that room, that night and make things right. He would have found the courage to reach across the mattress; he would have found her hand under the covers and held it tight.
Five
POPPY HARDLY SLEPT. The morning taunted her through a gap in the bedroom curtains. She considered the cruel trick Father Time played on insomniacs, making each restless minute in the wee small hours feel like an hour, yet when the day arrived, it sprang from the dark with alarming speed, hours passed in minutes and minutes became seconds… She was tempted to stay in bed, to pull the duvet over her head and let the world turn without joining in. Almost instantly she saw an image of Martin, tied up and dirty. She knew that while he was in that state, in that place, wherever that place was, she would not allow herself the luxury of wallowing in bed and reflecting on her own sorrow. She would stay strong for him, for both of them.
Poppy tried to shake off the fug of futility. Deep down she knew it wasn’t her fault, but something bad had happened to someone she loved and she could do nothing to fix it. She felt useless and responsible all at the same time. As for guilt, she had the monopoly. Guilty for having a hot bath, imagining this wasn’t possible for Mart. Drinking tea made her consider his thirst; every small, common activity left her full of remorse.
It was to be a horrible day spent in limbo. Coincidentally, it was Poppy’s day off. Welcoming the diversion, she cleared up the kitchen, scrubbing at the fish finger pan until it shone, disposing of the burnt offering and mopping the sticky floor. Her attempt to gain mental solace through the restoration of her physical space failed.
Since her husband had been deployed, Poppy missed him at quite a basic level; aware of the space on the sofa next to her, the preparing, cooking and eating of a meal for one, or having to take the rubbish out to the communal bins on her own in the dark. That was always Mart’s job; she hated doing it, partly through a dislike of rats, but mainly a fear of the drug addicts, tarts and gangs that hung around the bins. Despite her anxiety, it made her smile with an ironic lack of comprehension, of all the places that you could congregate and make your patch, why pick behind the stinking bins?
Poppy developed a coping strategy, by NOT thinking about him too much. She found that by keeping herself busy and in a fairly tight routine, it didn’t leave too many thinking gaps. There were times when this wasn’t possible: if something funny or interesting happened, she would instantly want to tell Martin, to share the joke or get his opinion. When she couldn’t, the fact that he was not close to her would have to sink in all over again.
Poppy ran her finger over the wedding photo on the mantelpiece, taken only three years ago, and yet right now it was like looking at a snapshot of another lifetime. She studied her reflection in the edge of the picture; her image suggesting she had aged considerably more than the thirty-six months that had passed since that moment in the pub.
Their wedding was a quiet, informal affair at the local registry office. They were getting hitched at two-thirty p.m. and with ceremonies at two p.m. and three p.m., were nervous passengers astride a nuptial conveyor belt.
Poppy and Martin were sandwiched between Courtney and Darren, and Carmel and Lloyd. Carmel and Lloyd sounded to Poppy like an expensive department store.
She could picture one of the women from the big houses on the other side of the High Street with the expensive hairdo, four by four, nanny and en suite, saying to her
husband as she looked for the car keys on the scrubbed pine dresser, ‘Darling, just nipping off to Carmel and Lloyd’s for some foie gras. We’re running a bit low and I couldn’t bear the idea of not being able to offer any to Charles and Felicity tonight.’ Her husband, irritated by her nasal tone and knowing that she wouldn’t actually eat anything herself, would barely register her comments as he shook invisible creases from his Telegraph. Courtney and Darren turned out to be chavs.
All attending guests had been muddled up by a useless security attendant. Poppy had since wondered if maybe he wasn’t useless, but instead found his job so monotonously soul destroying that he did this kind of thing occasionally on purpose to relieve the boredom. They began reciting their vows when someone shouted, ‘That’s not our Courtney!’ Poppy looked up to see Dorothea crying onto the suited shoulder of a very dapper black man who was meant to be attending either the wedding that had finished early or the one that had not yet started. Most girls would have been angry about such a monumental mix-up on their wedding day, but not Poppy. The whole thing struck her as extremely funny, the idea of her nan blissfully unaware that she was sharing her granddaughter’s special event with so many complete strangers.
The upshot was that Martin and Poppy sniggered and tittered through the short, matter-of-fact ceremony with none of the presupposed emotion that you might assume accompanies a girl’s big day. There wasn’t much big about any of it, if you disregarded Courtney’s arse, which was huge and clad in peach sateen. Poppy had glimpsed her in the garden with a cigarette clamped between her carmine-painted mouth, taking care not to set fire to the over-sprayed curls that sat on her heavily rouged cheeks. She reminded Poppy of a big, fat dolly, although no dolly she had ever seen or played with uttered the phrases that left Courtney’s mouth on that day.
Poppy Day Page 9