The balls of her feet ached, having been slapped against the pavement without the support of a proper sole. Poppy marched up the path as one of Mr Veerswamy’s daughters opened the front door. Poppy wasn’t sure how many daughters he had, but she had met at least four. It fascinated her that they were all stunningly beautiful, clear skin, shiny hair and great teeth, yet Mr Veerswamy and his wife were not similarly blessed. Maybe Mrs Veerswamy was a real lithe looker before she started popping out little Veerswamys by the bucket load, and spending all day sat in her husband’s shiny Mercedes on her fat arse, munching cashews, while he drove all over East London pulling together various business deals. Who knows?
‘Good morning, Poppy Day!’
‘Good morning, Barika, Binish, Bisma, or Batool!’
The girl roared with laughter as she swished her long, shiny curtain of hair over her shoulder. Poppy knew all their names and could place them in order of age; she couldn’t, however, remember which name belonged to which girl. She started to walk down the hall. ‘It’s Bisma!’
Poppy laughed back at her, ‘I knew that!’ Of course it was, beautiful, blessed Bisma, with the looks of a supermodel and a dad that worshipped her… what good luck.
It was nice for Poppy to see her nan in her finery so early in the morning. By finery, don’t think of mink and cashmere, accessorised with strings of pearls. A better word would be, clean. A clean blouse and cardigan teamed with elastic-waisted pants, she was pristine! Poppy usually saw her at the end of the day. Her clothes and hair by that late hour would resemble an artist’s palette. It was as if Dorothea herself and the clothes she wore were food and mess magnets; before retiring for the night, she would be clad in everything from scrambled egg and gravy to jam and hot chocolate.
Poppy was sorely tempted to sneak her nan’s clothes into a bag and enter them for the Turner Prize. She would call it Everything on the Menu. Art critics for miles around would come and marvel at the originality, wondering how she managed to come up with the alternative genre. They would ask what her preferred materials were, she would tell them, ‘My inspiration is Dorothea Day, who spends the time either pissing herself or trying to convince people that she is the mother of Joan Collins, and as for materials, I favour whatever Mr Veerswamy has managed to get a good deal on at the cash and carry and is currently trying to poison her with.’
It was nice to see her looking so neat, more like her lovely nan and less like a crazy old lady that’s lost her hairbrush and spent the day chasing pigeons around the park.
‘Morning, Nan!’
‘Ah! Poppy Day! How lovely to see you.’
‘It’s lovely to see you too. You seem jolly today, any special reason?’
‘Oh Poppy Day, it’s good to be happy because life is just too bloody short!’
‘You are right, Nan.’ She hovered then, waiting and thinking what to do next, not entirely sure how she was going to shield her from the papers.
Nathan appeared from nowhere with a tray full of breakfast. The day’s paper was secured under his arm. It was Dorothea’s cue, ‘Ah, now, Poppy Day, there is someone that I would like you to meet…’
The usual rigmarole ensued. Nathan smiled at Poppy with a fixed grin, while trying to figure out what her wild semaphore and rolling eyes were trying to tell him about the rolled-up daily which thankfully never got delivered.
When Poppy got back to the flat, Jenna and Rob were chatting like old friends. It made her laugh, two more dissimilar characters with different life experiences you would be hard pushed to find, yet with her as their common connection they were drinking tea and setting the world straight. She managed to catch the tail-end of their conversation.
‘So, have you ever killed anyone?’ Jenna was wide-eyed with anticipation.
There was a pause while Rob considered his response. ‘Put it this way, I’ve never killed anyone that didn’t totally deserve it…’ He let the fact trail.
Jenna bit of course, taking the bait whole. ‘What did they do to deserve it?’
Poppy could sense her friend’s desire to know more, mingled with the fear of what she would hear.
‘Oh you know, just what you would expect really, stirring my tea the wrong way, giving me the plain biscuits instead of the chocolate ones.’
Jenna’s laugh was loud, unrestrained. ‘Oh my God! You’re winding me up! I totally believed you. I thought you were going to tell me some terrible war story or something.’
Rob smiled as Poppy walked through the door. ‘Disaster averted?’ His timbre indicating he had calmed slightly over the article.
‘Yep, thank goodness. I got to Nathan before he gave Nan the paper.’
Jenna piped up, ‘That’s good, mate. Ooh! Some bloke called for you and wants you to call him straight back. He said it was very important.’
‘Oh right. Who was it, Jen?’
She looked at Rob. ‘Who was it, Rob?’ This was typical Jenna; she could remember that it was important, but not who it was.
He filled in the gaps that she had left, ‘It was Tom Chambers, your local MP, no less.’
‘What did he want?’
Rob continued, ‘It seems he saw the article and, as your local MP, wants to know if he can help you in any way.’
‘Oh, well that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’ Poppy was still trying to turn her actions into a positive.
‘Maybe, Poppy, just don’t go agreeing to anything without speaking to me first, OK?’
‘I’m sorry, Rob, about the article and everything.’
He shook his head slightly, smoothing his moustache with his thumb and forefinger. ‘It’s not your fault, Poppy. If I hadn’t made our position clear to you then it’s my fault, but I also suspect that you were probably duped slightly. Some of these journalists are master manipulators; they know their trade a lot better than you. They have ways of getting you to tell them what they want to hear.’
She could only nod in agreement, unable to tell him that Miles Varrasso had more than met his match.
Poppy went into the hallway and dialled the number that had been left, thinking that it would go through to an answerphone, switchboard or at the very least his PA. Instead a man’s voice was loud and clear on the other end. He answered quickly, giving Poppy no time to practise what she was going to say or even think about it. She reminded herself not to sound like an idiot.
‘Hello, yes?’ He sounded a little impatient.
‘It’s Poppy, sorry, Poppy Day. I missed your call earlier?’ She cringed. How many Poppys would he have tried to call in the last half an hour?
‘Ah yes! Poppy Day! Thank you so much for calling me back.’
The word that he gave the most emphasis to in his sentence was ‘so’. This told her all she needed to know. He sounded really, really posh and really, really loud; a combination that always made her feel awkward. It’s another character trait of the secret club, the one that Poppy had no hope of belonging to, ever. He sounded like the type of bloke a girl like Harriet would marry.
‘That’s OK.’ She cringed again, recognising ‘that’s OK’ was as moronic a response as ‘fine’.
‘Reason for my call, Poppy, is that I wanted to first offer my thoughts and prayers to you at this dreadful time. How are you bearing up?’
How was she bearing up? Barely, she was barely bearing up, but thought it might be inappropriate to say so.
‘Fine.’ She screwed her eyes shut and bit her bottom lip.
‘Well that’s good, excellent. Secondly, I wondered if you would like to meet up, to see where things stand and make sure you are confident that all that can be done is being done to try and get your husband home?’
His words were wonderful and exciting in her ears. He sounded so posh and confident. How could he possibly fail to get anything done? He had also said the magic words, ‘husband’ and ‘home’; a beautiful combination.
Poppy didn’t care that she sounded horribly eager. ‘Yes! Yes meeting you would be great, thank you. I need al
l the help I can get at the moment.’ She hoped that Rob was out of earshot, not wanting to sound disloyal.
‘Excellent. Excellent. Well, I have a surgery this afternoon and could schedule you in for an hour or so after that. How would that be for you?’
Poppy had to think on the spot. How would that be for her? That would be bloody marvellous! ‘That would be great. Thank you, Mr Chambers. I really appreciate this.’ Her cringing continued. What should she call him? Your Excellency? Sir?
‘Righto. Excellent. I will see you at my rooms which are on the High Street; at shall we say four p.m.?’
‘Four p.m. would be fine.’
‘Excellent. Oh, and Poppy, please do call me Tom.’
‘Right, OK. Thank you, Tom.’
One click and he was gone. Tom, her new mate, who was very posh, who said ‘excellent’ a lot, even if it didn’t really fit the question or what was being discussed, and who wanted to help her. Poppy didn’t care about the finer detail, he could have spoken any language, used any word, if he was the key to getting Martin back home where he belonged then nothing else mattered.
Four p.m. came around quickly. She hadn’t given much thought to what she should wear until she was outside his office, and then wished she had worn something smarter. The front door was painted dark green; she wondered if this was a cleverly chosen neutral, to spare the council having to repaint after elections. A highly polished brass plaque read Tom Chambers, Conservative MP, Walthamstow East. Poppy rang the bell. The door almost instantly buzzed, opening slightly.
In front of her were some steep wooden stairs with a shiny brass handrail that had been recently polished. She could smell the Brasso. She reached the top where there were two rooms, one off to the left and one to the right. Poppy peeped into the one on the left when a voice boomed from the room on the right, almost behind her because of how she was positioned. She was shocked by both its volume and proximity.
‘Ah you must be Poppy! Do come in, do come in!’ He seemed happy to see her, like they were old friends, which made her feel comfortable and nervous all at the same time. If he had treated her like a stranger, she would have known how to behave, but his super-friendliness without having met her before, confused her.
He stood back in the doorway, holding his arm out straight for her to pass by into his office. It was an interesting room, a cross between a doctor’s surgery and a library. Poppy admired the way rich people could collect stuff and pile it up on expensive tables, making it look artfully poised, as if everything was a precious artefact, handed down from generations past. Whereas, do the same in any council flat and it looked like piles of clutter; more car boot than shabby chic. There was a large wooden desk in front of the window, with bookshelves all around the room holding leather-bound textbooks that looked academic and weighty. Large paintings hung on the walls and the gaps between the bigger paintings were filled with smaller ones. The overall effect reminded Poppy of the inside of a stately home, but on a tiny scale.
Tom Chambers himself was just as he had sounded on the phone. He was wearing a navy blue pinstriped suit with a pale pink shirt and a blue tie. He was going bald; his remaining hair was a bit too long and gelled back on his expanding forehead. He had very large teeth, which his lips struggled to close over; giving his mouth equine overtones. There was a large gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand with a crest of some sort stamped into it. She put his age at somewhere between mid to late forties.
‘So, Poppy…’ He looked at her earnestly. She wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement so she remained silent. She was used to people saying her name as a question the first time they met her, ‘Poppy Day?’ Confirming they hadn’t misheard. But a question when asked usually makes the person’s voice go up at the end and that’s how you know it’s a question, unless you are from Bristol where your sentences go up at the end anyway. Poppy knew that if she ever went to Bristol, she would constantly be trying to answer everything that was said to her until she got the hang of it. While she was thinking about this, specifically how Tom’s voice had not gone up and yet the way he had said ‘Poppy Day’, had felt like a question, he carried on talking, ‘How are you bearing up?’
This was definitely a question. She resisted the temptation to say, ‘You already asked me that on the phone.’
‘I’m actually OK as long as I’m busy, as long as I feel that things are being done to get my husband back.’ Poppy figured that her words would prompt him, give him the opportunity to come out with a strategy, or at the very least his ideas on how to take things forward.
‘Excellent, yes. Excellent.’
More inappropriate ‘excellents’. Poppy stared at him, suddenly feeling that her confidence in him to help her deliver Martin home simply because of how he spoke might have been a bit premature, if not completely misplaced.
‘I thought the article was very well written. I liked your candour, the fact that you weren’t afraid to state the situation how it is; that was refreshing, excellent in fact.’
Poppy thought that maybe he thought she had written it. ‘Well, I only spoke to Miles Varrasso, the journalist, he pulled it all together. It wasn’t down to me at all.’
‘Quite, quite, but still, a really compelling article. Well done, well done you.’
Poppy didn’t know why, but she said, ‘Thank you,’ as though she could take some of the credit.
There was a second of awkward silence before Tom broke the deadlock, ‘When was the last time you had any actual contact with Aaron, Poppy?’
‘I’m sorry?’ She needed him to repeat the question and it was nothing to do with thinking time, but more the hope that she had misheard the MP for Walthamstow East.
‘When was the last time that you had any actual contact with Aaron?’ he asked.
She was slow in forming her response, ‘I have never had actual contact or in fact any contact with Aaron.’
‘No contact at all? What, not since he was sent on tour?’ He looked totally confused. Poppy was later to realise that was because he was.
‘No… None at all.’
‘Surely you don’t mean that you haven’t been in contact since you were married?’
‘No. What I mean is I have never met or been married to Aaron. My husband is Martin. Martin Cricket?’
Tom scanned the article which he had unfolded on the ink blotter in front of him. He scratched his scalp, his expression blank. ‘Oh… right… yes, Martin, of course, excellent. So, who is Aaron?’
Poppy bit down on her lip, thinking of how to respond. The words of Miles Varrasso came into her head, uncensored, brutal and exactly what she was looking for: ‘The situation, Tom, is this; two soldiers, both Brits, were taken in a carefully planned ambush in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. One, Aaron Sotherby, they decapitated and shoved his body, complete with severed head, at the gates of the barracks. One other, namely Martin Cricket, my husband, was taken hostage. Eyewitnesses confirm that he was certainly beaten upon capture, but probably not dead. He is currently being held captive by the ZMO, somewhere in Garmsir…’
Poppy didn’t intend to be rude or offend. He stared at her without speaking. She felt angry, furious, in fact, that he had asked her there with the offer of help and didn’t even know who her husband was, much less the situation. She decided he was a dickhead.
When he did speak, it all became perfectly clear. Tom Chambers was a petty opportunist who could probably do very little to help her cause. ‘Well that’s excellent…’
‘What is?’
He looked perplexed again. ‘What is what?’
‘What exactly is excellent, Tom, about what I have just told you?’
‘What?’ He screwed his eyes shut. His top lip curled up over his large teeth as he tried to make more sense of the conversation.
She decided to try and cut him a bit of slack, not exactly feeling sorry for him, but seeing that he didn’t have the brain capacity to effectively mentally joust with her, more�
�s the pity. ‘OK. Let’s start again, shall we, Tom?’
He nodded, almost grateful for the guidance.
‘I need all the help that I can to bring my husband home. I will do whatever it takes. Whether that means publicity, or the right word in the right ear, I don’t know, but what I do know is that I will try any avenue including liaising with you and your party, if that means that I get Martin home. OK, Tom?’
He nodded.
Poppy took that for understanding and continued, ‘So, what is it that you want from me? You seemed very keen for us to meet up?’
‘Yes, well I was…’
‘Not so sure now you have actually met me though, right?’
He grimaced slightly not laughing in case that too might be the wrong thing to do. Poor Tom. ‘Not at all, Poppy, although you are certainly not what I was expecting.’
‘What were you expecting?’ He had her interest.
‘I don’t really know, but I guess someone a bit less, spirited!’
‘Ah Tom, when you grow up around here, “spirited” is definitely a good thing. In fact, “spirited” is highly desirable, if survival is a high priority for you.’
‘I don’t know anyone that grew up around here.’
This made Poppy chuckle loudly at her MP. ‘Of course you don’t. Why would you?’
He stared at her with a look of absolute confusion.
‘So, as I was saying, Tom, what exactly is it you wanted from our meeting?’
He reddened slightly, an indicator that what was coming was the truth. ‘I figured, Poppy, that with you being anti the deployment, and stating how unprepared your husband was by the army, that maybe you might say a few words in support of what we are trying to achieve, politically. I mean it’s the other lot that sent our boys there in the first place and a bloody mess it is too, and getting worse if this unfortunate episode is anything to go by…’
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