Poppy Day (9 page)

Ned ate up his tea in large, hungry mouthfuls, then took his cap and went down to the corner for cigarettes. God knows, he was going to need summat to get him through the evening. He didn’t want to think about what Mary was going through. It only stirred up the turmoil of emotion within him even further.

Once he’d bought ten Woodbines he still wanted to stay out. It was a still, summer evening and his pace slowed. The thought of going back to the cramped house full of all the disturbing, female things going on in it filled him with revulsion and guilt.

He passed a church and thought about going in to sit in the musty gloom to try and set his thoughts straight, but he could hear the chat and laughter coming from the pub so he went there instead, settled with his pint at a table awash with spilt drink, amid the smells of beer-soaked sawdust and smoke. He lit up a Woodbine, not wanting company. If he sat here for a bit, he might get home when it was all over. It was fuggy and comforting in there and his mind drifted. He couldn’t bear to think about the future or what he was going to do.

It was getting on for ten when he walked in. Nothing seemed to have changed in the hour and a half he’d been out. The kettle was boiling. Mary’s mom came down and brewed tea.

‘Getting a bit closer,’ she told him. ‘It’s not often very quick the first time you know, Ned. Nothing to worry yerself about.’

It only then occurred to Ned that he might worry. He thought of Mary upstairs, her scrawny body writhing on the bed. That was as far as his imagination went. He didn’t know what was involved, not really. He sat by the fire drinking tea, a saucer between his feet on the peg rug Mary had made. Over the mantel, a picture of a puppy with bright eyes and a shiny nose stared down at him. Stew and beer formed an uneasy partnership in his belly. The noises from upstairs were growing louder, coming more often, although he could tell Mary was trying to stop herself crying out. Occasionally the cries crescendoed out of her control, like a lid lifted off something.

The clock ticked. The saucer at Ned’s feet filled up with stubs. He sat in the murky light feeling like an old man. The path of his life seemed laid out straight in front of him. Get up, go to work, come home. Mary, babbies, young’uns tearing in and out, struggling to feed them, clothe them, until he dropped dead.

Mary was a good girl, a sweet wife. Cheerful, dutiful, bound up in family, as he’d known she would be. As he’d imagined he would be too, thought that was what he wanted. He’d chosen. But he’d chosen because she was always there, because his family liked her – because he’d barely thought of it as a choice. That was what you did.

He hadn’t seen Jess since the day she’d run from him, crying. Memories, her shape, the way she moved, her eyes, came back to him with such force that he closed his eyes, letting her take him over. She moved before him like a cinematic show, her smile, her dark-eyed gaze burning into him, her lithe figure bounding on to Bonney and trotting off along the road. The feel of her lips on his, that once . . . The thought made him long for her like a hunger. An agonized scream came from upstairs. He got up and paced the room. Lit another cigarette from the fire.

Upstairs, Mary lay limp as a rag between the bouts of pain, her hair soaked with sweat.

Mrs Smith sat on a chair beside the bed, holding her daughter’s hand. Mary almost crushed the bones of it during each contraction, so that her mother barely managed not to cry out too. She was suffering through every pain with her daughter and her face was dragged down with exhaustion.

‘Terrible, watching your own go through it,’ she said to Mrs Martin.

Mary’s teeth were clenching again. She cried out at the height of it, then sank down again, exhausted.

‘Mom?’ she murmured as Mrs Smith wiped her face.

‘Yes, darlin’?’

‘Is Ned here?’

‘Oh yes – ’e’s downstairs, waiting.’ The corners of Mary’s mouth turned up in a faint smile.

Finally, at three in the morning, when everyone concerned felt tested past endurance, Mary pushed out her baby, a girl, and a ‘tiny snippet of a thing’ as Mrs Martin called her. She coughed and squeaked and finally cried, gratingly, waking her father from his uneasy sleep in the chair downstairs.

Ned sat listening to the unfamiliar sounds round him. He heard the child and felt it was a dream. But he was excited. Was that sound part of him?

After a long time he heard the slow tread of his mother-in-law on the stairs.

‘You’ve a lovely little daughter.’ She smiled, revived by joy. ‘Go up and see.’

The tiny face was just visible, a triangle of dark pink flesh between the tight swaddlings. She was lying in the crook of Mary’s arm in the candlelit room.

‘You’ll all be right now,’ Mrs Martin yawned. She stood by the door, waiting.

‘Oh – ’ere,’ Ned slipped coins into her hand. He was shy of her, of what had gone on in this room.

‘Thank you,’ Mary murmured. All her attention was on the baby.

But when they were alone, Ned knelt beside the bed, looking at the pair of them, awed, but distant from what had gone on.

‘Ned?’ Mary’s eyes fluttered open.

‘What, love?’ He leaned closer to hear her.

‘Can we call ’er Ruth?’

‘Awright.’ He would have agreed to anything at that moment. ‘Ruth’s a good name. In the Bible, Ruth is.’ He took Mary’s hand and kissed it.

‘She’s pretty, ain’t she?’ Her voice was fading.

‘She’s the prettiest girl in the world,’ he whispered, gently stroking the infant’s cheek with the side of his finger. ‘’Cept for you.’ At that moment he meant it, was humbled and full of gratitude.

Mary barely managed to smile. She was falling asleep.

He stayed there in the deep quiet of the night, the creaks of the old house and their breathing the only sounds. He watched the child, her face twitching in sleep. He had not yet seen her with her eyes open. He felt his sense of himself expanding, taking in this new responsibility. New life. Family. This was where his duty lay. Eventually he climbed gently on to the bed beside them, and they all slept.

‘We must take her and show her to Mrs Beeston,’ Mary said.

It was Sunday morning. Little Ruth was ten days old, and though tired, Mary was well recovered from the birth. She sat holding the baby, suckling her, smiling down into her face. ‘She’ll be ever so annoyed with us if we don’t pay a visit. We promised, daint we?’

Ned was in the scullery, bent over in his shirtsleeves, trying to unblock the sink. For a moment he froze. Mary didn’t see him.

‘No hurry. Why don’t we leave it for a bit? You’ll get tired traipsing all the way over there. It’s even further now they moved.’

‘Ned!’ Mary laughed. ‘I want to take ’er out and show ’er off a bit! She’s starting to look quite bonny. And Mrs Beeston said she wanted to see the babby, soon as it arrived.’

Ned hesitated. ‘We ought to give ’em a bit of warning – take a note to say we’re coming . . .’

‘Why? What the ’ell’s got into yer? You always said she’d be pleased if you turned up anytime. She sent ’er new address, din’t she? So she wants to see yer. We’ll go after we’ve ’ad some dinner. ’Ow about that?’

‘What’s the matter with yer, Jess – yer poorly or summat?’

Jess was lying on her bed in their room in the new house in Oughton Place. Olive had insisted they move. Apart from the fact that the neighbours on one side, the Bullivants, who had nine children, were a raucous and sometimes quarrelsome lot, they’d had a lucky find. The new house was on a terrace which backed on to the railway, close to Camp Hill Goods Yard. It was much more roomy than the back-to-back they’d been in before, with an extra bedroom, and although there were the usual problems of damp and bugs, the previous occupants had done their best to keep it nice. All the rooms were papered and the roof was sound. Olive kept saying they should have done it years ago.

‘I’m awright.’ Jess lay on her side. Bert had the smallest room, and there was just enough space to squeeze three proper beds into theirs. The wall in front of her eyes was covered with a cream paper patterned with trailing blue roses.

The house was quiet. Olive, feeling more herself since the move, was bolder about going out, and had gone with Sis up the road to the Baptist Church. She wasn’t fussy about the denomination, but liked to go to church somewhere. She said she’d had help from all sorts and she’d pray with all sorts, and Sis liked a singsong when it was on offer. Bert was outside, below their window, slopping whitewash on to the little wall of the yard.

Polly was, as usual, tidying up. They had a small chest of drawers between the three of them, and she was kneeling in front of it taking everything out, folding and refolding their few garments, even the stockings, which Jess had patched and darned until they were almost unrecognizable.

Jess wished she’d go down and leave her alone.

‘What yer doing that for?’ she snapped. ‘Yer always fussing and fidgeting – yer’ve done that I don’t know ’ow many times before and no one’s touched it since.’

Polly sat back on her heels. Her mousy hair was scraped back and tied with a piece of string, her face pale and strained. She also looked annoyed at Jess’s attack.

‘It makes me feel better, that’s all. Keeping the place a bit nice. What’s wrong with that? If it was left to you we’d live in a right heap. When Ernie and I . . . when we ’ave our own ’ouse I’ll keep it nice I can tell yer.’ She got up and went to sit beside Jess on the bed. ‘Look – you’re not yerself. What’s ailing yer, Jess? It can’t be that bad yer can’t tell me?’

This wasn’t the first time they’d had a conversation like this. Jess’s moods had been up and down for weeks, sometimes calm, sometimes silent and withdrawn, and at others viciously irritable.

How could she tell them about Ned? There was no one she could confide in. And all the time she was eaten up with sorrow, with longing.

If I can’t have him, there’ll be no one else, she vowed to herself. I won’t be with anyone just for the look of it, or because that’s what everyone else does. I won’t have second best. Not like Sarah. My dad never loved her. He was scared stiff of the woman. It wasn’t like that with Louisa, not with Mom. If I can’t be with Ned, what’s the point – of anything?

There were a couple of lads at the works who’d taken a shine to her and asked her out. They were all right, except she found nothing to interest her in their company. She wouldn’t go again and they told everyone she was a bit hoity-toity.

‘Cor – daint yer like Billy?’ Evie goggled in amazement. ‘I’ll ’ave ’im off of yer!’

‘Yer welcome to ’im.’ Jess smiled at her eagerness. If only she could feel the same.

People were noticing she’d lost her vitality, Polly especially. She was always on at her, like now, trying to worm out of her what was wrong.

‘Jess—’ Polly touched her cousin’s back which was turned away from her. ‘Is it yer family – them not writing or nothing?’

Jess shook her head. ‘No – I never really thought they would. I mean if they’d left it that long . . .’

‘Is it – well, summat we’ve done to upset yer?’

Another shake of Jess’s head.

‘Yer can’t go on like this – yer getting scrawny like me – ’ere, I can feel all yer bones! When yer came yer were all bonny and strong. I wish there was summat I could do to help yer. Yer acting as if yer pining for summat . . .’

There was a long silence, then Jess’s broken voice suddenly burst out, ‘Oh Polly!’ She buried her face in the bed.

‘What’s up, eh?’ Polly patted her agitatedly. ‘You can tell Poll. Just get it out – you’ll feel better.’

Eventually Jess spluttered out, ‘It’s Ned!’

‘
Ned
?’ Polly actually started laughing. ‘Jess, yer not still hankering after ’im, surely to goodness? I knew yer ’ad a flame lit for ’im when yer first came. I mean everybody goes for our Ned – me included, once upon a time. I know Mary’s the last sort of person yer’d think ’e’d go for, but ’e’s married ’er and that’s that! Yer can’t go on like this over ’im. I mean you hardly know ’im, do yer?’

Jess rolled over and sat up, hair in a mess and her face wet.

‘I do – more than you know. I’ve seen ’im – a few times. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about me and he – kissed me.’ She saw Polly’s face sober up in shock. ‘I love him, Poll, and I know he loves me! Babby or no babby, it’s me ’e should be with. If you feel that way about someone, that’s where yer belong, ain’t it? I can’t stand the thought ’e’ll be with
her
for ever more. In the wrong place with the wrong wife!’ She put her head down on her knees and started crying all over again. ‘I feel as if I’m losing my mind over him!’

‘Oh for pity’s sake—’ Polly took hold of her shoulders and shook her furiously. ‘What the flaming ’ell’re yer going on about? This ain’t some threepenny romance – this is life going on ’ere, Jess – they’re married with a babby . . .’

‘Don’t—’ Jess shook her off. ‘I know it’s bad of me – that’s the worst of it, but I can’t get over it! I can’t stop wanting ’im . . .’

Polly got up and stumped over to the pile of clothes on the floor. ‘I’ve no sympathy with yer, that I ain’t. Never ’eard such a load of clap-trap. Yer just want to pull yerself together. There’ll be someone else. Plenty of men about. Too many if yer ask me. Yer can’t go after someone else’s, that yer can’t. Yer’ve no right.’