Poppy Day (38 page)

‘A
RE YOU SURE
you don’t want to come with me?’

‘Positive. Peggy and I are going to have one last look around here and say goodbye. I’ll drop her off with Jen and I’ll meet you up there, Mart, like we agreed…’ Poppy lifted the baby girl in the crook of her arm and placed a gentle kiss on her downy forehead. The baby splayed her tiny fingers before resettling them against her dozing chest.

‘Maybe you could come with me now and drop Peggy off later? Bring her to say hello? We could get a photo?’

‘I said no, Mart, please don’t. Let’s just stick to the original plan. There’s no point.’ Tears pooled in Poppy’s eyes, her mouth contorted, ready to cry. A promise was a promise.

‘It’s OK, darlin’, I understand. I just didn’t want you to miss an opportunity that might not come again.’

‘I can’t help it, Mart. I don’t want to see her. It’s not her any more. It hasn’t been her for a long time.’

‘You don’t have to explain again, Poppy. I was just thinking that once we’ve moved, it’ll be harder to get up to see her. Bordon’s not exactly got a tube station…’

Poppy pictured her new house in the Hampshire countryside. There was already a bird table and a swing in the garden and she couldn’t wait. Martin kissed his wife’s freckly nose and ran his finger over the mouth of his sleeping daughter, Peggy Alessandra, ‘Bye my beautiful girls…’

‘Your cap badge’s wonky; can’t have you at the Cenotaph looking anything less than perfect.’ Poppy twisted the REME horse that glinted on her husband’s beret. Martin wore his new regiment colours with pride. The transfer had been easy and in three days’ time he would start to train as a mechanic. Before they left London behind, there was the small matter of the Remembrance Day parade to attend, as guests of honour, no less. It seemed, somehow, more poignant this year; not only because of what they had been through, but because of Aaron…

It was a quiet day, much like any other at The Unpopulars. Twenty or so people that used to have lives, sat on squeaky vinyl seats, tapping the arms of the chairs with gnarled fingers in time to the
Countdown
tune. Balancing the odd cuppa and sipping the bitter liquid, trying not to think of a time when tea could be made in their own kitchen to their exact specification: a bit more milk, a bit less sugar, a favourite mug. A kitchen in a house where there were bills to be paid, calls to be made, grass to mow, groceries to fetch, the touch of human skin across the mattress at night. Trying not to think of a time when they had a life, before this…

They had been herded together for simplicity, fed and watered until a last breath took its toll on tired lungs. It would, of course, be for the best. They’d had a good innings and at least they never suffered. Never suffered? They had no idea.

‘Nathan?’

‘Yes, my love?’

‘There was someone that I wanted you to meet.’

‘Oh right. Who was that, Dorothea?’

‘I don’t know…’

‘Well, I’m sure it will come to you.’ He tried to change the subject, switch her focus, ‘How about a nice cup of Rosie Lee? I may even be able to rustle up a couple of choccie biccies, but don’t tell everyone, I save them for my favourites.’

‘Am I your favourite?’

‘Oh yes, you most definitely are.’

‘Can you get my mum for me? I haven’t seen her for a long time and I miss her.’ Dorothea’s breathing became irregular; she couldn’t understand where her mum had vanished to.

‘I’ll see what I can do. Now, let’s see about that cup of tea.’

Nathan looked up from the task in hand. ‘Ooh look, Dorothea, you have a visitor.’ He and Martin shook hands. ‘Wow! You brush up well! On your own, soldier?’

Martin nodded, ignoring the slightly accusatory tone. It was hard to explain just how difficult it was for his wife.

Poppy wandered the small rooms in the flat that had always been home. She felt a strange pull in her chest, desperate to be gone from the concrete confines of E17, yet reluctant to walk away from the host of so many memories. She pictured Wally, asleep of course; her nan laughing in the kitchen; and she thought about her mum, Cheryl, who, having given birth to Poppy at sixteen, had been denied the opportunity to ‘’ave a life’ in her early years, and had been determined to ‘’ave a life’ since… actually, since as early as Poppy could remember.

‘You have no idea, Poppy, what I’ve given up for you. I was going to go to sec-a-terriall college.’ Poppy could hear her saying that throughout her childhood and teenage years. It was, of course, total rubbish, complete and utter crap. She never gave up anything for Poppy; she didn’t have anything to give up in the first place. Instead, her daughter became, in her mind, the reason that she was not an air hostess, a croupier on a cruise ship or catalogue model. Why, generally, she had not set the world on fire, achieving all the things that she may or may not have dreamt about. It took the responsibility away from her; it was all someone else’s fault. More specifically, it was Poppy’s fault.

Poppy knew, however, that with or without her child in existence, Cheryl would rather have drunk, slept or smoked all day than haul her hung-over arse out of bed. Poppy never told her this. What would have been the point? She smiled at her sleeping daughter and knew that she would be a very different kind of mum.

In every recollection from her childhood, Dorothea was present like bold wallpaper or a loud song on repeat. She’d displayed a particular brand of eccentricity that was a
combination
of comforting and funny. It was both of these things until the ‘Dementia Express’ quickened its pace. As Poppy grew up, Dorothea made her life as happy as it could be. She never tried to make up for Cheryl’s shortfalls, but, whenever and wherever possible, she made her granddaughter laugh, making everything feel slightly better.

It used to puzzle Poppy that her nan felt no sense of responsibility for the way her mum was, as if she didn’t understand how her daughter had turned out to be quite so useless. In fact, similar to her mum in that respect, both seemingly believed that you could opt out of responsibility and, therefore, culpability. It was only now she could see that Dorothea was fighting her own demons and was also cleverer than Poppy had thought, encouraging her granddaughter to be independent and strong. Silently pulling all her strings, wise enough to know that the one thing she did have to ensure was that Poppy could live without her…

‘Hello there,’ Martin called to Dorothea.

‘You ’ere for me?’

‘Yes, it’s Martin, Martin Cricket.’

‘Martin Cricket?’

Martin smiled, ‘Yep.’

‘Bloody stupid name. Ooh, I’ve remembered! I was just saying to Nathan, there’s someone I want to introduce him to. It’s a girl, I think.’

‘Now I’ve already told you, Dorothea, the only girl I need is you.’ Nathan again tried to divert her.

‘I think she might be a relative, not of mine, of Mrs Thingy’s…’

Nathan turned away. Five months ago, the net had finally widened, allowing Poppy Day to slip through the gaps, turning her from tuna to minnow in a matter of moments.

‘Martin?’

‘Yes, darlin’?’

‘Don’t mention the girl to Mrs Whasername.’

‘No?’

‘No. It might make her sad. It doesn’t make sense…’

‘What doesn’t, my lovely?’

‘That girl, it’s odd… I miss my mum. Can you get her for me? I don’t know where she is?’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘I haven’t seen my mum for ages. Can you get her for me? I need to tell her something, but I don’t know where she is. She never came to see me, you know. I was only in bloody Battersea…’ Dorothea chewed her bottom lip and plucked at the buttons on her cardigan.

They were both silent for some seconds.

‘Martin?’

‘Yes, my love?’

‘What’s the girl’s name?’

‘Her name?’

‘Mrs Thingy’s special girl. What’s her name?’

He placed her dry palm inside his hand and stroked her fingers. ‘It’s Poppy Day. Her name is Poppy Day…’

Keep reading for an extract from Amanda’s next novel
, What Have I Done?,
available from all good bookshops and e-retailers in March 2013

I
WOULD LIKE
to send an all-enveloping virtual hug to everyone that has been instrumental in getting
Poppy Day
out there.

The beautiful (inside and out) Caroline Michel and her amazing team at PFD – to whom I shall always owe a huge debt of gratitude…

The Pink Chair Crew at Head of Zeus, especially Mr Cheetham himself, Laura, Mathilda and Becci who know how to take a good book and make it GREAT!

Ami (www.cabinlondon.co.uk) for being brilliantly clever.

A huge thank you to Ian Dale and Grant Tucker for all their brilliant advice, encouragement and support.

The amazing Rhiannon Fox and Allison Williams who run @PoppyDayFans

Paul Smith (www.paulsmithphotography.info) who is responsible for the sigh of disappointment that follows me into every room – he makes me look so darn good in a photo that real life always disappoints!

All my boys: Dad, Simeon (love of my life), Pauly, Simon, Nicky, Luke, Josh, Ben and Noah.

All my girls: Mum, Nan, Josie, Ali, Abi, Stevie and Amelie.

My Best Friend In The Whole Wide World Ever – Carol, who does so much for me, she knows… (and who may be
beautiful
and clever, but couldn’t make a decent cup of tea if her life depended on it… if you don’t believe me, ask Lou!)

… and finally to Henrietta who is the closest thing to a fairy godmother that a girl can have – Henrietta, these two words do not seem enough – Thank You xx

Kathryn Brooker watched the life slip from him, convinced she saw the black spirit snake out of his body and disappear
immediately
through the floor, spiralling down and down. She sat back in her chair and breathed deeply. She had expected eu phoria or at the very least relief. What she couldn’t have
predicted
was the anaesthesia that now gripped her. Picturing her children sleeping next door, she closed her eyes and wished for them a deep and restful sleep, knowing it would be the last one they would enjoy for some time. As ever, consideration of what was best for her son and daughter was only a thought away.

The room felt quite empty despite the blood-soaked body lying centrally on the bed. The atmosphere was peaceful, the temperature just right.

Kathryn registered the smallest flicker of disappointment; she had expected to feel more.

Having changed into jeans and a jersey, she calmly stood by the side of the bed on which her husband’s pale corpse lay. With great deliberation and for the first time in her life, she dialled 999. It felt surreal to put into practice the one act that she had mentally rehearsed for as long as she could remember, although in her imagination the emergency had always been a child with a broken leg or a fire in a neighbouring empty building, nothing too dramatic.

‘Emergency, which service do you require?’

‘Oh, hello, yes, I’m not too sure which service I require.’

‘You are not sure?’

‘I think probably the police or ambulance, maybe both. Sorry. As I said, I’m not too sure…’

‘Can I ask you what it is in connection with, madam?’

‘Oh, right, yes, of course. I have just murdered my husband.’

‘I’m sorry, you have what? This is a terrible line.’

‘Oh, I know. I’m sorry, I’ll try and speak up a bit. It’s always a terrible connection from here, even if I’m phoning someone locally. It’s because I am up in the main bedroom and the
reception
is very bad. My son thinks it may be because of all the big trees around us; we did cut them right back one year, but I can’t remember if it made any difference. Plus we get interference from the computers in the next building; we’ve been meaning to get it looked at, but that’s by the by. Right, yes. I said, I have murdered my husband.’

Kathryn blinked at the humming strip light that winked overhead; the bulb needed to be replaced. It was a distraction that could easily become annoying.

‘Did you do it?’

Roland Gearing rested his weight on splayed fingers, his hands forming little pyramids that, incredibly, supported his muscular frame as he leant over the table. He lowered his voice an octave; this was the one question he knew he had to ask and yet he was fearful of her response.

‘Did I do it?’

‘Yes, Kathryn, did you?’

He held her gaze, hoping to instil trust, trying to tease out the honest answer. He knew a lot about lying and relied on his gut instinct. Years on the job had taught him to monitor the interviewee’s pupils carefully.

‘It’s a question that I wouldn’t normally ask quite so early in proceedings, but as your friend – as Mark’s friend too – I feel I have to. Is that okay?’

‘Yes, yes of course. I understand.’

She gave a fleeting smile as her index finger and thumb looped her hair behind her left ear and then her right.

Her calm composure rattled him; there was none of the hysteria or fear that usually characterised these encounters. Women in similar situations were often almost insane with terror, rage or the dread of injustice. Kathryn, however, appeared placid.

She remembered her husband’s glassy eyes. The way his fingers slipped and missed as they struggled with an invisible tourniquet that stopped the breath in his throat. Her nose wrinkled; her nostrils still carried the faintest trace of the iron stench of Mark’s seeping blood. It had repulsed and comforted her in equal measure. It was as if she could taste it at the back of her throat. She hadn’t sought to ease his discomfort in his dying moments, nor had she offered any words of solace. She had in fact smiled, as though he would manage, was still the strong, capable man who could cut wood, paint walls and raise a hand.

She may have even hummed, as though she wasn’t hovering, desperate to witness the demise that would mean the end of the whole sordid chapter. When she had spoken, her tone had been nonchalant.

‘Take your time. I’ve got hours, nowhere to go and a whole lifetime ahead of me. A promise is a promise.’

Her flippant pragmatism hid a heart that groaned with relief.

‘I haven’t got long.’

His voice had been a waning whisper. His final words coasted on fragmented last breaths.

‘Too slow, painful. You’ll pay.’

She mentally erased the words before he had finished. She would not share, recount or remember them.

‘Oh, Mark, I have already paid.’

Bending low, with her face inches from his, she breathed the fetid air that he exhaled, sharing the small space where life lingered until the very end. Kathryn marvelled at the capacity for human animals to cling to the ‘now’. It was quite impressive, fascinating even, despite the obvious futility.

‘Yes. Yes, I did it, Roland. It was me. Me alone.’

There was a hint of pride in her admission, as if she were commenting on an achievement. Roland found it most disconcerting. He shook his head. Disbelief clouded everything, even after having seen and heard her confession. He looked at the neat, middle-aged woman with the pretty face sitting opposite him. The same woman who had handed him canapés on
doily-decorated
platters, served him percolated coffee and proffered homemade cake. The facts would simply not compute. She had been married to Mark Brooker, a man that he liked and admired. A man he had trusted with the education of his only daughter.

Roland exhaled slowly and scratched his chin where his stubble was at its most irritating. The hot, stress-filled environment of the interview room did nothing to help his sensitive skin. He wanted to go home and shower. Better still, he wanted to rewind the day and not pick up the 3 a.m. call that would disturb his family’s rest and destroy the community as he knew it.

Kathryn sensed his irritation, knowing he was the sort of man who cherished his sleep. She pictured him at home earlier that evening, enjoying sea bream with steamed vegetables and a chilled white, after having spent an hour in the gym,
maintaining
that flat stomach. Neither could have guessed that his Sabbath would have ended like this, with him facing her across the table inside Finchbury police station at this ungodly hour, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

‘Are you sure you want to talk to me?’ he prompted.

His jacket fell open, revealing the hot-pink silk lining of his handmade suit. She imagined his fellow police officers taking the mick, but knew enough about Roland and the care he took with his appearance to realise that he wouldn’t pay them any heed. He would never be seen in the cheap, crumpled brands that some of his contemporaries wore. Kathryn recalled a conversation she had overheard between him and Mark in which he’d lamented the loss of his uniform, an inevitable consequence of climbing the ranks and becoming chief inspector. He had taken such pleasure in polishing buttons, shining boots and removing specks of lint from the wool of his tunic. She watched as he ran his palm over his abs, clearly enjoying the feel of himself against the inside of a crisp, white shirt.

‘Yes.’

‘You are absolutely certain that this wouldn’t be easier with a stranger?’

She noted the flash of wide-eyed hope.

‘I am positive, Roland. Thank you for asking, but there is no one else that I would rather talk to and I appreciate you coming and giving up your sleep, I really do.’

It was as if she didn’t get it, as if she had invited him over, rather than the fact he had been hauled from his bed in the early hours in response to the first suspected murder on his patch in eighteen years. There was no quaver to her voice, no hesitation or apparent nervousness. Her hands sat neatly folded together in her lap. She looked as calm as someone waiting for a doctor’s appointment.

Roland had been a police officer for twenty years. He had seen things – gruesome, unjust and amusing things. But this? It made no sense; it was shocking. It had stunned him, shaken him.

‘You seem very calm, considering your current situation.’

He wondered if she was in shock.

‘Do you know, it’s funny that you should say that, because I do feel calm. I feel very calm.’

‘That worries me greatly.’

‘Oh, Roland, there’s no need to worry, no need at all. It makes a pleasant change for me, this feeling of serenity. I had almost forgotten what it was like! In fact I don’t think I have felt like this since I was a child. That was a lovely time in my life, when I had absolutely nothing to worry about and I was very much loved. I had a wonderful childhood, a wonderful life. I wasn’t always this way, you know.’

‘What way?’

‘Oh, you know… afraid, edgy, contained. I was quite determined. Never racy or wild, but I had a quiet belief that I could set the world alight, blaze trails. I thought I would achieve so many things. My parents always told me that the only limit to my achievements was my imagination and I believed them. They are both gone now, and I don’t think about them too much.’

‘Why not?’

She exhaled deeply.

‘To tell you the truth, Roland, I have always thought that the dead might watch over us in some way, even have the capacity to protect us. If my parents have been watching over me, then I am ashamed for all that they have had to witness, mortified by what I have become. On the other hand, if they were able to protect me from their viewing gallery on high, why didn’t they? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked for help, prayed for help, all to no avail. So I tend not to bother. It’s far too confusing and that’s one thing that I haven’t needed any more of – confusion.’

‘If you did it, Kathryn, then it begs the question, why? Why did you do it?’

With the small smile of one uncertain of where to begin, yet aware that she had to, Kathryn slowly formed her response.

‘It’s quite simple, really. I did it so that I could tell my story, unafraid.’

‘Your story?’ Roland was baffled.

‘Yes, Roland. I needed to tell my story to my children, to our family, our friends, even our community, without fear.’

‘Fear of what exactly?’

He had been listening to her for a while now, yet was still no nearer to understanding.

A small laugh escaped her lips. At the same time an unbidden tear rolled down her face.

‘Oh, Roland, I don’t know where to begin! Fear of pain, death, but most importantly fear that I would disappear inside myself and never resurface. I don’t know where I have gone, you see. I don’t know where the person that used to be me is any more. It’s as if I have become nothing, like I have been living outside of society even though I am within it. My life has felt so inconsequential, as if it doesn’t matter what happens to me. I have become invisible. Very often I speak but no one hears me. Earlier today something happened that changed me, Roland. I can’t say that it was a big, momentous or even a particularly memorable thing, but something happened and I knew that I had had enough. It was time, it was my time.’

He contemplated her words and decided not to ask just yet what that ‘something’ was that had changed her.

‘You need to consider what you are saying, Kathryn. I want you to think very, very carefully about what you say and who you say it to. Your words and actions from now on can dramatically affect how things turn out for you. Every scrap of information that leaves your mouth will be recorded and will affect your future.’

Again the small laugh.

‘Oh my goodness, Roland. My future? That’s another funny thing: the fact is I don’t have to think about anything very carefully now. I’ve already thought about it. I’ve had years to think about it.’

Roland paused and weighed up the options, trying to decide on the best course of action. His eyes widened suddenly. There was one possible way out for the headmaster’s wife.

‘I think it would be a good idea for you to see a doctor, Kathryn. For your own good.’

‘Ah, yes! A psychiatrist, I assume? That would be fine. You will see that I am very good at acting on suggestions, agreeing with statements and following orders. In fact, I can’t tell the difference between them any more! But I should warn you that after careful assessment and diagnosis, he or she will write you a long-winded, expensive report that will tell you I am one hundred per cent sane, rational and in full control of all my faculties. The fact is, I acted alone and with complete know ledge and understanding of both my actions and their consequences. But you go ahead; get this confirmed by someone with a
gilt-framed
certificate hanging behind their comfy swivel chair, if it makes it easier for you.’

‘It’s not about what is easier for
me
! Jesus Christ, Kathryn, I can only assume that you have had some kind of breakdown and that your actions are the result of some form of madness, temporary or otherwise.’

She laughed then.

‘Temporary or otherwise? I like that. The fact is, Roland, I am speaking the truth and I do so from a lucid mind. Can I tell you something?’

He prayed for some revealing rationale, a fact or piece of trivia, anything.

‘Yes, yes of course.’

‘There have been times over the last two decades when I could quite easily have lost my marbles, times when things felt so bleak and sad that I wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to let myself sink into depression and opt out. Two things stopped me from giving in to that, Roland, no matter how tempting. Dominic and Lydia. They have been my reasons for keeping sane and keeping going. I would have been no use to them if I’d gone a bit loopy. It’s been a battle, though, I can’t say it hasn’t. I would stare at my distraught face in the mirror day after day and wonder how long I could keep up the pretence. Turns out for quite a while!’