The Poppy Factory (27 page)

I feel utterly miserable: my best friend Freda, who I shared all my secrets with, has gone, probably for ever. I can’t see her showing her face around here again – she’d be too ashamed. I can only hope that my worst fears are not realised and that she and Claude can find a happy life together.

Sunday 12th March

Johnnie is seven months old today – I can scarcely believe how the time has flown by. He’s such an active little chap now: he can roll onto his back and back again, and even sit up with cushions wedged behind him. His legs are getting stronger too and he loves to bounce on Pa’s knee. Ma says it won’t be long before he’s walking.

What a joy he is, when everything else seems so grim these days.

Alfie is still poorly with the flu he got from sleeping on Dover Station.

Friday 14th April

It’s Good Friday and although I’m no church-goer, when I passed St Mark’s on my way back from the shop I heard singing and found myself walking up the steps. Without really thinking I popped my head around the door and, to my embarrassment, a lady stood up to welcome me and showed me to a pew in the back row. I could hardly refuse when she was so kindly.

I listened to the service with only half an ear because my eyes were so busy looking at the church: enormous, brilliantly coloured painted glass windows showing bible scenes I could not recognise, the tall pillars reaching up into the gloom of the roof with carved stone faces all around the tops, and a vaulted ceiling with painted angels and stars. There was so much to look at that I could have sat there for hours. And I suppose the gawping stopped me thinking about all my worries and helped clear my mind. Either way I came out of there feeling a lot better than when I went in.

Alfie once told me that any faith he might once have felt got buried in the mud of the trenches, and it’s certainly hard to believe in a god who allows such terrible things to happen in the world he supposedly created. All the same, I found myself sending up a few prayers, just in case someone was listening.

Alfie’s flu got worse and worse but he refused to see the doctor until one day I took matters into my own hands and called him. He whipped out his stethoscope, listened to Alfie’s chest and said, ‘It’s pneumonia – he’s got to go to hospital, at once.’

A week later, Alfie was home but still feeling very sorry for himself, and he hasn’t really picked up since. He mopes around the house in his pyjamas most days, sometimes not even bothering to get dressed and put on his leg. He’s still smoking, which is crazy after all the breathing problems he’s had, and still seems to have the energy to go down the pub with his mates at weekends, spending money we can ill afford. There’s no work for his pa and he’s given up all talk of trying to find another job. Our savings are almost gone.

This is what I prayed last night: ‘Dear God, please bring Alfie back to good health, look kindly on our little family and find a way of helping us get through our difficulties. Also, dear God, please keep Freda and Annie safe. Let them be happy and bring them back to us one day.’

Tuesday 2nd May

My twenty-second birthday, and at last there’s something to celebrate. Yesterday I started work at the collar factory again.

Two weeks ago I met one of my former work-mates in the shop and she told me that Mitchell’s has opened a new factory just opposite the old one. One of our other friends, Marian, had just been given notice because she was expecting, just like I’d been.

Nothing changes, does it? I still feel bitter about Mr Mitchell’s refusal to accept that pregnant women are just as capable as anyone else, but she pointed out it might mean there could be a vacancy for me, if I wanted it. My first reaction was that I couldn’t possibly. Who’d look after Johnnie? As soon as I’d said it, the question answered itself. Of course I could do it, I’d be an idiot to turn it down. Ma would love to have her grandchild a couple of days a week and the rest of the time – well, Alfie was sitting at home doing nothing much. He wouldn’t be very pleased about the idea, that was for sure, but we are in such dire straits I reasoned that he wouldn’t have a leg … (oh dear, I nearly wrote ‘to stand on’, how silly of me.)

The following day I left Johnnie with Ma, and went to the factory. Mr Mitchell said he was very pleased to see me, because I was one of their best seamstresses, which made me blush. And then he astonished me by saying that as it happened, they had a vacancy coming up and how would I like to start next week?

Just as I feared, Alfie refused to consider the idea. ‘You can’t take it,’ was his first reaction. ‘It’s not right for a married woman to go out to work.’

I chose my words carefully, trying not to rub salt in the wound, saying I was sure he’d find a job soon, but in the meantime we couldn’t afford to turn this down. If we didn’t get some money coming in from somewhere we’d soon get turned out of the flat and was that what he really wanted? So then he got even more annoyed, and started going on about who was going to do the cooking and cleaning, the washing and ironing, and look after the boy, while I was out at work?

I suggested that Ma would have Johnnie for a day or two each week, and he’d enjoy being with his daddy the rest of the time. We could do the chores together, when I got back from work. Alfie didn’t say much after that, but got his coat and left, saying he needed a pint. I know it is hard to accept that I have to be the breadwinner for a while, and I would far rather it was the other way round. A job would make him feel so much better about himself, give him a reason for getting out of bed every morning. But this is the situation we are in right now, and he has to recognise that it won’t be for ever.

When we were courting and planning our lives together, we used to talk for hours about how we would share everything, be equal partners, have the same rights when making decisions. But it irks me that this never seems to work in practice. Do all men revert to their fathers’ ways? Will they always assume that the chores and boring stuff are women’s work, while they swan around making decisions and doing what they please?

He still hasn’t really accepted it, but Ma’s been looking after Johnnie for the past couple of days since I started back at the factory. Although I have to pretend to Alfie that I’m only doing it because of the money, I absolutely love being back at work. The new factory is airy and light, and Mr Mitchell’s invested in more modern machines, too. But what I love most is the feeling of satisfaction from doing a good, careful piece of sewing to make a collar that sits perfectly, the chatter and fun with the other girls, and freedom from the drudgery of cooking, cleaning, laundering and ironing filling my days.

For my birthday, Alfie got me some talcum powder that he knows I love, and Ma had made a delicious walnut cake for tea. Johnnie helped me blow out the candles.

Saturday 27th May

Ma has been a Trojan these past few weeks, looking after Johnnie almost all day every day. Alfie does a few stints, but usually seems to find some excuse for not looking after him for more than an hour at a time. He claims that he’s busy going out looking for a job but surely he can’t be doing that eight hours a day?

He still hasn’t forgiven me for going back to work. He’s surly and miserable much of the time and spends most evenings with his mates in the pub. Yet if I come home with something nice for tea he’ll grumble about the cost of it – he really seems to resent the fact that I am bringing some money back into our household. I can understand his pride is injured, but I try to tell him it’s just tiding us over a tough patch, till he can find a job.

But what if he
does
find a job? He seems to assume that as soon as he’s back at work I will stop work and stay at home with Johnnie, but I’d be really sorry to give it up.

Sunday 4th June

We went to Sunday dinner at the Barkers’ house today. Mr B has just landed a couple of new contracts to supply second-hand furniture, and they’d splashed out on a leg of lamb to celebrate, with all the trimmings. The meat was delicious – Pa had selected a top quality joint for the occasion. They told him they’d soon be able to repay his £50 loan, too, which I know has been weighing on their conscience for the past six months, but for the moment there’s no chance of enough work to employ Alfie again.

There’s still no news from Freda, and Alfie warned me not to mention her name because his ma is still very fragile. It’s a bit like being bereaved, I suppose, and we know all about that. Just when you’ve got so you think you can cope with the idea, it jumps up and bites you again and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop yourself from crying.

Mr B started talking about the new contracts he’d got. One is for a landlord who he’s worried might be another shyster like Claude, but this time he’s being extra careful about keeping the paperwork squeaky clean, and making sure he knows where the goods have come from. The other is much more interesting, and really made me prick up my ears: he has been asked to supply some ‘cheap but sturdy’ chairs, tables and workbenches for a new venture being set up in the old Mitchell’s collar factory premises opposite the new place where I work.

He’s obviously impressed with the man. ‘Grand chap, very posh,’ he said, ‘but very pleasant and not stuck up. He’s dead keen to make sure he gets what he calls “value for money” because it’s something to do with a charity – the British Legion, I think he said, though heaven knows what kind of business it’d be.’

I vaguely remember that it was the British Legion who organised the poppies we sold last year to raise money for disabled soldiers. I’m going to keep my ears to the ground when I go back to work tomorrow.

Wednesday 7th June

I didn’t have to wait long: today a big sign went up on the wall of the old factory opposite:

DISABLED SOCIETY

POPPY FACTORY

I was so excited that I could barely concentrate on my work and, in the tea break, couldn’t help telling the girls about the American teacher who came up with the idea of a poppy symbol to remember the fallen, and the French lady who’d set up workshops and paid disabled soldiers to make them. ‘Looks like the same thing’s happening here, isn’t that wonderful?’

But they just sucked on their ciggies and nodded, looking bored. I suppose it means so much more to me, having lost two brothers and being married to a disabled soldier.

Then, as I was going out of the door at the end of my shift this afternoon, I happened to meet Mr Mitchell who was just coming back in.

‘Hope you don’t mind me asking, Mr Mitchell.’ I pointed to the new sign. ‘Do you know anything about that?’

‘Ah yes, as it happens, I do,’ he said. ‘Because I’ve leased the premises to a chap called Howson, Major George Howson MC, no less.’ (I didn’t know what MC stood for, but it sounded impressive, and Alfie would soon tell me.) ‘He set up the society with the idea of making poppies, you know, like were sold last November for remembrance. And he’s got some cash out of the British Legion now, so it’s all systems go.’

‘Is he going to employ disabled soldiers, like that French woman?’

Mr M looked puzzled. ‘Don’t know about any French woman, but that seems to be the general idea, far as I can tell. Got some extraordinary bits of kit in there – tells me he’s designed it ‘specially so it can be used by chaps with no arms or legs, that sort of thing.’

I can’t wait for Alfie to get home, so I can tell him about it. Just imagine? He might even be able to get a job there.

Saturday 1st July

I’ve found out lots more about the new Poppy Factory. I was on my way home from work last week when I saw six men arranging chairs on the pavement, preparing to have their photograph taken in front of the sign. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and they looked so pleased with themselves that I couldn’t help giving them a wave and one of them, a lad with one arm and a thick bush of wiry, almost yellow-blond hair waved back with a cheeky smile as I went by.

I thought nothing of it until I was walking to work the following Monday morning and my path coincided with that same lad, at the corner of the road. He tipped his hat with that chirpy grin and wished me good morning. So I saw an opportunity to quiz him and asked if he worked at the Poppy Factory.

‘As of two weeks. Best thing that’s happened to me since this.’ He waved his stump cheerfully. ‘Been out of work four years, and when they gave me my first pay packet last Friday I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Been celebrating all weekend! D’you like dancing, Miss?’

I ignored his question and asked if anyone could apply and he told me it was especially for disabled servicemen. He’d just read about it in the newspaper and went along and the Major took him on right away. ‘He’s a good egg and all,’ he said.

Was that Major Howson, I asked?

‘That’s the one: tall chap, dark hair and big moustache,’ he said. ‘Set the whole place up on a shoestring with some grant or other from the Legion. He’s ever so clever at inventing machines, you know, what people who’re missing bits, like me, can operate. We’re turning out poppies by the hundreds now. The design of ’em is so simple, you can make them with only one hand, which suits me to a T.’

When I asked if he knew whether there were any vacancies he said I’d have to ask the Major. By this time we’d reached the door of the factory. ‘Tell him Walter sent you – that’s me, by the way. Can I ask your name?’

I thought this a bit forward, but I told him all the same, he was that charming.

‘“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet …”’ he quoted, winking at me. ‘William Shakespeare, learned it at school. See you again Miss Rose.’

I was about to correct him, to tell him I was a Mrs, actually, but he’d disappeared.

Anyway, of course I rushed home that day to tell Alfie, but he just got cross again.

‘Don’t you ever give up, Rose?’ he growled. ‘I’m not a bloody basket case you know. I’m perfectly capable of doing a normal job and I don’t need f****** charity from some do-gooding Major whass’name. Just leave me be, will you?’

I felt a hot fury coming over me and was about to shout back that if he’s no basket case he ought to get off his backside and go out looking for a job, for once, and not sit around moping all day and drinking all night. About how he could at least pull his weight and help around the house, or look after Johnnie more often. But just then Ma arrived back with the little lad, who was so happy and smiley it was impossible to stay angry any more.