The Poppy Factory (32 page)

Saturday 9th September

I am still no wiser about what Alfie’s job is, but it involves working Saturdays. ‘Busiest time for customers’, was all he would say.

He’s equally cagey about how much he is earning, but it’s obviously enough for a pint or two because he went straight to The Nelson on his way home, and has been there ever since.

Saturday 16th September

What was supposed to have been a lovely day turned into a disaster.

Freda’s been on at me to go with her to the West End, not to buy anything since neither of us can afford that, but for what she called ‘window shopping’ and perhaps have a teacake in Lyons. I think she still secretly hankers after the high life.

Alfie’s still working on Saturdays but Mrs B agreed to look after Annie and Ma is always willing to have Johnnie for the day, so off we went and I’ll have to admit I was pretty excited – I so rarely leave the Old Kent Road now that I’m working full time. I’ve certainly never been shopping in those big stores before, let alone for clothes. In our house it’s always been hand-me downs or home-mades.

Those shops! They’re like palaces, with their huge windows, marble pillars and sculptures, and it was all I could do to keep my mouth from hanging open, like some country bumpkin fresh in town. I’ve never seen so many smartly-dressed and beautiful ladies, cruising along the pavements with their children and, in some cases, their servants, in tow.

I thought window shopping meant we were just going to look at the window displays, but Freda’s bold as brass and said there was no point in coming all this way if we weren’t going to look around inside. I felt so scruffy and out of place that I pleaded with her to let me go and sit in a café while I waited, but she dragged me into a shop called Selfridges, which was so enormous and so crowded, that I wondered that anyone could ever find anything.

Freda seemed to know her way around, and led me towards the back of the store where she pressed a button beside a pair of double doors. They opened with the tinkle of a bell, and we stepped into a tiny room with ornate gold-framed mirrors on three sides. When the smart man in uniform closed the doors I felt panicky, but Freda just said ‘bend your knees’ and there was the hum of machinery working and the strangest sensation of leaving my stomach behind. After a moment there was a gentle bump and the man opened the doors again, and I was astonished to find that we stepped out into a completely new place.

I asked where we were, and Freda just whispered, ‘We’re on the second floor, silly. We just came up in the lift.’ Imagine, we had risen up two floors by just standing in that little room. I wanted to know how it worked, but she took my hand and pulled me along between the racks of clothing, saying she needed to find some dresses to try on. I started muttering that we shouldn’t do that if we weren’t going to buy, but she was not to be deterred. The rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur. The shop assistants buzzed around Freda like bees tending their queen, and she must have tried on a dozen dresses, each one more beautiful than the last. I could see them forcing smiles as she politely proclaimed in a posh voice that she hadn’t found
precisely
what she had in mind, but might come back later.

It was the same in Dickens and Jones, and John Lewis. By now I was wilting, so we started heading for Lyons for a cuppa before catching the bus home. We turned a corner and what I saw stopped me in my tracks. Someone pushed past, knocking me sideways, and I could hear Freda shouting, ‘Come on, Rose,’ but my legs were paralysed with the shock.

There on the opposite corner, by the entrance to another large store, was a man with a tray hung from a strap around his neck hawking tobacco, pipes, matches and cigarette papers, with a sign above his head showing the prices and the words:
Help a Disabled Serviceman
. The crowds streamed past him; no-one wanted to buy from such a miserable-looking salesman.

Surely I was mistaken? But no, when I looked again it was definitely him. My strong, proud Alfie, reduced to selling matches on street corners like a pauper?
Why?
When he’d rejected out of hand my suggestion of applying to the Poppy Factory?

I stepped out into the traffic in a daze, hardly hearing the car horns or Freda’s shouts. How I reached the other side unscathed I’ll never understand; all I knew was that I had to reach Alfie and drag him away. When he caught sight of me, his face turned even greyer. As I approached he hissed, ‘What are
you
doing here?’ I grabbed his arm and said he didn’t need to do this, we could find another way, but he pulled it away and told me to let him be.

‘I can’t leave you here, like this,’ I said again, but he said that was what I wanted, wasn’t it, for him to get a job? ‘So now I’ve got one.’

‘But not
this
, Alfie,’ I tried to explain, but he snapped at me to go away and stop drawing attention. ‘I’ve got to finish the shift and return the goods or I’ll be in for it. Go home. We’ll talk later.’

On the bus Freda tried to pump me for information. When I told her I hadn’t even known he was doing it, she said she expected he ‘has his reasons’. But I have simply no idea why he would take up such a demeaning job when there’s perfectly respectable work at the factory. He refuses to accept charity, but he’s prepared to stand on a street corner selling matches. It doesn’t make any sense.

(Later) It’s now eleven o’clock and, as I feared, he hasn’t returned home and he’s not in The Nelson. I’m too embarrassed to check whether he has returned to his parents’ house and I’m sure Freda would have popped round to reassure me, if he had. I must try to rest, even though I won’t be able to sleep without knowing that he’s safe.

Sunday 17th September

It’s been a very long day and I am exhausted from a short, restless night and all the talking we’ve been doing.

Alfie returned early this morning, soaking wet and shivery, having spent the night on a park bench. When I asked him why he didn’t come home, for goodness’ sake, I’d been up most of the night waiting for him and worrying, he just said he was too exhausted and confused about everything to face getting a grilling from me.

Well, of course that made me feel thoroughly guilty, as if it was all my fault he’d taken that demeaning job, and had to sleep rough on top of it all, so I burst into tears and that set Johnnie off too, so we were all in a right mess. I put the kettle on and we drank tea for hours, trying to talk and make sense of everything. Eventually I got him to understand that I’d rather live in our cramped little flat than watch him humiliate himself each day, and made him promise not to go back to it tomorrow. Soon after this, he started to look really peaky and I sent him off to bed with two hot-water bottles, which is where he is now, still sleeping it off, poor boy.

Freda called around after lunch to make sure he was safe, and I had to admit that I still didn’t understand what was going on in her brother’s head, what he’s thinking and why he does what he does. We agreed that love them though we might, the minds of men are a mystery.

Monday 18th September

We seem to struggle from crisis to crisis. Today it got worse, if that’s possible.

I arrived home from work to find Alfie sitting in our kitchen with a miserable face on him and when I asked him, as cheerily as possible, if he’d like a cup of tea, he snapped no thank you, not until I’d cleared a few things up with him.

‘Okay, so now you can tell me,’ he said in a menacing kind of whisper. ‘Just who
is
that creep with the yellow hair you seem so pally with?’

Well, that nearly floored me. It had to be Walter he was referring to, who else could it be? My first thought was that Mrs B must have told him about seeing us together at Waterloo. How else could he know about Walter, and where could he possibly have seen us together?

I played for time by muttering something about not knowing what he meant but then he said he’d seen us together on our way to work this morning.

I was flabbergasted. He’d been spying on me?

‘I was not spying,’ he said, looking me straight in the eye. ‘I just wanted to take a look at this flipping Poppy Factory you keep rabbiting on about, so I followed you.’

I said I’d have told him in an instant if he’d only asked. For a moment I felt pleased that at last he was showing a flicker of interest, then quickly realised that seeing me with Walter had surely put an end to any spirit of enquiry he might have felt.

‘Ah, then I wouldn’t have seen you with lover boy, would I?’ There was a vicious edge to his voice I’d never heard before.

‘For Christ’s sake, he’s
not
my lover boy,’ I said, ‘he’s just a friend who makes me laugh. Nothing more than that.’

‘Oh yeah, I saw the way you looked at him, the way you touched his arm as you parted,’ he said, even more bitterly. It was true, Walter and me are so comfortable with each other these days that those little gestures seem perfectly natural, but I could imagine what Alfie was thinking.

I’m not sure why, but in that instant something flipped in my head and I decided that instead of trying to conceal it I would clear the air by telling Alfie everything: how miserable I’d been, how Walter and I happened to meet one day because our paths crossed on the way to work, and how he made me laugh. How, yes, he was quite flirty with me, and I’d found it flattering at a time when I was at a very low ebb. I went even further, and told him how I’d met Walter for tea at Waterloo and realised just in time that I was being a silly idiot. How I’d been so pleased to have Alfie back in my life, and how I now saw Walter as just a friend.

‘But what I most admire about him,’ I heard myself saying, thinking all the while that this bold talk must surely be going too far, ‘is how he treats his disability. He doesn’t try to conceal it, pretend it’s not there, or feel sorry for himself, he’s just making the best of it. He was out of work for four years and now he’s pleased as punch to have a job which pays a proper wage.’

Alfie’s face was a picture of disbelief. How did I have the nerve to carry on? Johnnie, who’d been playing happily at our feet, sensed the atmosphere and began to whine for attention.

‘He says he won’t be making poppies forever but he loves being able to earn for himself, while doing something worthwhile which will help others. The Major and the other staff are caring, but there’s not a whiff of what you call “bleeding-heart charity” in the place, they’re just getting on with the job in the best way they can. But you think you’re so above all that, don’t you, that you’re prepared to sell matches on the street instead?’

As I spoke, Alfie’s face had become steadily more and more flushed and by now he was puce with rage. He pushed himself up and grabbed his walking stick, and I feared for a moment that he might hit me, but I stood my ground and he stumbled past me, heading for the door and slamming it behind him.

That’s it, I’ve definitely gone too far now, I said to myself, holding Johnnie tight to still his distress but feeling strangely calm and proud of myself for having been so honest, at last. If Alfie didn’t like hearing harsh truths, then too bad, he was not the man I thought I’d married.

Saturday 23rd September

What a week it’s been! Looking back at my previous entry I can now see that this was the tipping point.

To keep my thoughts in order, I’ll have to tell it as it happened.

Alfie did not return home on Monday night and when I dropped Johnnie around to the Barkers’ house the following morning on my way to work Freda answered the door.

‘Yes, he slept here again,’ she said, shaking her head at me in a despairing kind of way. ‘For God’s sake, I thought you two had sorted out your differences?’

‘I told him a few home truths, Freda,’ I replied, relieved to hear he was safe. ‘But if he can’t take it, then that’s his problem. Can’t stop now, though. See you later.’

On the way to work Walter was his usual sweet, charming self and when I told him things were bad at home he promised to buy me a chocolate flake in the canteen to cheer me up. Too bad he never got the chance.

It was nearly eleven o’clock, us girls were getting ready for our break, and we could hear the scraping of chairs signalling that the Poppy Factory lads were finishing off theirs ready to go back over the road, when there was the most almighty rumpus outside in the corridor, with men shouting and doors crashing. Just then the klaxon went off for our break and we all downed tools and rushed outside to find out what was happening, squashing each other through the doorway and out into the street in our haste to find out what was happening.

I could see over the heads of the girls in front that two of the Poppy Factory men were wrestling with a third man – they’d pushed his face down towards the ground and pinned his arms behind his back.

Walter was standing to one side, his face pale as death, being supported by a mate. I would have run to him if my way hadn’t been blocked by the girls in front. Then I noticed the red weal on his cheekbone. Had he been punched? Whatever had happened?

The man they were restraining lifted his head for a second, just long enough for me to see his face. He was hollering things like ‘Let me at him, I’ll show the f******** creep.’ And worse still, ‘Think you can have my wife, do you? Well you’ll have to f******* fight me for her.’ Then the horrible truth dawned. Mary whispered in my ear, ‘Isn’t that your Alfie?’ and I knew she was right. By God, I wished at that moment that the ground would swallow me up, or that I could be anywhere else but here.

Someone shouted, ‘Call the coppers’ and another one said, ‘No, call the Major’ and at that point Mr Mitchell pushed his way through the gaggle of us girls, booming, ‘Make way, make way’, and ‘let that man go, at once.’ Then he took Alfie firmly by the arm and dragged him towards the entrance to the Poppy Factory.

‘You’re coming with me, young man,’ he said. ‘No-one picks a fight outside my premises, especially not with a disabled soldier. You and I are going to take a little visit to the Major, so you can explain to us both what the hell’s going on.’