Poppy Day Page 12

  She sounded so wretched, Ned turned and held her in his arms. She breathed in the smell of him, salty, sweaty in the heat.

  ‘That’s enough of that. I’m not going anywhere, Jess. I’m ’ere.’

  They made love again that evening, in a corner of the churchyard beyond the park, hidden behind long grass and a tree. It wasn’t planned, but they sat together in the dusk, under the wide branches of the tree, and were overcome with desire for one another. Jess felt her whole body yearning to be touched and loved. She pulled him close into her, knowing as she did she should be ashamed at being so eager, so helpless with need of him. But she was not ashamed. She was moved that he made love to her so urgently. She didn’t care about tomorrow or next week, only now. And now, if this was how they spent it, was enough.

  When they had become calmer he lay stroking her, kissing her cheeks, her lips, his hand under her blouse.

  ‘Oh Jess, we need to be so careful.’

  ‘I know. But sometimes I just don’t care. It feels as if there is nothing else. Because there ain’t—’ she turned and looked him in the eyes. ‘Not for me.’

  She saw Ned close his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he said, ‘I’m a coward, I should leave her. Go against everyone and go with you, where I really want to be.’

  Jess held her breath, waiting, but he did not speak again, not about that. There was a long silence.

  Polly and Ernie managed to organize a whirlwind wedding the next weekend, before Ernie had to report to his regiment, the 10th Warwickshires. They were married at St Agnes Church in Sparkbrook, where Ernie’s family were regular members and where Olive had attended as a young woman. Polly looked very sweet in a lilac dress trimmed with lace. Ernie’s cheeks popped up over the rim of a tight collar. He sweated both with the heat and with nerves and seemed to find the whole occasion an ordeal, but kept smiling valiantly, clearly happy and in love, as Polly was too.

  It was also an ordeal for Jess. Ned and Mary were invited, and sat behind her, Mary holding Ruth on her lap. Jess could hear the baby’s little sounds as Mary fed her discreetly to keep her quiet. She felt Ned’s presence behind her as if a current was running between them. Her chest was tight with repressed emotions.

  They were the only guests who came back to the house. Jess tried to stay away from him, keeping busy making tea and cutting cake. Then she sat with Polly and Ernie, who as usual had Ronny on his lap, and they made jokes about the two of them soon having their own children, which made Polly blush and look happier than ever. The couple left in the evening for three days’ holiday, staying in a pub in the country.

  Polly came back looking very healthy and said bashfully, that they had had a lovely time.

  Work changed abruptly. Now they were making battalion badges with a crest at the top: underneath, the lettering, ‘Volunteered for Birmingham Battalion’. Evie was full of pride because her new boyfriend had just volunteered. Polly was also proud, but bereft now Ernie was gone, first to Budbrooke Barracks, then on to Tidworth, like Bert.

  Summer waned into autumn, but the impetus for war did not fade with it. The papers showed pictures of Belgian refugees arriving in Britain. Ned told Jess that Bonney the fire station horse had been taken to be shipped to France. They started to hear about battles: Mons, Le Cateau, the Marne. Across the Town Hall, a huge banner read: ‘RECRUITING OFFICE: WANTED, 500,000 MEN. GOD SAVE THE KING.’

  The pressure on young men to join the fighting was becoming irresistible. Jess knew in her heart that it had to happen eventually.

  One evening when she met Ned, he pulled out a white card from his pocket and showed it to her reluctantly. It was his enlistment appointment from the Deputy Mayor.

  ‘It won’t be for long. They’re saying it’ll only last a few months, if that. But I can’t stand by and let everyone else go and not be part of it, can I? I feel like a shirker, a coward, if I don’t do my bit.’

  Ned watched her face. Saw her summon strength inside herself.

  ‘I don’t want yer to go, course I don’t,’ she said. ‘But I s’pose I’d feel the same.’ She smiled tenderly. ‘I’m proud of yer.’

  As they parted that evening, Ned walked home with a sense of relief, freedom even. All these months he had been torn between Jess and Mary, so that he was worn down with it. He felt unsettled and deceitful, when he had been accustomed all his life to people thinking well of him. Going away from it all was a way out. Just men round him. It would give him time to think, to see if he could forget Jess, and pull himself round to doing what was right. Stick with Mary. Or find the courage to leave her and face the consequences. At the moment that felt the hardest, most heart-breaking decision he had ever faced in his life.

  Fifteen

  October 1914

  Jess slammed the door of the privy shut and bent over the wooden seat, retching. Nothing came up except a thin trickle of yellow bile. Holding her hair back she coughed and gasped until it was over. The stench of the dry privy was awful and she stepped out into the yard, taking in gulps of bitter smelling air. For a moment she leaned against the wall, hearing the chunk-chunk of a goods train coming out from the yard behind. A dark plume of smoke thinned out in the air. The sun was trying to struggle through cloud.

  Two months, she’d missed. And sick – for several days now – always aware of her stomach, as if someone had drawn round it in black. At first she’d thought she was ill. But she knew the signs – Sarah’s education again. Knew, in a part of her mind that could barely admit it, that she was carrying a child. The sickness. Everything smelt stronger but nothing tasted nice. Her breasts felt heavy and bruised.

  She heard someone else come out the back door. Polly, in her slip, younger looking in her nightclothes, legs mottled as brawn, shivering now there was a nip in the air. When she came out of the privy she gave a little shriek.

  ‘Flipping ’eck, Jess, I daint see yer there!’

  ‘Poll – come ’ere.’

  ‘What?’ Polly moaned. ‘S’cold out ’ere.’

  ‘Poll – I think I’m ’aving a babby.’

  ‘Oh yes – and I’m flying to the moon!’

  Jess hadn’t said the words even to herself before. Had hardly meant to speak now. Hearing it said frightened her.

  Polly peered at her. ‘What yer talking about? You’re ’aving me on, ain’t yer? By Christ, Jess – yer’d better be!’

  Jess was shaking her head, eyes filling with tears. Saying it made it sound real.

  ‘But yer can’t be! I mean, whose . . .?’

  ‘Ned’s.’ She only whispered the name, but Polly leaped towards her, clamping a hand over Jess’s mouth. She looked anxiously round at the windows of the house.

  ‘What yer telling me this bloody clap-trap for? Eh?’ She put her hands on Jess’s shoulders, thin fingers digging in. ‘Don’t ever come out with any of this in front of our mom or she’ll knock yer block off, that she will!’

  ‘Poll – I ain’t come on for two months.’

  For a moment Polly was speechless. She glared into Jess’s tearful eyes, then pushed her with all her force round the side of the privy and began shaking her, slapping her face, sobbing, finally clutching her hands over her own face.

  ‘Yer stupid, dirty little bitch!’

  ‘Poll!’ Jess hadn’t intended to tell her. It had just swollen up in her mouth and popped out before she knew.

  ‘’Ow could yer be so disgusting? So bloody stupid?’

  Polly was beside herself. ‘Mom’ll . . . she’ll . . .’ She grasped Jess’s wrist. ‘She mustn’t know. Yer not to say a word to ’er. It’ll finish ’er this will.’ She turned, her gaunt face looking round the yard as if there might be a solution there somewhere, then turned again on Jess. ‘It’s not really Ned’s, is it? ’E’s a married man – ’e’s got Mary, the babby . . .’ Her nails were digging so hard into Jess’s wrist that she pulled away, wincing.

  ‘Sorry, Poll.’ She did feel ashamed, then, hearing it spelled out. ‘But Ned and m
e love each other. I know ’e’s married to Mary, but really ’e’s mine.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Jess, yer a bloody dupe, ain’t yer?’ Polly’s voice suddenly quietened, as if with despair. ‘Now don’t you go saying a word to anyone else. Not a word – got it? I need time to think about this bloody lot!’

  Seething with anger and upset, Polly strode ahead of Sis down Bradford Street on their way to the pen factory. How they’d got through breakfast she’d never know, with Jess filling up every few minutes and wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Olive asked eventually. She said it so meaningfully, to Polly’s ears, that she thought her own heart was going to stop.

  ‘I think I’m going down with a cold,’ Jess said in an almost normal voice. ‘I’m awright though – honest. Just me eyes keep watering.’

  Polly was so brim-full of emotion she wanted to howl. She was very short with Sis on the way to work.

  ‘Wait for me,’ Sis complained.

  ‘Keep yer trap shut, will yer. I’m trying to think.’

  ‘But what’s the flaming rush?’

  ‘Oh shurrup, will yer!’

  Sis looked hurt and decided to keep quiet for the rest of the way.

  Polly felt her eyes fill with tears and brushed them away. She’d already been anxious and pent up about Ernie being away. They should be finding a house of their own to rent, moving in together, not parted, not knowing when they’d see each other again. She missed him terribly. His quiet, stable nature steadied Polly. She trusted him absolutely, felt safe with him. Now he was gone she felt alone, and frightened.

  And it was only now she was facing up to how worried she’d been about her mom. Those funny turns she’d had. They’d always been fighters, the two of them. Mother and daughter standing together against cold and hunger, getting by with no man in the house. Life so difficult – her begging round the factories for food after school. Just as she’d thought everything was getting better, her Mom had turned strange on her – thank God she seemed better now, at least for the moment.

  But Jess – the pressure of emotion welled up in her again at the thought of her cousin. She had great affection for her, but this morning she had felt like killing her. Jess just breezes in, takes everything she wants, makes a disgrace of herself with no regard, no idea . . . She felt faint herself suddenly, was afraid she’d fold up, right there in the street, and she leaned against the wall of Clark’s, everything fading round her for a second as black panic spread through her. Things were going wrong, getting out of control, when what she needed was to keep order, keep life in check . . . Jess was like a whirlwind, stirring everything to chaos. What in hell’s name were they going to do?

  ‘Poll?’ Sis’s voice was frightened. ‘Yer face’s gone a funny colour.’

  ‘I’ll be awright. Just ’ang on a tick.’

  She straightened up groggily and took Sis’s arm. Sis smiled at her uncertainly.

  Later, at work, Polly kept an eye on a woman called Sally. She was a bit simple, Sally was, had been taken advantage of by some factory lad a year or so back. But her mom’d got hold of her, made sure the babby never came to anything. Polly waited until the break when Sally went to relieve herself. There was only one toilet downstairs, out the back, in a filthy state. Polly caught her coming out. Her misshapen face looked first terrified, then perplexed, as if trying to remember something deeply buried.

  ‘If yer breathe a word about this yer gunna get a beating—’ Polly had her face pressed up close.

  ‘I’ll not, I’ll not!’ Sally squeaked. From her mouth, the stench of rotten teeth. In a hoarse whisper she told Polly what she wanted to know.

  ‘I ain’t doing that! How can yer even think of it?’

  ‘Yer’ve not got a choice, yer silly little bitch! Yer don’t think ’e’s going to stand by yer, do yer? With a wife and babby to fend for already! You don’t seem to see what a mess yer in! Face it, Jess – yer carrying his bastard child. You’re a fallen woman! You don’t think our mom’ll let yer carry on stopping with us in that state, do yer? She’ll ’ave yer out on the street even quicker than ’e put it in there!’

  Jess felt the words rain down on her like bullets. ‘I’ve got to tell ’im,’ she said stubbornly. Ned would make everything all right. He loved her more than anyone in the world. If she was carrying his child it made her equal to Mary, didn’t it? But in that moment all her certainty deserted her and she was filled with a chill sense of despair. He was married to Mary, so where did that leave her? And when would she see him again? For the moment she was alone. Except for Polly.

  ‘Yer can tell ’im all yer like . . .’ Polly put her face up close, teeth clenched. ‘’E’ll be as keen to see the back of you, and that—’ she pointed at Jess’s belly, ‘as bum boil, that ’e will. Put ’im out of yer mind – where ’e should never’ve been in the first place. Face it – it’s you and that child inside yer. And yer’ll not be able to hide it from our mom for long . . .’

  The two of them stood staring at each other in silence. Jess’s mind raced round and round. What was she going to do?

  ‘Sat’dy night we’ll go,’ Polly said. Jess thought for a second her cousin was going to spit in her face she looked so angry. ‘Then it’ll be over and enough said. What in God’s name were yer thinking of?’

  ‘’E wanted me to – said it’d be awright. And I wanted it as well. I love ’im so much. And I never knew, Poll – honest. I thought it took an age to catch for a babby!’

  ‘Well—’ Polly turned away, face twisted with disgust. ‘Now yer know better, don’t yer?’

  ‘Ow can ’er carry on like that right on top of church!’

  The address she’d got out of Sally was in Highgate, close to St Alban’s church.

  ‘I’ll ’ave to carry the shopping after,’ Polly said. ‘You’ll be in no state.’

  It was Saturday, late night shopping in the Bull Ring and lots of bargains. The two of them went most weeks, staggering back with knock down meat, bruised fruit, all they could carry.

  ‘Won’t I?’ Jess said nervously. She was completely ignorant of what was going to happen. She was just doing what Polly said. Letting her take charge.

  ‘I’ll never carry it all,’ Polly was complaining, voice shrill with nerves. Both of them had a handy carrier in each hand, loaded down.

  Tucked in Jess’s pocket was the money she’d got from pawning Louisa’s quilt.

  ‘Oh no – not that!’ she’d protested. ‘It’s the only thing of Mom’s I’ve got!’

  ‘Yer can get it back later, before our mom starts on about it. Yer might get five or six shilling for it, it’s that nice.’

  Jess walked along feeling desperate. She was very frightened, but at the same time, knew she was being given a way out. Things could go back to normal. Life had got knocked out of balance and had to be put back. Anything not to cause trouble and disgrace.

  But shamed as she was, Jess still wanted to resist. Inside her was their child, the result of their love. Whatever the disgrace of it, she had something of him growing in her.

  ‘Down ’ere,’ Polly elbowed her down Conybere Street. It was cold, foggy, the edges of everything uncertain in the smoky gloom. The streetlamps provided pools of smudged light. They walked down past the almshouses, the church, a gloomy, hunch-shouldered edifice looming over the pavement.

  They turned into Stanley Street and Polly slowed, trying to get her bearings. There were dark entries, leading off into the back courts, and all around the sound of human life, children playing, babies crying, doors open along the street to let in some air. They could see into some of the houses, hear the sounds of families carrying on their lives inside: knives and forks, raised voices, children in and out. Normal, Jess thought enviously. A sick feeling grew inside her.

  Further on, Polly stopped. ‘I think this is it.’ Her voice was shaky.

  It was a bigger house on the corner of Catherine Street, and even in the murky light its state
of decay was obvious. The bottom windows were boarded up, and, blind-eyed to the street, the house looked secretive and forbidding.

  ‘It can’t be ’ere, can it?’

  ‘This is it awright.’ Polly’s voice became hard and practical.

  ‘How d’yer know?’

  ‘I just do. Come on.’

  Now she’d seen the place reality really hit Jess. ‘Oh Lor’, Poll – what’s she going to do to me?’

  ‘Yer’ll see soon enough. Just think what’ll happen if yer don’t do it.’ Polly had only the sketchiest idea herself. She had to keep her feelings at bay. This had to happen, didn’t it? What choice was there: putting things to rights, or bringing a bastard child into the world. ‘Come on – round the side.’

  The door was not locked, and after knocking and getting no reply, Polly pushed it open, clutching hold of Jess’s wrist as if she thought she might run away. The hinges whined. Darkness, and a fetid smell greeted them. The building’s decay mixed with something else, cloying and rancid. Jess held the door to the street open. In front of them, very dimly, they could see a long hall and stairs.

  ‘She said it was upstairs . . .’

  ‘Who said?’ Jess was only just managing to control her voice, her heart going like a hammer. The smell made nausea rise in her to the back of her throat. She had to swallow hard so as not to retch.

  ‘Never mind.’

  Polly edged forwards to the stairs. Broken tiles clicked underfoot.

  ‘Hello!’ she shouted. ‘Is anyone there?’ After the second time she called they heard creaking upstairs and a slow, ponderous movement across the floor. Eventually a door opened and dim, reddish light appeared.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘It’s—’ Polly was thrown for a moment. ‘Is that Mrs Bugg?’

  Silence, then, in a wheedling tone, ‘Is that a wench needing my ’elp? Best get up ’ere. I won’t come down to yer.’