A Christmas Wish (4 page)

‘It’s okay,’ Poppy whispered as she stroked her daughter’s arm beneath her nightie. ‘It’ll be okay.’
‘It will. Everything will be all right, Poppy Day, I promise.’
It was her nan’s voice once again in her ear.

Peg handed the phone back to her mum and walked slowly to the sofa, where she sat with her hands in her lap and her back straight.

‘It’s me again, love.’

‘Is she upset?’ Poppy heard Mart swallow as he asked.

‘A little bit, but she’s fine now, playing and right as rain!’ she lied, not wanting him to worry later. She knew how important it was to keep his mind on the job; that was how you stayed safe, that and a whole heap of luck.

‘I love you, Poppy Day. I can’t wait to get home and take you in my arms.’

‘I can’t wait either. I love you, Mart. I need you here, not there. But not much longer, baby.’
Another eight weeks.

‘That’s right, not much longer.’

The phone went dead abruptly, but they were used to that. It could be for a million reasons, most of them down to a failure in technology or a dropped connection. It no longer sent her into a blind panic.

Poppy held the phone for a second or two after he’d gone, letting his final words linger in the atmosphere and waiting to see if by some miracle he might still be on the line. Then she took a deep breath and walked into the sitting room, where Peg sat with a steady stream of tears beating the same path down her face, which was ruddy from crying. She sat next to her on the sofa and placed her arm along her little girl’s back, pulling her into her chest with her spare hand, cradling her little head into her neck. She kissed her and held her tightly.

‘M… mummy?’ Peg stuttered through her tears.

‘Yes, darling?’

‘He’s… he’s not coming home.’ Peg struggled to catch her breath.

‘No, he’s not, not yet.’

‘But I wished really hard and I said a prayer and everything and that’s what I wished for! I just wanted my dad back, but it didn’t work. I thought he was phoning to tell me it had reached him, but he wasn’t.’

Peg shook her head and wriggled free of Poppy’s grip so she could face her as she tried to sniff her tears back from where they had come.

‘I’m sorry, Peg. I know it’s tough. I hate him being away as much as you do and if I could wave a magic wand and make it all better, then I would.’

Peg smacked the sofa. ‘It’s not even a proper Christmas without Daddy here. I hate the stupid army!’ She sank back against the cushions and both sat in silence, ordering their thoughts and replaying the words Mart had spoken.

‘What did Mrs Newman say?’ Peg piped up as she remembered the reason for her mum’s outing, forgotten in the excitement of her dad’s telephone call.

‘Oh, she said you were fabulous!’ Poppy smiled. ‘She said you could do anything you set your mind to and that you were a smart cookie. I am so proud of you, Peg.’ These last words were the absolute truth.

Peg’s face broke into a grin and she wiped away the residue of her tears and runny nose with the back of her hand. ‘Do you think she might let me be register monitor next term, Mum?’

Poppy swallowed the emotion that rose in her throat. ‘I reckon, if you pay attention and are very polite, she just might.’

‘That’d be brilliant, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, darling, it would.’ She smiled at her little girl. ‘I know, as a reward for doing so well, why don’t we treat ourselves to one of the special chocolates from the tree?’

Poppy jumped up and walked in an exaggerated fashion over to the window. She lifted one of the little packets and shook it next to her ear. ‘What on earth…?’ She gasped and placed her hand on her chest. ‘Peg! I’m afraid I have some very bad news! Something terrible has happened. We have been visited by greedy little mice who have eaten all our tree chocolates!’

Peg sank back against the sofa, giggling.

Poppy placed her hands on her hips. ‘But they are the cleverest mice I have ever seen! How did they manage to put all the empty packets back on the branches without me ever suspecting a thing!’

Peg now howled.

‘Unless…’ Poppy stroked her imaginary beard. ‘Maybe it wasn’t mice. Maybe it was Max! Where is that big stick?’

Peg laughed through her words. ‘It wasn’t Maxy. It was me, Mum! I ate them all, but I did give him two.’

Poppy flopped down next to Peg and gathered her into her arms. The two of them sat quietly for a moment. ‘It’ll all be okay, baby, I promise you.’ She felt her daughter nodding against her chest.

As she made her weary-footed way to bed a few minutes later, Peg stopped halfway up the stairs and poked her head over the bannister. ‘Jade McKeever said you’d sort Mrs Newman out.’ With that she plodded on towards her bedroom.

Poppy was beginning to like Jade McKeever more and more.

She slipped down on the sofa and, hugging a cushion to her chest, closed her eyes. She didn’t want to sleep alone in their empty bed tonight.
I miss you, Mart, I really, really miss you.
She remembered his first tour, when she slept in their bed alone in the empty flat. Then, like now, she missed retrieving the little pile of dirty linen that gathered on the floor seven days a week – the pants, jeans, T-shirt and socks, evidence of a life lived in harmony with hers. And in the half an hour or so before falling asleep, she wondered what her man was doing, where he was sleeping, what he was thinking. Holding his pillow, she imagined his protective arms around her. She would talk to him about her day, how she was feeling, ask about his. She would hear his response and it was as good as chatting –
‘Goodnight, baby, sweet dreams’ –
as if he was dozing by her side. It gave her comfort then and it still did.

Two days later, Poppy slammed the boot of their little Golf and then patted the door, as if a little TLC might make the difference between the engine finally going pop and it getting them to Oxford and back safely. Bags and brightly wrapped gifts and toys were stashed in the boot space and the back seat was crammed with everything the children might need to keep them occupied for the journey. Each had a piece of electronic wizardry, a book, pens, colouring pencils, their pillow and a little lunch box filled with healthy snacks and a few not so healthy ones to see them through the arduous hour and thirty minutes spent on the A34. Poppy took particular pleasure in making their little packed lunches, something she would have loved when she was little, instead of two slices of white bread glued together with lumps of hard butter and a thin smearing of jam, shoved inside an empty bread bag.

‘You off, mate?’ Jo called from her front door, tea towel in hand.

Poppy nipped up the path of the house next door. ‘Yes, just leaving. You’ve got a key if there are any disasters, haven’t you?’

Jo nodded.

‘See you when we get back.’ Poppy winked at her friend.

‘You bet.’ Jo smiled. ‘Happy Christmas, Pop.’

‘You too, honey. Have a nice relax, spoil yourself a bit and then come over for supper when we are home.’ She felt a little guilty, leaving Jo on her own.

‘Yeah, I’ll be fine. My mum and dad are coming down at some point and my sister will pop in on Boxing Day. I’ll be fine!’ She smiled with false bravado. ‘I meant to ask, how did the play go?’

Poppy bit her bottom lip. ‘It was…’ She searched for the words that failed to materialise and leant on the wall. ‘Oh God, Jo, it was awful. It only lasted an hour, but I felt like we were there for days. Peg, bless her heart, had to say, “I will follow the farmer anywhere. He is my friend!” And she put her heart and soul into it, as though she was at the Palladium. Her head teacher said they wanted to give her a bigger part but couldn’t rely on her to stay on-script.’

‘Bless her. Well, if her acting doesn’t work out, she can always do manicures for a living.’ Jo held up her stripey fingernails.

Poppy jumped into the car. ‘All set, kids?’ she asked as she tilted the rear-view mirror.

‘Yep, prepare to move!’ Peg gave the rolling hand signal her dad had taught her.

Max tried to copy her. Poppy laughed and pulled out, heading towards the A303.

As they drove past the parade of shops, Peg waved and shouted, ‘Happy Chritma!’

Poppy giggled and she too waved at anyone she saw. ‘Happy Chritma! Happy Chritma, Larkhill!’

The Cricket family made the journey to Claudia Varrasso’s house regularly, but twice a year, once in the summer and again at Christmas, they went and stayed. In the warm months they would potter around the neat walled garden, collecting soft fruit and transforming it into golden, butter-coloured crumbles eaten with sloshes of double cream at the garden table, under the shade of the gazebo. After the feast they would paddle in shorts and wellies, bucket in hand, in the stream that ran along the bottom of the village. With their brightly coloured nets they fished for sticklebacks and other tiddlers, which they would examine, name and then set back in the water with a ‘Bon voyage!’.

At Christmas, the cottage always smelt of spiced apple and cinnamon. The gauzy summer nets that fluttered in the breeze were replaced with dark tartan curtains, drawn to ward off the chill of winter. The fire roared in the grate and their summer night-time tipple of Pimm’s, drunk on the grass with the last of the day’s rays warming their skin, was traded for ruby-red port that glazed their throats as they sat with feet curled under their legs on the wide sofa.

Poppy had first met Claudia Varrasso at the funeral of Miles, her journalist friend and Claudia’s son. The two had stood entwined, united by grief, both having shared the love of the man snatched from them in his prime by an act of monstrous violence. They had formed a unique bond, forgetting they had not met until after Miles’ death, sharing stories about him and acting as a salve for each other’s loss.

Poppy, without her mother in her life and with her beloved nan dead, welcomed the feminine, educated Claudia as a guiding figure. For Claudia, whose hope of becoming a grandmother had died along with her son, Poppy and her children were a blessing that she had no right to expect, but one that she nevertheless received gratefully and with love.

‘Are you looking forward to seeing Granny Claudia, Max?’ Peg asked, between mouthfuls of sweets.

Max nodded enthusiastically without any understanding of her question; he had been daydreaming as usual. Poppy smiled at him in the rear-view mirror and felt a rush of love for her little boy who still hovered close to babyhood and yet showed hints of kindness and purity, traits of the man he would become.

‘You know she’s not our real granny, don’t you? But she is our kind-of granny because we are all she’s got, that’s what Mum said to Daddy.’

Poppy grimaced, reminding herself that she needed to censor a little more of what came out of her mouth what with Peg so alert and always within earshot. Max nodded again at his sister, as though he was keeping up.

‘And we are all she’s got because her son was Miles, Mummy and Daddy’s friend, but he got blowed up before we were born.’ This she followed by allowing her fingers to rise and splay into an elaborate arc, accompanying the action with a gurgling sound of explosion.

‘Oh, gosh.’ Poppy felt her heart skip at the casual way in which her little girl referred to what still tore holes in her heart. ‘We aren’t going to mention that to Granny Claudia though, are we, Peg?’

‘Why?’ Peg leant forward. ‘Doesn’t she know?’

‘Yes. Yes she does know but…’ Poppy gripped the steering wheel. When she thought of that day, the moment she lost her good friend, it was as if she was watching a movie, playing the events over in her mind with a clarity that time had not smudged. The girl she saw in her mind’s eye, standing lost in the centre of the action, did not even vaguely resemble her; she looked like an actress on a screen. This somehow made it easier for her to remember, in fact easier to remember all the events surrounding that terrible adventure that had shaped the rest of her life.

She decided to deploy every mother’s last resort: divert and distract.

‘Ooh, did I mention that I got a card in the post for you from Cheryl? You can open it with your pressies on Christmas morning.’

‘Did she just send a card?’ Peg enquired.

‘Yes, Peggy Alessandra, and I’ve told you about being grateful for everything you receive, no matter how small. It’s the thought that counts, right?’

Peg nodded, her nose and mouth curled in disapproval. She turned to her brother. ‘Yes, Maxy, you mustn’t be disappointed if Cheryl only sends cards from Lanzagrotty and not a present. She is your
real
gran that we don’t see. And in all honesty, would not have passed an inspection to rehome a pet let alone have a child – there should be laws against it!’

Poppy gasped. ‘Where on earth did you hear
that
?’

‘It’s what you said to Aunty Jo. Is that a secret too?’ Peg looked perplexed.

‘No! And it’s not that these things are secret, it’s just…’ Poppy blew out through inflated cheeks. Sometimes she simply ran out of the right things to say.

She watched as her daughter wound down the rear window with some urgency. ‘Are you okay, love?’ she asked, wondering just how many sweets Peg had gorged on.

She stared at the wing mirror, calculating how quickly she might be able to cross to the inside lane and pull over. Just as she reached for the indicator, Peg screeched into the afternoon air, ‘Come on, you Spurs!’

‘Peg! I thought you were going to be sick! Did you just wind down the window and shout that at the car we passed?’

‘Yes! They’ve got a West Ham sticker in their window and Dad and Danny next door said that West Ham fans are a bunch of walkers and that I had to shout that out if I saw their sign.’

Poppy was torn between hysterical laughter and fury.
I’ll bloody kill you, Mart!

‘Well, you can ignore Dad and Danny, and I don’t want you shouting that at anyone again, got it?’ Poppy could see Peg miming and mimicking her on the back seat. ‘I can see you in my mirror!’

Peg huffed. ‘I can’t even speak now! I’m not allowed to mention anyone getting blowed up, I can’t talk about Cheryl keeping pets and only sending cards, and now I can’t mention Spurs. Jade McKeever was right.’ She folded her arms across her chest.