Poppy Day (10 page)
They heard the door rattle open downstairs. Olive and Sis were back. Sis was singing a bit of a hymn with her sweet young voice.
‘Don’t let on to our mom about this,’ Polly hissed. ‘That’s the last department you’ll get any sympathy from!’
‘Can’t say I’ve ’ad a lot from you neither,’ Jess sniffed.
‘Well—’ Polly turned, angrily. ‘What the hell d’yer expect? ‘Ooh – Mom, look who’s paying us a visit. Oh, and the babby – ’ark at ’er blarting!’
The tiny hall was crammed full of people all of a sudden, vying for a space on the lino as Sis opened the door. Dinner was over and the house still smelt of tasty stew. They were all sitting having a cuppa to finish off the meal. Ernie was there, as usual now, on a Sunday.
Polly’s eyes whipped round to meet Jess’s, full of warning. Jess looked away. She could hear Ned’s voice in the hall and she was paralysed. Her hands turned clammy, heart feeling as if it was hammering a path out the front of her. She put her cup down, clattering it on the saucer.
Somehow she managed to stand up and do the expected things that the others were doing.
‘’Ere she is then, after all the waiting!’ Mary held her out to be admired as if everyone’s lives had been spent in anticipation of this moment. She beamed round at them.
‘You sit down, wench,’ Olive said, guiding her to a chair.
Jess took in the sight of Ned as he came round the door. Had he changed? Thinner, a bit. Tired. But still the person she loved, and longed for.
‘Poll. Jess.’ He nodded at them. He didn’t hold Jess’s gaze. He looked quickly away, but so did she.
Everyone stood round Mary, cooing over Ruth, even Bert.
‘She’s a bonny one, Ned. Ain’t yer?’ He held Ruth up, making playful faces at her. ‘’Ere y’are, Poll – I can see you’re dying for a hold.’
Polly was drawn to the child in spite of herself. She smiled stiffly at Mary and said, ‘She’s a lovely babby,’ and Mary beamed like a cat with the cream and said,
‘She’s the prettiest babby
I’ve
ever seen and I don’t think it’s just me being partial.’
Jess’s thoughts raced elsewhere. She could read nothing in Ned’s face. He was like a stranger, his expression closed. Had her lips touched this man’s? Had he aroused such feelings in her? But her body remembered, making her flushed and unsteady, even if her mind had doubts. She prayed no one would notice, especially not him. Oh, but the effect he had on her. Even a look from him!
She had to go and admire the baby. In any case, she was curious to see what Ned’s child would be like. Mary was chatting on, cheerful.
‘She’s a right greedy little thing,’ she told Olive. ‘On and off of me all day long. I never knew it’d be like that. Ooh, I was sore to start with . . .’
‘It’ll settle down.’ Olive couldn’t take her eyes off the infant. She lifted Ronny up to look. ‘See what our Mary’s brought to show us – she’s called Ruth, look, Ronny.’
‘Babby!’ Ronny shouted reaching out to her, hands smeary with gravy. ‘Babby, babby!’
Jess watched quietly. She found she was standing next to Ned, although she was sure he hadn’t intended to come close to her. She felt she must say something. ‘She’s a lovely babby, Ned. Congratulations to yer both.’
‘She is.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Ta, Jess.’ He looked round at her. Jess didn’t know if her eyes held any of the hurt she felt. In his she saw . . . something. Longing? Sorrow? Or did she imagine that? Then Olive was saying,
‘We can’t just stand about all afternoon – park yerselves on a chair if yer can find one. There, Ned – pull up one of these from the table.’
‘I like yer new house,’ Mary said, eyes roving the room. This was one of the things that aggravated Polly about Mary, always poking round to see what you’ve got. Always after more. She had an eye for the main chance marrying Ned, Polly always said. Her family wasn’t much, after all.
‘It was time we ’ad a bigger place,’ Olive said quickly. ‘Now Jess’s stopping with us, and Ronny getting bigger.’
‘That Regency stripe in the front’s lovely, ain’t it, Ned? We could do with some of that in ours. This is pretty in ’ere, an’ all . . . I like a pretty paper on the wall I do. Gives the whole place a clean look . . .’
She chattered on, Jess barely listening, until she realized Mary was talking to her.
‘D’yer want to ’ave a hold?’
‘Oh – yes. Awright then.’
Blushing, she took the little scrap on her lap, supporting her head. Ruth peered up at her with pebbly blue, still slightly crossed eyes. Her face was covered in pink blotches. A moment after Jess took her she screwed up her face and started crying.
‘’Ere—’ Thankful, Jess held her out to Mary. ‘It’s you she wants, not me. I ain’t no good to her.’
She’s going to look like her mom, Jess thought. It was as if there was nothing of Ned in her. She glanced up at him, and he smiled for a moment, rather absently, then turned his eyes towards his wife. Jess saw him quickly look away again as Mary began to suckle the baby.
Jess found those two hours an agony. His being there, so close to her, yet they couldn’t talk and were afraid to look at each other. She wondered if his feelings for her had died, now he had a child.
She barely took any notice as talk turned to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, to the threat of war. Outside was so warm, so breathlessly still that it seemed an impossibility on this summer day, a distant dream, despite all the sabre rattling.
‘We must be going,’ Mary said eventually. ‘It’s quite a walk and our mom’s expecting us back. Said she’d cook us tea tonight.’
‘That’s very nice of ’er,’ Olive said, a bit sarkily Jess thought, as if to say, it’s all right for some. ‘Sis – you get the pram outside for Mary, will yer? None of us’ll get out the door else.’
Mary got Ruth bundled up in her blanket and they heard Sis struggling down the step with the pram.
They were going through the ‘lovely to see yer’s and ‘come again soon’s, Ned nodding round at Polly, and Jess – ‘T’ra then’ – when Olive shrieked,
‘Ronny? Where is ’e? ’E’s gone – oh my God ’e’ll be in the ’orse road by now!’
‘Oh Lor’!’ Polly cried. ‘’E must’ve got past Sis when ’er opened the door!’
There was a rush to the front, Polly and Ernie, Mary holding Ruth, Olive yelling at Sis – ‘Where’s yer brother, yer idle wench?’
Jess was on the point of following, when she saw that she and Ned were the only ones left standing in the back room. She turned at the door. All the desperate emotion she had been holding back all afternoon flooded into her face.
‘Ned—’
‘Jess—’ He quickly moved closer. ‘I didn’t want to come today. It was Mary – you know, the babby . . . I . . .’
‘D’yer love me? Do yer? Say it, Ned. Or say yer don’t and yer never did.’ Her gaze burned into him. He could feel her trembling, but there were voices outside. He gripped her hand tightly for a moment.
‘Meet me – Tuesday night. Snow Hill. Under the clock. Can yer do it?’
There were voices coming to the front door, Ronny’s loud, indignant yells.
Jess nodded. ‘Course I can do it.’ How would she let anything stand in her way?
They loosed hands as the others came in, Olive with Ronny grasped under one arm.
‘Oh stop yer blarting – yer lucky not to be under a tram, yer little bugger. Found ’im outside the Friends Meeting ’Ouse! Moves like a clockwork engine, when ’e gets going.’
‘You awright, Ronny?’ Jess turned and picked him up, kissing him. In a moment when Olive’s eyes were turned away she looked at Ned and mouthed, ‘Half past seven?’ He acknowledged it with a tiny movement of his head.
‘Lovely to see yer, Auntie.’ He kissed Olive. Jess watched, full up with feeling. He was so handsome, so lovely, and above all, he loved her . . . For the first time in ages, she found herself smiling, joy swelling in her.
‘You look after ’em both, my lad.’ Olive clapped him affectionately on the back. ‘That’s your job now.’
‘I will – don’t yer worry on that score.’
They all stood waving them down the road, Mary pushing the pram.
Polly turned to go inside.
‘Never seen such a scrawny little scrap of a thing,’ she said. ‘I’d’ve fed that one to the cat.’
‘Poll!’ Ernie sounded disappointed in her. ‘That ain’t very nice.’
‘Huh,’ Polly said.
‘Evie’s invited me back to meet ’er family,’ Jess said on Tuesday morning. ‘So I’ll not be back for tea.’
‘Where’s she live then?’ Olive grunted, bending to pick up a cloth from the floor.
‘Off Constitution Hill somewhere.’
‘She got any brothers?’ Sis asked with a cheeky grin. ‘Maybe she’ll get yer set up, like.’
‘As a matter of fact she has – she’s got two. One’s fifteen—’
Sis groaned.
‘—and the other’s twenty-one.’
‘’S’e married?’
‘Not as I know of.’
‘Oooh!’
‘What’s ’e do for a living?’ Polly asked.
‘I don’t know, fer ’eaven’s sake!’ Jess laughed. ‘I ain’t set Evie up as an official matchmaker – for all I know ’e might look like Frankenstein’s monster!’
‘Good match for you then,’ Bert said.
‘Oi – watch it . . .’ Jess grinned. She was aquiver with excitement, but was trying to act normally.
‘It’s put you in a better mood, any’ow,’ Polly observed.
It felt terrible, lying to them the way she was. But what choice was there? All day long she was full of pent up nerves. She had difficulty keeping her mind on her work. Each hour seemed longer than the last. Every few minutes she looked up at the clock on the wall. Maybe it had stopped? It scarcely seemed to move.
When work was finally over she clocked off and stepped out into the hazy summer evening. Smells of cooking drifted from the back yards.
She got there five minutes early. Standing under the enormous clock in Snow Hill Station getting her breath back, she looked round at the other figures moving back and forth to the platforms. Every so often one of the trains gave a shrill whistle, and there came the powerful chuffing noise of it getting up a head of steam.
Two men were standing near her. She saw them greet the people they were waiting for one by one and she was left alone, pacing up and down, looking up every few seconds to see the big spider’s leg of a clock hand edge past the six and up, up the other side. Twenty-five to eight, twenty to eight. The light outside began to dim as the sun went down. Jess looked round, straining her eyes to see who was coming into the station. Twice, unable to keep still, she went to the entrance and looked out, each way.
By a quarter to, her throat was aching with unshed tears. Stupid fool she was, rushing here to meet a married man who wasn’t going to come. MARRIED. The word thundered in her head. She leaned back against a poster advertising Fry’s Chocolate and closed her eyes, aware of her heart’s painful hammering. All the tension she had felt these months, the waiting, this long, difficult day she had had, and now this. Tears began to well up under her eyelids.
‘Everything awright, miss?’ Jess jumped, heart pounding. A young man dressed in the Great Western uniform stood in front of her.
Jess stood up straight, tried to make her voice normal.
‘Yes ta – er, thanks. I’m just waiting for someone.’
‘Right. Only I kept seeing you there – thought you was looking poorly.’
Over his shoulder, in that moment, she saw Ned’s face.
‘Oh—’ She burst into tears, unable to hold back her emotion. ‘Oh my God – I thought you weren’t coming!’
‘Jess . . . love.’ He wrapped his arms round her. ‘I was worried yer’d have left. Only Ruth wouldn’t settle and Mary’d got behind – there was no tea ready. I couldn’t just go ’cause I said I was going to the pub and I never do that without ’aving tea first . . .’
Jess sobbed even harder. Ned’s words about what he did or didn’t do at home, habits, that married routine, made her feel even more wretched. Mary had so much of him, and what did she have?
She nestled into his arms, as he held her tightly, his coat rough against her wet face. She drank in the sensation of being held in his arms.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Look – let’s get out of ’ere. It feels as if everyone’s watching. No one’ll take any notice outside.’
Once out in the street, along the side of the Grand Hotel, they dared to hold hands in the dusk. A horse and carriage clattered past them on Livery Street, hooves sparking on the cobbles. Jess could smell smoke from the trains. Opposite the end of the station they crossed into Bread Street.
‘No one’ll bother us ’ere,’ Ned said.
He turned, holding her again.
‘Tell me you love me,’ she said. ‘Everything’ll be all right just so long as I know you feel like I do.’
‘Jess . . . Jess—’ Ned gave a deep sigh, eyes fixed on hers in the gloom. ‘I wish I’d met you months before I did. As soon as I saw you it was summat else. Summat much – I don’t know ’ow to say – bigger than what I feel for Mary. Beyond everything. It’s made me feel, and do things I never thought I’d do in a thousand years. You’re ’ere in my head and I can’t get you out. I’ve tried.’
Jess was laughing and crying at once. She stood on tip-toe and they kissed. She felt the urgent force of his lips. When he released her she had to remind herself to breathe.
‘What are we going to do?’
He leaned towards her again, not wanting to talk, only to fill himself with the sensation of her. He kissed her until he was drunk with it, his strong hands pressing her close, longing to touch every part of her lovely, curving body, knowing bitterly how wrong it would be, that it was forbidden him.
They stood for a moment, foreheads pressed together, both breathing fast. Then as if knowing a limit had been reached, they moved apart and walked on.
‘I can’t just leave ’er. Not with the babby. I owe ’er, Jess. And how would yer feel about me if you knew I’d just walk out on a woman and my own child?’
I don’t know! she wanted to say. I just want you to be mine. To come with me and start again. But she knew he was right.
‘So why’re you here, Ned?’
‘Because I can’t keep away from yer.’ He stopped again, taking her by the shoulders. ‘She’s the mother of my child, and you’re the woman I love. I feel knocked to one side. As if I can’t recognize myself. When I think of you it’s as if nothing else matters. But I know it’s wrong, like – to both of yer. We’ll have to stop this, to keep apart. I can’t expect to ’ave it both ways.’
For a moment neither of them spoke. A train came rumbling out of the station, making the ground shudder, smoke woomp-woomping out in hard-working bursts. The sound of it built, then died away.
‘Yes, you can.’ Her voice came out very strong, determined. ‘If we can’t do what’s right to be together, we’ll just have to live in the wrong. If it is wrong. I don’t seem to know what’s right and wrong any more.’
‘God, Jess – what’re yer saying to me?’
‘Where did you say to Mary that you was going tonight?’
‘Down the pub.’
‘So you told ’er a fib. And I said to Auntie and the others I was going to Evie’s – she’s a girl at work. That makes both of us liars. But if I have to lie to see you, I will. Even though I know it’s wrong . . .’
She felt his hand in the hair at the back of her neck, stroking her, saw him smile at her. ‘How can this be wrong . . . Feeling like this?’ But then he loosed her and turned away, towards the wall. ‘How can we? We can’t go on telling fibs, sneaking about, pretending to people . . .’
Jess put her hand out and touched his back, felt the tense hardness of it.
‘So you’ll not see me again? Is that it?’
He turned slowly, looking at her, helpless. Both of them tried to imagine going on now, without the other.
‘No – that’s not it. Come ’ere.’
His arms wrapped so tight around her he almost knocked the breath out of her. ‘You’re my woman. Deep down that’s the truth of it, no matter what else. I can’t change that even if I wanted to.’
‘Do yer?’
‘No, I don’t. If doing the right thing means doing without you, Jess, I’m damned, that I am.’
‘And me,’ she nuzzled his neck. ‘We’ll both be damned together.’
Later, he walked her into town and they parted in New Street. On the corner of Corporation Street they stood in each other’s arms for a long time.
‘I can’t let you go back to ’er,’ Jess said. ‘I can’t stand it.’
‘I’ve got to go – she’ll wonder what’s ’appened to me.’
After a last, long kiss, they parted. She began walking slowly along New Street, in a daze, still with the feel of his arms round her. Her lover, her man. And she his . . . his . . . She stopped abruptly.
‘Oh!’ she said, out loud. His mistress! That’s what she was, however you dressed it up. It sounded bad that did. Terrible. But that was what she was. What she wanted. Because above everything else, she wanted Ned, whatever it involved, because nothing else mattered. She had never felt so loved or needed before, so safe and sure. She stood by the kerb, taking in deep breaths. What in heaven’s name would Polly say if she knew?
‘’Ere – clear off out. Go on – shove it.’
Jess looked round, bewildered to hear a woman’s voice, husky and low, directed menacingly close to her.
She was a tiny person, in a wide-brimmed hat with a strip of gold stuff tied round it making a huge bow. In the gloom, Jess could just make out a beauty spot on her cheek, and she smelt pungently of perfume.
‘What?’
‘I said clear out. Bugger off. This is my patch – yer can eff off and find yer own. Shouldn’t try anything down this stretch if I was you – it’s all spoke for.’
‘What d’yer mean?’ Jess protested. ‘I was only . . .’
The woman laughed nastily. ‘Just get ’ome – go on – get out of my sight before I decide to forget me manners.’
Jess raced the last mile home as fast as she could in the dark, unnerved by this strange woman. What the hell’d she been going on about? She slowed a little as she came closer to the house, panting hard. The ecstatic happiness she’d felt when she was with Ned seeped away and her mood became more sober. His loving her, knowing he felt as she did was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened. But the chill reality which had begun to impinge on her before she met the strange woman flooded through her again. Ned was going to stay with Mary, with his child. So when would there ever be a time, a place for her? When could the two of them ever belong together? By the time she got home she felt near to tears. But outside the house she met John, the eldest of the Bullivant sons from next door, a strong, handsome-looking man.
‘Evening – awright, are yer?’ he called out. Jess managed a reasonably cheerful reply and it helped her compose herself a bit by the time she walked into the house.
‘Nice evening, was it?’ Polly called to her.
Jess knew her face was flushed. She was too restless, too emotional. Would her guilt show in her face? She unbuttoned her coat and hung it in the hall with her hat, then forced a grin on to her face.
‘It was awright,’ she said, going through to the back. ‘We had a bit of a laugh and they got some ale in from the Outdoor. Evie’s mom’s nice, and ’er brothers.’
Everyone was all ears.
‘So – what’s ’e like?’ Sis was tilting her chair next to the table. Olive glowered at her and she lowered all four legs to the floor.
Jess frowned. ‘Who?’
‘’Er brother of course – the one you thought she might set you up with!’
‘Oh – well . . .’ Jess made a face calculated to keep them all guessing. ‘Not bad – not bad at all . . .’
‘Better looking than me?’ Bert asked.
‘Miles better. Anyroad, it were a good evening. Only, on the way back I met this queer woman.’
She told them what had happened in New Street.
‘She was ever so sharp with me,’ she finished indignantly. ‘And I was only getting my breath back! What’s so funny, eh? Yer look like a barrowload of Cheshire cats.’
Olive’s lips twitched and Polly and Bert were grinning from ear to ear.
‘I told yer, didn’ I – not to hang about in town of a night!’ Olive chuckled, pressing a hand to her chest. ‘That’ll teach yer!’
‘Well, who was she?’
‘Yer lucky she daint scratch yer face off of yer,’ Polly laughed. ‘Ain’t you ever heard of Ladies of the Night?’
The penny began to drop. Jess pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. ‘Oh my . . . she was a . . .?’
Olive nodded, looking meaningfully at Sis.
‘A what?’ Sis said. ‘Oh go on – a what? Why won’t yer tell me?’
‘What yer don’t know won’t hurt yer. And yer should be getting to bed this time of night. Go on – up yer go.’
Sis groaned and moaned her way to the stairs, but knew she could ask Polly later.
Jess looked round at them all. They hadn’t guessed. And next week she could go again, pretend she was interested in Evie’s brother. At least she could see him. Feel his love. That was all that mattered. She smiled.
‘Anyone want a last cuppa tea?’