The Poppy Factory (12 page)

I told him we couldn’t wait to get him home and then, as casually as possible, asked what was up with his leg.

‘Copped an unexploded bomb,’ he said. ‘One of ours and all, would you believe it, on Boxing Day when we was checking through the streets of this town for snipers. Our footsteps must have set it off. Couple of my mates took the full blast and died instantly, so I was the lucky one. They’ve tried to set it but the bones don’t seem to want to heal on their own. They’re going to operate tomorrow.’

Mrs Barker was shocked into silence, and her face had gone almost as pale as Alfie’s, so I wittered on about what wonderful things surgeons can do these days and how he’d be out of here in no time. He just looked at me with those beautiful dark eyes and whispered, ‘I love you, Rose Barker’. Of course that set me off, weeping tears of happiness and hugging him all over again.

After a bit, we realised that we ought to give the others time to see him too. I could hardly bear to be parted after such a few brief, precious moments; wanting to have him all to myself and not share it with anyone else.

As we walked back down the long length of the ward I started to look around and take in more of the surroundings – those thirty or so poor shadows of men with terrible injuries: arms missing, legs encased in plaster suspended by loops and pulleys, both eyes bandaged and even whole faces obscured by dressings. Heaven knows what lies beneath the bandages.

How lucky we are to have Alfie home with only an injured leg which will surely mend soon.

I went to the hospital again today with one of my home-made pies, a book and a new toothbrush, as he’d requested, as well as some warm clothes in case he is allowed out in a wheelchair, but they said he’d had the operation and was still recovering from the anaesthetic, so I should give it a couple of days before coming back again.

Sunday 2nd February 1919

It’s been a difficult week. The operation to mend Alfie’s leg went well, they told us, but then he started going downhill. It was his twenty-first birthday today, and when I went to visit with Freda and Mrs B, all bearing cards and little gifts, he was really out of it, delirious and muttering to himself and barely recognising us. It’s an infection in the bone, the nurse said, but he’s young and strong, he’ll pull through. Looking at his dear face, white as the pillow, and the way his body shakes, I’m beginning to wonder.

I don’t believe in God and never prayed once while he was away fighting because it seemed two-faced to do so. But tonight I am so afraid for my beautiful husband, and feeling so powerless to help him, that I actually kneeled beside my bed and whispered: ‘Dear God, you have brought him home safely. Don’t take him from me now.’

Wednesday 5th February

I barely know how to write this, it is too awful. I went to the hospital again today with Mrs Barker. Alfie’s bed was empty and I daren’t even repeat the dreadful thought that entered my head. Then Matron called us over and said he was having another operation.

‘It was gas gangrene, I’m afraid. Removing the injured limb is the only way to save his life,’ she said.

At first the words didn’t make any sense. Removing the injured limb? And then it hit me, like being knocked down by a steamroller. ‘They’re cutting his leg off?’ Even though it was my voice the words seemed detached, as if they were coming from someone else’s mouth.

‘I’m afraid so, my dear,’ she said. ‘We had to act fast. The infection was spreading and if it reached the top of the leg it would almost certainly have killed him. I am so sorry.’

I felt suddenly, shockingly sick and made a dash for the basin by the side of the nurse’s station, my head so giddy that I had to grip the cold white porcelain to stop myself falling. Surely this couldn’t be happening? We’d read about men dying in the trenches with gangrene but in a clean English hospital like this one surely they could have stopped it, somehow? After a bit I went to sit down beside Mrs B and put my arm around her shoulders. Her whole body was shaking, and tears pouring down her cheeks.

‘My poor darling boy,’ she wailed. ‘Went through a whole year in the trenches with hardly a scratch, and now …’

‘They’re saving his life,’ I whispered. ‘We’re lucky to have him back at all.’

She squeezed my hand. ‘You’re right, dearie. Your poor dear brothers. At least my boy is alive.’

Monday 17th February

Can this week get any worse? My brother Johnnie would have been twenty-two today. Over tea we all sat and said hardly a word, then we each of us disappeared – Pa went back to work, Ma went up to the boys’ room and I took Bessie for a walk and then over to see Freda.

She was miserable too, worried about Claude who hasn’t been in touch for a couple of weeks. I could barely stop myself from shouting at her: you’re concerned about that creepy man when my brothers are dead and your brother’s had his leg cut off? But I didn’t of course.

I feel too upset to write any more.

Wednesday 19th February

It’s been a long haul, but Alfie seems to be pulling through, at last.

I’ve been to the hospital every day, sometimes with Mrs B and sometimes with Freda. Two days ago was the first time he recognised us, and today he was actually sitting up in bed. Matron says he’s been eating and drinking. ‘We’ll have him out of here in no time,’ she said, in her jolly way.

He is even thinner and paler than ever and says very little. We bring him newspapers and pies, and the occasional bit of chocolate if we can get hold of it, and chatter away about things going on in the outside world: how Billy Brotherstone got drunk in The Nelson the night he got demobbed, climbed a drainpipe trying to reach his girlfriend’s bedroom window, fell off and broke both his arms; how spraying the buses with disinfectant seems to be working because the cases of Spanish flu seem at last to be reducing; about the death of little Prince John, the Queen’s son who had the fits; the miners’ strikes and the worry about whether we’ll have enough coal, and how everyone loves my pies.

The only thing we don’t mention is his leg, or rather the lack of it, and I don’t even know how much of it they’ve left him. Is there a knee, or did they have to cut that off too? It seems indelicate to ask.

Odd how a tragedy like this turns people back into strangers.

Sunday 9th March

Spring is here, the daffodils are out in the parks, and Alfie is finally recovering properly. At least, his body seems to be mending, though it’s much harder to find out what’s going on in his head.

They’re getting him out of bed and he’s learning to walk on crutches, which means at least that he can get to the toilet on his own. Matron told us he would probably be moved to a new hospital very soon, for fitting with an artificial leg. It’ll be difficult, she said, because he’s only got about eight inches of thighbone left after they cut out all the gangrene. He makes sure he’s always in bed and covered up when we visit, but there’s a very obvious dip in the sheet where his leg ends.

He still won’t discuss it, and it’s hard to get him to talk about anything, much. But he seems to enjoy it when I read to him from the newspapers, and he’s eating the pies I bring him. Heaven knows what the future holds for us. I just try not to worry and persuade myself to take it day by day.

Gloomy news in the papers: another war has started, between Russia and Poland. When will it all end?

Sunday 16th March

Yesterday, Alfie was moved to Queen Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton which is miles away, so I won’t be able to visit him very often. We’ve agreed to write every day. I am trying to believe there will be a silver lining: perhaps it will be easier to communicate in writing. It’s been impossible to talk to him in that big ward at King George’s, especially since there’s always been Freda, or Mrs B with me, and the other boys in the nearby beds listening, too.

Friday 21st March

I have written at least four letters to Alfie this week so when an envelope finally arrived for me this morning my heart nearly leapt out of my chest and I rushed up to my room to read it in private.

Why was I ever foolish enough to imagine that we would be able to communicate more easily by letter? Here it is:

Dearest Rose,

Thank you for your letters. Am settling in fine.

It’s quieter here. Missing your pies.

Love Alfie.

It’s no good. I am going to have to find a way of visiting him.

BOOK 2

Rose Barker – PRIVATE

Wednesday 26th March

I went to visit Alfie yesterday; Pa stumped up the fare which was very generous of him. It took two buses and a train ride to get to Queen Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton.

It’s an enormous place like the grandest of stately homes in beautiful parkland with huge trees: cedars and oaks with the daffodils in bloom beneath them. As I walked up the driveway there were catcalls from the men sitting on seats and in wheelchairs around the gardens, and I didn’t mind a bit. It made me smile to see them enjoying themselves in the first of the spring sunshine, after the troubles they’d surely been through. If it wasn’t for the reason they’re all here, I’d be a tiny bit envious of them.

So I was in high spirits when I finally found Alfie, not in a long dreary hospital ward like the King George, but in a posh drawing room with beautiful carpets, chintz three piece suites and standard lamps with fringed lampshades all around. The other men were playing dominoes or cards, or reading the papers for all the world like well-bred gentlemen in a country club. But Alfie was sat apart from the rest in a wheelchair, in the new pyjamas and dressing gown we’d bought for him by pooling our rations. He was just staring out of the window with his hands in his lap.

When I said hello and kissed his cheek he didn’t really respond, not a smile nor anything. ‘You’re looking a bit better,’ I said, ‘they must be looking after you well.’ It was true: even though he was still painfully thin, his cheeks were a healthier colour.

‘It’s taken me ages to get here,’ I carried on, by way of conversation, ‘but I didn’t mind a bit because it’s a lovely day and I was coming to see you. Will they let us go outside together, d’you think, like the others?’

I took off my coat and went to hang it on the rack by the door, and when I got back to him it was all I could do not to gasp. His face was screwed up with the veins standing out on his temple and the side of his neck as if he might be having some kind of fit. I sat down, stroked his hand and just said, ‘Alfie, Alfie, it’s all right, Alfie, I’m here now.’

And then, to my horror, he let out his breath with a great sighing groan which caught into a sob, and tears started running down both cheeks. It was such a shock to see him out of control like this. He’s the strong one and I’d never seen him cry before, not even when he was fourteen and broke his arm playing football.

I gave him a handkerchief, but he made no effort to wipe his eyes or reply to my questions, but just sat there weeping and gasping for breath as if the end of the world had come. So I went for a glass of water and finally managed to make him take a few gulps which stopped the sobbing but not the tears, which by now I was wiping away myself, since he seemed incapable of lifting his hands.

He muttered something under his breath which I couldn’t hear, and I pressed him to repeat it. ‘For Christ’s sake go home, Rose,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to see all that ****ing pity in your ****ing eyes.’

I’ve never heard him swear like that before, and it made me cross that he was being so crude, so I got all school-marmy on him (as he might have said, before all this).

‘Look, I’ve spent two whole hours travelling to see my husband and if you think I’m going all that way back without having a proper conversation with him you’ve got another think coming,’ I said, sharply and a bit too loudly because some of the men nearby turned their heads, taking a quick glance before turning away with embarrassment.

Getting angry seemed to work. He wiped his own face and looked at me for the first time, his eyes all bloodshot from the weeping. ‘Oh Christ,’ he sighed. ‘I’m such a ****ing mess, Rose, can’t stop breaking down like this. Seeing you just makes it worse; you’re too beautiful to waste your time with a cripple like me. Go away and find yourself a proper husband.’

I’m not sure why I found this funny, but it made me laugh. ‘All right then, Alfred Barker,’ I said. ‘Just wait here a moment till I go and make myself ugly. Perhaps I’ll hack off my hair and daub my face with spots. Will you have me then?’

For a moment he looked horrified that I should be joking about his misery, but then his face cracked and he started to laugh too, and I was soon hugging him and we were giggling together like naughty schoolchildren.

Not long after that a nurse came round with a tea trolley and I took out the home-made cheesy scones that I’d brought, and we had a nice snack before I got permission from the Matron to take Alfie out into the sunshine. We had a happy time trundling along and laughing because I couldn’t push his wheelchair in a straight line, and kept getting it stuck in flowerbeds, before we found a bench free and sat in the sunshine, chatting away as if none of those hysterics had ever happened.

Least said, soonest mended, has always been my motto, but when he began to tell me what he’d been going through with the artificial leg fittings and the pain of his stump, not to mention the agonising ‘phantom pains’ in the leg that isn’t even there any more, it helped me understand why he might be feeling so low.

It is going to take some time to get my own beloved Alfie back, but we will do it, together. I am determined.

Friday 28th March

Bert’s been on at me again about the pies, says he wants thirty for Easter. Suggested I might decorate them with bunnies or some such nonsense. When I told him it was impossible to get the flour, not to mention the eggs you’re supposed to use to glaze the pies, he asked me how much I would need and then said, ‘If I can get hold of supplies, would you make them pies?’ and I had to say I would. To be honest I am so absorbed in thinking about Alfie and preparing for him to come home that I’d rather not be thinking about pies.