The Poppy Factory (15 page)

Pa argued that it would look a bit strange if the Applebys and the Barkers – the two families in the street who have suffered most – refused to take part. ‘It’d make us look like we’re snubbing everyone,’ he said. ‘And I can’t afford to lose local custom, when trade’s bad enough already.’

Alfie clomped upstairs in a grump but came down again a little later and said he was sorry, especially when Ma and Pa had been so generous towards him. And Ma agreed that she would take part so long as she wasn’t expected to look happy about it. I suggested we put Ray and Johnnie’s photographs in the front room window with a sign asking folk to remember those who were lost, and she thought that was a good idea.

Friday 18 July

Alfie and me have spent all day making pies for the party. He didn’t want to handle the meat but offered to peel potatoes and chop vegetables, and then I showed him how to make the pastry and raise a pie case. To start with, he couldn’t make it work and cursed so much I thought he’d give up, but I persuaded him that everyone finds it difficult at first, and that he just needed to practise. So he carried on and after a while he got it perfect, and quickly made thirty more. That’s one of the things I love about Alfie, he’s a sticker, never gives up. It was such a joy to see him smiling and taking pleasure in achieving something, something he could take pride in, after so long.

When we’d stoked up the oven and put the pies in, we sat and had a cup of tea together and I caught him looking at me and said, ‘What is it? Have I got flour on my nose or something?’ But he just laughed and said, ‘I’ve been watching you cooking. You’re really good at it, aren’t you?’

Well, I blushed to the roots because he’s not a great one for compliments, and told him about my idea of setting up a pie business, as a sideline in Pa’s shop, once rationing was over. After a moment he said, ‘That’s a point, where did you get all that flour, and those eggs?’ and I told him Bert had got them for me, from a wholesaler I assumed, and that seemed to satisfy him. Anyway, soon afterwards Ma came back and said the pies smelled wonderful and could we have one for our tea tonight?

She was flushed in the face and that excited she didn’t even complain about the mess we’d made of the kitchen and, when we asked where she’d been, she said she’d been helping the children at the school to make decorations for the party tomorrow: bunting and streamers, table mats and hats.

Out of the blue, one of the little boys she’d been working with told her that his big brother had died in the war, and asked Ma if she knew anyone who had died. The teacher shushed him, and Ma was grateful for that, because she was afraid she’d burst into tears in front of the children. But then she thought about it and after a little while she got the urge to tell them what war had really meant.

‘I just started talking about my two wonderful boys and how proud they had been at first, going out to fight against the Kaiser, how brave, never questioning their own safety, and just following orders because that was the only way to win a war,’ she told us.

‘How they never knew the horrors till they got out there, and how many thousands and thousands of young men like them would die. I told the children that their generation must make sure there is never, ever, another war like this one.’

‘You were very brave, doing that, Ma.’

‘When I was talking, a little girl put her hand in mine,’ she went on. ‘And afterwards she came up and whispered that I was a lovely lady and she wished I could be her nanna because her own granny had died from a Zeppelin bomb.’

‘That must have made you feel proud,’ I said.

‘It did. And you know, walking home I realised that for the first time in years I was feeling happy. I never thought it would help, talking about the boys, but it seems to have done.’

Saturday 19 July

It’s midnight on Peace Day and Alfie is snoring peacefully by my side. He looks so innocent when he’s asleep, like a small boy again, but I can’t sleep for thinking what a strange day it’s been.

It was a wonderful afternoon, in many ways. The sun came out, the street was decorated with bunting and streamers and everyone brought out their dining tables and chairs and set them up into one long stretch all the way down the middle of the street. Then the food started to appear: from each house came platefuls of cheese sandwiches and egg rolls, cakes with union jack designs and biscuits iced in red white and blue, and each table had one of my pies, sliced thin so that everyone could have at least a sliver to taste.

There was home-made barley water for the children, and Bert was good as his word, bringing out a half pint of beer for every single adult in the street, which must have cost him a penny or two. We were togged up in our Sunday best for the occasion, but we all put on the coloured paper hats the children had made and everyone was so happy we forgot to worry about looking stupid.

Except for Freda, that is, cos she was already wearing a fashionable little number with feathers in it. She said she’d spent hours pinning it to the side of her head and she was damned if she was going to ruin the effect, not after all that effort. The hat must have cost at least a guinea, but when I asked her where she’d got it she just sniggered and pointed at Claude, who seems to have become part of the family these days, more’s the pity.

I understand that it’s flattering to have presents showered on you but otherwise, in all honesty, I can’t think what she sees in him. He’s tall and quite good looking, I suppose, but so slick and smarmy with it, making up to Mr and Mrs Barker like they were royalty. The only time I tried to have a proper conversation with him, his eyes darted around every which way except at me, as if he was expecting someone else to arrive at any moment. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him, which isn’t very far.

All the food was eaten in a matter of minutes and after that Bert made a speech about how grateful we all were to those who fought and won this terrible war, and especially to those who made what everyone calls ‘the ultimate sacrifice’ which is a phrase I specially hate. Of course at that point everyone turned to look at the photographs of Ray and Johnnie pinned up in our front window, and raised their hats to Ma and Pa out of respect for their losses. I felt pretty weepy and I could see Ma biting her lip, and Pa reaching out to hold her hand, but we all managed to hold off the tears. Call it progress, of a sort.

Then Bert proposed three cheers and we all raised our glasses to ‘our brave boys’ and especially to Alfie and Percy Gittins who are the only two to return home alive. The littl’uns were allowed down from the tables to run around, playing hopscotch and games of tag much as they do every day after school, the women cleared the plates away and the men got into the serious business of drinking.

A little later the newsagent from the corner store brought out copies of the evening papers, so we passed them round, reading news of the crowds that had gathered in Whitehall to watch a Victory Parade of fifteen thousand servicemen, and how they stopped and saluted the huge pillar they’ve built, called a ‘Cenotaph’, in honour of the dead.

TO these, the sick and wounded who cannot take part in the festival of victory, I send out greetings and bid them good cheer, assuring them that the wounds and scars so honourable in themselves, inspire in the hearts of their fellow countrymen the warmest feelings of gratitude and respect.

HRH King George V

When Alfie read this cutting from the
Daily Express
he snorted and muttered that if the King
really
respected wounded servicemen he’d make sure there were jobs and homes for them to return to. But even his sour mood couldn’t dampen the general atmosphere of celebration.

Until the evening, that is.

By the time Ma and me had finished cleaning up and dropped in for another cuppa with Freda and Mrs Barker it was well past nine o’clock, so we decided to join the men in the pub. Of course they were very merry by now, singing all the old songs and having a high old time. Alfie offered to get in the round and I went to help him bring it back to the table because his walking’s a bit unsteady even when he’s sober, which he wasn’t, and I feared for the safety of our hard-earned drinks.

When we came up to the bar Bert complimented me on the pies and, when I told him that Alfie had done half the work this time, and was becoming a dab hand at raising pastry cases, he said, ‘Good on yer, laddie. You could make a bob or two if you really put your minds to it, set up in business, the two of you.’

‘Not till they lift meat rationing, we can’t,’ Alfie said. ‘Anyway we’d never get enough flour or eggs.’ But Bert just winked and tapped the side of his nose and said that wasn’t a problem, because he’d got a good contact. ‘Know what I mean?’

Before we sat down Alfie pulled me aside and whispered furiously, ‘Why didn’t you tell me the flour and eggs we used were knocked off?’

‘What do you mean, knocked off?’ I said.

‘These contacts of Bert’s, it’s the black market, can’t you see? You could go to gaol for that.’ To be honest it had never crossed my mind.

‘You’re not going to make any more pies for him, that’s for certain,’ Alfie said, and for a moment I thought he might make a real scene but he just let it go, and we went back to the table and joined in the singing.

Come ten to eleven when they rang last orders, Claude went to the bar to buy the final round and I watched him chatting with Bert, who handed him a wad of notes. It took me a few seconds to realise what was wrong: Claude should have been paying Bert for the drinks, not the other way round. I wasn’t the only one watching. When Claude returned to the table with the drinks, Alfie struggled to his feet and gestured to him that they should go outside.

‘Whatever it is, you can say it here, Alf,’ Claude said, smooth as oil. Why would he feel threatened by a one-legged man a head shorter than him, in any case?

Alfie flushed redder than before. He hates being called Alf. ‘Then perhaps you can tell me and everyone else where you got those eggs, and that flour from, what Bert sold us for making the pies,’ he barked.

Claude started to look a bit shifty then, and muttered something like, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘I think you do,’ Alfie said in a menacing voice I’ve never heard before. ‘How come you have so much cash to splash around, when you never went near the war?’

‘I played my part.’ Claude was cool as a cucumber.

‘Played at ripping people off, you mean, while the rest of us were out there getting killed or having our limbs smashed up.’

Claude lost his silver tongue at that and snarled something like, ‘I think you’d better take that back, Alf, or you might regret it.’

By now, Freda was beside him, holding his arm and trying to pull him away but it was Alfie she should have been holding back because he just launched out with his right fist and landed a great punch on Claude’s nose, which instantly began bleeding all down the front of his white shirt. Claude must have punched Alfie back, because a second later he collapsed onto the ground, white as a sheet.

Pa and Mr Barker leapt up from their seats and dragged Claude out of the door, while I held Alfie’s head in my lap until he came round and dragged himself up onto a chair. I felt sorry for Freda: standing there torn two ways, it was her brother who started the fight but Claude had hit a disabled serviceman, which was far worse. In the end, she went outside to find Claude, and they never came back.

Finally we helped Alfie home and into bed and even though Pa pressed him on what the fight was about, he flatly refused to say anything more, for which I was grateful, because this business of the eggs and flour implicated me and Bert as well. But it got me wondering whether Freda knew about Claude’s underhand business dealings and whether she had just tried to ignore them because she enjoyed the little luxuries he bought her. Only time will tell, I suspect.

One thing’s for sure, we won’t be making any more pies until rationing is lifted.

Sunday 20th July

Freda is furious with Alfie for punching her boyfriend, and with me for defending him. When I pointed out that Claude had punched back, Freda claims he never did. Alfie is tight-lipped about the whole affair except for saying he’s disappointed in me for not realising we were using knocked off flour and eggs. What a mess.

Tuesday 26th August

The past few weeks have been the happiest in my life:

1. Alfie’s stump has finally healed and he can wear his artificial leg again. Not that it’s ever very comfortable, mind, but at least it’s now bearable. We’ve both been out looking for jobs but many of the factories and warehouses are closed for their summer break, or told us to come back in September. Though there was nothing for me, a couple of places asked for his details and address, which has cheered him up a great deal.

2. Alfie’s pension has come through, backdated to the date of his discharge, and so he’s decided he can afford to spend some of the wages that have been paid into the Post Office for the whole eighteen months that he was in the Army.

3. We finally had our HONEYMOON IN BRIGHTON! There’s so much to tell but I can only do a brief summary here.

We caught the train from Victoria Station and a bus to our little guesthouse, just a few minutes’ walk from the seafront. As we were signing in, the landlady asked, ‘Where was you serving, son?’ and when he told her she said her own son had been killed not far from there, just two years back. We gave her our condolences and as she took us upstairs she said, ‘I keep my best rooms for our brave boys. I hope you like this one.’

Well, as soon as she closed the door, we fell about laughing. It was the most enormous bedroom either of us had ever seen, with a big bay window looking out onto the street. The bed was a full five feet wide, ever so comfy with a fat silky eiderdown, there was a dressing table with a three-way mirror, and we even had our own basin for washing in! Down the hallway was a bathroom with a proper water closet – no struggling out to the privy on our honeymoon.