The Poppy Factory (33 page)

In spite of my embarrassment, instinct took over. He might have been impossible of late, but he was still my husband, we protect our own. I rushed forward, ignoring the look of horror on Alfie’s face, and shouted that I could explain everything. Alfie was my husband. It wasn’t his fault. I finished, rather lamely, that he was a disabled soldier, too, as if that might excuse his shocking behaviour.

Mr Mitchell said calmly that I’d better go with them so I could tell the Major my side of the story behind this sorry state of affairs. It was only as we were climbing the stairs to the Major’s office that the seriousness of our situation began to dawn on me. Alfie could be arrested for assaulting another man and I could lose my job for standing up for him.

Major Howson has quite the kindest eyes of any man I’ve ever met, although when we walked into that neat, sparsely furnished office I thought him utterly terrifying. He stood as we entered, towering over us (he must be at least six foot) with that officer’s ramrod bearing and a strong, direct gaze that seems to miss nothing. I learned later that he earned the Military Cross for battling on at Passchendaele in spite of being wounded, which comes as no surprise. He seems like just that kind of man.

He invited Mr Mitchell to come in, saying what a pleasure it was to see him, and asked to be introduced.

Mr Mitchell explained that Alfie had just assaulted one of his men outside. And this was Alfie’s wife, Mrs Barker. The Major’s bushy moustache twitched a bit, then he asked who the other man was, and whether he was hurt.

‘Bruised cheek. That’s all I think,’ Mr Mitchell said, then looked at Alfie. ‘What’s the name of the man you attacked?’

Alfie looked at me. ‘It’s Walter,’ I said.

‘Shall we get him in, too?’ said the Major. ‘Would you mind, Mitchell?’

As Mr Mitchell clattered down the stairs again, the Major pulled up chairs for us. I caught him watching as Alfie sat down in his usual slightly ungainly way, kicking the artificial leg with his other foot to allow him to sit, and then pulling the lower part of it inwards with his hand, forcing the knee into a bend. He asked, quite simply, was it a war wound, and Alfie explained how he’d been caught by a shell and they’d been unable to save the leg. Then the Major asked whether he’d managed to find work and Alfie shook his head and said he was looking.

At this point Mr Mitchell arrived with Walter, whose bruise seemed to have doubled in size in the few minutes since we’d left him in the street. The Major pulled up two more chairs, invited them to sit, pulled out a packet of Turkish cigarettes from his desk drawer and offered them around. The room filled with smoke as all the men lit up, and the Major threw open the window before sitting down again.

First of all, he asked Walter if he was badly hurt, and Walter touched his face and winced a bit but said he thought it was just a bruise, no real harm done. Mr Mitchell said he should go over to the collar factory kitchen and ask for some ice to put onto it just as soon as we were finished here.

The Major then turned to Alfie and asked him why he took it into his head to assault one of his workers, and Alfie glared at Walter and said he bloody deserved it.

‘And
why
did he deserve it, if you don’t mind my asking?’

‘He’s been trying to lead my wife astray.’ The words were out, now. No putting them back in the box like the poppy in Walter’s toy.

‘Is this true, Walter?’

Walter looked towards me, as if to apologise for what he was about to say.

‘No, sir,’ he said firmly. ‘We’re just friends; we talk as we walk into work. She’s a very attractive woman, of course, and if she was single I’d’ve acted very differently. But from the start she made it clear that she’s married, and I’d never touch another man’s wife.’

Alfie glowered and said he had invited me out to tea, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise because I’d already admitted it.

‘Yes I did. She needed cheering up, sir. From what I gather, Mr Barker here couldn’t find work and things were a bit difficult at home.’

The Major turned to me and asked if I had anything to say? I shook my head at first and then realised I needed to back Walter up. ‘It’s just as he says: we are friends, nothing more. He makes me laugh, and heaven knows I’ve needed it in the past few months. My husband is a proud man, sir, and he doesn’t like to admit it, but he’s a hard worker and being unemployed is really getting him down. It’s affecting our marriage and I don’t like that one little bit.’

‘Is this correct, Mr Barker?’

Alfie looked down at his shoes and, when he looked up, his eyes were swimming. I wanted to hug him and tell him that everything would be okay. He admitted that I was right; everything had been getting on top of him lately, and seeing me with Walter had just capped it. He’d lost his rag and was now very ashamed. He pushed himself up out of the chair, limped over to Walter and held out his hand. ‘I have treated you wrongly. No excuses. I am sorry.’

Walter stood up too and said, ‘No harm done, Mr Barker, apology accepted.’ And they shook hands.

The Major stood up, beaming. ‘Good lads. Walter, I think it’s time for you to get back to work. Mr Mitchell, I think you’ll agree that this concludes the matter satisfactorily?’ Mr M nodded. ‘In that case, you’ll forgive me if I keep Mrs Barker here for a few more minutes? I’d like to have a word with her and her husband in private.’

When the others had gone, he sat us both down again and then leaned around the door of his room to ask his secretary for a pot of tea for three. Then he handed Alfie another of his curious cigarettes and, as they lit up, he asked if he was still out of work. My heart leapt. Was he going to offer Alfie a job here at the factory?

But it wasn’t quite so easy. He explained that because places at the factory were limited, the Disabled Society had certain priorities for who they would employ. There were lots of questions about Alfie’s disability, what pension he received, what jobs had he applied for and what sort of work he’d done before the war. And finally, he said, it depended on what kind of family responsibilities you have. Alfie said we had a baby son and the Major turned to me and said he gathered that I had a job at Mitchell’s. I nodded, wondering why that should be relevant. But then he explained that was a problem, because we were not what the Society describes as ‘in greatest need’ because, as well as Alfie’s pension, there was a second income coming into the family.

The room fell silent except for the clonkety-clonk of the machines downstairs, cutting out the red fabric for the poppies; machines that Alfie could be operating, earning himself a proper wage, if it wasn’t for me and my beloved job.

And then, in a flash, I realised: in all the mayhem of the morning it had completely slipped my mind. I hadn’t mentioned anything to Alfie yet, but the day before yesterday my monthlies failed to arrive. I’d put it down to stress and worry, but this morning my breasts had felt ever so slightly tingly, like they did when Johnnie was first on the way.

‘Not for very long, sir,’ I piped up. ‘Mr Mitchell won’t employ women if they’re expecting.’

Alfie’s mouth fell open with astonishment and then split into the widest, happiest smile I’ve seen on his face for many a long month and the Major put out his hand to shake mine and then Alfie’s in turn.

‘What splendid news. Many congratulations to both of you,’ he said. ‘This changes everything, of course. Mr Barker, would you like to have a tour of the factory to see whether you think a job here would suit you?’ And my lovely husband, still smiling broadly, said he definitely would, thank you, sir. During their tour, he went over to Walter and asked him whether he would accept him as a fellow worker, should he be offered a job there. Walter, bless his soul, said he’d be happy to let bygones be bygones, and he’d be welcome there.

To cut a long story short, the Major offered Alfie a job and he starts next week. It’s early days, but I am now starting to hope that this will be the start of a brand new chapter in our lives.

Saturday 11th November

It’s nearly two months since my last entry and the only excuse is that we have been so busy. The baby is due on my own birthday in May next year. Freda agreed to go on looking after Johnnie and I shall carry on working until Mr Mitchell tells me I can’t stay. With the money we’re both earning we have been able to afford a flat with two bedrooms – such luxury – in the next door street. Oh, and Bessie had a brood of beautiful puppies and we’ve taken one as our own.

Alfie is a new man. He’s not going to make poppies for ever, he says. Essentially it’s quite repetitive work, but he really enjoys the company of the other lads and he seems so much happier in himself. After all he’s been through it was bound to take him a while to recover, but it would have been much easier for all of us had he not been so proud about accepting help. Not ‘bleeding heart do-gooder’s charity’, but genuine help from the likes of Major Howson.

A couple of weeks ago he told me he’d thought of a way to make one of the machines more efficient. When I suggested he tell the Major, he pooh-poohed the idea, saying the man had better things to do. But yesterday I could hear him whistling down the street on his way home from work and he arrived even more cheerful than usual. Apparently he’d mentioned his idea to a mate, who told the Major, who came down from his office especially to ask Alfie to explain it. He listened really carefully and nodded a great deal and sketched some drawings, saying it was an excellent idea and would Alfie like to help him make it? Well of course he jumped at the idea and later he had a go at what he calls ‘machine tooling’.

So now he says he wants to become an engineer like the Major. I didn’t mention that you probably need better writing and arithmetic for that sort of thing but I can tell it’s got him thinking, and who knows what might come of it?

Most exciting of all, Freda is dating again. It happened when she visited the collar factory to see whether there were any jobs for her – there weren’t, but there will be once my belly starts to show. As it was the end of the day I walked home with her, and the Poppy Factory lads were clocking off too. Walter asked for an introduction and that was the start of it all.

It could have been awkward with Alfie, but the two of them have already made up their differences – they were pretty much forced to, working side by side on the benches. I am so pleased for Freda because, although Walter is a flirt, underneath he is a genuine kind of man and to see him playing so affectionately with little Annie you’d think he was her real father.

So I’ve barely had time to think, let alone write my diary and, as I’m coming to the end of this set of notebooks, I’m going to give it a break for a while. But I couldn’t let 11th November go by without a final entry. We didn’t go to the Cenotaph this year, but as I pinned on my poppy I reflected on what a strange four years it’s been since that very first Armistice Day.

These poppies they make – and they sell in their tens of thousands now – are not just a symbol of loss and sadness, I’ve come to understand. They are also a reminder of how important it is for the rest of us to go on living the best and fullest lives possible, in honour of those who didn’t survive.

Chapter Seven

For perhaps the first time in her life, Jess held nothing back from her mother.

With Milly their constant companion, they took bracing walks along the beach and long sojourns sheltering from the wind behind the sand dunes and she told her everything: about the nightmares, the sleeplessness, the flashbacks and the uncontrolled drinking; her experience with the ambulance services; her hatred of the timewasters and despair at the plight of the old people she’d encountered; how she lost her temper with the counsellor and how she’d tried to pull herself together but had drunk too much and made a fool of herself at the wedding, embarrassing Nate at his big moment; how he had told her to leave.

‘I thought he was the one for life, Mum, but now I think it’s all over,’ she said. ‘I just can’t imagine life without him. It’s unbearable.’ The words resonated in her head. ‘My God, that’s what Rose wrote in her diary.’

‘What was that?’

‘There’s a point where Rose says she thinks her marriage to Alfie might be over and she can’t bear the thought.’

‘Every couple has bad times, and most of them get through it just fine,’ her mother said, putting an arm around her. ‘Rose and Alfie survived, didn’t they?’

‘What happened to them?’

‘They spent the rest of their lives together, thank heavens, or none of us would be here. They had your Grandfather Johnnie and his sister, my aunt Alice, and lived into their seventies, as far as I can remember.’

‘Alice? The one who lost her lover in the trenches and never married?’

‘That’s the one. Became a professional pianist and drove intrepidly around London in a Morris Minor, well into her nineties. When we get home I’ll show you the photos I found among Granny’s things.’

Jess opened the small, dog-eared album with the greatest care: sheets of black paper were held between brown cardboard covers tied together with cord that was now frayed and in danger of unravelling completely. The ancient photo corners had long since lost their stick, and the tiny black and white prints were now jumbled loosely between the pages.

She picked up one of the larger photographs, in sepia with serrated white borders and the name of the photographer embossed in gold script at the bottom, turned it over and read the words handwritten on the back:
Rose and Alfie Barker, married Boxing Day 1917.

His sweet face had a faraway gaze and he looked no older than a schoolboy despite the army uniform and fierce military haircut with a parting like a white scar slitting his scalp from front to back. Rose stood as tall as her new husband, slim and wiry, in an unflattering dress and a hat that didn’t seem to match, her face fixed for the camera with a grin that had almost become a grimace. Peering more closely, Jess imagined she could recognise something of herself: the determined jaw, the eyes close-set either side of a straight nose, the widow’s peak on a high forehead.