A Christmas Wish (2 page)

Poppy shook her head and sighed. It was always this way with Jo. Until she had vented her spleen and aired the backlog of all that she had encountered since they’d last met, there was no room for Poppy to comment. To try and interject meant a jarring of sentences and a clash of words, with no one getting heard.

‘Anyway, when I got back, I’d only gone and missed a call from him. I couldn’t believe it, bloody typical! He left a message saying he’d call back so I sat waiting for over an hour, you know what it’s like, you don’t want them to miss their slot. I was dying for the loo, but I didn’t go. I thought knowing my luck I’d be on the bog when he called and I’d miss it. When he finally got through, it was patchy and there were people mucking about in the background, which really got my goat. They clearly didn’t give a shite, larking around, but it was my chance to speak to him and I don’t know when he’ll call again, you know what it’s like. It was a rubbish line. He sounded like his head was underwater and not just in Afbloodyghanistan.’

Poppy flicked her head towards the door and open-tread staircase, hoping Peg was out of earshot. Although she herself had grown up with swearing and easy banter as the norm, she had changed since she had become a mum and these days was conscious of everything that left her mouth, knowing how easily it could find its way into her children’s ears. Jo didn’t have kids and Poppy assumed this was why she was so cavalier with her language. Poppy pointed upstairs and gave a wide, false grin.

Jo snickered. ‘Oh sorry, love, I forgot! Anyway, we spent a couple of minutes arguing because I could hear a woman’s voice laughing and it really wound me up and then I put the phone down on him. So that was productive. Might have been better off if I had been on the bog and missed it.’

‘Oh, mate, that’s tough. Those phone calls are a mixed blessing, aren’t they? You want to hear their voice and know that everything is okay, but you’re under pressure to have this perfect, lovey-dovey phone call because you think you should, when really you just want to shout at them and say how lonely you are and angry that they are not here!’

Poppy knew that a woman’s voice in the background would not bother her a jot. Martin loved her and she him; they were an item, unshakeable and this had always been the case. Her theory was that if he were going to be unfaithful or hurt her in any way, he wouldn’t have to go to Afbloodyghanistan or any other dark, dusty place to do it. Each and every communication that she got from him filled her with unimaginable joy, from the odd brief email to the hurried, stolen phone calls; each second got stored away in her head to be endlessly replayed in the early hours when sleep evaded her. They were always the same words, stuttered, rushed and with an irritating delay, his voice, taut with emotion:
‘I love you, Poppy Day, I love you and I… I miss you. Tell the kids I love them, I miss them too. Not much longer.’

‘
You
can’t be lonely!’ Jo’s words focused her. ‘You’ve got Peg and Max, you’re too busy to be lonely.’

Poppy felt sorry for Jo, who filled her days with shopping and watching re-runs of American shows on the television. She had confided in Poppy after too much wine one night that she had desperately wanted to be a mum. But after years of monthly disappointments, she and Danny had decided to distract themselves by saving for a cruise every other year. Poppy mollified her friend with tales of sleepless nights, the expense and lack of spontaneity. She never confided that her greatest moment had been seeing the tiny, white-wrapped bundle handed to her husband in the delivery suite, watching his eyes glaze as he searched for the words, her heart swelling as he said,
‘Look what we did! She’s… she’s so beautiful.’

Jo filled the void that kids would have occupied by cramming her wardrobe with new tops, all rather similar in shade and design, and stuffing her bathroom cabinet with toiletries that could keep her clean for a lifetime.

‘True, they keep me busy, Jo, but it’s not the same as having Mart home, someone to cosy up with.’ She smiled at the thought of it.

‘Urgh, pass the bucket. You’re like a lovesick teenager! I thought it would have worn off by now. How long have you two been together?’

Since we were fourteen, more than half of my life, and he was my best friend long before that.
She heard Mart’s voice loud and clear, as if he was standing by her side and as if it was yesterday.
‘I promise you, Poppy, that I will always be your best friend. It’s like we are joined together by invisible strings that join your heart to mine and if you need me, you just have to pull them and I’ll come to you.’

‘Yeah, I know, a long time. He always says he’d have got less for murder!’ Poppy felt the need to play down their commitment and happiness, aware that Jo and Danny didn’t seem to have what they did, but also not wanting to put it out into the universe, as if they shared a precious secret.

Peg ran down the stairs, arriving with her little vanity case full of nail varnish in garish colours and several sparkly lipsticks in various shades of pink.

‘Hello, darling, I was wondering how long I would have to wait for my makeover!’ Jo waved her bare nails at Peg. She had, as usual, come prepared.

‘I’ll just get set up.’ Peg smiled, eager as a puppy. ‘But we can’t take too long, I have to practise my lines.’

‘Lines?’

‘Big day tomorrow, end of term school play!’ Poppy grinned.

‘Oh fab! What are you in the play?’ Jo sat forward.

‘I am sheep number six!’ Peg nodded.

‘Sheep number six, eh? That’s always been my favourite sheep.’

Poppy watched as Peg removed the little glass bottles from the case and lined them up on the edge of the coffee table.

‘What colour would you like today, madam?’ Peg adopted her posh, lady-manicurist voice.

‘Oh I don’t really know! I think I’ll leave it up to you.’ Jo matched her, sounding affected and formal.

‘Are you going to a special party or a function?’ Peg enquired.

Poppy laughed as she reached for her coat from the rack of pegs on the wall in the hallway.

‘Actually, yes I am! My husband is taking me out for a very posh dinner at the flashiest restaurant in town!’

Peg put her hand to her chest. ‘Oh how lovely, is it the Harvester?’

Poppy smiled. It was the one place Peg had celebrated family birthdays and anniversaries.

‘Why, yes it is!’ Jo replied.

‘I have been there,’ Peg gushed. ‘They have lovely ice cream!’

‘Why, thank you for the recommendation, although I am trying to watch my figure.’ Jo smiled.

‘Don’t worry about that! You are only a little bit fat, not
really
fat like some people. It’s only your tummy and your bottom that are wobbly and you can always cover them up with a longer top!’

Poppy felt her cheeks flare and was rendered speechless. Jo didn’t flinch.

Peg continued. ‘I think today we need to do stripes, in pink, purple and blue!’ She nodded as she selected the three colours of choice.

Jo looked over her shoulder at Poppy and mouthed ‘HELP!’

‘Right, you two, have a lovely evening,’ Poppy offered, relieved the awkward moment had passed. There was a fine line between encouraging Peg never to tell a lie and letting her pursue her own brand of honesty, often funny sometimes brutal.

‘We will!’ Peg waved without looking up.

‘Be a good girl for Aunty Jo.’ Poppy wasn’t sure her daughter was listening, so she turned her attention to her friend. ‘Max is soundo and probably won’t stir. If he does, his sippy cup is in the fridge and just cuddle him back off.’

‘I think I can manage that.’ Jo spoke over her shoulder as Peg placed her splayed fingers on one of Poppy’s cushions and shook her little bottle.

‘And I shall be back later to tell you exactly what your new teacher had to say, Peg Alessandra. So you might want to hide the big stick.’

Peg again spoke in the direction of her mum’s voice without turning her head. ‘Jade McKeever said Mrs Newman is a meanie poo-poo breath and I think she is too.’

‘Peg!’ Poppy shook her head as she buttoned up her warm green coat and tied her stripey scarf into a knot at her neck. With her feet snug inside her wellies, she set out into the cold December night.

She cautiously trod the path between the identical houses – army quarters, built in the 1970s, that she and the other service wives on the patch tried to personalise with fancy lamps, oversized Ikea pictures and wacky welcome mats. Nonetheless, in the half light of a winter’s evening, they all looked the same.

The snow was at that horrible stage when it turns from crisp white powder to a thin orange-coloured sludge that clings to your feet and sprays up the back of your legs. Higher up on the slope of the fields though there remained a healthy smattering that almost sparkled in the moonlight. The night was still, the moon large and the air had the faintest aroma of wood smoke from real fires and damp earth. It was a smell unique to the countryside, so very different to East London, where she had grown up. The atmosphere here was untainted by the waft of fried food pumping from extractor fans along the high street, or the pungent, lingering scent of cigarette smoke and diesel, or the stink from the grime that smeared the buildings and sat in darkened heaps against the kerb.

Poppy gathered her coat at her neck and set off with a determined stride down the lane, her breath blowing smoke out into the night sky. They lived in the middle of Wiltshire and it was breathtakingly beautiful. As soon as she left the cul-de-sac she was surrounded by open fields with low barbed-wire fences, dense hedging and fat sheep. On a clear day, from the brow of the hill, she could see Stonehenge, a fact that thrilled and fascinated her. Each season she watched as the landscape was transformed from waving fans of yellow oilseed rape to rich brown furrows to the white snows of winter. It was a world away from the concrete block of flats in Walthamstow in which she had lived as a child, the place her nan Dot had entered as a bride in 1962 and had left six decades later when dementia and old age were victorious. When Martin had finished the basic training for his new trade, they had packed up their little family and moved from Bordon to Colchester then Hounslow before finding themselves in Larkhill, another world.

Poppy walked to the end of the road and turned left opposite the parade of shops that catered mainly for squaddies and their families. There was the obligatory newsagent’s and a convenience store at which you could buy several varieties of lager and crisps but couldn’t for love or money find a vegetable that hadn’t taken on the characteristics of a gourd. There was a post office where loved ones queued with shoe boxes and padded envelopes whose contents weren’t necessarily very original but were at least under two kilograms in weight and so would be delivered free to the BFPO address at which their other halves temporarily resided. An army surplus store provided bits of kit that made life easier for those who worked in trying conditions. And there was a chippy and two other takeaways.

The Turkish kebab shop owners had made a lovely effort for Christmas: in their window were two large blinking neon signs that said, ‘Happy Chri tma !’ Both ‘s’s had long since given up the ghost. They had also hung blue lights that looked like icicles dangling from the peeling fascia. Whenever Peg and Max walked past they would hover on the pavement outside, squealing with excitement at what this meagre display represented, shouting, ‘Happy Chritma! Happy Chritma!’ over and over.

Poppy wondered what they would make of the ornate Christmas windows of Oxford Street if this was enough to send them into raptures. She remembered as a child going up West and pressing her nose against the windows, drawn by the sparkle, lights and scenes from a fairy wonderland. She used to wonder what kind of child got to go in stores like that. Selfridges held particular fascination; it was the store in which her nan had worked as a young girl. Poppy used to try and imagine a youthful, laughing Dot walking through its revolving doors with the shiny brass push plates. It was sometimes hard to picture her nan in that way, when she considered the woman she became, trapped in a confusing world of memory loss, anxiety and fear, watching any old rubbish on television and wearing easy-fit elastic-waisted trousers.

Poppy carried on along the path, enjoying the sound of the patches of remaining snow crunching underfoot and seeking out the areas that were less well trod. She passed the Packhorse pub and made her way round the corner into the low-rise building whose bright lights and propped-open door seemed to beckon her inside.

The little school catered for the children of service families and the farming community as well as for the kids of a few city slickers whose country piles boasted indoor pools, games rooms and annexes above the garage. As she hovered in the corridor, Poppy felt her anxiety levels rising.
‘Get a grip, girl. It’s only a bloody meeting, you’ve been through worse!’
It was her nan’s voice. She nodded.

Rows of pegs were positioned on the wall a couple of feet from the floor, each marked by a personalised sticker. She ran her fingers over Peg’s space, imagining her daughter placing her coat and bag there every day. She smiled at the large yellow combine harvester that sat above her name; Peg had rejected princess crowns and sparkly rings, mermaids and puppies in favour of this hunk of farm machinery. She liked the way Peg looked at the world – differently.

Poppy peered through the little glass window in the classroom door and saw Freddie’s parents sitting on the teeny chairs in front of Mrs Newman. All three were laughing loudly. She couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, but they were all clearly delighted. Well done, Freddie! Poppy knew for a fact that Freddie’s dad had an indoor pool and an annex, because he had told her so the first and only time they had met. She watched now as he kept adjusting his long legs in their pinstriped trousers, pinching the crease above the knee as he shifted his position. Freddie’s mum flicked at her platinum-blonde layers, adjusting them on the shoulders of her navy blazer. In Poppy’s professional opinion, the woman would be better off going a couple of shades darker and opting for a softer fringe. She hadn’t worked as a hairdresser since she’d had Peg, but old habits died hard.