Poppy Day (17 page)

Four p.m. came around quickly. She hadn’t given much thought to what she should wear until she was outside his office, and then wished she had worn something smarter. The front door was painted dark green; she wondered if this was a cleverly chosen neutral, to spare the council having to repaint after elections. A highly polished brass plaque read
Tom Chambers, Conservative MP, Walthamstow East
. Poppy rang the bell. The door almost instantly buzzed, opening slightly.

In front of her were some steep wooden stairs with a shiny brass handrail that had been recently polished. She could smell the Brasso. She reached the top where there were two rooms, one off to the left and one to the right. Poppy peeped into the one on the left when a voice boomed from the room on the right, almost behind her because of how she was positioned. She was shocked by both its volume and proximity.

‘Ah you must be Poppy! Do come in, do come in!’ He seemed happy to see her, like they were old friends, which made her feel comfortable and nervous all at the same time. If he had treated her like a stranger, she would have known how to behave, but his super-friendliness without having met her before, confused her.

He stood back in the doorway, holding his arm out straight for her to pass by into his office. It was an interesting room, a cross between a doctor’s surgery and a library. Poppy admired the way rich people could collect stuff and pile it up on
expensive
tables, making it look artfully poised, as if everything was a precious artefact, handed down from generations past. Whereas, do the same in any council flat and it looked like piles of clutter; more car boot than shabby chic. There was a large wooden desk in front of the window, with bookshelves all around the room holding leather-bound textbooks that looked academic and weighty. Large paintings hung on the walls and the gaps between the bigger paintings were filled with smaller ones. The overall effect reminded Poppy of the inside of a stately home, but on a tiny scale.

Tom Chambers himself was just as he had sounded on the phone. He was wearing a navy blue pinstriped suit with a pale pink shirt and a blue tie. He was going bald; his remaining hair was a bit too long and gelled back on his expanding forehead. He had very large teeth, which his lips struggled to close over; giving his mouth equine overtones. There was a large gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand with a crest of some sort stamped into it. She put his age at somewhere between mid to late forties.

‘So, Poppy…’ He looked at her earnestly. She wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement so she remained silent. She was used to people saying her name as a question the first time they met her, ‘Poppy Day?’ Confirming they hadn’t misheard. But a question when asked usually makes the person’s voice go up at the end and that’s how you know it’s a question, unless you are from Bristol where your sentences go up at the end anyway. Poppy knew that if she ever went to Bristol, she would
constantly
be trying to answer everything that was said to her until she got the hang of it. While she was thinking about this,
specifically
how Tom’s voice had
not
gone up and yet the way he had said ‘Poppy Day’, had felt like a question, he carried on talking, ‘How are you bearing up?’

This was definitely a question. She resisted the temptation to say, ‘You already asked me that on the phone.’

‘I’m actually OK as long as I’m busy, as long as I feel that things are being done to get my husband back.’ Poppy figured that her words would prompt him, give him the opportunity to come out with a strategy, or at the very least his ideas on how to take things forward.

‘Excellent, yes. Excellent.’

More inappropriate ‘excellents’. Poppy stared at him,
suddenly
feeling that her confidence in him to help her deliver Martin home simply because of how he spoke might have been a bit premature, if not completely misplaced.

‘I thought the article was very well written. I liked your candour, the fact that you weren’t afraid to state the situation how it is; that was refreshing, excellent in fact.’

Poppy thought that maybe he thought she had written it. ‘Well, I only spoke to Miles Varrasso, the journalist, he pulled it all together. It wasn’t down to me at all.’

‘Quite, quite, but still, a really compelling article. Well done, well done you.’

Poppy didn’t know why, but she said, ‘Thank you,’ as though she could take some of the credit.

There was a second of awkward silence before Tom broke the deadlock, ‘When was the last time you had any actual contact with Aaron, Poppy?’

‘I’m sorry?’ She needed him to repeat the question and it was nothing to do with thinking time, but more the hope that she had misheard the MP for Walthamstow East.

‘When was the last time that you had any actual contact with Aaron?’ he asked.

She was slow in forming her response, ‘I have never had actual contact or in fact any contact with Aaron.’

‘No contact at all? What, not since he was sent on tour?’ He looked totally confused. Poppy was later to realise that was because he was.

‘No… None at all.’

‘Surely you don’t mean that you haven’t been in contact since you were married?’

‘No. What I mean is I have never met or been married to Aaron. My husband is Martin. Martin Cricket?’

Tom scanned the article which he had unfolded on the ink blotter in front of him. He scratched his scalp, his expression blank. ‘Oh… right… yes, Martin, of course, excellent. So, who is Aaron?’

Poppy bit down on her lip, thinking of how to respond. The words of Miles Varrasso came into her head, uncensored, brutal and exactly what she was looking for: ‘The situation, Tom, is this; two soldiers, both Brits, were taken in a carefully planned ambush in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. One, Aaron Sotherby, they decapitated and shoved his body, complete with severed head, at the gates of the barracks. One other, namely Martin Cricket, my husband, was taken hostage. Eyewitnesses confirm that he was certainly beaten upon capture, but
probably
not dead. He is currently being held captive by the ZMO, somewhere in Garmsir…’

Poppy didn’t intend to be rude or offend. He stared at her without speaking. She felt angry, furious, in fact, that he had asked her there with the offer of help and didn’t even know who her husband was, much less the situation. She decided he was a dickhead.

When he did speak, it all became perfectly clear. Tom Chambers was a petty opportunist who could probably do very little to help her cause. ‘Well that’s excellent…’

‘What is?’

He looked perplexed again. ‘What is what?’

‘What exactly is excellent, Tom, about what I have just told you?’

‘What?’ He screwed his eyes shut. His top lip curled up over his large teeth as he tried to make more sense of the conversation.

She decided to try and cut him a bit of slack, not exactly feeling sorry for him, but seeing that he didn’t have the brain capacity to effectively mentally joust with her, more’s the pity. ‘OK. Let’s start again, shall we, Tom?’

He nodded, almost grateful for the guidance.

‘I need all the help that I can to bring my husband home. I will do whatever it takes. Whether that means publicity, or the right word in the right ear, I don’t know, but what I do know is that I will try any avenue including liaising with you and your party, if that means that I get Martin home. OK, Tom?’

He nodded.

Poppy took that for understanding and continued, ‘So, what is it that you want from me? You seemed very keen for us to meet up?’

‘Yes, well I was…’

‘Not so sure now you have actually met me though, right?’

He grimaced slightly not laughing in case that too might be the wrong thing to do. Poor Tom. ‘Not at all, Poppy, although you are certainly not what I was expecting.’

‘What were you expecting?’ He had her interest.

‘I don’t really know, but I guess someone a bit less, spirited!’

‘Ah Tom, when you grow up around here, “spirited” is
definitely
a good thing. In fact, “spirited” is highly desirable, if survival is a high priority for you.’

‘I don’t know anyone that grew up around here.’

This made Poppy chuckle loudly at her MP. ‘Of course you don’t. Why would you?’

He stared at her with a look of absolute confusion.

‘So, as I was saying, Tom, what exactly is it you wanted from our meeting?’

He reddened slightly, an indicator that what was coming was the truth. ‘I figured, Poppy, that with you being anti the deployment, and stating how unprepared your husband was by the army, that maybe you might say a few words in support of what we are trying to achieve, politically. I mean it’s the other lot that sent our boys there in the first place and a bloody mess it is too, and getting worse if this unfortunate episode is
anything
to go by…’

Poppy smiled at this. Why was it always ‘our boys’ when trying to garner support, yet ‘misfits who lived on the edge of society’ when out of the army and living off benefit? Yes, an unfortunate episode indeed. ‘OK. Supposing I agree to say a few words in support of you and what you are trying to achieve, politically, what will you do in return to help me?’

He leant forward, chuckling awkwardly. ‘Goodness, Poppy, these things are jolly high-profile. I should think that the prime minister would be your best bet. That I can’t organise, but I do have the ear of the foreign secretary, a fellow old Etonian, year above me, but a good friend. We played in the first fifteen together. He would be able to advise you up the chain, as it were.’

‘Fine.’

Again that look of confusion. ‘What’s fine?’

‘It’s a deal, Tom. You get me in front of the foreign secretary and I will say or do whatever you want me to. I’ll even walk the length of Hoe Street with a sandwich board bearing a slogan of your choice!’

‘Excellent. That is excellent. I’ll get right on to it, Poppy.’

‘Great, that’s great, Tom. You have my number, so give me a shout.’

‘Will do, Poppy.’

She stood then to leave.

‘Poppy?’

‘Yes, Tom?’

‘Just one question…’

‘Fire away!’ She felt confident, more in control than this man she had judged so wrongly.

‘Where is Hoe Street?’

‘What you looking so smug about, missus?’

‘What d’you mean smug?’

There was the odd evening when Dorothea was spoiling for a fight the moment her granddaughter arrived. This was clearly one of those nights.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean, Poppy Day. I’m not stupid, you know.’

‘I know you are not stupid, Nan.’

‘Good, because I’m not.’

There was silence as both mentally reloaded, considering how to continue. Sometimes when she was in this sort of mood, Poppy could distract her with a carefully chosen subject, or divert her with some snippet of information.

Her nan spoke first, denying her the opportunity to deflect her mood with trivia, ‘Mrs Hardwick told me, so you don’t have to.’

‘Mrs Hardwick told you what?’ Poppy tried to sound aloof, as if there was no news…

‘About you in the paper.’

‘What about me in the paper?’ Her tone was surprised,
indifferent
. Inside, however, she was thinking, ‘Oh shit!’ It hadn’t occurred to her to try and stop everyone at The Unpopulars seeing the newspapers. She kept calm, trying not to show her agitation. Until she knew how informed Dorothea was, there was no point in panicking. Poppy hated the thought of her nan being given distressing news that might confuse or upset her.

‘Mrs Hardwick told me that her son had told her that he’d seen you in the paper, Poppy Day, and I believe her. He went to grammar school her boy; he is very clever.’

‘Obviously.’

‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter what you say. I know what you are up to.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes. You are trying to follow in your mother’s footsteps and get into films, aren’t you? Aren’t you?’

Poppy didn’t know what to say to her lovely nan, whose greatest fear was that she had courted publicity trying to follow in the career path of her imaginary mother, Joan Collins. She wanted to laugh, as much with relief as anything. She felt the giggle bubbling in her throat. ‘You got me! Well, it does sound quite nice, Nan, making films on a warm beach somewhere, with people doing my hair and make-up every day, or being driven around in a limo. I could have a worse life.’

Dorothea leant forward, pulling her hand-knitted cardigan closer around her body with one hand and the finger of the other pointing at her granddaughter’s chest. ‘Now, you listen to me, Poppy Day, and you listen good; you have a decent job with Christine, she will always look after you. If Joan had wanted you to be an actress then she would have written to you and told you, wouldn’t she?’

Poppy thought about receiving a letter from Joan Collins saying:

This too made her smile. ‘You are probably right, Nan.’

‘No probably about it, my girl. I don’t want to hear another word on the subject.’

‘OK, Nan.’ Poppy reached out, patting her hand.

‘That’s my girl.’

‘That’s right, I am your girl.’

‘He works at the council.’

‘Who does?’ Poppy had lost the thread.

‘Who does what?’ Dorothea countered.

‘Who works at the council?’ Poppy tried to maintain a placid tone.

‘Who works at the council?’

‘Yes!’ Poppy was tired. She struggled not to sound
impatient
, suppressing the instinct to snap.

‘I don’t bloody know, Poppy Day, lots of people, I expect. Although, judging by the state of the flats, not enough of them!’

Poppy stood, knowing that in her state of fatigue she was in no shape for a verbal game of chess with half the pieces missing. She kissed Dorothea on the forehead. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Nan. Have sweet dreams.’

‘Will do, darlin’. Night night.’