Poppy's War by Lily Baxter

read or write long letters home.
    Her residence in the house was barely acknowledged by Mr and Mrs Carroll, unless they happened to pass her on the stairs. Edwin always enquired solicitously about her schoolwork, and Marina spoke politely but always looked faintly surprised to see her, as if she had forgotten that Poppy was living in the same house. If it had not been for Amy’s faithful visits on Saturday afternoons, Poppy would have lived a monastic existence, suspended between the two worlds of upstairs and below stairs, and belonging to neither. Amy always came armed with a new letter from Guy which she read to Poppy as they ate lunch in the Cosy Corner Café in Fairford or took afternoon tea in Nan’s Pantry on the other side of the High Street. When she came to some passages, Amy would blush rosily and skip the next few lines, leaving Poppy in no doubt that these must be very personal and filled with love and kisses and all that stuff. If Amy had not been her friend, she would have been deeply jealous.
    With Christmas not far off, Amy decided that Poppy should have some pocket money, something unheard of in the Brown family. Poppy had tried to refuse but Amy gave her a shilling every Saturday afternoon, telling her that it was hers to save or spend as she pleased. Poppy hoarded it faithfully, hiding the coins in the toe of an old sock under her mattress in the night nursery.
    September quickly faded away into October. The days became shorter and the leaves were whipped off the trees by the boisterous south-westerly gales. The hedgerows grew bright with scarlet berries, and the newly ploughed fields stretched as far as Poppy’s eyes could see in a rolling patchwork of ribbed umber earth, tipped with white chalk where the subsoil pushed to the surface. The undulating countryside looked so peaceful from the bus as Poppy travelled to and from school that it was almost impossible to imagine that the country was at war. Mum’s letters were filled with hope that they might be together again very soon as the expected bombing of London had not occurred, and everyone said that the war would soon be over.
    By the end of the first week in December Poppy had saved up the magnificent sum of twelve shillings, which she intended to spend on Christmas presents. She could barely control her excitement as she set off with Amy on their customary Saturday outing to Fairford. Amy left her in Woolworth’s while she visited the hairdressers in South Street, and Poppy spent a happy hour browsing amongst the counters heaped with exciting things. It was the first time she had ever had money to spend as she pleased, and she walked up and down the aisles, her feet echoing on the bare wooden boards, carefully working out how far her money would go. After much deliberation, she bought a white lace-trimmed hanky for Gran and a brooch in the shape of a flower for Mum; a woollen scarf each for Dad and Grandad and a pair of gloves for Joe. She selected a string of pearl beads for Mabel and a book of nursery rhymes for Rupert. Mr and Mrs Carroll obviously lacked for nothing, and she decided on a colour photograph of Durdle Door with a calendar suspended from it by two pieces of pink tape. For Amy she chose a blue chiffon headscarf, and for Guy she purchased a St Christopher medallion which claimed on the label to be
genuine nine carat gold-plated
. It took her last penny to buy it, but Poppy was so proud of her purchase that she ran all the way to the hairdressers and burst into the cubicle where Amy sat beneath the hairdryer reading a copy of
Modern Woman
.
    Poppy dangled the St Christopher in front of her eyes. ‘Look what I got for Guy. D’you think he’ll like it?’
    ‘It’s beautiful.’ Amy raised her voice to make herself heard over the din of the hairdryer. ‘He’ll be absolutely thrilled with it.’
    ‘I’ve got heaps more to show you, but not yours, of course.’
    ‘Excuse me, miss.’ The hairdresser pulled back the curtain.