His Wife, Her Sister, Their Secret novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Poppy Speaks
She came through the hatch door in her yellow socks, with the baby on her chest and her chin up.
Twenty minutes before, she had spent four minutes in the toilet at the kitchen end.
I had thought she was being sick with nerves.
Nobody in the hall made a sound.
Poppy walked up the middle aisle between the chairs.
She stopped about six feet from Dennis, next to me.
My sister was twenty-four years old, five foot one, and shaking all down one side.
"Hello, Den," she said.
"Poppy, love." He smiled and spread his hands. "You've given us all a fright. Sit down, you look poorly."
"I'll stand."
"Course."
She turned her back on him.
She faced the room, the rows of men and the women in their coats, and she looked along the faces one by one.
"I'm Poppy Gledhill," she said. "Most of you know me. I've been at your Christmas dos since I was fourteen."
A woman in the second row put her hand to her mouth.
"This baby isn't Joss's."
A rustle.
"Joss said he was because he was keeping me safe, and he's been beaten for it, and he never told you why."
She took a breath that I heard.
"The father of this baby is Dennis Ormerod."
For a moment the hall made no noise at all.
Then it all came at once: chairs, voices, someone saying her name, someone saying "No."
"On the night of Marianne's birthday," Poppy said, over the top of them, "he took me upstairs to the office. He locked the door. I said no. I said it until I stopped."
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