Poppy's Return Read online

  Ivan broke the silence. ‘Cool,’ he said, ‘am I the kid?’

  ‘You could be.’ Annie was serious. ‘It’s a kind of every-child.’

  ‘I am flattered to be the “every-mother”.’ May-Yun didn’t often make a joke. Everyone laughed. If Annie was wanting to reassure her mother that she would handle family history matters carefully, she was doing well, Poppy thought, adding her congratulations to the others’.

  The second piece was harsher in both style and content, involving drugs and a night-club scene. ‘We had to use two different styles,’ Annie explained, ‘that one’s modelled on the Japanese style of animation.’ Poppy remembered going with Annie to an animated movie called Princess-something, from Japan, with the scariest creatures, morphed from trees, she had ever seen. And a woman who rescued girls from the city streets and gave them work… she was going to ask Annie the name of the film, but her niece was explaining, with the same seriousness she had showed with Ivan, to her mother about why she had chosen to portray drug users. ‘Don’t worry, Mum, it’s not based on personal experience,’ she began. On the button again, thought Poppy.

  Even Chan, the middle child was enthusiastic about Annie’s work. He wanted to know if she was going to branch into pure fantasy, ‘you know, whole invented worlds with different rules.’

  ‘Probably not, I’ll leave that to you,’ she said, referring to his passion for reading science fiction novels, ‘there’s plenty in this world for me to work on. I like the challenge.’

  ‘The technical aspects?’ asked Stefan.

  ‘Partly, Dad. And partly the challenge of saying something worthwhile about the real world in the stylised medium of animation.’ She laughed. ‘As my theory lecturer says.’

  As always, Poppy enjoyed being with her brother’s family – my family, she reminded herself. As they were finishing dinner, Annie asked Poppy if she could stay the night at her place the following Tuesday. ‘Mum needs her car for Cantonese class, and I’ve got some people to see in town, it would be easier… And I’d love to!’

  May-Yun demurred, and looked at her husband, clearly wanting to offer his car, but Annie insisted, and Poppy welcomed the idea. She was a little startled, Annie had never suggested this before, but she was pleased at the thought of it and dismissed the idea that Annie might be wanting to talk to her about whether she herself was a lesbian. Now if it were Chan, wondering if he was gay…

  ‘Hul-lo-o.’ Ivan was waving his hand in front of her face. ‘If Grand-dad were here, he’d say, “earth to Poppy”,’ he said, and stopped abruptly, looking at his father, who smiled as he said, ‘It’s okay, son, we still talk about Grand-dad.’

  Chan had be at work by ten – he was working Saturday nights at a bakery in Otahuhu – so Poppy offered him a ride. She asked him how he was getting on with his father; she was entitled to ask, she thought, as she had intervened in a way that had turned out to be helpful the previous year.

  ‘Okay. Better, even,’ he said. ‘We’ve sort of mellowed a bit towards each other. I guess in my case it’s called growing up.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘When he and Mum got back from England, they were chuffed that Ivan and I had done okay. Not that we told them everything.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, either then,’ said Poppy quickly, ‘I hate secrets.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. It’s nothing really bad…’

  ‘I don’t care, I don’t want to know!’ They both laughed and went on to talk about his plans to save enough money to go to China, to the southern province his mother’s grandparents had emigrated from.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mrs Mudgely was snuggled under the bed covers. Poppy could hear rain. The radio by her bed was telling her about snow to low levels in the south island. And gales. Then more on the Sydney Olympics. They haven’t even started yet she thought crossly and turned the radio off.

  ‘Maybe we won’t get up at all today, Mrs M.’ She thought glumly of the array of plants huddled in the cold rain near her front door. ‘Whatever induced me to spend nearly two hundred dollars on garden plants I don’t know the names of?’ she asked the cat. ‘Joy,’ she answered herself, cheering up at the memory of her cheerful enthusiasm, and wondering how the visit from her ex had gone.

  ‘Damn!’ Gingerly she inched a hand out into the cold air to get the phone.

  ‘Martia! Hi! It’s good to hear you!’ Apart from an answer-phone message on Monday to say she had arrived in spite of the rain, it was the first time she had heard from her friend since she left six days ago. ‘How is it all going?’

  ‘Okay. Wet. I hope it isn’t too early to ring…’

  ‘… of course not…’

  ‘But I’ve got an hour before I open the shop – well, stall really. Nothing is quite as organised as I expected, and the weather’s keeping people away in droves.’ She sounded despondent. ‘But Gloria has found me a job at the local fruit shop on Mondays and Tuesdays. I think it was her job really, and she’s embarrassed that things aren’t ready for me. So it’s a bit awkward.

  ‘Oh Martia, I am sorry. What will you do?’

  ‘Give it a month or six weeks. I feel better for having told someone. And I’m okay really, my health is fine and I’m enjoying the practical work. What about you?’

  In the end Martia had to rush from the phone to open up. Poppy wriggled back under the bed-covers and decided she’d go up for the long weekend at the end of October and see for herself. And Martia would be down at the end of this month, she thought, and they could talk on the phone often. She really wanted this venture to be a success for her friend, though if the alternative were for her to come back to Auckland, back to stay even… ‘We could be best friends growing old together,’ she suggested to Mrs Mudgely, who was on her way out of the bedroom, letting her know it was more than time for cat breakfast.

  Poppy swung her legs out of bed, groping with her toes for slippers and pulling on a dressing-gown as she stood. There was school preparation to do, household chores, and possibly something with those green growing things, though planting looked out of the question. She rang Joy.

  ‘How did it go last night, with your ex?’ She hadn’t meant to ask that first.

  ‘Uh, okay. She’s still here, actually, she stayed over.’

  ‘Oh.’ Maybe she wasn’t an ex any more. Or they just did it for ‘old time’s sake’. Or the ex slept on the sofa. Or Joy had a spare room, Poppy didn’t know, she’d never been to Joy’s flat.

  ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Sorry! Yes. I – uh – missed what you said.’

  ‘Not much of a day for planting, I said.’

  ‘Yeah. What now?’

  ‘Hope for better weather next weekend.’

  ‘Will they be all right for that long?’

  ‘Oh sure. The biggest risk is having them dry out and there’s not much chance of that.’

  ‘No,’ Poppy laughed, sort of. ‘Well, thanks, I’ll let you get on.’

  ‘Sure. And, hey, I had such a good time yesterday, I hope you didn’t buy too much more than you wanted.’

  ‘No. Really. I enjoyed myself too.’

  Poppy didn’t even go out for the Sunday paper. She had tea and toast at the kitchen bench and got warm vacuuming through the whole house, something she seldom did. Lunch was a can of soup and more toast, then she settled at the dining-room table with the heater on and her planning for the coming week’s teaching.

  When Annie arrived she was packing up and thinking about walking to the shop for a paper to get outside for a few minutes while the rain had eased. Annie had ice-creams.

  ‘I know, terribly unseasonable, but there’s always the freezer if you don’t fancy one.’ Annie was talking, fast, while she fumbled with the umbrella, dropping it in the porch open in the end, pushing it out of the way with her foot and stepping inside.

  ‘Hi Poppy,’ she said brightly, too brightly. ‘I’ve just come from lunch with an old school friend and popped in on my way home.’ She held ou
t an ice-cream, soft in its wrapping. Poppy took it, opened the top carefully and started eating.

  ‘And to tell me what’s wrong?’ The question was out before she had even thought of it.

  ‘Not wrong exactly. Difficult. Will you help?’

  ‘Of course.’ Maybe she is a lesbian. Or thinking she might be.

  Annie pulled a face. ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘it involves a secret and I know you hate secrets.’

  ‘You’re right there. Do you mean a secret from your parents?’ They had both sat down at the dining table.

  ‘Uh huh. I’m afraid so. I’ve thought and thought and there isn’t any other way. If you really can’t bear it, I’ll go without saying any more.’ Poppy couldn’t remember ever seeing Annie look so miserable. And felt miserable herself. It wasn’t being a lesbian, that wouldn’t be a secret. Drugs? There was that film. An unsuitable boyfriend? She put her hand across the table and Annie gripped it, hard. ‘Really,’ the young woman said, ‘I don’t want to make problems for you with my parents, but I suddenly got… scared.’ She held herself upright. ‘But I won’t change my mind.’

  Nothing could matter more than doing the best she could by Annie, Poppy told herself. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

  Annie took a big breath and said, very quickly, ‘I’m pregnant and I’m having an abortion and I can’t tell my parents.’

  ‘Ouch. Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Why should you. You think I’m sensible. And I am. But not sensible enough, obviously.’

  ‘Just give me a minute to get my head around this.’ They sat there silently, hands still touching. Every time Poppy looked up Annie held her gaze.

  Finally Poppy said, ‘Anything more to tell?’

  ‘Not really. I knew at the time the condom hadn’t worked, I sent him away and douched and jumped up and down. Panicked. He hasn’t been back, which doesn’t matter, but this does.’ She gestured at her stomach. ‘I can’t do it.’ For the first time her voice faltered. ‘I can’t have a child. I thought I could do the abortion on my own, I got scared, I’m sorry, you don’t have to…’

  ‘Yes I do. You’ll have to get…’

  ‘I’ve done all that, it’s booked for four o’clock Tuesday.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Poppy knew her voice had gone stiff, just as her body had.

  ‘No, you probably don’t actually. I wasn’t going to tell anyone when I booked it. And Friday night I had this kind of nightmare with blood everywhere, that’s when I got frightened. When you were there on Saturday, it just popped out that I should come here afterwards and then I thought of the story. I didn’t plan to get you involved, honestly, it’s my mess I can…’ Her voice was firm, her eyes pleading. Poppy moved her chair and put an arm around her niece’s shoulder. She thought, briefly, of Jane.

  ‘I’m sure you could manage on your own, and you don’t have to. I’m glad you told me.’ Poppy wasn’t sure about that. ‘But tell me, why can’t you talk to your parents?’

  ‘Because they will want me to have the baby! Mum will offer to look after it. I don’t want them to know, ever.’ Finally, she was crying.

  Oh boy, thought Poppy, a lifetime secret from May-Yun.

  ‘I can’t have a baby,’ Annie said again, ‘I have other things to do with my life, and anyway it isn’t even a baby yet, it’s just a – thing. I’m only nine weeks.’

  ‘Had you thought – no, I’m not going to try and talk you out of this, but I have to ask, had you thought that not telling them will make a barrier between you.’

  ‘Sort of. But Poppy, in a few days it will be done and I’ll go back to Sydney on Thursday and it will be all over. For good. I should have had it done in Sydney but I wanted to come home…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I thought there was a chance I could tell them so I came to see. But when I was there, I knew I couldn’t, it would all get so big, it would be a huge deal and Mum would never get over it.’ Poppy wasn’t sure she agreed, and wasn’t sure enough that she disagreed to put up an argument; she had become part of a secret from her sister-in-law, who would certainly never forgive her if she ever discovered it. Odd, she thought, I would have expected to feel a lot worse about this than I do.

  They arranged for Poppy to pick Annie up from the abortion clinic on Tuesday at four-thirty and bring her home for the night. Annie was sure she didn’t want her to be there earlier. ‘I need to do that bit on my own,’ she said. ‘Mum has insisted that she will be in the area and will pick me up from here on Wednesday morning. She told me I should have a sleep-in, I was looking a bit peaky,’ Annie was bashful. ‘And she said she’s getting used to the idea that I won’t always want to stay at home all the time I am in Auckland now, I have my own life.’

  ‘I would like to talk to Martia, just Martia, about it.’ Poppy said, as the implications of knowing something about May-Yun’s daughter that May-Yun did not sank in. ‘I’m sure you can trust her to keep it to herself.’ Annie nodded. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Thanks, Aunty.’

  Poppy told her niece about taking women to the airport for abortions in Sydney before they were legal in New Zealand, then they talked about other, ordinary, things until Annie left in the car her mother had lent her for the day.

  Poppy picked up the phone to ring Martia, then realised she would be still working. She put the handset down but not in its cradle; she did not want to risk answering the phone to May-Yun. Outside, that was the thing, she needed to get out of the house, go for a walk. It would be light for another hour at least. So she put on shoes and a hooded jacket and set off on the road up Maungawhau, the volcanic hill a block behind her house. It wasn’t actually raining, but the trees over-hanging the footpath were letting go heavy drips, so she walked along the edge of the road, pausing at the street that led off to the block of flats where Joy lived, then moving resolutely on. It took a couple of minutes before there was a break in the traffic so she could cross Mt Eden Rd. Walking steadily up the narrow road that wound to the top of the hill, sticking to the outside so she could step out of the way of any cars, she looked across the familiar, sprawling city. Way over to the east Annie would be home by now. Maybe she would change her mind and talk to her parents. And maybe – likely – not.

  Poppy was surprised that she was not more disturbed at having information about their daughter that Stefan and May-Yun did not. It didn’t even seem like holding a secret. Annie was twenty-three after all, she was entitled to her own life, some privacy from them if she wanted. It would be different if she were seventeen, Poppy told herself, a child still. She walked fast, enjoying the fresh air, the expansive view and ignoring the few other people and their dogs out walking on a winter Sunday afternoon. The path around the crater was muddy and she had to watch her footing. Where were the cows, she wondered, where did they shelter? Suddenly it was raining, heavy rain that had her hair wet before she could get the hood up. People ran for their cars. Poppy cut across the grass to the road and headed downhill.

  By the time she reached the shelter of her own front porch she was soaked to the skin. She unlocked the front door, stripped to her underwear and rushed to the shower, leaving the pile of wet clothes at the doorstep. She heated leftovers from the fridge, stirred through a couple of eggs and ate the result watching the Sunday mystery on television. Then it was too late to ring Martia, so she went to bed. In spite of her earlier conversation with herself, Poppy expected to lie awake and worry about keeping a secret from May-Yun but instead her mind was full of Joy and her ex-partner Chris and whether the ‘ex’ still applied.

  One way and another, it was Wednesday evening before she got to phone Martia, who listened without comment while Poppy told her about Sunday’s visit from Annie, and picking her up from the abortion clinic on Tuesday afternoon.

  ‘How was she on Tuesday?’ was Martia’s first question.

  ‘Good. A bit subdued at first, but clearly relieved. She made me a little speech about being grateful that I had met her at the clinic, she would hav
e felt very lonely leaving by herself, and now it was done and behind her and could we please talk about other things, and she was looking forward to an evening with just her and me.’

  ‘And…’

  ‘We had a nice evening, looking at some old photos, me and Stefan and George and Katrina and she wanted to hear about Stefan as a boy. She clearly admires Katrina and said she doesn’t feel she really knew George, which she didn’t, so it was a good chance for me to talk about him to an interested audience.’

  ‘And about not telling May-Yun?’

  ‘You know, that’s surprisingly okay. It feels like this is something Annie can be private about if she wants, and choose who knows, and I’m kind of pleased she chose me.’

  ‘Wow! Are you sure? Knowing how you are about…’

  ‘Secrets. Yes, I know. For Annie, telling her parents would have made the whole thing much bigger than she wanted it to be and I think I understand that, and I think she’s entitled to – I don’t know – decide that for herself. And she took a chance that I wouldn’t insist on blowing it up…’

  ‘Way to go! Women’s right to choose and all that.’

  ‘I certainly wasn’t thinking about the…’

  ‘Politics. I know you weren’t, you were as always doing your best to do your best. And you get ten out of ten from me.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Poppy swallowed. ‘That’s the first time I’ve felt emotional about the whole episode. Now tell me how things are going up there in the winterless north.’

  ‘Huh! It may not be cold, but it’s certainly wet…’

  ‘… Here too…’

  ‘… And it’s going better, I think I just panicked a bit the first few days.’ They settled in to a long conversation that Poppy told her friend as they were saying their goodbyes was, ‘almost as good as you being here,’ and they agreed that capped-price off-peak toll calls were an extremely good idea.

  Poppy had told an interested Martia about shopping with Joy for plants and the visit of Chris but did not quite manage to let herself acknowledge how much she wanted to know what had transpired, so that didn’t get mentioned.