Poppy's Return Read online

  ‘I am glad to see you too, my dear, as I was to see your brother. This is very, very hard for me,’ Susanna waved her hands helplessly. ‘Come along in, all of you,’ she raised her voice and the whining tone diminished, ‘there’s some dinner ready.’ And she led the way to a table with cold-cuts and bread and honey and jam and a large pot of tea under a brightly-coloured tea cosy.

  Everyone did their best to keep a conversation going, commenting on the grey day, the general warmth of the month, the trip from York, whether Stefan and May-Yun would dally a day or two in the old city on their way home; they would leave in three days and were planning to spend a week, or even ten days holidaying in London and Singapore. Stefan had been in touch with his work and the deputy-manager insisted she had everything under control and head office had agreed to the extra time so long as he was back at least a week before the end of June sale.

  ‘So,’ he said, obviously pleased with himself, ‘we’ll have our first real holiday without any children for twenty-five years. It will be like…’ he stopped suddenly, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry Dad, that must sound awful, we really didn’t come over to make an excuse for a holiday.’ George reassured him and went on to talk about what they must do in London, until Poppy pointed out that it had taken her all of her year in London after Kate had died to do everything on his ‘must-see’ list, and sure, she was working as well, but she doubted they could all be done in three days. And everyone laughed and it became almost an ordinary family get-together over lunch.

  Susanna was quiet until May-Yun asked after her children and grandchildren; she became animated while she spoke of her older son, Oliver, now deputy principal of a secondary school in Harrogate and how well his children were doing. ‘Still married to Jean,’ she added with a small laugh, ‘not like my Sylvia, twice-divorced’. There’s that edge in her voice again thought Poppy. Sylvia, it transpired, lived not far away in a ‘pokey flat’ and had a job with the council, her mother said, ‘administrating. Well, that’s what she calls it, sounds like nowt more than clerking to me. She’s had all the chances and pines for what she can’t get, I’m right fed up with her.’

  George took his wife’s hand. ‘Don’t upset yourself about Sylvia, she’s all right,’ he said. ‘Plays a good game of backgammon,’ he added to the others. ‘And there’s Gavin,’ he went on, ‘who lives in the States, we don’t hear much from him.’ Susanna pushed back her chair and the New Zealand three jumped up and insisted on clearing away and doing the dishes.

  ‘Tell me, please, what’s with Susanna?’ Both she and George had gone for an after-lunch rest, but Poppy asked quietly nonetheless as they all busied themselves in the kitchen, Stefan washing, she drying and May-Yun putting away. ‘She’s never been like this before.’

  ‘I think she finds it hard, George being ill, she’s always been the one to need care, and you can see how bad her arthritis is now. None of her children come around much, and she’s gushy with Oliver and picky with Sylvia so it’s pretty unpleasant if they are both here at once.’ Stefan scrubbed vigorously at a clean plate. ‘Makes me appreciate my own family.’ He smiled over his shoulder at Poppy.

  ‘That’s a little harsh,’ intervened May-Yun. ‘She’s scared of what will happen, to her and to George.’

  ‘Who’s that taking my name in vain?’ He was standing in the doorway. ‘I couldn’t sleep. Come and sit with your old father,’ he said to Poppy, who handed her tea towel to May-Yun and followed him down the hallway to the sitting room. He sat on the sofa and patted the space beside him.

  ‘How much have they told you?’ he asked and gave her no time to answer, ‘I’m not having treatment, you know, good innings and all that, rather go out quicker and cleaner. I’ll take all the pain relief the medicos will give me but I’m not going through losing my hair and nausea and burns, would if I was a young chap, but not now.’ He slumped back into the sofa. ‘Get tired easily.’

  ‘Perhaps you should…’

  ‘One more thing, one more thing.’ Thin fingers gripped her hand. ‘You will stay, won’t you?’ His voice was pleading, his eyes moist. ‘You will stay until the end, please?’ Irritation, followed quickly by guilt, welled up in her. Of course she would stay, she wanted to stay, there was no way she could leave while he was still alive. Yet she did not want him to cling and plead like this, she wanted him to be the father she remembered, a bit distracted maybe but interested and caring and fun and – above all – grown up. She wanted the father she experienced as a child, the father she was beginning to think had been an illusion, a fantasy, someone she had created for herself. And yet, and yet, he had been caring and interested and fun and grown up. It was now that he was something else, something less, diminished by the illness, child-like and dependent as she had been back then. And she could, she realised, be the grown up he wanted, now, at the end of his life, without giving up her early memories of him. It was so obvious once she had thought it, so obvious and so all right.

  ‘Of course.’ She turned her hand and squeezed his gently. ‘Of course I will stay. For as long as… as long as you are here.’ The next hurdle, she thought, is for one of us to actually say he is dying. For me to say, ‘When you die,’ not ‘when you have gone,’ and for him to say, ‘I am dying,’ instead of ‘the end’ or letting a sentence trail off. May-Yun and Mrs Mudgely were both nodding in her head. ‘Okay you two, if you are so wise, why does it matter to say dead, dying, die, what’s wrong with a little euphemism here and there?’

  ‘Uh,’ George jerked out of a doze. ‘What did you say, Poppy dear?’

  ‘Nothing George, just thinking out loud.’

  ‘Mmm,’ and he smiled a little and drifted off again, so she took his elbow and steered him up the stairs and to the door of the bedroom he shared with Susanna, who she could hear gently snoring. George patted her hand and moved slowly to the bed, easing himself on to it. Once she was sure he was safely lying down, Poppy closed the door quietly and went to phone Jane. She wanted to talk to George about herself and Jane, but clearly he needed to sleep first. She met Stefan at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Oh good, I wanted to see you,’ he said, ‘I just thought of something.’

  She was impatient to ring Jane now so she hovered, one foot on the bottom step, the other in the air.

  ‘Gregory,’ said Stefan, ‘the mysterious and absent older brother in Sydney. We should contact him.’

  Poppy hadn’t thought of Gregory for years. According to George he had visited once, when she was a baby and Stefan a toddler, on his way to a ‘gay lifestyle’ in Sydney and they had lost touch.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I guess we should. Let’s ask George when he wakes up. I’m just going to use the phone in the kitchen.’

  ‘Of course.’ He stood aside. ‘I hope, you know…’

  ‘Thanks.’ Don’t try too hard, brother dear, Poppy said to herself, and then felt churlish; he was a good brother.

  Chapter Four

  The receptionist at the museum wanted to know who was asking to speak to Jane Blackie.

  ‘You’ll be George’s girl. He’ll be right chuffed you’re here.’

  ‘Yes.’ She just wanted to talk to Jane.

  ‘Putting you through.’

  A few rings of the phone, then, ‘Jane Blackie speaking’. So the woman on the phones hadn’t needed to know who she was!

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Jane, it’s Poppy.’

  ‘Oh my, oh, wonderful, just a mo.’ There was the sound of a door closing. ‘Hello again, oh goodness, you’re here, really here!’

  ‘I am indeed here, and pleased to be talking to you at last.’

  ‘When can I see you? And where?’ The silence that followed reminded them both that neither question had an easy answer. Poppy explained that she would be telling George what there was to tell as soon as he was up from his afternoon rest, so ‘when’ wouldn’t be too difficult but she had no idea about ‘where’. She wanted to know what Jane had told Héloise but didn’t ask again;
she wanted Jane to say, she wanted to not be disappointed that she didn’t. And yet, this conversation was simply to make an arrangement, that was all.

  ‘It’s near the centre of Middlesbrough so it should be easy for you to find,’ Jane was saying, and Poppy had to ask her to repeat the name of the bar. Eight o’clock would be a good time because by then the Friday after-work drinkers would have dispersed, ‘at least from the small bar out the back, which is usually quiet,’ Jane worried. ‘I’ve got some news,’ she continued, ‘some good news, I’d love to tell you now, but…’

  ‘I can look forward to hearing it.’ Suddenly Poppy could not bear to hear it just then in case it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Three-and-a-half hours, she had worked it out instantly, three-and-a-half hours and she would see Jane and… Poppy didn’t know, but she did know that she badly, desperately even, wanted to see Jane, talk face-to-face. Now that she had seen how George was, she added hurriedly to herself.

  ‘Sorry, what was that?”

  ‘Is there a car you can use? Should I swing by and pick you up?’

  ‘No, I’m sure I’ll be able to use George’s, I don’t know that anyone is driving it at the moment.’ She was certainly not ready for these two elements of her life to come face to face, not yet.

  ‘Tar-ra then, see you at eight.’

  ‘Bye.’ The handset was moist, so she wiped it with her sleeve, feeling flustered, confused by a busy muddle of emotions.

  ‘Earth to Poppy, come in Poppy.’ Her father was looking around the kitchen door, smiling, pleased with himself for remembering a joke from Poppy’s childhood. She started.

  ‘I was asking if you’d like a cuppa.’

  Nodding, she moved towards him. ‘Shall I…’

  ‘No, no, my dear, I can still make cups of tea and other things besides.’ But she saw him wince as he turned and noticed for the first time an uneven lump in his lower abdomen.

  Making tea involved loose leaves, a warmed teapot and cups and saucers on a tray with a plate of wine biscuits. Poppy observed the routine closely and insisted on carrying the tray into the sitting room where May-Yun and Stefan were looking at a London guide and Susanna was placing a small table in the centre of the room. Getting her father on his own would be difficult and really, did it matter? Poppy sat down on a stool beside George’s armchair while Susanna poured tea and gestured to each of them to take a cup.

  ‘I’ve something to tell you, George.’ Poppy kept her attention on her father, the others could listen in or not, she decided. ‘It’s about me and Jane, you know, from the museum.’ At least that had him sitting up and looking interested, so she told him – and the others, she supposed, in more detail than she had on the way here – about her and Jane getting ‘kind of close’ as they travelled in the South Island, and Jane’s dilemma about her partner Héloise wanting to have a baby, and her own unwillingness to get involved at all until that was settled, and their agreement to wait until the end of the year to see if there was anything to pursue further…

  ‘Well, I interfered in that didn’t I?’ George interrupted. And he was positively smug. ‘What about that?’ he said, looking at Susanna, ‘I’m a bit old for a cupid, I suppose, but not too old to want to see my girl happy. She’s a splendid person, Jane, I’m sure it will all work out beautifully. It doesn’t make this…’ he gestured towards his stomach, ‘worthwhile, but I’m surely happy to bring the two of you together – again.’ He laughed, the first real laugh Poppy had heard since her arrival. ‘This is the most fun for a long time. You must go and see her – today, tonight, take my car.’

  ‘Hold on, George.’ She had held up her hand before he finished speaking. ‘Yes, I’m seeing her tonight, and I’d love to use your car.’ This last glancing at Susanna for confirmation, catching a glimpse of something, something angry, or disapproving perhaps, before the smile and nod of agreement. Then, to her relief, George started talking about going to the museum together next week so he could show her the work he had done in the last couple of years, he was proud of how comprehensive the trichoptera collection was, there had been two post-graduate students this year, come especially to study it.

  ‘Will you come?’ Poppy asked Susanna, wanting to include her.

  ‘Oh no, George has tried umpteen times to show me his insects but I can’t be having them or that old museum. It’s best I stay away. George understands.’ The smiles they exchanged looked genuine to Poppy.

  May-Yun talked about where they were going in York and London and thanked George for making it possible. That earned another look from Susanna that Poppy didn’t understand; there was a great deal about Susanna she didn’t know. Then May-Yun suggested a ‘ladies lunch out’ the next day, Saturday, her last full day at George’s, leaving the men at home to fend for themselves, ‘unless, of course,’ she looked at Poppy, ‘you have other plans.’

  ‘No, and I won’t make any, I think that’s a terrific idea. What about you Susanna?’

  ‘Yes, dear, that would be lovely.’ Take that at face value, Poppy said to herself, don’t go imagining an under-tone, and thought she saw a quick glimpse of a nodding Mrs Mudgely. May-Yun was cooking for them all that evening and refused her offers of help, so Poppy left George to a programme on television and went upstairs to her room.

  Lying on the bed, hands behind her head, eyes closed, Poppy thought back over the thirty-odd hours since she had arrived in England. Something was different with Susanna, that was certain, the pleasant, casual, straight-forward woman she remembered had been replaced, or at least overlaid, with a more edgy, tight, watchful, hard-done-by person who had not been at all evident in earlier visits. Then here was the bad feeling towards the daughter, Sylvia, and Poppy struggled to remember what she was like. Ten years ago Sylvia had been here on Christmas day, with her second husband and his twin boys, teenagers; all Poppy could recall was a tallish woman who made witty comments that were almost always followed by an indulgent (or so Poppy thought at the time) ‘Oh Sylvia!’ from her mother. What a boon to have May-Yun around, who else would have thought of the three of them going out to lunch together?

  She would be okay with George. They did love each other, and that wasn’t affected by her irritations at him; he would sometimes be too interested, sometimes treat her like a child, sometimes be clingy and he was always George, her father, who had loved her and made time for her through a secure childhood.

  Half-past-six. No point in thinking about Jane. Seeing her soon, seeing her soon, ran through her mind like a song. Only an hour-and-a-half and ‘supper’ would take up most of that. What a relief to have told everyone. What did Susanna think, really?

  There was a knock on her door. ‘Grub’s up, sis.’

  The car hadn’t been driven since Stefan arrived with the rental. ‘Waste of money renting one when there’s a perfectly good car here,’ George had muttered once or twice. When Poppy asked Stefan why he hadn’t just used George’s car he had said, ‘An old grudge between Dad and I, cars. Got it out of my system now, along with a lot of other things.’

  For an anxious moment Poppy thought George’s Mazda wouldn’t start. She had memorised the route to the café; two rights and a left, parking in the second block.

  They met at the entrance, both a few minutes early, and stood, looking at each other for a moment before they hugged long enough to attract the attention of passers-by. The bar was full and noisy.

  ‘There’s a small one, at the back, that might be…’ Jane began, then grabbed Poppy’s hand and started walking them both down the street. ‘My car’s down here, I’ll drop you back to yours later.’

  Poppy was laughing, a little in relief at not going in to the crowded room, ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘Somewhere, anywhere, somewhere we can look at the sea.’

  While they drove out of town the last of the twilight faded, and the lights and steam from Teesside industries added a weird beauty to the landscape. Poppy talked about George, then Susanna and how her brother was
rising to the occasion better than she would have ever anticipated. When they passed the turnoff to Redcar she wondered how far they were going.

  ‘Not far now,’ was all the reply she got and soon she recognised the cable car to the beach at Saltburn and they were driving down a short, steep road and stopping, at the opposite end of the parking area from two other cars, close enough to hear the sea and pick out the white-tops of the low waves.

  ‘That’s better.’ Jane let out a big sigh. ‘I couldn’t face all those people, the noise.’

  ‘Me neither.’ They turned to look at each other at the same time and were hugging again, awkwardly around the steering wheel until Jane set the driver’s seat back and showed Poppy how to move hers; laughing and crying, and nuzzling into each others’ necks and holding so tight it was hard to breathe. Then they were kissing, slow, assuaging kissing, hands in each others’ hair at first, then backs. When Poppy felt her nipple respond to Jane’s touch through her shirt she pulled back, holding Jane’s arms, shaking her head to dislodge Mrs Mudgely’s smiling face.

  ‘Go away, you Cheshire cat,’ wasn’t what she had planned to say. She blushed, still shaking her head.

  ‘And how is Mrs Mudgely?’ Jane was laughing at her.

  ‘Interfering. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. Do you want to stop?’

  ‘No. Yes. In a car!?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Jane’s face was in her neck again and she was sorry when she sat back. ‘But no, perhaps not a car. Too, too teenage. But soon, soon, with grapes and champagne and sweet music and low lights.’ Suddenly Jane was out of the car and on the sand, whooping and circling. After a startled moment Poppy joined her, kicking off her shoes, getting the bottom of her jeans wet and not caring. The headlights of one of the other cars flicked on-and-off, on-and-off and they stopped abruptly and hurried back into the car, Poppy scrabbling on the sand for her shoes.

  ‘Maybe they wanted to share the fun,’ Poppy suggested as Jane started the engine.