Poppy's Return Read online

  Poppy decided to leave Sylvia for another time; quit while we’re ahead she said to herself, noting yet another cliché. With Susanna gone for a rest, she decided to grasp the nettle – jump in with both feet – take the bull by the horns – there was a laugh in her voice when she replied to Jane’s ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi, Poppy here, cliché queen, how’s it going?’

  ‘Awful! I thought you weren’t going to ring here… not that I mind, it’s wonderful to hear you, it’s been a dreadful day, they’ve just gone a few minutes ago. You sound cheerful.’ She probably hadn’t meant that to sound like an accusation, Poppy thought.

  ‘Yeah, I am rather, all things considered it’s going well and I seem to be drowning in clichés. Weird.’

  The conversation couldn’t get going; Jane was stuck in misery and Poppy was stuck in cheerful platitudes. After an awkward silence, Poppy said, as neutrally as she could manage,

  ‘What are you doing next weekend?’

  ‘I don’t know… why?’

  ‘It’s not a trick question. What are you doing next weekend because I had an idea that we could go away together on Friday night and not come back until Sunday and actually have some time together away from our respective, um, goings on.’ There was silence for a moment, then a sniff.

  ‘Really? Where?’

  ‘I don’t know, far enough to be away and not so far we’re driving for hours. Hartlepoole?’

  ‘No. Not far enough.’ The possibilities were finally sinking in. ‘What about Whitby?’

  ‘Sure. But that’s where you grew up, won’t there be ghosts?’

  ‘No ghosts, not in old Whitby. Let me arrange a place to stay.’ Now Jane was sounding excited. ‘Friday and Saturday nights?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What about George?’

  ‘He’s almost too keen, and no more “what abouts”, please, let’s just do it.’

  ‘All right. Let’s.’ And Poppy held the phone away from her ear as Jane whooped.

  When they’d arranged to talk again the next night and said their goodbyes, Poppy went back to writing to Martia and finished a long email before anyone re-appeared. That evening Katrina rang, saying she was lying in bed having a lazy Sunday morning and how was everything? She was amused by Poppy’s attack of platitudes, and told her that the thing about clichés was that in difficult times they did have some meaning, the human condition was universal wasn’t it, at the same time as being extremely particular, and the sayings must have started from someone’s experience.

  The week went by fast.

  Jane was mysterious about exactly where she had booked them to stay, other than saying it was in the old town near the river.

  After a number of unproductive phone calls, Poppy found someone to come and install a handrail by the bath and turn the downstairs lavatory door around. The ‘handyman’ – his self-description – who came talked in a broad accent that Poppy could barely follow. It took most of the day to change the door, and involved going out to buy new facing boards and Poppy balancing the door while the hinges were re-set. When it was open the door blocked the hallway but it certainly improved access to the tiny room and there was no danger of anyone getting stuck inside. Jock (‘Of course,’ Poppy thought when he told her his name) offered to come back and paint the new wood, but Poppy had decided to do that herself. He was keen to get a couple of ‘t’lads’ who could ‘do wi’ a few quid’ to come another day and move furniture. When he had gone she realised she had not thought to ask how much that would cost. Still, his charge for a day’s work had been reasonable and really, she didn’t care. (Don’t ever forget that you are fortunate that you don’t have to care, she reminded herself.)

  When Poppy did mention Susanna’s daughter to her the older woman would say nothing more than that they didn’t get on and as far as daughters went Sylvia was a ‘feckless ninny’. A further suggestion that she, Poppy, would like to meet her got a sharp glance then silence. ‘Would you mind if I invited her here?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A visit, cuppa, anything really.’

  ‘No, what for?’

  ‘Oh, to meet her I suppose.’

  ‘She’ll have nowt good to say about her ma, mark you that.’

  ‘I don’t mean to upset – anything, anyone – I just thought I’d like to meet her.’ The only response was a shrug. Poppy struggled on. ‘Would you mind if I rang her, maybe met her somewhere else?’

  ‘You do what you like, it’s nowt to me.’ Getting stubborn, Poppy managed to glean that Sylvia’s phone number was in the back of the phone book. When she had talked to a startled Sylvia and arranged to meet her in town in her lunch hour the following week, she passed this information on to Susanna and got no response. Otherwise Poppy and her father’s wife were doing well together.

  One thing a day, especially if it involved going out, was all George could manage and he pronounced himself unfit to drive. Susanna did, a little, locally; there were more friends beside Glory. She played cards on Wednesday afternoons and would need the car for that, otherwise would fit in with Poppy’s use of it; the weekly shopping she could still manage, especially if Poppy helped bring it in from the car.

  The day Poppy and George went to his GP he had woken feeling particularly unwell, not so much in pain, he insisted, as unwell. Dr Jasmine Owens turned out to be fortyish, plump, and kind. After giving George a ‘push and a poke’ as he called it, she sat at her desk and looked from one to the other.

  ‘Tell me everything ab…’

  ‘Just as much as…’

  Poppy and George started talking together, then both stopped. The doctor said there was nothing new, just more of the same and George decided to wait outside so Poppy could ask as many questions as she liked.

  ‘Call me Jasmine,’ said the doctor when he had gone. ‘George has made it very clear that he doesn’t want anything other than palliative care and only wants to know about medications and anything he has to do.’ Poppy was nodding. ‘I take it you would like to know more.’ Poppy explained that she would be staying on and it seemed as though she would be somewhat ‘in charge’ of things, so, yes, she would like to know as much as she could understand without being a medical person.

  The best news for Poppy was that the GP could access nursing services as and when they were needed, she herself would not have to find out how. Macmillan nurses, Jasmine explained, were especially trained to deal with cancer patients and could be used as well as the district nurse, who could come up to three times a day. George should come in to the surgery once a week while he could, then she would visit at home. At the moment he was doing all right on oral pain medication, though there would come a time when he needed more. No, Poppy would never be expected to give injections! As he would not have any more diagnostic procedures she couldn’t tell how the primary tumour was advancing except by external examination and it seemed to her today to be much the same as a week ago. And, of course, there was no knowing about any secondary growths, they could be anywhere, though the bowel, lungs and brain were the most likely.

  To Poppy’s questions about how quickly he would get worse and how would she know, the reply was that he had plateaued over the last couple of weeks, probably because his family came – there were smiles of approval at this – and it was possible that there would be a sudden deterioration in the next week or ten days, but really, it was all speculation. Guiltily, Poppy said she was planning to go away over the weekend, should she perhaps not?

  ‘Not at all! Splendid idea! This is as good as it will be, you know, and Mrs Sinclair will be at home no doubt.’ Poppy let out her breath in relief. And thought, for the first time, that maybe Susanna could do with a few days away some time soon.

  Chapter Seven

  Poppy woke early on Friday morning as was becoming her habit. Being awake, alert and ready to get up soon after six was a new phenomenon, one she thought she would appreciate more at home. The problem was there was nothing to stay up for in the
evenings, with television failing to attract her interest, so she went to bed early, intending to read from the pile of science fiction novels that sat by her bed since a trip to the local library with Susanna’s membership card. She had not yet had managed more than a few pages before drooping eyelids and flagging concentration wiped out her usual pleasure in escaping to other worlds.

  Resisting the urge to get up, Poppy hugged herself with a wriggle of pleasure at the thought of the coming weekend away. The weather was predicted fine and the idea of a respite from the hothouse atmosphere she was living in – only a week and I’m hanging out for a break, she thought with dismay – was most appealing. And, of course, two nights and days with Jane. Of course. When they had met mid-week for a meal out, Poppy had been aware of them touching, a hand on a knee as they were driving, hands across a restaurant table, a foot underneath, shoulders, arms as they walked along the street.

  She welcomed the touching but continued to be troubled by Jane’s emotional unfinished-ness with Héloise and, even more, her lack of awareness of the importance for Poppy of frankness about the situation between them. Poppy herself found it hard to describe that situation – interest in each other? love? lust? She always assumed that a sexual relationship would become a full partnership, and was assuming this was the same for Jane. Yet Jane, who made it quite clear that she wanted herself and Poppy to be sexual together, had been surprised – and outraged – that Héloise had worked out that possibility and taken action. Had she really expected that Héloise wouldn’t notice, or if she did, wouldn’t do anything until Jane was ready to talk about it?

  When Jane had called at the house one lunch-time with messages for George from his colleagues and an invitation for him to a special afternoon tea at the museum, Poppy felt awkward at first, but George had been so delighted to see Jane and so keen to hear news of the museum that she soon relaxed. He said near the end of the visit, that he thought his days of working at the museum were over and Jane responded, genuinely, that he would be missed and the work he had done had increased the reputation of ‘the Cleveland’ throughout the museum world.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is satisfying to know that there is a small piece of work of mine that contributes to our knowledge of the world.’

  ‘It is small,’ he had been firm when Poppy objected, ‘in the overall scheme of things, and I am proud of it.’

  Today, Jane was leaving work early and picking Poppy up at three. ‘Don’t think about anything except what clothes to bring,’ she had been told and was happy to have her idea so thoroughly organised for her.

  Picking up the notebook she’d bought to replace her initial sheets of paper, Poppy skimmed down the two pages she had written, mainly about George and being here in his house and realising she had to get out regularly, out in the open; walking on the moors a couple of times a week, perhaps. She had written ‘Jane’ a couple of nights ago and doodled around the name for some time but not written anything. She put the notebook with her pile of things to take away for the weekend, got out of bed and stretched, humming to herself.

  Removing her night-shirt she examined her nearly-fifty-year-old body; some flabby bits under the upper arms, a little drooping of the breasts, inhibited by the roll of flesh underneath, solid thighs; she was happy enough to show all this to Jane and was blessed, she thought, with a good, well-functioning physical self, wondering briefly whether it held any frights in store for her.

  Friday was one of the days the cleaner came. The other one was Tuesday. Poppy felt awkward while she was there. Susanna would make a list of things for her to do once the basic vacuuming and bathroom and toilet cleaning was finished. The cleaner was small, wiry, energetic and ageless and told everyone to call her Mrs Madge. She called Poppy, and everyone else, Pet. There was a form to sign, ‘for the social’, confirming that she had worked three hours on a particular day. Apart from fifteen minutes when she sat at the kitchen table with a cup of strong sweet tea and read a romance novel she carried in the large pocket of her apron, Mrs Madge worked steadily, starting and finishing promptly. Poppy was to leave her bed unmade for the sheets to be changed on Fridays, though she thought there was no reason why she couldn’t do that herself. Mrs Madge, Susanna had told her, took the sheets and towels away to the laundry on Friday and brought them back Tuesday, so she started fifteen minutes after the hour on Tuesday. They had to pay the laundry themselves, on a monthly bill, but it was worth it, Susanna said, because she couldn’t lift wet towels or sheets out of the machine, never mind hanging them on the washing line.

  ‘Washing! What am I doing thinking about washing?’ Her weekend bag was packed. It was only seven o’clock, three hours until she was taking George to get a haircut and eight hours until Jane was collecting her at three.

  In fact, the day passed quickly. George wanted to take advantage of the weather and visit the moors so Poppy drove after the hairdresser’s to a spot near Guisborough, and they walked a tiny portion of the Cleveland Way very slowly. They both enjoyed the warm, clear day and the smells of early summer. The heather was not yet in flower, but the tawny browns and greens, even golds where the sun struck shiny leaves or damp grasses had their own beauty. George was delighted to spot a grouse and they talked about the very particular beauties of both England and New Zealand and whether it would be possible for George to make a last visit to the Lake District.

  ‘Would you consider a wheel chair?’ Poppy asked as they turned back towards the car. ‘We could go a lot of places with a folding wheelchair in the car…’

  ‘As long as you don’t put a hand-knitted blanket over my knees.’ George said immediately. ‘My grandfather,’ he explained with a laugh. ‘Actually it wasn’t the blanket so much as the way he dribbled.’

  ‘Okay, let’s get you a wheelchair. I noticed a mohair blanket in the back of the car, would that do?’

  ‘Yes, indeed it would.’ The pressure on Poppy’s arm increased and her father stopped walking. ‘And seriously,’ he said when she turned to look at him, ‘do stop taking me out if I dribble, there’s something so diminishing about an old man dribbling in public.’ She promised and didn’t argue with ‘old’.

  When Jane arrived at ten-to-three Poppy had been ready for some time. Susanna was saying, ‘Of course I can manage, I did until you arrived, didn’t I?’ so Poppy apologised for fussing, then George came in from his sleep and he and Susanna were bustling her out the door.

  ‘I’m driving.’ Jane was definite. Poppy thought she looked tired. ‘Yet another bad day at the museum,’ she explained as they pulled away, Poppy waving her hand out the window until they turned the corner. ‘Plus a letter from Héloise’s lawyer’.

  They would talk out their respective pre-occupations during the drive, they decided, then do their best to put them aside for the rest of the weekend. Jane took the quicker, more inland road, telling Poppy how she planned to reply to the unreasonable demands in the lawyer’s letter for her to meet all the house expenses. She went on to say that the museum staff, were a big disappointment to her, aligning themselves with various factions in the board and being entirely unprofessional.

  ‘How are you doing?’ she finally asked Poppy, and Poppy told her about feeling helpful in practical ways as well as needing to be there emotionally for herself and for George.

  ‘I’m going to ring the local Lesbian Line next week, have you ever…’

  ‘Not really, no. It never seemed necessary I suppose. Why…?’

  ‘I guess I’m used to lesbian company, I miss it.’

  ‘Oh. Don’t I coun…?’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Perhaps she should never have raised it. ‘I just thought, if I end up being here for more than a couple of months…’ They turned into the road down to Whitby town centre and Jane waved a hand towards the coast, ‘That’s where we lived while I was growing up’, she said. ‘A bit in from Sandsend really, a newish – then – flat suburb, nothing like where we’re going.’

  Many of the houses they pass
ed had Bed & Breakfast signs with ‘vacancy’ in most windows but Jane wasn’t stopping for any of them. ‘Where…?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  Seagulls, big and noisy, were circling overhead. People poured out of the railway station from a recently-arrived train, and they were driving right down to the river, over the narrow bridge and turning left up an even narrower street, barely one car wide, leading to the abbey steps and the old lighthouse. Jane stopped outside a tea-room. She was looking very pleased with herself.

  ‘I’ll have to leave you here with our bags while I park the car.’ Her grin became a giggle at the look on Poppy’s face. On both sides of the street were tiny shops, on the river side interspersed with doorways into pubs. Buildings, mostly two-level, huddled up to each other and the narrow footpaths.

  ‘Ah-ha.’ Poppy had spotted a ‘rooms’ sign and pointed to it.

  ‘Nope.’ Jane’s giggled again and jumped back into the driver’s seat, leaving Poppy standing on the footpath with two bags and a very large chilly bin.

  ‘No peeping,’ Jane called out the car window, nodding towards the chilly bin, ‘back in five minutes.’

  It was early in the summer and there were not many people about. The Duke of York hotel, a bit further along the road was the busiest spot. Poppy sat carefully on the chilly bin, testing to see if it would take her weight. Soon she saw Jane running towards her with a skip and a wave. She stood up, saying ‘okay, where to now?’