Poppy's Return Read online

  Jane picked up the bin and one bag, ‘Follow me,’ she said with a forward sweep of her arm and set off down a cobbled alley leading to… tea-rooms. She spoke to the woman at the counter. Were they stopping for afternoon tea? Another woman came out and led them to a door and handed Jane a key. ‘Breakfast is seven-thirty to nine,’ she told them brusquely and walked off.

  The room was charming, with a double and a single bed, the double a wooden four-poster with curtains on the back corners. Blue and white walls and fittings with a shower and toilet under what must be a stairway. Lacy curtains filtered the light, and drapes hung beside each window, ready to shut out the world completely. Poppy put down her bag and took a moment before she turned to Jane; she had been thinking open space, looking out at the sea…

  ‘Do you like it?’ Anxiously.

  And it didn’t matter where they were, they were alone, and in private. Poppy forced a smile, felt it spread through her. ‘Mmm,’ she said, ‘romantic.’ Jane held her gaze. Poppy took a step backwards and flopped onto the big bed. ‘Take me!’ she said melodramatically, flinging open her arms and her legs, wanting suddenly to be swept out of herself, to be alive in her body, carried away from thoughts and disappointments, cautions and caveats.

  Jane moved slowly towards her, touching her first on the face and neck with a cool hand, running light fingers down her arm, bending into a kiss. They did not hurry. Not like the first time with Kate… ‘Stop it!!’ Poppy told herself. Then there was nothing, no-one else, just her and Jane, touching, kissing, stroking, exploring each other, eyes holding contact for long moments, hearts pounding, moving around each other, tasting, licking, kissing, stroking, always stroking, all in a timeless blend. They discovered dimples and bumps and bones, freckles in unusual places, ticklish spots and erotic places, giving and receiving pleasure in a series of sexual eruptions that left them both, finally, damp, limp and laughing in languorous satisfaction. The room was dark.

  Jane stood up to pull the drapes, trailing a hand along Poppy’s back. Poppy raised her head, kissing each naked buttock in turn, mmmmmmm.

  ‘I’m starv…’

  ‘I could eat a h…’ They spoke at once and collapsed into laughter again, biting at each others’ arms, elbows, noses, until Jane jumped up and shrugged on a dark blue satin bathrobe, without bothering to close it.

  ‘Yum, sexy.’ Poppy was reclining on an elbow.

  Jane lifted the chilly bin lid and held up, one at a time, a smoked chicken, French bread broken into pieces, a bottle of champagne, glasses, a lidded container of salad, a jar of dressing…

  ‘I know this is not exactly camping but I thought’ – she indicated the chicken – ‘as a first night of its own sort…’

  Poppy had made much of her tradition of taking a smoked chicken for the first meal of a camping trip when they had travelled in New Zealand in January. ‘And I suppose you have bacon and… oh, hang on, this is a B & B, they’ll do it.’

  ‘Right. As long as we’re up and dressed in time.’

  They ate and drank hungrily, talking with ‘do you remembers?’ of the time Jane was in New Zealand, laughing, shying away from anything difficult or painful, wanting to stay wrapped in a cocoon of each other.

  ‘Who’s going to sleep in the single bed?’ Poppy asked as they cleared the remnants of food back into the chilly bin, each holding a glass with the last of the champagne. They both collapsed in helpless laughter, spilling their drinks on each other, giggling at the tickle of the bubbles, licking the liquid off, and not stopping, making love again, noisy and laughing and moaning, and, finally, sleeping. Sleep was fitful for them both, stirring to touch and confirm the presence of the other, to murmur and make small throaty noises and sleep again. They made love again in the early morning and lay dozing in the warmth and smells of each other until the faint sounds of crockery mingling with the raucous noise of the inevitable seagulls woke them fully, thinking of breakfast.

  Over the bacon and eggs (poached these days) that Poppy insisted on for the first morning, they reminisced some more about camping together earlier in the year, laughing at their separate tents, and over second coffees planned the day. ‘Out-doors, open spaces, sea air, walking,’ were Poppy’s requirements and Jane concurred happily, requiring herself that they lunch on scampi and dressed crab and have a fish dinner that night. ‘After all, that’s what Whitby is famous for.’ Poppy had promised to get kippers from a certain place made famous by the Two Fat Ladies of television cooking, for George and Susanna, so she needed to check that it would be open the next day, it being Sunday.

  Jane bought their lunch items from two separate shops and they found bread rolls at a third. ‘No chips, oh well, times change,’ Jane said. There were certainly plenty of places that sold hot chips and numbers of people sitting on benches along the breakwaters that guided the river into the sea eating them, seagulls, always the seagulls, squawking, circling, large and black and white, demanding, intrusive, and necessary to the English seaside.

  They climbed the one hundred and ninety-nine steps to the church and the ruined abbey that dominated the cliff-top over the town. The old graveyard fascinated Poppy, weathered grey and black headstones, many unreadable, meandering up a green slope. Markers of people’s lives, she thought, whole lives, names eroded by the salt wind. Mrs Mudgely hovered over the nearest grey slab, shaking her head; Poppy shook hers, ‘None of that today,’ she told herself, and hurried to catch up to Jane.

  The church was lovely, homely rather than grand, ramshackle, with the usual box for donations to assist restoration plans, so she dropped her change into it. The Abbey ruins, on the other hand, were grand, imposing. A new visitor centre was promised, work underway, opening in March 2002. They wandered around, Poppy taking photos of the sky through empty windows, a passing Swedish tourist offering to take a picture of ‘you and your friend together’. Jane had binoculars out, scanning for the sea birds she loved. It took a while to find the path along this coast that was the Cleveland Way and when they did they set off striding along the top of the cliff. Jane stretched out her arms, whooping and running along making gull-wing movements.

  ‘Remember you can’t fly!’ Poppy’s voice disappeared into the wind.

  There was no-one else in sight except for tiny figures far away. She revelled in the air, the height, the wide sky and sea disappearing beyond the horizon, discoloured where the river flowed into it. This was what she missed in Middlesbrough, this sense of natural vastness, unencumbered by needs or emotions, untamable, unmanageable, demanding nothing but due care. Suddenly she became aware of Jane at the next headland, waving, so she hurried towards her. Holding hands they danced around and around together, throwing yells and whoops into the wind, exhilarated, stopping only when they became aware of a party of five on the path ahead.

  They turned back towards the town, finding a spot looking over the town to the sandy beach on the far side of the river to have lunch. Swimming in the North Sea this early in the summer was for those more intrepid than themselves, they decided.

  ‘Yum,’ Jane licked her fingers as they gathered the remnants of their feast. Poppy passed her the water bottle. ‘Nectar!’ she proclaimed as she passed it back. ‘Let’s do the shops on our way to the other pier and stand out at the end, gazing at the north sea…’

  ‘Okay.’ Poppy was looking about for a rubbish bin. She took great lungsful of the air. Making their way down the steps, taking care on the narrow treads, they saw the two piers, curved in breakwaters out into the sea, feeding the river waters out and moderating the inwards tides. Directly across the river were stone and brick houses, roofed mostly in tiles, occasionally painted white, filling every space. Poppy supposed there were roads among them but from this angle none were visible, nor was any pattern that might indicate where they ran. Huddled, as though for warmth or comfort, she thought, houses cuddling up together on the low hillside.

  They walked in narrow cobbled lanes, among tiny shops selling fish or crafts or teas,
with entrances to hostelries or accommodation of various kinds. Jewellery made from local jet, and ammonites and other fossils attracted them both. Poppy thought of buying them both a jet ring, but decided it was not yet time for that, so bought an exquisite ammonite, its perfect curves set in a tiny piece of rock forever and gave it to Jane right away, there in the shop. Jane blushed fiercely under the interested gaze of the artisan-shopkeeper and hustled them both out onto the footpath.

  ‘Sorry, I should have waited and given it to you later…’

  ‘No, no it’s fine, it was all I could do not to kiss you in front of him. Maybe we could go back for a… rest? Oh dear, I feel like a gauche school-girl.’ Jane was blushing.

  ‘Soon. I want more sea air, come on.’ And they raced through the Saturday afternoon crowd, along a couple more lanes, paying cursory attention to the shop windows. At one stage Poppy lost Jane, so after a few minutes she stood in the middle of the road, shifting out of the way of the occasional delivery van negotiating the small space.

  ‘Making myself easy to find,’ she explained when Jane tapped her on the shoulder, ‘where did you get to?’ Jane didn’t answer, just led the way across the bridge to the pier on the other side. Fish, various sea-foods and chips, take-aways and restaurants lined the path, then the inevitable arcade of flashing lights, game machines, sirens and bangs. Poppy hurried past. Jane paused a moment, then matched her pace.

  ‘That place was magic to me as a kid,’ she said. ‘It was much smaller then, more pinball than today’s games, once a year on my birthday my father would take me and let me beat him sometimes…’ Poppy smiled at her. ‘I guess it’s because I’m a New Zealander I just don’t get amusement arcades at the beach.’

  ‘Weather!’ said Jane.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rotten English summer weather, something indoors to do on your summer holidays.’

  ‘Oh, oh yes, I hadn’t thought of that. Look.’ The stretch of almost-golden sand to the north had come into view. In the sunshine the water looked appealing and they scrambled down to the sand.

  ‘Sticky sand, I had forgotten.’ Poppy was trying to brush it off her feet after very briefly testing the water. They lay on dry sand for a while, enjoying the warmth of the sun, then Jane insisted they finish their walk to the end of the breakwater for the sensation of being surrounded by sea. By the time they made their way back to their room both were weary and they fell on the bed together. Jane jumped up again and searched for something in her jeans pocket, drawing out a bracelet of pieces of jet with links of silver.

  ‘For you.’ She held it out to Poppy, who put it on her arm.

  ‘It’s beautiful. Come here.’ They lay in each others’ arms, side by side, facing, eyes open.

  Jane spoke first. ‘Do you want…?’

  ‘Not really. Lying here is good. Close. Sleepy.’ Poppy ran her fingers gently over Jane’s face, tracing the cheek-bones, nose, around her ears, across her lips. Then her eyelids closed, and Jane matched her regular, even breathing and lay very still until she too fell asleep.

  Poppy woke to the feel of Jane’s hand on her breast, her fingers kneading the nipple, and was instantly aroused. They were both perspiring in the warm room, slick in places, licking the warm saltiness of each other, exploring bodies with an intensity, fierceness even, that was different from their earlier languor. Jane, kneeling, her head flung back, moaning, Poppy burying her face, clasping, then biting kisses on her shoulders, unable to tell whose sounds she was hearing, wallowing, exalting, flying, falling, soaring again. Eventually they both fell back on the bed, hot and sweaty, arms and legs just touching.

  ‘Mmmmnnnn,’ came a throaty sound from Jane. ‘Fan-bloody-tastic. How about you?’

  ‘Mmmm-mmm,’ Poppy was searching for words. Satisfied, no, satiated, and something else… then… oh, to hell with words she told herself and turned and nuzzled into Jane’s breasts.

  ‘Big nipples,’ she murmured, ‘not like my tiny ones.’

  ‘Tiny and sensitive.’

  ‘You noticed!’

  ‘How could I not!’

  They showered together, soaping each other and taking turns in the feeble water flow, and got dressed for the ‘fish pie at the Duke of York’ Jane insisted they experience, adding, ‘We can have the famous Whitby fish and chips before we leave tomorrow.’

  Chapter Eight

  In the morning Poppy woke full of sadness for George and cried in the comfort of Jane’s arms.

  After a while she said, ‘Talk to me about when your parents died. Not what happened, what it was like, how you coped emotionally.’

  The hand that was stroking Poppy’s back and shoulders tensed. ‘I was angry when my father died because my mother had been ill so long and she was supposed to die first.’

  ‘Was that all? Angry?’

  ‘No, of course not! Look, I don’t really want to talk about this. It was a long time ago and this is our time for us…’ her hand was moving softly again, up and down and around Poppy’s back, tantalisingly close to breasts and buttocks. Poppy moved away; she’d had a thought she wanted to say, even if it wasn’t welcome.

  ‘I wondered why you were so enraged when Héloise left before you could carry out your plan, maybe it was a bit the same…’ Poppy said this tentatively and felt Jane’s response as a stiffening of her whole body.

  ‘Well, yes.’ Jane’s voice was dismissive and when she continued, resigned. ‘And when my mother died nine long long years later it was more of a relief really, the emphysema was choking her, it was awful. So both were completely different from you and George.’ Jane was lying quite still now.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ And it’s still having a parent die, Poppy thought and didn’t say; she didn’t say, either, that she didn’t feel like talking about George’s dying now. And neither of them was attempting to talk about any time more than a day ahead, as though in silent agreement.

  After a few moments Jane asked Poppy to reconsider seeing her at her own place now that Héloise had truly gone. She’d not continued with the bed-sit, it seemed silly to have no-one living in the house and H was even suggesting that she, Jane, should pay all the expenses and the mortgage until the house was sold.

  ‘You need a lawyer.’ It wasn’t meant to sound as abrupt as it did, perhaps because Poppy drew away and sat up on the side of the bed as she said it. ‘Really,’ she went on, ‘you need a lawyer for the property bits, it’ll be much cleaner.’ She knew she hadn’t responded to the part about visiting at Jane’s house.

  ‘I know, I’ve been avoiding it, hoping we could work it out ourselves.’ Poppy melted at the misery in Jane’s voice and turned back to her. But the ‘awayness’ of the weekend had dissipated, so they started on an activity plan for the morning, and decided on a brief visit to the Captain Cook museum, a trawl through the shops, finding the kippers for George and Susanna, a late fish and chip lunch and an afternoon return drive along the coast.

  ‘With a cliff walk.’ Poppy wanted more open spaces.

  Planning their day together brought them back into the same orbit and they made love again rather than get up in time for breakfast, searching for the powerful blending of the night before. As they lay spent, Jane said, ‘I love you Poppy.’

  ‘Me to,’ she responded, very quietly.

  While Poppy was in the shower Jane assembled leftover chicken and bread from Friday night into sandwiches, ‘It’s been in the chilly bin and it smells okay, I’m game if you are,’ she said, offering one to a towel-wrapped Poppy who bit into it doubtfully at first, then hungrily.

  ‘What about what’s left?’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Jane was shoving all the remnants into a plastic bag.

  Poppy got her walk, along Sandsend beach on their way out of Whitby. Jane had driven past the house she and her family had lived in, brick, in a street of identical dwellings, in the midst of several other streets much the same. None of the features of the town were visible from that street, not the castle, nor the church, the
river nor the beach or sea. They’d had fish and chips on the pier from paper bundles, the batter light and crisp, the fish fresh and cooked just right, chips golden and crisp with soft insides, Jane’s with vinegar, Poppy’s without.

  On the drive along the coast, past Saltburn-by-the-Sea where they had danced on the sand on the first night, Poppy raised the question of other lesbians, and lesbian groups around Middlesbrough again. Jane reiterated her lack of knowledge. She’d never heard of a lesbian group in Yorkshire, never mind Middlesbrough, except for a mixed lesbian and gay paper, Shout! that she thought came out of York and had seen once or twice.

  ‘We used to socialise with another couple’, she said, ‘but they moved to Manchester a couple of years ago.’ Then she added, defensively, ‘we were both always busy with work, you know.’

  ‘Sure.’ Poppy could not imagine a life without lesbian friends. ‘Wow! Look at that!’ They had passed Redcar and a huge industrial estate was coming into view. Enormous concrete structures, towers, spheres with ladders curving up the side, cooling towers, high barbed-wire fences.

  ‘Teesside. Industry. Chemicals.’ said Jane. ‘You remember, the lights the other night. You must have seen this in daylight before.’

  ‘I suppose, but it’s never struck me like this. And it goes on and on.’

  ‘Yeah. Those of us who live here prefer to forget about it. Unless we work there I suppose, but I don’t know anyone who does.’ The traffic into Middlesbrough was heavy, so Jane kept most of her attention on the road. Poppy was thinking about George and liver cancer and information she’d got off the ’net; unusual to have primary liver cancer without cirrhosis, some chemicals could be a factor but she couldn’t remember which ones, and she didn’t know what happened here, but what about pollutants? She asked Jane.

  ‘There was a big clean-up, oh, years ago. They boast that the air here is cleaner than in London now.’ She went on to talk about the Teesside Corporation that had been formed to clean up the river as well.