by Pat Rosier
It is very difficult at the museum. Skimming the next few paragraphs, Poppy learned that the information Jane had brought back from her time at the Auckland and Wellington museums had everyone very excited about how they could spend the legacy that had been the reason for her visit; and there was also a lot of politicking about what exactly to do and it had started to get personal and nasty and she was trying to stay right out of that.
By the way, have you heard from George lately? He’s been coming in less and less over the last month and looking quite poorly. I meant to say something last week and forgot. This was followed by the usual ‘missing you’ and ‘love, Jane,’ as always.
‘How could I have been so certain she had moved out of their bedroom when she never said?’ The computer was shut down and Poppy was pacing the living room with the cat on her shoulder. She stopped. ‘Have they been…?’ She flopped onto the sofa. ‘Oh, what does it matter anyway?’ she directed at the departing cat. ‘It’s George that matters for now, not my love life or whatever.’ The ache in her stomach told her that wasn’t true, so she sighed heavily, stood up and headed for the kitchen where Mrs Mudgely jumped down and sat by her bowl.
The next week dragged by, even though it was busy. She never actually got over to Howick to see Chan and Ivan, but Katrina had cooked for them on two days and stayed the night once. ‘Checking up on us,’ Ivan had reported on the phone, ‘but she’s a pretty good cook and actually she can be good fun.’ And various neighbours were popping in with food and ringing and generally leaving no chance to, ‘cut loose, even if we had wanted to. And I haven’t been late for school once.’ Poppy had smiled at the pride in his voice.
By Thursday Martia had arranged for her furniture to go up north to Gloria’s and agreed with the flat owner that if he got a new tenant to move in Martia’s rent would stop immediately, otherwise she would pay out the three weeks’ notice she was supposed to give.
Shared mornings in her classroom with Stefan had gone smoothly. Moana reported that the Board of Trustees chairperson had approved her leave. (She didn’t tell Poppy how hard she had had to argue to retain ‘an experienced and excellent teacher’ in the face of his opinion that it would be more efficient to find a permanent replacement.)
The only thing Poppy hadn’t sorted was what to do about her car. It was the newest she had ever owned, a 1996 Honda Civic, and leaving it parked on the road for weeks seemed like a big risk in a city where car vandalism and theft was rife. When Katrina came up with a solution – ‘I’ve got half a double garage I don’t use, drive your car over here on Monday and I’ll take you to the airport,’ she wanted to have remembered that herself; she was so edgy that one patronising comment from Katrina would be one too many.
The following day there was a letter from Katrina in her mail. It contained a cheque for $10,000 and a note that read, ‘You can’t argue with a letter. I gave Stefan a little more because there are two of them going. Indulge me, I can easily afford it and you and Stefan will have it one day, anyway. xxK.’ ‘Never mind pride, Poppy,’ she said to herself and put the cheque in her bag to bank the next day when she went to get English money then rang Katrina and thanked her. ‘I might just have surprised my mother for once,’ she told the cat when she got off the phone.
Suddenly it was Sunday and she was leaving the next day. Her email to Jane had been brief, saying that Stefan and May-Yun would meet her train at York, then she could get the latest about George from them on the drive. The two of them had stayed at George’s for the first week, then moved to a bed-and-breakfast nearby. Word from the specialist was that radiography and chemotherapy would slow down the progress of the tumours; they would also make George ill. The specialist’s opinion was that, although she always encouraged patients to have treatment, at seventy, George was entitled to make the decision for himself.
There was a final email from Jane, sorry of course about George, and everyone at the museum is concerned about him, one or two have been to visit and say he looks thin and not well, but is the same old George to talk to. It didn’t seem right, for me to go.
And, dear, dear, Poppy I cannot pretend that I am not excited, no, thrilled, that you will be here soon.
‘Am I thrilled, Mrs Mudgely?’ There was no answer. ‘Well, I am something, pleased maybe, to be seeing her again soon. Oh, all right, very pleased, maybe even excited! When I can stop thinking about George.’ She was crying again. Often during the days since Susanna’s letter she had cried; once, half-watching a television programme, she had noticed a scene set in the English countryside with a man of indeterminate age walking along a stream, and had suddenly been sobbing. By the time the paroxysm had subsided into quiet tears the scene was long gone and she switched off the television and went to bed, thankful for the comforting presence of Mrs Mudgely.
‘That is good, Poppy, very good,’ May-Yun had said when Poppy told her about the tears during the next phone call from Middlesbrough. ‘You are getting used to the truth that your father is dying, and he is, Poppy dear. He is not going to die before you arrive, but you must be prepared, he is very sick and has got weaker even since we arrived. And he has pain, and the medicine is dealing with that.’ She also reported that Stefan had spent a couple of hours each day sitting with him and talking, something she was very pleased about. When Poppy asked her about Susanna it was clear from her reply that it was not possible to say anything at that moment.
On the Sunday afternoon Martia moved in. She would use the spare bedroom, she had decided, the one with the outlook up Maungawhau, not Poppy’s room. ‘The room Jane had,’ Poppy thought and didn’t say.
‘I want to come to the airport with you. Shall I ring Katrina and see if it’s okay for her to drop me here on her way back to Herne Bay?’ Poppy was staring into space and didn’t answer. Her friend watched her for a moment and then went to phone.
During the last minute rush Poppy remembered that she had never got back to the woman Joy and explained leaving her in the lurch regarding the movie, and that had been over a week ago. She asked Martia to ring Joy when she got back from the airport, following the request with a tearful farewell of Mrs Mudgely, glad she did not have to leave her at Moggy Manor for an indefinite period. ‘We’ll do just fine together,’ Martia reassured her, and joined Katrina in bustling her out the door.
On the drive Poppy worried out loud about not having let other friends know what she was doing and Martia reassured her that she would bring them up to date. ‘Rina especially,’ Poppy insisted, ‘And Alexa and Bessie. And Eve.’
‘All of them,’ Martia promised, ‘and very soon. Please don’t worry.’
As she and Martia walked back to the car after waving Poppy down the air bridge, Katrina said, ‘Well, I’m relieved the flight wasn’t delayed, or we’d have had two of her.’
‘Two…?’
‘Two Poppys. She’d have been beside herself.’ Katrina explained.
‘Oh, yes, I see.’ Martha quickened her step to keep up with Katrina’s brisk stride.
Chapter Three
When Poppy arrived at York railway station she had been travelling for over forty hours and had never been more pleased to see her brother. It was five o’clock in the afternoon and there was still the drive to Middlesbrough and seeing her father before she could go to bed.
‘Where’s…?’
‘At a hotel on the way out of town, we’re staying overnight.’
Relief swept through her so fast she stumbled. Stefan dropped a bag and grabbed her arm. ‘Steady on.’
She leant on her brother’s shoulder. ‘I am so grateful, and so desperate to lie down, and to have a shower, and to eat something that’s not airline food. Not necessarily in that order. Before I see George. Is that awful?’
‘No, it’s human. Come on, it’s only five minutes in the car. Sometimes even your brother can have a good idea.’ All Poppy could manage was a nod.
The warmth of May-Yun’s greeting when she opened the door, being taken care of, her
absolute weariness from travelling, all combined to undo her completely. She fell into an armchair and let the tears flow. ‘Sorry,’ she managed after a few minutes. ‘It’s the tiredness, and you both being so kind.’
‘What else would we be?’ Stefan asked.
There was salad, just made, freshly baked bread, ham off-the-bone, strawberries, melon, mandarins, all beautifully arranged on the few plates in the room. ‘There is no kitchen, so this is very simple; we thought you would not want to go out again once you were here,’ May-Yun explained and Poppy ate, grateful for fresh food.
When Poppy looked around she could see that there were two rooms, the one they were in containing a double bed, a television, the necessaries for making hot drinks, a tiny fridge, and a built-in corner that was, no doubt, a shower and toilet. And the other room would be a bedroom. How sensible. She smiled at them both. ‘It just didn’t occur to me that we wouldn’t have to drive to Middlesbrough today; this is so good.’ She paused for a moment then asked, ‘You haven’t said, how is George?’
‘He is ill, and he is not going to die yet,’ May-Yun answered. ‘And he’s very excited to be seeing you tomorrow.’ She looked at Stefan, who continued, ‘We’re staying on for three more days, at Mrs Jacob’s B & B, so there’ll be plenty of time to talk. Just now, you need to get rested, you look dreadful.’
‘I’ll bet. But… this,’ Poppy gestured around the room, ‘and where you are staying, it must all be costing a fortune!’
‘Okay, just one thing now, then May-Yun and I are going out for a meal and a movie and you will stay here and wash and eat or whatever you have to do and then rest, sleep even.’ Stefan went to a zip bag in the corner of the room, took out a thickish envelope and handed it to Poppy. All that was in it were one hundred pound notes. ‘Twenty of them,’ Stefan told her. ‘From George.’ She was shaking her head. ‘He gave me an envelope just like it.’
Stefan explained that George had had him drive him to the bank two days in a row and on the second day had collected four thousand pounds cash. The way George had told it to him, after his death there would be little enough for the two of them, he would leave everything to Susanna, of course, and it would, in due course, no doubt, go to her children. So he didn’t want any discussion or argument, it was little enough.
Poppy couldn’t help herself, she laughed. ‘Katrina and now George, throwing money at us… I feel a bit funny about it. Do you think they believe we couldn’t manage without their help?’
‘I think they’re both doing their best to be decent,’ said Stefan. ‘When I got Katrina’s cheque and rang her she said she wouldn’t argue, if I didn’t want the money give it to charity, she didn’t need to know what I did with it, she needed to give it to me. And I didn’t. Give it to charity, that is. But I – we – are thinking about giving some to the kids.’
‘When I think how hard it is for Martia to manage…’ Poppy was struggling with heavy eyelids, ‘I can’t think just now.’ She stuffed the envelope in her bag and stood up. ‘You’re right, everything else can wait until tomorrow, I’m heading for the shower.’ The other two had left when she came out, so she picked at some more food then collapsed into one of the twin beds in the other room.
As she started to drift off she thought of Jane. Should she ring her? Jane hadn’t answered her email question about what Héloise had been told; a little was not informative. No phone in this room. How to do toll calls from a hotel phone? Too hard. She went to sleep. When she finally woke fully after a night of restless dreams it was 6.00 a.m. and she had to creep out through the other room to go to the toilet. She couldn’t remember another time when she had seen her brother in bed as an adult. Ring Jane, there was urgency to that now, she wanted to ring Jane. But not at this time. A walk in a couple of hours, a public phone box. What would she say? ‘Hi Jane, here I am, are you still living with Héloise?’ What if H answered the phone? Back in bed she started planning what to say to Jane, but before she got much further than deciding to say ‘hello’ rather than ‘hi’ she fell asleep again.
By eight-thirty they were on the road to Middlesbrough and Poppy had not found or made an opportunity to ring Jane. Over breakfast of instant coffee and the remains of the food from the night before, Stefan had reported in detail on his visit to the oncologist with George. The oncologist, Stefan thought, generally agreed with George’s decision to forgo treatment but was obliged to encourage people towards various options in case he was seen to be failing in his medical duty. The local doctor was pretty good, he thought, and could probably be relied on to make sure they knew what support services were available as they were needed. George absolutely refused to go to any ‘living with cancer’ or ‘facing death’ groups. He, Stefan, was glad to have come – here he nodded an acknowledgement at his wife – and had spent some good times with his father; they had even talked a little about some sore spots from the past.
‘Will you come back for his funeral?’ Poppy was as startled as anyone when the question came out.
‘I don’t know. Probably. I think. That’s the best answer I can give at the moment. Do you want me to?’
‘I don’t know. I might. I don’t know why I asked that right now.’ Poppy was slightly embarrassed. ‘I guess I’m scared of, you know, the next bit, whatever it is going to be.’ And she busied herself with closing her bag, not willing to say out loud that she was just as scared of talking to – seeing – Jane and the two mixed up together was just about more than she could deal with.
They took the A19 to Middlesbrough, skirting the Yorkshire Moors, talking very little on the way. George was expecting them by lunch-time. Poppy sat in the back seat, reasonably refreshed from her arduous journey, watching the English countryside go by without really seeing it, oblivious for once to the intrusions of industry and the big white power stations. Separating her fears and feelings about George from those relating to Jane was suddenly imperative; how to manage time and attention for each, how much or little to tell George, whether to tell May-Yun and Stefan about – exactly what about? – her and Jane? There were so many questions and she didn’t have answers for any of them.
During a stop in Thirsk for ‘some decent coffee’ at May-Yun’s insistence, she found herself talking about how she and Jane had been continuing to keep in touch, how she had planned to come over at the end of the year when Jane’s present circumstances were more sorted and see whether they had anything to, ‘you know…’ she stopped, flustered, unused to talking to her brother in this way, looking at May-Yun for help. It was Stefan who responded first.
‘That’s good to know,’ he said, meeting her eyes briefly, ‘it sounds pretty difficult to me.’ Then he looked at his wife for assistance. She took her time.
‘Thank you for telling us,’ she began, ‘now we can help a little while we are still here. Perhaps you could take some time – this evening or tomorrow evening – to spend with Jane. And do tell George.’ She smiled a little. ‘It will be good for him to have something outside himself and Susanna to think about – although his interest may be a little trying for you sometimes.’ Poppy felt a weight fall off her. Of course, it was simple really, why ever was she even beginning to think about not telling, she couldn’t separate them, there was no need to, they were both difficult and she had to do them both at the same time, that was how it had worked out, and of course she would manage. Over the years she had expected support and encouragement and sympathy from her friends and got it in large measure, and from May-Yun too around that dreadful time when Kate had died. It was new, though, to have a sense of positive interest in what he called her ‘lifestyle’ from her brother. She felt a renewed warmth towards him.
‘There are some other things you should know about,’ began Stefan, and went on to tell Poppy about the cleaner who was coming in twice a week and the home nursing that would be available when it was needed. George had cancelled the cleaner for this week, not wanting a stranger about, ‘and it has given May-Yun and me some things to do,’ h
e concluded.
May-Yun turned from the front seat and said, ‘It is good to be able to do some practical things.’ Poppy nodded in agreement; she hoped there would be more for her to do than sit with George, though she certainly wanted to do that.
Stop it, she told herself, stop trying to work it out in advance, you’ll just do the best you can, making it up as you go along and she began to pay more attention to the countryside they were passing through, enjoying the English green-ness of it under the grey cloud. Shortly she dozed off yet again and woke with a start as Stefan turned the car into the driveway at George’s Middlesbrough house; modest, two-level, brick, semi-detached. Her father appeared in the doorway and she jumped out of the car and ran to him. They hugged closely for a long time, then stood back and looked at each other, both tearful.
‘You are a grand sight, a grand, grand sight.’ He gripped her lower arms with both hands, his mouth trembling, his eyes wet.
‘You’re not looking so bad, yourself,’ Poppy managed, glad he was in fact better than her worst fears, but thin, terribly thin, the skin around his jaw seemed too big for him. Susanna was hovering the hallway and Poppy released both arms from George’s grip, putting one around his shoulders for a moment, then went forward to greet her – no, not step-mother, Poppy had been grown-up when she married George thirty years ago – father’s wife. She was shocked when she got close, to see how drawn the other woman was, how tired looking, how slowly she moved and how claw-like her hands had become. Poppy hugged her carefully.
