Will You Remember Me?

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Daaad! I was watching that!’ Peg kicked her feet against him in protest.

  ‘I know, but Mummy and I want to have a word with you.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Peg sat up on the sofa and folded her arms across her chest. She looked and sounded like her great-grandma, Dorothea, and it made Poppy smile.

  Poppy sat on the coffee table, opposite her daughter, and took her chilly little toes between her hands.

  ‘There is something that I need to talk to you about, sweetheart.’

  ‘Is it sexy stuff?’ Peg asked as she flicked her fringe from her eyes.

  ‘Sorry?’ Poppy blinked.

  ‘Is it babies and sexy stuff, because I know all about that already.’

  ‘You do?’ Poppy asked, while Martin coughed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘Yes.’ Peg sighed. ‘Jade McKeever had a book about where babies come from and I know it’s seeds and eggs, so you don’t need to explain it to me.’

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ Poppy asked. ‘But no, it’s not about that. The thing is, I went to the doctor’s a little while ago and I am not very well.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Peg was, as ever, direct.

  ‘I have a problem with my blood and my bones and I am going to go into hospital in a few days, only for a day or so, so they can sort it out a bit. And then I will feel a lot, lot better, hopefully less achey and not so tired.’

  ‘What sort of problem is it?’ Peg’s nose twitched.

  ‘It’s a really horrible bug and it’s a bug that is going to make me very poorly and make me feel like rubbish, which is pants.’ Poppy grimaced. ‘It might make me feel weak and sleepy and all sorts of yucky things. So Daddy will pick you up from school more and maybe do a bit more of the shopping and cooking, that kind of thing.’

  Poppy waited for her daughter’s next comment, but it wasn’t what she expected.

  ‘Can you or Dad get me some little cartons of Ribena? Jade McKeever has them for break time and I’d like some too.’

  Poppy nodded. ‘Yes, sure.’

  Peg hopped off the sofa and went to collect Toffee from his cage.

  Poppy looked at her husband, who shrugged.

  It turned out to be like any other Saturday, where the hours flew by twice as fast as they did on a weekday. They ate ham and pickle sandwiches and crisps from plates which they balanced on their laps for lunch, Max had a nap mid afternoon and Martin pottered in his garage, doing goodness knows what. Poppy wiped down the surfaces in the kitchen ten times and washed the same mugs and plates at least four times before drying them and stacking them in the cupboards, ready for use.

  Aunty Jo dropped by, much to the delight of Peg, who insisted on giving her an impromptu makeover. Afterwards, as Poppy and Jo sat on the sofa – the remnants of blue eye shadow and a generous smear of red blusher still shockingly visible on Jo’s face – Martin thundered down the stairs, nearly slipping off the bottom step in his socks.

  ‘I’ve had a great idea!’ he announced.

  ‘Oh God, what now? I can think of several times when you’ve said that in the past and on one occasion you actually got me arrested!’ Poppy laughed.

  ‘Yes, my sweet, but you were never charged, and that’s the difference.’ He winked at his wife. ‘Why don’t we have a party?’

  Poppy curled her top lip. ‘What, now?’

  ‘No, in a few months – in the summer!’ He was grinning like a kid.

  ‘What kind of party, love? The kind where Peg sits on the stairs and watches everyone get drunk and you wee in a cupboard?’

  Martin laughed. ‘No, the kind where we hire the hall in Bulford and fill it with balloons and bunting and get a band in, do a really nice buffet, invite all our friends and all the kids’ friends and have a bash that they will never forget!’ He was brimming with energy.

  ‘Like the wedding reception we never had?’ Poppy asked. ‘Only don’t expect me to wear a silly white frock or anything.’

  Martin beamed at her. ‘Exactly. Like the wedding reception we never had. What do you think?’

  Poppy pictured the kids dressed up, her and Martin laughing with their friends. ‘I think you better give them a ring and see what dates they’ve got free. The whole thing, mind, Mart, not half the hall roped off like they do for kids’ parties. I’m not sharing my special do with the over-sixties’ dinner club or the Brownies’ indoor Olympics!’

  Martin clapped his hands together and went off in search of the local directory.

  ‘Looks like we’re having a party, mate!’ Poppy smiled at Jo.

  ‘I’ll come back for it from wherever I’ve moved to.’ Jo swallowed at the horrible thought of having to start over.

  ‘Oh God.’ Poppy placed her hand on her friend’s arm. ‘You better had. It wouldn’t be the same for me if you weren’t there and I’ve a feeling his lordship will have you on balloon-blowing duties.’

  ‘My pleasure. Ooh, I think I might treat myself to a new outfit. I’ve got to grab every opportunity I can – the chances of meeting husband number two while wandering around Sainsbury’s are pretty slim!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, I’ve seen you eyeing up that bloke on the fish counter!’ Poppy raised her eyebrows at her friend.

  Peg came down the stairs with her hairbrush and a collection of ribbons and sparkly clips. Jo groaned and looked at Poppy. Clearly her transformation wasn’t quite complete.

  ‘I know we’re joking, but in truth it’s all a bit soon for that. I don’t know how I’d ever trust anyone again.’

  ‘You will, mate, when the right one comes along.’

  ‘How do you know when the right one comes along?’ Peg asked as she arranged her hair accessories on the table.

  Poppy laughed. ‘You know because your tummy goes flippy and your face goes all smoochy. Isn’t that right, Jo?’

  ‘Yep, that’s the way!’ Jo smiled at her friend. ‘And you know, don’t you, that I’ll come back whenever the kids need minding or you need shopping, or anything, anything at all. Just pick up the phone, Poppy, and I’ll be here in a flash.’

  Poppy smiled, feeling very lucky to have a friend like Jo.

  Poppy had spent the day constantly glancing at Peg, who she had to admit seemed fine, despite the news of her mum’s horrid, lingering bug. She ran her daughter’s bath and sat on the floor while Peg splashed and chatted. She had been told to expect a delayed reaction, questions out of the blue, but so far, nothing. Though she was concerned that Peg might be bottling things up, she was in truth relieved not to have to deal with that reaction and those questions.

  When she and Martin went to bed that night, they were both thinking about Peg.

  Martin clicked off the bedside lamp and reached for his wife. Poppy pulled herself across the mattress until she lay with her head on his chest and his arm around her back and shoulder, cradling her to him. They liked to snuggle like this and when she drew away from him to seek out the cooler, uninhabited side of the mattress, they both knew that was their cue for sleep. It was one of the many habits, little rituals that they had fallen into over the years.

  ‘She seems okay,’ he whispered into the dark, his eyes not yet fully adjusted to the blackness.

  ‘She does, but we’ll need to keep an eye on her. She’ll probably have some questions once she’s consulted the oracle that is Jade McKeever and had her head filled with all the gory details. I guess we’ll have to use the dreaded c-word at some point, but all in good time.’

  ‘Maybe. Should we tell the school, do you think?’

  ‘What, that Jade is more knowledgeable than the Encyclopaedia Britannica? I’m sure they already know,’ Poppy quipped.

  ‘No, clever clogs. About you.’

  Poppy shook her head. ‘No. Not yet.’ She thought about the dinner lady who had contracted leukaemia a year or so ago, remembered the fundraisers, the vast, signed cards, the looks of pity and the gossip at the school gates. She wasn’t ready for that, any of it. ‘I don’t want t
o tell them because then it makes it real and I don’t really think it is. I keep expecting to get a phone call from the health centre telling me that there has been a bit of a mix-up and they’ll expect me to be angry, but I won’t be. I’ll just be happy and relieved.’

  ‘I feel the same. I still can’t take it in.’ He squeezed her tight. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Poppy heard the clammy sticking of his teeth to his lips. Even asking this made him nervous.

  ‘I’m okay.’ This was the truth; at that point, she was okay.

  ‘I was thinking…’ Martin stopped.

  ‘Thinking what?’ she prompted.

  She heard him sigh, felt his chest rise and fall beneath her cheek. ‘I was thinking that most people meet when they are much older than us and then have so many years together.’

  ‘Mmnnn.’ She didn’t know where he was going with this.

  ‘Well, maybe we met when we were so young so that we could have as much time as possible together. Or maybe because we got together when we were so young, we have kind of speeded things up and that’s why you are ill now, when you’re still only young, almost like ahead of your time.’

  Poppy moved her face against his skin. ‘I don’t know how or why it all happens, Mart. All I know is it has. It is what it is and I know that I love you and that’s all that matters really, isn’t it?’

  He nodded and kissed her scalp. ‘Yep. That’s all that matters.’

  She changed tack a bit. ‘Simon and Kate seem happy, wonder how long they’ve been married?’

  ‘Don’t know, but fancy them inviting us over! I still can’t get over it. It’s incredible.’

  Poppy smiled against his chest. ‘It really is.’

  There was a pause while both considered the practicalities involved in making a trip to the Caribbean.

  ‘Do you think you’re allowed to travel, Poppy? I don’t know how it works.’

  ‘Me either, love. We’re both on a bit of a steep learning curve here.’ She kissed his neck.

  ‘Yep, we are that.’

  Poppy lifted her head and raised her shoulder, preparing to scoot over to her side, but Martin held her fast. ‘Stay here.’ He almost pleaded.

  Poppy woke to the sound of the bedroom door creaking open. It was early and as usual she had tossed and turned into the wee small hours with her cogs turning and her body aching. Yet now, with the creep of day making its way under the curtain and across the wall, she could quite happily sleep until lunch time. It was always the way.

  Peg, trying her best to be silent, kicked the bottom of her parents’ bed, muttered, ‘Oops, sorry!’, half pulled off the duvet that snagged on her foot, and whispered loudly to her dad as she knelt on the floor beside him, landing with a thump on her knees. Poppy lay still, with her eyes closed, listening. She was hoping she could go back to sleep before Max woke and, still squashed and warm from sleep, demanded cereal, dinosaurs to count, his digger book and Mr Tumble on the telly – not necessarily in that order. Her mouth twitched into a smile at the thought of her boy.

  ‘Daddy?’ Peg tried to whisper but instead spoke at her normal volume, just with a rasp to her voice. She hadn’t quite grasped the concept.

  ‘What, Peg?’

  Poppy felt Martin lean up on one elbow and heard him reach for his watch. ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘I need you to get up and take me into Salisbury.’

  ‘Right now?’ he asked, his voice still with its morning’s gruffness.

  ‘In a little while will be okay. I need to get to the shops for when they open.’

  ‘Okay. What do you need to buy?’ Martin yawned and stretched. Poppy heard his back crack as he twisted. The mattress springs creaked as he swung his legs off the bed and she heard him put his dressing gown on. She loved this man and wondered how many dads would be so appeasing and not bark that it was early, come back later, five more minutes… But he was no ordinary dad and this was no ordinary situation. He was the dad of kids whose mum had cancer. Cancer. It was as if now it had been spoken there was no way it was going to stay hidden. Like a sleeping bag that once removed from its little sausage-shaped bag was almost impossible to get back in. Or like an image so graphic that it sat in your mind for perfect recall, no matter how repellent.

  ‘I need to go to Smyths. It’s important.’

  ‘Well, if it’s important then we better get a wiggle on. I’ll have a quick shower and meet you downstairs in, what, ten minutes?’

  ‘Thank you, Dad.’ Poppy heard the relief in Peg’s tone.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Martin said as he rummaged in the drawer for socks, pants and a T-shirt, ‘why don’t we go to McDonald’s and get breakfast? Don’t tell Mummy!’

  Poppy smiled into her pillow as Peg gasped with joy. A McDonald’s breakfast was a rarity.

  ‘What about Maxy?’ Peg asked. Poppy screwed her eyes shut, overwhelmed by the love this little girl had for her brother, not wanting to receive a treat if he did not.

  ‘I reckon you’ll find him a little something in Smyths, don’t you?’

  Peg squealed as she scampered from the room. Martin sat back on the mattress and placed his hand on the curve of his wife’s hip as he leant over and kissed the side of her face.

  ‘What d’you suppose that’s all about?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know, love, but thank you.’ She turned her head and kissed his stubbly chin.

  ‘Peg seems okay,’ he offered.

  ‘Yes, she does. It said in one of the leaflets I was given that kids often adapt better than adults, partly through lack of understanding but also because, until the worst happens, it’s all a bit unreal.’ Poppy had devoured all the literature she had been given. The advice was seared into her mind. ‘We can give her more details when she asks for them or if we need to; it’s important we go at her pace, drip-feed her the information. That’s what my leaflet said. We’re not to overwhelm her or lie to her. I guess the right thing lies somewhere between the two.’

  Martin kissed his wife once more before he headed for the shower. ‘That leaflet can fuck right off,’ he said as he shut the bedroom door.

  For some reason this made Poppy laugh. She giggled into her pillow and then, quite without warning, her laughter turned to tears. And there she lay, with a seemingly never-ending stream of tears meandering like a little tributary across her nose and cheek and pooling in a cold, wet patch on her pillow. It was as if now she had started she couldn’t stop. She sobbed, pushing her face into the pillow as if this might stem the flow, but it didn’t. Thankful that she was alone, with no one to witness her distress, she curled her legs up towards her body and wrapped her arms around her shins, trying to make herself as small as possible.

  * * *

  Poppy eventually roused herself and decided to make the most of her time alone with Max. With Peg and Martin in Salisbury, the two pottered in the back garden for the best part of the morning. Resplendent in his bright blue wellingtons, Max ran around the grass until he got dizzy and fell down in a heap, then scrambled up and repeated the performance.

  ‘Don’t hurt yourself, Maxy!’ Poppy smiled at her happy little boy. She slowly gathered up stray leaves and twigs, snipping at the dead heads of her flowering tubs and collecting all the waste into an old, cracked bucket that she had saved for the purpose. She worked slowly, her movements laboured.

  ‘Is that you, Poppy?’ Jo called from over the six-foot fence that divided their gardens.

  ‘No, I’m a burglar, but when I saw the state of the garden, I decided to have a little tidy-up!’ Poppy replied.

  ‘Very funny!’ Jo gave a small snort of laughter. She was finding it hard to find anything amusing as she packed up the house, dismantling all the reminders of her marital home. ‘I could do with a burglar like that: this place looks like a swamp. Not that I care. I’m not doing a thing before I move out, I’m leaving it all to the D.I.C.K.H.E.A.D.’ She spelt out the last word, conscious of Max’s mimicry skills.

  Poppy
heard a dragging sound seconds before Jo’s head appeared over the top of the fence.

  ‘What are you standing on?’

  ‘An old recycling box!’

  ‘God, be careful.’ Poppy could see her friend’s balancing act ending in disaster.

  Max pointed up towards her, holding his car. ‘Tractor, Jo Jo!’

  ‘I see it, Maxy!’ She waved at him.

  ‘Am I having the little man this week?’ Jo looked eagerly at Max.

  Poppy thought about her hospital appointment. ‘Actually, mate, I have one day that might be good…’

  ‘Fab, let me know!’

  ‘Will do.’ Poppy smiled.

  Jo wobbled and grabbed at the fence. They both laughed.

  Poppy heard the car pull up outside, followed by the burble of Peg’s chatter as she ran up the path.

  ‘That’s Peg home! See you in a bit.’ She watched as Jo’s face fell, wishing she too had a family charging up the drive, homeward bound.

  Poppy pulled off her gardening gloves as she entered the house through the kitchen door. Peg was beaming. Martin, however, looked almost ashen as he raised his eyebrows in greeting.

  Peg thundered up the stairs, taking two at a time.

  ‘You all right?’ she asked. She ditched her muddy gloves under the sink and pulled off Max’s wellies, whereupon he immediately raced back into the garden in his socks.

  Martin gave a smile and a small nod with his lips tucked over his teeth. It was his fake smile, the one she had seen him use throughout his life. It was a smokescreen, convincing to everyone except her, who knew him too well.

  ‘I was just saying to Jo that she could have Maxy one day this week.’ She caught his eye and he smiled.

  ‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ he muttered as he watched her from the doorway. ‘Here he is!’ Keen for the distraction, he scooped up his son and lifted him high into the air before planting a kiss on his face. ‘We got you a pressie, Maxy.’