Poppy watched a small speedboat dart across the vast ocean, cutting through the waves and bobbing on the foamy crests. ‘Being here gives me a clear perspective on things, Kate. The sun has diluted my anger. I don’t want to be jealous. I don’t want it in my system.’
Kate patted her leg in a motherly gesture of love.
‘Kate?’
‘Yes, love?’
‘Can I borrow your laptop? I want to send Jo an email.’
Kate beamed at her as she jumped up and headed for the study. ‘Yes, of course. I have no doubt it will be a big relief for you both.’
* * *
It was harder than she expected, saying goodbye to Simon and Kate. Suddenly everything felt horribly final. She couldn’t stop thinking about how this goodbye would be the first of many.
It was the morning of their departure. They sat on the terrace and sipped iced tea with slices of fresh lemon as Kate fussed over Peg and the snacks she was packing for her for the plane.
‘I hope everything works out for you and Martin,’ Simon said.
‘Thank you. Being here has helped give me some perspective. I mean, he only snogged my mate, right?’ Poppy tried to inject a little humour to hide her embarrassment.
Kate sat by her side. ‘Take it from one who knows, Poppy, there are far, far worse things that a husband can do.’ She squeezed Poppy’s hand.
Poppy got the feeling that Kate had her own story to tell. Simon smiled at his wife. Whatever Kate had been through in the past, at least she had ended up with someone who had shown her a different way of life.
Kate leant over and kissed her forehead. ‘Things have a funny way of sorting themselves out, my love.’
‘You sound like Claudia.’
‘Is she a wise old bird too?’ Kate asked.
‘Yes. You two would get on great.’ Poppy pictured the two of them on the terrace, putting the world to rights over a glass of wine.
Simon hugged Poppy at the airport. ‘I’ll speak to you soon. Take the very best care you can.’
‘I will,’ Poppy mouthed into his shoulder, thinking about how different her life might have been if Simon had been part of it for longer, the kind of father figure she had craved.
‘I can’t tell you how wonderful it has been meeting you and hearing all about Dorothea. You will never know…’ Simon swallowed the ball of emotion that sat in his throat.
He turned and kissed Peg on the head. ‘You look after your mum, okay?’
‘I will. I have a nurse’s uniform at home.’
‘Splendid!’ He beamed.
‘And can you tell Matilda that I shall miss her a lot, but when I’m a pilot I’ll be able to fly and see her whenever I want to, just for a cup of coffee or to paint our nails.’
Poppy smiled at her little girl’s interpretation of adulthood: cups of coffee and nail painting. It made her think of Jo.
‘God bless you, Poppy.’ Simon held her face in his hands and kissed her forehead.
‘I love you, Uncle Katniss!’ Peg squeezed him tightly.
As the plane lifted from the runway, leaving the sun and blue sky of St Lucia, Poppy felt the cold creep of fear in her stomach. She was going home, back to a marriage that had nearly dissolved and a life that was ruled by sickness. This had been a wonderful escape, but she knew there was no escape from what lay ahead. As the plane soared through the sky, she looked at the clouds floating beneath them and wondered, not for the first time in her life, where heaven might be?
Twenty-Five
Martin slammed the boot and clicked his seatbelt into the clip. ‘All set?’
Poppy nodded, her stare a little vacant. She was tired and freezing, having forgotten that in their time away summer would have started to give way to autumn.
‘Can you turn the heating right up?’ she asked.
‘Of course.’ Martin did so and reached behind her seat for a fleecy blanket that he placed on her lap and tucked around her thighs.
‘Thank you.’ She liked his kindness, always had.
‘Oh, Dad, Uncle Katniss and Aunty Kate have got chickens—’
‘Uncle Katniss?’ Martin interrupted as he fished in his wallet for the car park exit ticket.
Poppy watched the barrier release them into the early morning. ‘It’s a long story,’ she said, gazing out of the car window as they sped away from Gatwick. She had forgotten that the colour here would be grey. She closed her eyes, holding on to the memory of the bright blue St Lucian sky that had made everything that sat against it infinitely more beautiful, even her. The weather, the change of scenery and the love that Simon and Kate had shown her had allowed her to put her illness on hold. Now she felt it picking up the pace with a vengeance and it scared her.
Peg was excited and talking quickly. ‘And Matilda and I fed them every day and collected the eggs, but I wouldn’t eat them because I only like eggs from the supermarket and not from a chicken’s bum.’
Poppy and Martin both laughed and the sound made a tiny crack in the silent brooding that filled the car.
‘Matilda is going to come and live in London when she is big and we are going to be best friends and we are going to go and see One Direction and get our hair braided and we will both look after Toffee and I’ll share him with her, he can be our joint pet.’
Toffee won’t be around then. Poppy swallowed the thought, and the ones that followed.
‘That sounds like fun. But what about Jade McKeever, I thought she was your best friend for ever and ever?’ Martin winked at his daughter in the rear-view mirror.
‘We will all be best friends, all three of us, but they will both like me the best and I will like them the same, but they won’t like each other as much as they like me.’
‘It sounds complicated,’ Martin conceded.
‘It is, Dad.’ Peg sighed. ‘It is.’
Martin smiled. He glanced at Poppy as he navigated the roads, following the signs to the M3. ‘You look lovely, you’ve caught the sun.’
Poppy was grateful he didn’t mention the whites of her eyes, which had taken on a distinctly yellow hue, or the way her skin had shrunk around her eye sockets, giving her a skull-like appearance. The blush of her tan certainly served as a distraction.
She nodded. ‘I can’t wait to see Maxy. I’ve missed him so much.’
‘Claudia’s spoilt him rotten, but he’s missed you. We both have.’ He let the statement hover like bait on a rippling pool, hoping to reel her in.
Poppy looked to the back seat. Peg’s head was slumped on her shoulder. She had stayed awake all through the flight, determined to follow the route inch by inch, but exhaustion had finally overtaken her and now at last she slept.
Poppy continued to gaze out of the window at the fields and hedges, lorries and cars that they passed. ‘I did a lot of thinking while I was away,’ she began. ‘And some of the things Simon said made a lot of sense.’ She watched as Martin’s arms tensed on the steering wheel. ‘I can’t deny that what happened has changed things between us, Mart. Maybe it’s only changed them a little bit, but it has. It shocked me and I was hurt.’
Martin shook his head, almost unable to bear hearing this again; confirmation that he had screwed up. He didn’t need it saying: he knew it already. He thought about it last thing every night and first thing every morning.
Poppy sighed. ‘But the thing is, life’s too short. Far too short in my case, and I can’t let it be something I carry with me for however long I’ve got. I don’t have the energy for it and I’m sure you don’t either.’ She was staring straight ahead now. ‘So I think it’s best if we build a bridge that takes us from where we were to where we are going. We have to make the best of what we have left, for the kids’ sake as well as ours. We’ve been through too much, Mart, to fall at the last hurdle. And Peg and Max deserve better. Much better.’
Martin nodded and swiped at his nose and eyes, trying to focus on the road ahead through his tears.
He sniffed loudly. ‘I’ve been thinking
too. I know you wanted to talk before, and make some plans, and you were right. It was selfish of me not to see that it’s important to you. I understand that need to put things in order—’
‘I’m not so sure.’ She interrupted him. ‘I’ve decided I’m not going to concern myself with any ceremony that you might or might not want to have.’ She cast her eyes over her shoulder, making sure Peg was still fast asleep. ‘So you can do what you like. It doesn’t matter, not to me. This is what matters – the here and now. And actually all anyone has is the present, right now, just this one single moment in time.’
‘I want you to know, Poppy, that I will always put the kids first. Whether I leave the job, go out on my own…’ He exhaled, controlling the tears that threatened, knowing he would take that journey alone. ‘Whatever happens, they will always have a stable, happy home. I will make it the best I possibly can so that they will have a haven, something we never had till we made our own. It will be different for them. We started it together and I will finish it on my own. I won’t let them down, ever.’
‘I know that, Mart. I’ve always known that.’
Poppy reclined the seat and fell into a deep and restful sleep.
When she awoke, she was in Wiltshire. The spiky palms had been swapped for rounded trees, the sand and dust for grass and gravel, and the hot sun in a bright blue sky for wisps of cloud that hovered in a grey light. It was beautiful.
‘Granny Claudia!’ Peg banged on the window, then leapt out of the car and threw her arms around her gran’s legs. ‘I missed you! But I flew all the way there and all the way back. I was practising for when I’m a pilot and I loved it. I could see above the clouds and I could see the whole sea and I wanted to fly the plane right there and then, but they wouldn’t let me.’
‘Well, they must be idiots. I’m sure you would have done a fine job!’ Claudia ran her fingers through Peg’s hair.
‘That’s what I said!’ Peg stood with her palms turned upwards as if to say, ‘Go figure!’
Poppy climbed the stairs and knelt down by the side of the bed where Max slept. She watched the rise and fall of his rounded tummy. ‘Oh, Maxy! Look at you,’ she whispered. ‘I missed you, my beautiful boy.’ She kissed her fingers and touched them gently to his rosy face.
As she turned to leave, Claudia appeared in the doorway with a mug of tea. ‘Here you go. You look so tired, my love.’
‘I am a bit. Thank you for my tea and thank you for looking after them so well.’ Poppy kissed her on the cheek.
‘Digger! Three… four… five… Hello, my mummy.’ Poppy handed her drink to Claudia and with difficulty lifted her baby boy from his bed, covering him in kisses. ‘Hello, Maxy! You’re awake! I have missed you so much.’
‘Muuuum!’ Peg shrieked from downstairs. ‘We need to go on the trampoline to celebrate being home!’
‘Tampoline now,’ Max offered as he wriggled free from Poppy’s grip.
Poppy looked at Claudia and grimaced. ‘Bloody marvellous. That’s just what I need.’ She pulled her pashmina over the shoulders of her shirt and vest, needing the extra layer. She gripped the bannister and made her way down the stairs, taking each step slowly and deliberately.
Martin hovered by the trampoline. ‘Peg wants to celebrate.’
‘Quite right too.’ Poppy forced a small smile.
‘And you, Granny Claudia – you have to come on too!’
‘I think I’ll watch. I’m too old and creaky for trampolining.’ Claudia grimaced at Peg, who stood in the middle of the black, springy circle.
‘That makes two of us,’ Poppy whispered as she tried to haul herself up onto the trampoline. Martin shoved her from behind – undignified, but it did the trick.
Martin lifted Max on and watched as he raced around in a small circle then fell down, laughed and tried to stand again.
Poppy looked at their little family and thought about the last time they had bounced in celebration, only eight or so months ago, when, so full of optimism for the coming year, they had jumped and laughed, before collapsing under the winter sky.
‘The question is, Cricket family, how many jumps? I think we should let Mummy choose.’
Poppy caught the flicker of concern that crossed his brow. She gave him a small smile. I’m okay, I can do this.
‘Well, I think two.’ She stroked her chin.
‘Two? No way!’ Peg yelled. ‘It has to be at least seven!’
‘Seven?’ Poppy gasped. ‘You are kidding! What do you think, Daddy?’
‘I say we split the difference, let’s go five!’
‘FIVE!’ Peg yelled as she bounced, quickly reaching and surpassing the agreed number.
Max sat on the trampoline in front of his sister, giggling as he got tossed and flung about in the wake of her jumps. Martin trod tentatively, trying not to trample on anyone.
Poppy suddenly turned to look at Claudia, a stricken expression on her face. ‘Claudia…’ she mouthed.
Claudia rushed forward and stood at the edge of the trampoline, reaching up to try and help lift Poppy down, but she couldn’t quite manage it.
It was the first time Claudia had seen Poppy cry like this in front of the kids. ‘Whatever’s the matter, love? Are you okay?’ She reached up again and grabbed at Poppy’s arms, awkwardly trying to get her to the ground. The bouncing made it hard for her to get a grip.
Martin looked over and could see something was wrong. ‘Everyone keep still! Hold onto Maxy tight, Peg, don’t let him go until I take him from you in a minute. Okay?’
Peg nodded. Her desire to bounce had gone and this felt a bit scary.
Martin waded to where Poppy had slumped. He gripped her arm, worried. ‘What’s the matter? What’s happened?’
Poppy shook her head and fought for breath through her tears.
‘Poppy! This isn’t like you,’ Claudia coaxed. ‘How can we help? Have you hurt yourself?’
Poppy sat on the edge of the trampoline and placed her face in her hands. ‘I’ve wet myself.’
‘Oh, darling. Poppy, darling! I’ll go and fetch your dressing gown.’ Claudia ran into the house, trying to locate something that would spare her blushes and shield her from the children.
Martin sat down next to her. ‘It doesn’t matter, it’ll be okay, love.’
‘It won’t, Mart. The reason I wet myself is because I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel much at all.’
Peg handed Max to her dad and sat on the other side of her mum, who was now lying on the edge of the trampoline. She reached out and took her mum’s hand inside her own. With her head on Poppy’s shoulder, her voice was clear and calm. ‘Don’t worry, Mummy. Do you remember what you told me? Everyone wees somewhere they shouldn’t at least once and no one minds a jot.’
Poppy wrapped her arms around her little girl and cried even harder.
Twenty-Six
Poppy opened one eye and noted the bright, white ceiling. Next she opened both eyes and saw a plastic tube floating above her, connected to what, she wasn’t sure, but probably some part of her. There was a window to her right with white vertical blinds, pulled shut. A piece of machinery beeped in the distance. She couldn’t instantly remember where she was: not St Lucia, but not home either. The mechanical beep got louder and she realised she was in hospital. The Great Western Hospital in Swindon, to be precise. Thankfully, she was in a quiet side ward, and the only other bed was unoccupied.
She remembered being on the trampoline and Martin standing in front of her on the grass with Max in his arms. He had looked afraid. When he spoke, his voice had been tight, panic-stricken.
‘I’m going to call an ambulance, Poppy. Okay?’
She thought she might have nodded. No argument. Okay. She needed help and she knew it. The ambulance men had been red-faced and jolly, making jokes and being overly familiar. It was all part of their practised banter and designed to put the patient at ease. Poppy had smiled weakly but really just wanted silence. When was that? Today? Yesterday? Last week?
She had no idea. Her throat was dry.
‘Hey, hello, sleepyhead.’
She turned her head slowly to see Martin, who was sitting in a green vinyl wing-backed chair by her side. He looked crumpled and tired.
‘Are the kids okay?’ Her voice sounded weak, reedy.
‘They’ve got Claudia at their beck and call, a big bowl of popcorn and Despicable Me 2 on DVD – they are more than fine. I spoke to them a little while ago.’
Poppy smiled. She could hardly keep her eyes open.
‘Go back to sleep, love. I’ll be right here when you wake up.’
Poppy looked at the end of the bed and there, standing in front of her, was her nan, Dorothea. She was wearing her favourite soft pink jumper and her navy blue slacks. Her hair looked neat and she was smiling.
‘Hello, Poppy Day.’
‘Hello, Nan. What you doing?’ Poppy was so pleased to see her.
‘Oh, just checking in on you.’
‘I met Simon. I stayed with him. He’s lovely.’
‘I saw. He is lovely, isn’t he? Takes after his dad.’ Dorothea’s eyes misted over.
‘Am I dead?’ This suddenly occurred to Poppy.
‘No, Poppy Day, not dead. Just dreaming, my darlin’.’
‘I’m scared, Nan.’
‘Course you are. That’s normal. But there’s no need to be, I promise. And you know I don’t make a promise easily, don’t you?’
Poppy nodded. Yes, this she knew. ‘I’m worried I won’t go home again…’ Poppy felt a sob building in her throat and the sting of tears at the back of her eyes.
‘Don’t you cry. No need, my girl. You’re going home in a couple of days.’
‘Promise?’ Poppy mouthed.
‘I promise.’ Dorothea patted her toes.
‘I don’t want to leave them – Peg and Maxy.’
‘I know, but you won’t leave them, not completely. You can keep an eye on them. Trust me.’
‘You seem happy, Nan.’
‘Oh I am! All I ever wanted was a garden. I never got one, but I longed for one even so. Simon’s dad always thought it was amazing how you could take a tiny seed and, with a little bit of care and attention, watch it grow into something strong and beautiful. That’s what I do here.’
Will You Remember Me? Page 25
