Numbered

by Amy Andrews

  ‘Well.’ Poppy picked up his hand and placed her own over the top of it, tracing the outline where hers ended with her other index finger. Her hand was so small and cool in his that Quentin wanted to close his into a fist and cover it, protect it, keep it safe there forever. But he forced himself to keep it flat, let her continue her abstracted doodling as she spoke. ‘It was my father, you see.’

  ‘You never say much about him.’ Quentin’s voice sounded odd, even to his own ears.

  They hadn’t talked about their family stuff; he suspected they had deliberately avoided it, especially once they knew Poppy was sick. What was the point? They both knew they had family issues. What was it Spike said? Family problems are like arseholes; everyone has one, and no-one wants to hear about yours.

  But Quentin did want to know now. He wanted to know everything about Poppy, and he wanted to tell her everything about him. There was so little time, and he wanted to hear it from her, not from Julia after they put her in the ground. He was greedy for it; he wanted to know her story, know why she was the way she was. If she told him things, it might mean she really trusted him, wanted to really know him. He wanted to tell her everything, especially the one thing that was on the tip of his tongue every time they were alone together.

  ‘It’s not that interesting,’ Poppy said, continuing to trace his palm. ‘Boy meets hopelessly incompatible girl, they fall in love. He falls out of love, moves on. And girl never quite gets over it.’

  ‘Oh.’ It surprised Quentin. Scarlett didn’t seem like the heartbreak type.

  Poppy pulled her hands away, and buried them inside her wrap. ‘But you see, problem is, I reminded her of him. So it was always tough for her, to look at me, to be near me, without seeing him. At least that’s what I think the problem was.’ She paused, shrugged a little and dropped her chin. ‘I was certainly never anything like her. Like I said, she loved me, but she didn’t like me. It was easier for her to be away.’

  Black rage rose hot and ugly in Quentin. He tried to imagine Poppy as a child, wanting Scarlett’s attentions, feeling deserted. He wanted to rail at Scarlett for getting it so badly wrong back then and again now, for taking off to India when she had one last chance to actually show Poppy how she felt. He wanted to shake the woman and make her see what she had done.

  Quentin thought about young Poppy, feeling the rejection but then piecing it all together, puzzling it out in her mathematician’s brain. Making sense of things, the way Poppy did. But knowing that she had always been so alone, it made things fall into place. No wonder Poppy and Julia had bonded so fiercely. Then he thought about what Poppy did for a living – her work on attraction and compatibility.

  ‘Is that why you chose your field?’ He tried to sound casual, but it mattered. It suddenly seemed very important. She was a serious intellect, fascinated by pure mathematics, who dedicated herself to the science of human attraction and working out what made relationships work.

  He expected her to prevaricate, give him some line, but she just picked at the edge of the blanket. ‘I think so,’ she said, keeping her face down. ‘People don’t realise what they can do if they choose recklessly. They think it doesn’t matter, they think it’s their life. But …’ She shrugged again, and her eyes finally swept up to meet his. ‘But it does matter, because sometimes, because of how they love, they get other people involved, particularly children.’

  The truth hit Quentin like a punch to the gut. ‘You would never have gone out with me, would you? Slept with me, and the rest of it? If not for the cancer?’

  Poppy continued to hold his eyes, and he held his breath. ‘No,’ she said, leaning forward with both hands and cupping his face as she said the word. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve always thought that compatibility matters. And everything I know …’ She pulled her hands away and gestured at him, a frantic, fluttery movement. ‘Everything I know tells me that you and me, we don’t have enough basic domains in common.’

  Quentin was finding it hard to breathe. He’d always thought it was probably the case, but hearing it was difficult. Everything had changed for him over the last months. And the thought that they might not have was too impossible to consider.

  ‘But you didn’t know when you asked me to go skydiving,’ he said, needing to understand more. ‘You didn’t know about the cancer then. Or when we slept together that first time.’

  Tears pooled in Poppy’s eyes. ‘I think I knew from the moment they booked me in for the test. Things felt very, very wrong. That’s why I got the list out, even before I got the results.’ Poppy reached up and stroked the side of his face, running a fingernail across the scratchy stubble. ‘So I’m lucky,’ she said, as a single tear started to track down each cheek. ‘I’m lucky I got it. It made me do something different.’

  He reached out and cupped her face the way she had been cupping his, using his thumbs to brush away the tears. Watching her cry turned his stomach to water.

  Lucky. She thought she was lucky? He thought she had been handed the shittiest deal of anyone ever. Except maybe him.

  But she wasn’t done. ‘You’re right, Q. I would never have dated you. Some guy flipping burgers at the hospital café. Some guy seven years younger than me. Some guy in a band. Surfer. Footballer.’ She reached up and placed her hands over his on her face. ‘That’s why I’m lucky. Because I never would have known how good it could be. How much I could laugh, and feel cherished.’ She grinned. ‘And come.’

  He started to talk but she shushed him.

  ‘I’m not done. I’m not sorry I got it, you know. I’m sad but not sorry. Because I know – I really know – that if I hadn’t, if this hadn’t happened, I would have kept doing the same things, with the same kind of guys, over and over. You and I—’ Her voice broke, before she swallowed and kept going. ‘We might not be compatible, but we’re beautiful.’

  Quentin dropped his hands from her face so he could fold her into his arms. It didn’t matter how tiny she was; the press of her against him filled him up. She was exactly the right shape for him; for him, she was bigger than anyone he’d ever known. He drew her into his lap, and turned her to face the crowd. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said.

  She settled into his arms as they watched the scene before them, and he decided this was the moment. The words had been on his tongue for weeks, but she always stopped him from saying them. Not today. He was sure the conversation they had just been having signalled a shift. He was sure she could bear to hear it.

  But she spoke first. ‘So how about you? What happened with your father? And your mum?’

  Quentin’s body tensed the way it always did when anyone mentioned his family. But he wrapped his arms more tightly around her. She had opened up to him, and he wanted her to know how it felt. ‘Same same but different,’ he said, picking his way through how to tell it. ‘In my case, it was just me and Dad.’ He hesitated fleetingly, wondering if he should tell her his father’s name. But it was time. ‘My mum’s dead. My father’s Ray Carmody.’

  Poppy whistled. ‘Holy shit.’

  ‘Yes he is,’ he agreed. ‘And a very rich shit.’

  She laughed, and it felt good to hold her while she did. ‘No. I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I know what you meant,’ he assured her, squeezing her as closely as he dared. ‘But you know that stuff you see on the telly? He really is like that. Except even more of a bastard. He was pretty keen on me becoming the bastard in training, too, but …’

  How to find the words for that part of the story?

  ‘But you weren’t interested in learning the gentle art of bastardry?’

  He smiled and breathed in the smell of her skin, rubbing his cheek against her smooth scalp. ‘There’s nothing gentle about him.’ His voice broke, and he hurried on. ‘I didn’t want to be like him.’ He drew in a breath. ‘And I didn’t want to be near him.’

  She rubbed his arms with her small hands as they watched Julia making her way towards them, carrying three cold drinks. ‘How did that
go down?’

  Quentin grunted. ‘He said he hadn’t paid to put me through some of the best schools in the state so I could surf, play football and screw girls.’

  Poppy laughed again. ‘What did you say to that?’

  Quentin closed his eyes at the million memories of his bullish, angry father; his red face, his quick fists. ‘I told him he forgot about playing guitar.’ He watched Julia making her way over to them and knew the moment was about to pass. He could say it now, but he didn’t want to rush it. There was so much he had to say.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Poppy said quietly. ‘You deserved better than that.’

  ‘We both did,’ Quentin said, wriggling over to make space for Julia.

  ‘No-one deserves parents who don’t like them,’ Poppy mumbled. ‘Lucky we like each other.’

  Quentin wanted to tell her it wasn’t true, that he was sure Scarlett did like Poppy, even if the sight of her had sometimes hurt. But instead other words came tumbling out, unbidden. ‘I more than like you.’

  Julia flopped onto the blanket beside them, handing out long drinks. ‘No Cokes.’ She pouted. ‘Have a bhang lassi.’

  Quentin and Poppy raised their eyebrows at her. ‘Not a literal bang, please,’ she said, sucking her smoothie enthusiastically. ‘There are delicate eyes present.’

  Quentin and Poppy both laughed, and the moment that had sat heavy between them skittered away in the thin morning air.

  ‘So,’ Julia said, tying her hair back into a ponytail. ‘Anyone for a kora?’

  * * *

  The pilgrimage around the compound was slow and deliberate. Quentin found himself lulled by the ritual of the prayer wheels – the large drums they turned each time they came upon one, saying the words about the lotus and the jewel. Or maybe it was the after-effects of the conversation he had just had with Poppy that were filling him with serenity and general good vibes.

  Quentin knew this much: it had felt good to tell Poppy a bit about his father, and to hear some more about her situation. It reinforced the feelings that had been growing inside him, that it didn’t matter what was to come; all that mattered was that he tell her how he was feeling, what he wanted. To date, she had been adamant in not allowing him to talk about feelings, to make commitments, but hadn’t all that changed today? Things had been different, sitting on that blanket at the top of the world, and Quentin felt a new peace as he joined the other pilgrims in the kora.

  Tomorrow they were due to see the Dalai Lama himself, and even though Quentin wasn’t exactly a believer, he sure admired the old guy. All that Zen couldn’t have been easy to come by, after all he and his people had endured. Quentin found himself hoping he might get some kind of signal, a message from the universe that it was okay to open up fully to Poppy, tell her what he wanted.

  Otherwise he was just going to have to wing it.

  * * *

  ‘What do you want to get from him?’

  Poppy wrinkled her nose at him like he’d made a rude remark. ‘What do you mean, get from him? He’s not Santa Claus.’

  They were sitting on their mats and Quentin thought he had more right than most to ask the question. He was, after all, the one who had lined up half of yesterday to register the three of them, and then to claim their spaces in the quadrangle. He liked to think he’d done pretty well, too. They were, if not right at the front, at least forward of the centre. And in the shade as well. And he hadn’t even had to elbow his way through to get them, although he would have, if required.

  It had all been very neat and orderly, if a bit slow.

  Then he had lined up again for the translation radios. Things had apparently got tricky after a few security incidents, so you needed to have only the approved radios, and man, that line had been long. So, all in all, Quentin figured he had, at the very least, earned the right to ask what Poppy was hoping to get from today. They had been waiting for hours, and Julia had moved off to buy some more drinks. The crowd was getting restless, but was still peaceful, and a certain frisson was building as the appointed hour came closer.

  ‘I know that,’ he said, wriggling around uneasily on the thin mat. How the hell did Poppy look so comfortable, sitting back on her haunches and studying the assorted life crowded around them? ‘But you must have some ideas about what you’re hoping for?’ He grinned. ‘And I don’t mean a new bike or a PlayStation.’

  Poppy blew out her breath, and fanned her simple white cotton shirt. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, reaching out to rub his arm. ‘I’m just tired today.’

  Quentin was suddenly on high alert. Poppy never complained. ‘Should we go?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Poppy whacked him on the arm. Hard. ‘We’ve come to Dharamsala for this.’

  ‘Come for what exactly?’ He wasn’t letting it go.

  Poppy closed her eyes. ‘I’m scared,’ she said, wriggling closer to him and leaning into his shoulder. ‘That’s not why he was on my list, not to start with. Like I said, he was so happy, and I always figured, when I was younger, I’d like to see him before I died and work out how he managed it. But things are different now.’ She pulled away from his shoulder and met his gaze. ‘I am happy.’

  ‘So what, then?’ Quentin held up his palms to her in question.

  ‘Now I’m scared.’ She looked at him very carefully, and then flicked her eyes around the quadrangle, and Quentin was sure that she was checking to make sure that Julia wasn’t near. Once she was satisfied, she leaned into him again, like she wanted his strength but couldn’t bear to meet his eyes. ‘It’s close now, Q, I know it. And I’m scared. Not of dying, but of how I’m going to feel at the end. What if I panic?’

  He pulled her close, wishing he could press her flesh into his, wishing he could take away the fear. ‘I won’t let you panic,’ he said.

  She jerked away from him, staring at him. ‘You won’t be there,’ she said, a look of incredulity on her face. ‘No-one will be.’

  Okayyy. They had never discussed this before, and Quentin had a flash of insight that this patch of cement was not the place to have the discussion now. But Ms Poppy Devine could be sure that the conversation’s time was coming, just as surely and relentlessly as hers was. ‘Er … let’s park that for now, huh?’

  Her face screwed up mutinously and he aimed for a distraction. ‘So what is the little guy gonna say to us today, do you think?’

  Poppy swallowed, and Quentin watched her face do war with itself. She wanted to argue the point now, about the end.

  He shut his face down. No, not here. I won’t let you.

  Something changed in her eyes, like she was letting it go. For the time being.

  ‘I want two things,’ she said eventually.

  Of course she did. So Poppy. Definite. And numbered.

  He nodded at her to spill.

  ‘I want to know what to think about, when it ends, I want a word or an image that I can focus on. Something to stop me from panicking. Something to make the moment easier. Is that cowardly?’

  Quentin just shook his head because there was a lump the size of Texas in his throat. Poppy rescued him from having to respond. ‘And I want to know what to do next.’

  Quentin recovered enough to croak out ‘Next?’

  ‘After Dharamsala,’ Poppy said, touching her scalp lightly. ‘Especially whether I should go see Mum. We’re not far from her here. But I just don’t know. I’m angry with her, and I …’

  She turned away and waved at Julia, who was coming towards them as the crowd around them started to hum with excitement. ‘I just don’t know.’

  Quentin wrapped Poppy in a quick hug as Julia rejoined them. ‘Game on,’ the redhead pronounced as the leader’s entourage shuffled onto the platform from which he would be teaching.

  Quentin’s heart thudded in his chest as the unassuming man walked to the front of the platform and smiled out at all of them.

  * * *

  It was very dark in the small room. Julia had taken up an offer to go and look at the stars
on the mountain, and Quentin had stayed with Poppy, knowing she was exhausted from the day. He suspected Julia was trying to give them some space, and he reminded himself that he needed to do the same for her tomorrow.

  None of them had spoken much after the teachings had finished. It was as though each was processing the experience.

  Quentin rolled Poppy closer to him in the narrow bed, revelling in the feel of her warmth and the sweetness of her skin. A small glass pane offered them a window onto the night, the stars so close Quentin felt he could reach out and pluck them down for the woman he lay beside, just to make her smile.

  ‘So,’ he said finally, as she nuzzled into him. ‘Did you get what you were after?’

  She shook her head against his chest. ‘Half of it,’ she said.

  He breathed out slowly, trying to keep a grip on it all, thinking about her words from earlier in the day: I want to know what to think about; something to make the moment easier. ‘Which half?’

  ‘Mum,’ Poppy sighed, pulling away enough to allow her to look at him in the moonlight.

  Quentin nodded. ‘What did he say?’

  Poppy trailed a hand across his naked chest and he shivered.

  ‘If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.’ Poppy paused. ‘I can do compassion. Mum needs it.’

  A day ago, Quentin might have argued the toss. He was so damn angry with Scarlett. But now … Well, the little guy had a way of making you see things differently. He made you think about how all the things you wanted mightn’t be all there is, and how you can create your own happiness no matter what’s going on.

  ‘What about you?’ Poppy nudged with her knee. ‘Get anything out of it?’

  ‘Yep.’ Quentin took a breath.

  Here we go.

  But his heart juddered and his breath caught. He didn’t know how she might respond.

  ‘So? You gonna leave a dying girl in suspense? I haven’t got forever, you know. What did he say?’

  Quentin reached out and put his arms all the way around her, pulling her close. ‘He said the purpose of life is to be happy,’ he whispered against her neck.