Poppy
‘Nobody uses the word “gay” like that any more,’ says Joe, staring at the poem again. He seems fascinated by it, and keeps touching it over and over. The poor thing is missing his granny, I think.
Mum has done a beautiful job on this one, using elaborate olde-worlde handwriting that I know must have taken her forever, and decorating the edges of the card with little pictures of flowers and birds. It’s the very definition of gay – in the old-fashioned sense – and I think I might get it framed and hang it in the hallway.
‘Grandmas do,’ replies Rose, staring off out of the window and into the garden. She’s looking at the neatly mowed lawn and the full birdbath and at the kitchen that has clearly been used, frowning. She is, I suspect, fast coming to the correct conclusion.
‘Have you been staying here?’ she says, her eyes narrowing, as though she’s accusing me of sacrificing virgins at a Satanic altar.
‘Yes,’ I reply simply. ‘I’d booked the time off work, and decided I didn’t want to disrupt things by going back. Is that all right with you, Mrs Bossy Pants?’
Joe looks from my face to his mum’s, sizing up the likelihood of some kind of scrap, and decides to go off and explore the cottage. Wise boy.
‘Well … I wish you’d told me, that’s all. But there’s not much I can do about it now, is there?’ Rose responds, watching Joe’s gangly figure disappear off towards the stairs.
I can understand, maybe, why she feels a bit put out. Like I’ve somehow done something sneaky, and managed to hijack the cottage from her. Used some kind of stealth to hide myself away here and do something deeply untrustworthy.
In reality, I hadn’t planned it at all. I’d left her house in Liverpool feeling so downhearted, my car simply refused to drive back to London. I just couldn’t face it again – the empty flat, the boring job, the bare cupboards. The overly jolly sponsor kids who weren’t really ever going to be a replacement for real ones.
Ironically, it had been Rose herself who had pushed me over the edge. We’d stood on her doorstep and, as I prepared to leave, she’d hugged me. It wasn’t a long hug or an especially affectionate one, but it was actual physical contact. And she had topped it off with the touching words: ‘Don’t crash, okay?’
It made me realise just how much I didn’t want to leave her, and go back to the flat alone. It was different for her. She had something to stay at home for. She had Joe, and her cosy little house, and a hot Royal Marine living next door. I had nothing, I was starting to realise, and the only place I was likely to feel less miserable was at the cottage.
I’ve been here for the last two days, shuffling around, nosing in drawers and cooking and gardening, and, even worse (in her eyes), sleeping in Mum’s bed. I hadn’t planned that either, but somehow, it just felt right. My own bedroom – angst-ridden teenaged Poppy’s bedroom – was too much of a reminder of a painful past, as was Rose’s. Mum’s, though – well, that suited Goldilocks right down to the ground.
I slept so peacefully in there, surrounded by her books and pictures, her clothes hanging in the lavender-scented wardrobe; nestled in sheets that still smelled of her perfume, resting my head on pillows she’d slept on. It was as if she was still with me, in the smallest of ways, and it helped me to think and to relax and to consider everything that had happened, and everything that was going to happen.
I needed the rest, and I’m not going to start apologising for it. Anyway, Rose is just narky because she came down by train at the crack of dawn, and because she hasn’t eaten cake for two days. New health kick, she says, which from the look on Joe’s face is something that happens with some regularity, and is not to be taken too seriously. I don’t suppose it helped that I’d baked a huge cheesecake made with strawberries from the garden to greet her with.
‘Nope. There’s not much you can do about it now,’ I reply, slicing up the dessert. ‘Cheesecake?’ I offer, knowing it’s cruel but not quite able to stop myself.
‘No. Thank you. Anyway. Joe’s coming with us – I assume that’s all right?’
‘More than all right. We’ll just have to make sure we behave ourselves, won’t we? Shall we go in my car?’
‘We better had. When shall we set off? I’m ready when you are.’
We both know where we’re going because, despite our mother’s magnificent attempt at being cryptic, it took us about one minute flat to crack her Enigma code. It does amuse me to imagine her gleeful little face as she tried to come up with cunning rhymes, though, trying to fox us.
We’re going to Dorset, which is where she always took us on holidays when we were kids. It seemed like the most mysterious and exciting place in the world back then, but with hindsight, I realise that it was only a few hours away, and a lot more affordable than the package holidays to Spain and Turkey that our school friends were starting to go on.
I nod, and start to get ready. She already has bags packed for her and Joe, and it doesn’t take long for me to get my stuff together either. Within an hour, I’ve texted Lewis so he can be on blue-tit patrol, and we’re in the car heading for our first stop – Durdle Door.
Chapter 50
Rose
We are standing on the beach at Lyme Regis in Dorset, which is still one of the prettiest places on the entire planet.
It’s early morning, and the only other people out are dog walkers and parents with toddlers who have clearly kept them up all night, tired-looking dads building sandcastles with one eye closed, mums sipping coffee from cardboard cups between their yawns.
It’s already sunny, and the sea is a sparkling blue horizon stretching on forever. It’s going to be a beautiful day, and I vow to myself that I won’t spoil it.
I’ve been in a terrible sulk ever since we started our not-so-Magical Mystery Tour, and I need to snap out of it. Nobody likes a sulk, especially a 42-year-old sulk. I woke up this morning in the unfamiliar surroundings of a little guest-house, where we all stayed the night. Joe’s snoring reached near-nuclear levels, and I am not exactly feeling refreshed, but today is a new start and I will try to be less of a pain in the arse.
It has been a weird few days – after living pretty much in Poppy’s pocket ever since the A–Z began, I expected to feel liberated as she left Liverpool in her Audi. Relieved. But actually I just felt a bit deflated and sad, which was altogether confusing.
Joe had been well and truly knee-capped by the card my mum left for him as well, refusing to tell me what she said but giving in to a very un-macho fit of tears after he read it. He’s still got it, I know, folded up in his jeans pocket, that card with a picture of a fox on the front. I tried to comfort him, but what could I do? Tell him it’ll all be okay? That it’ll all get easier? People keep telling me that, and sometimes, depending on what mood I’m in, it makes me want to whack them round the head with a frying pan.
