Now, though, I know better. I know it means she’s upset, and trying not to show it. Because showing it – around anyone, but perhaps especially me – makes Poppy vulnerable, and she hates being vulnerable.
Ironically, the Face now makes me want to hug her instead of punch her, and for once I don’t fight the realisation. Not so long ago, every time I had kind thoughts about Poppy, I’d replay sins past, and shore up all my anger and bitterness to keep them at bay. Now – after all of this – I simply don’t have it in me.
My mum is dead, and my dad is a sad clown with a drug addiction and a wasted life. They are both proof that everything passes by far too quickly – and that there are more than enough sad moments to go round without seeking them out.
‘But you can come if you want …’ I say, pushing the issue, even though I can tell from her body language that she doesn’t want me to.
‘Maybe. Probably. Look, I don’t know, okay? I just … well, I’m not thinking especially kind thoughts, not right now. I keep thinking I wish he’d died and Mum was still alive. I know it’s not his fault, but it’s the way I feel. I know I’m a horrible person, and I’m trying to be better, but … I don’t want to lie and go all gooey-eyed about the thought of meeting our long-last dad, all right?’
‘All right. I get it. I suppose I just feel … sorry for him, to be honest. It doesn’t look as if his life’s been a laugh a minute, does it?’
‘And I know I should feel sorry for him, too. More than I do, anyway – but I keep thinking about Mum, and the way her voice was cracking on that cassette tape, like she was trying not to cry, listening to everything she’d gone through. Everything he’d put her through. It feels somehow like I’m betraying her if I forget all that and start playing happy families.’
‘Mum said she’d forgiven him,’ I respond, frowning at the ceiling. ‘And she’d want us to as well, I think.’
‘Well, Mum wanted us to forgive each other too, didn’t she – that’s what F was all about – and I’m not sure that’s happening … anyway. Ignore me. I’m being snipey because I’m tired, and I’ve had too much coffee. It’s best not to pay me any attention when I’m in a mood like this – I try not to. Right. I have R here. It says R is for Rhonda, and it’s a photo with a note on the back.’
Poppy holds the picture up, and it’s of a chubby, smiley-faced blonde woman wearing a blue medical uniform.
‘It says this is Rhonda, and she was Mum’s Macmillan nurse …’ Poppy mutters, frowning as she tries to decipher our mother’s increasingly scrawled handwriting. ‘She wants us to buy her a bunch of flowers, and “pop a few bob in the collection box”, it says here. Yet another person who did more for Mum while she was dying than we did.’
She throws the picture down on the floor, and collapses on the bed in a pile of long limbs and tangled dark hair, her arms folded across her face. She’s struggling, I can see, and kicks her shoes off so hard they bang against the wall.
I reach out from my bed to hers, and take hold of one of her hands. She responds tentatively at first, but then twines her fingers into mine and holds on tight. I suspect she’s crying beneath her shield, and I let her have a few moments.
‘It’ll all be okay,’ I say, quietly. ‘We’re almost done now. The A–Z will be finished, and we can get on with normal life.’
This seems to make her even worse, and I hear a heaving sob get stifled.
‘That’s what I’m afraid of!’ Poppy says, eventually, her voice jagged and raw with pain. ‘I don’t want to go back to my normal life. Ihatemy normal life. You’ll tootle off to Liverpool and I’ll probably never see you and Joe again, and I’ll be supervising jingles for scratching posts, and our dad will be collecting coins in a bucket on the bloody pier in Blackpool … and Mum will still be dead. It’s all so messed up.’
She used to get like this when we were kids; all inconsolable drama and tears. She has a lot more justification for it now, but it still half amuses me. I do what I always did back then – make comforting sounds and wait for the storm to pass.
When it finally does, she emerges from her nest of hair with damp eyes, and an embarrassed expression.
‘Sorry,’ she mutters, sheepishly. ‘Just being a twat. You want to do S? We’re here for the night anyway, and it looks like a good one. It’s another video. We could watch it on my phone.’
‘What is it?’ I ask, hoping it’s not another heavy task, and suspecting from the smirk on Poppy’s now-calm face that it’s not.
‘S,’ she announces, grandly, ‘is for Sex.’
Chapter 58
Andrea: S is for Sex
‘Let’s talk about sex, baby! Ha ha, remember when that song came out, girls, and I thought it was a bit rude? I used to make you sing “six” instead!
‘Well, you’re both a lot older now, and there’s no need to be embarrassed – though I secretly hope you are. I’m feeling pretty poorly now, truth be told, and when I’m not woozy and drugged up to my eyeballs, I’m in pain. It’s not pleasant, and anything that gives me a giggle – such as the thought of you two wincing while you watch this, wondering if I’ve left you a dog-eared copy of theKama Sutra– is very welcome, thank you.
‘Poppy, thankfully you have never confided in me on affairs of the heart – or other body parts – but I suspect that you don’t live like Mother Teresa. I’m not an idiot, I’ve seen the way you behave around men, you slattern! So, well done you – just try and remember that there is more to a relationship than what fits where and how fast you move it. Life would be a poor thing without love, and it’s never too late to find it, sweetheart.
‘Rose, you’re a different matter entirely. I know you had that disastrous online dating thing a few years ago, with the chap who said he was a detective inspector and turned out to be a lollipop man, but I don’t think you’ve had many escapades since.
‘This is a shame on many levels, as you are a woman in your prime – much as you like to pretend you’re some dried-up post-menopausal crone. Your forties are a wonderful time for your sex life – I shan’t go into details for fear of giving you a heart attack, but mine were splendid!
‘So – this is your mission, should you choose to accept it. I’d like to add that this message will self-destruct, but I fear that would be too much for even the resourceful Lewis to arrange. Girls, go out on the pull – doll yourselves up, drink a few glasses of vino, and let the world know you exist!
‘I don’t know, at this stage, if you chose to go on a foreign adventure to seek out your father – or whether you found him, and how that went for you both. Well, I hope – please think as kindly of him as you can. He’s a flawed human being, but I have moved on from those old wounds, and hope that you can too. Either way, I thought you might need cheering up – and what better way than a night on the town with a little gentle flirting thrown in for fun?
