‘Would you like to dance with me, Rose?’ he says, shuffling a bit on the spot, hands in his jeans pockets. His face is in shadow, but Poppy knows he will be blushing madly.
She stays quiet, but notices the way her sister is looking at him. Like he’s a giant Freddo and she feels like a snack. She steels herself, ready to sit this one out, hiding away on the bench and pretending she’s fine with it.
It’s Rose’s last disco, after all. If she wants a giant boy-shaped Freddo, she deserves one, and Poppy won’t get in the way. She stares at her fingernails, wondering when it was she chewed them down to the stubs, and tries very hard not to exist.
‘Thanks Marcus,’ says Rose, ‘but I’m already taken. I’ll see you at the weekend, though, all right? Maybe we could go and see the newStar Trekfilm or something?’
Poppy risks a sneaky glance from beneath her clumped-up lashes, and sees that he is both disappointed and hopeful. She’s said no to the Slow Dance, but yes to a date. Probably all a bit too much for a teenaged boy to compute, especially one who plays rugby and regularly gets his bonce battered, but he nods and leaves. Poppy resists the urge to stick two fingers up at him as he disappears into the darkness.
‘Come on then, sis,’ says Rose, standing up and stretching. She holds her hand out, and Poppy takes it. She’s actually already taller than her big sister, a long, lean streak of a girl, not quite grown into her own legs. Her mum calls her Bambi, and Rose just calls her lucky.
‘Let’s show them how it’s done …’
Rose leads Poppy on to the dance floor, and the two of them perform the kind of waltz their mum taught them when they were little. The type that involves a lot of laughing, and treading on toes, and counting ‘one-two-three’ in their heads, even when it bears no relation to the music at all.
They bump into people, and interrupt quite a few snogs, and attract a lot of dirty looks. But they couldn’t care less.
For now, at least, it’s Rose and Poppy versus the World, as it has always been – and as Sinéad almost says, nothing compares to two.
Chapter 7
The Present Day
Poppy is standing, staring into the fridge, wearing her sweaty gym gear and feeling the familiar and welcome pangs of hunger rumbling through her flat stomach.
There is nothing on her shelves apart from a few sticks of celery and a bar of 80 per cent cocoa chocolate. She snaps one small square from the bar, and places it on her tongue, enjoying the almost orgasmic feel of the chilled chocolate melting in her mouth.
She closes the fridge, and goes to make a coffee. Sadly she’s all out, so she pours the boiled kettle water straight into the empty jar, knowing from years of experience that the crusted-on granules will last for at least one more half-hearted effort.
She needs to do some shopping, she thinks, taking the scalding-hot coffee jar into the lounge area and sitting at her desk. It’s late, and she’s using the Anglepoise lamp as she casts her eye over paperwork and the initial mock-ups from the graphics team. They’re all rubbish, and she’ll have to go in and do some arse-kicking on Monday.
Poppy is the head of marketing for a pet supplies firm, and it’s about as interesting as it sounds. It does, however, allow her to live in her nice flat in Islington, with her own parking space, an en-suite in her bedroom and a gym in the basement. Whoop-di-do.
She’s just come up from the gym, in fact, where she spent as much time flirting with Josh, the 23-year-old financial advisor from the floor above, as working out. She half wonders how he can possibly be qualified to offer advice on anything other than doing weights and drinking, he is so young. She certainly wouldn’t trust her ISA with him, that’s for sure.
She would, however, sleep with him, and already has, on several occasions. He’s tall and bulky and fit and energetic, and he doesn’t give two hoots that she never wants to stay over. Or that she’s 40, even though she’s never directly told him that. With her toned body and long, sleek hair, she passes for a lot younger anyway.
It’s fun, she tells herself, playing with men like Josh. And carbs are way overrated anyway. At least that’s what she tries to explain to her mother, when they’re sitting in some Cotswolds tea room on one of their weekends away, and she ends up drooling into her salad as her mum tucks into scones and cream.
Mum never seems to change, no matter how much she eats. After years of borderline starvation to stay slim for her TV roles, her metabolism seems to have adjusted to her twilight years by giving her the gift of consistency. She’s fit for a woman in her sixties – she still does yoga and swims and walks in the hills – and looks lean and attractive.
Her last telly gig – playing the feisty-yet-caring secretary of a handsome maverick QC – was a few years ago, but people would still recognise her as Penny Peabody, and marvel at how well she has aged.
Last time she spoke to Poppy, a couple of weeks ago now she supposes, she sounded a bit tired, and a bit less enthused about their planned spa break in Cheltenham than she’d expected.
Maybe, thinks Poppy, sipping the tasteless coffee water straight from the jar, she’s just had enough of facials. Maybe they should mix it up a bit. Perhaps she could take her on a wine-tasting weekend, or they could go sky-diving together. Maybe she should put her fiendish pooch plan into action and get her mother a dog. They’d been on a photoshoot for the latest ad campaign for Woof! a few months earlier, and there was a field full of adorable pups. Adorable when they weren’t shitting all over the place or trying to hump each other, anyway.
They’ve not had a dog since Patch, the psychopathic cross-eyed Jack Russell, went to the big kennel in the sky when they were teenagers, and the time could be right now. She’s at home all day, loves going walking, needs company …
Poppy puts it on her mental list of Things To Do, along with Kick Arses of Graphics Team, Buy More Coffee, and Pick Up Work Suits From Dry Cleaners.
She swills the coffee-and-chocolate water around her mouth, licking it from her perfectly white teeth, and flicks on the TV. She has an hour to fill before she heads out again.
She’s meeting Kristin for drinks at the wine bar on the corner, and they’re likely to be out until the milkmen are doing their rounds. Making meaningless conversation with meaningless people and just possibly indulging in some meaningless sex afterwards. It’s a Friday night ritual, one that Poppy tries to persuade herself she still enjoys.
Part of her would just like to go to bed instead of meeting her 20-something partner in crime – but that would be admitting defeat. That would be acting like a 40-year-old, which is far worse than actually being one.
Anyway, apart from the colleagues she works with, it’s one of the only times she gets to meet new people. It’s not easy meeting people in London.
