Will You Remember Me? (31 page)

‘On the night I found a lump, and ever since I’ve been ill…’ Poppy paused and looked towards the sea. ‘I keep seeing my nan, Dorothea, and she kind of gives me advice. Not always by speaking; sometimes she just smiles at me as if to say it’s all okay.’

Simon beamed at her and clapped his large hands together. ‘How wonderful! She’s telling you not to be afraid. Sounds like she’s waiting for you.’

Poppy nodded. She felt a great peace wash over her. It was a comforting thought.

She watched as a young couple – a muscly black man and his white girlfriend – giggled on the sand to the left of the bay. The woman looked lovely; her curves were poured into a navy bathing suit which had large white spots on it and a pretty bow that sat just beneath her bust. They were laughing and running as they headed down to the sea. The two splashed and ducked beneath the waves, squealing like toddlers before coming together to hold and be held in the warm current. The man kissed the salt water that seemed to sparkle on her eyelids, and then peppered her face with smaller kisses. He lifted her in the water and twirled her around, causing the water to ripple and froth around them.

Poppy turned to Simon. ‘Someone’s enjoying the water!’ She nodded in the direction of the couple.

‘Who is?’ Simon smiled, his eyebrows knitted quizzically.

When Poppy looked back at the sea, the couple had gone.

* * *

Kate plopped down on the terrace next to Poppy. They watched as Matilda tried in vain to teach Peg how to execute the perfect cartwheel across the lawn.

‘I feel dizzy watching them.’ Kate laughed.

‘Me too,’ Poppy sighed. ‘I love seeing them together, it reminds me of my mate Jenna and I when we were young, we used to laugh all the time at anything!’

‘Ah, the joy of childhood. I remember my daughter Lydia giggling like that with her friends. It’s a shame, isn’t it, that our adult friendships are often more constrained. I can’t remember the last time my best friend and I landed on the grass in a heap.’

Poppy thought of Jo and felt a stab of loss that their friendship had been severed. ‘Jo and I were close. Partly because we were neighbours, but also with our blokes away at the same time, it gave us a special bond.’ She paused, remembering the early morning coffees in their pyjamas, the emergency calls when one or the other ran out of an essential, and drinking wine over the fence in the summer months. ‘I miss her actually, despite what’s happened, I do miss her.’ It was an admission that came out of the blue.

‘Have you spoken to her?’ Kate asked as she sipped her iced tea.

Poppy shook her head. ‘No. Not since I met her for a coffee, just afterwards. I was so full of anger that it was horrible. I was mean and she cried.’ She thought about her friends words, ‘I love you, Poppy. You know that. And the kids…’
She felt her own tears pool. ‘The worst thing is that the kids will need someone like her, and Martin too. It’s not like we have a large family to call upon. She was a big part of all our lives.’ Poppy blinked hard. ‘Simon said something to me when we first arrived, about my legacy, what I leave behind for people I care about, and I realise that part of the reason I was so mad with Jo was that I was counting on her being there when I’d gone, being there for Peg and Max and for Mart.’

Kate coughed to clear her throat. ‘So you’re saying that you were mad with her for showing Martin affection, but you wanted her to be there for him after you had gone?’

Poppy nodded. ‘Kind of, yes.’

‘So was it more of a timing issue rather than a betrayal?’ Kate kept her gaze fixed on the horizon.

Poppy laughed out loud. ‘Blimey, I don’t know! When you say I like that…’

Kate turned to the young mum. ‘The thing is, Poppy, I know what it’s like to have to rely on others to care for your kids. There was a period when I couldn’t see mine,’ Kate closed her eyes, even the memory of being separated was clearly painful, ‘but having someone I trusted, in my case my sister, and knowing that she was there for them, well, let’s just say it made everything bearable, almost.’

Poppy wanted to ask why Kate and her kids had been separated, but didn’t want to pry. ‘They’re happy now though, aren’t they?’ She needed to hear that even when the worst thing happens, your children would survive.

‘Oh yes, more than happy. I think the human spirit is programmed to compensate; they appreciate the happy, stable lives that they live and that’s a blessing.’

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?

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.