“Renting?”
“It’s not that bad, Sky and I really like it. It means we can get up and leave if we’re not happy in a place.”
“I didn’t think of it like that. Whilst we’re on that subject Poppy, you were right about that too, or as right as you want to be. If you and Sky want to go off and live like nomads then good for you.”
She chuckles. “You can always come with us.”
I pull my chin into my neck. “Ooh no. That’s really not me.”
“Yeah, I know, but that’s the point - it could be if you wanted it to. You’ve got nothing to hold you back and maybe you should just take this juncture to think about that long and hard. In a couple of months you will be without any shackles. No husband, no mortgage, no job. Nothing to tie you down. You can go anywhere and do anything you want. Don’t pass up on that opportunity, it might be the only time in your life you get to be that free.”
“I know you’re right. I just need to get used to the idea, you know?”
“I know.”
I hold out my hand to help her across the stile and into the next field. She squeezes it tightly as she balances on me and crosses over, jumping down to the ground as if she’s forgotten she’s got a baby on her back. Lily doesn’t seem to mind, her little head wobbling from side to side.
“So, what else scares you?”
“Being with another man.”
“What, like getting it on?”
“Yeah, like getting it on.”
“What are you scared about there?”
“Well you know, I’ve sort of become comfortable with Charles.”
“Comfortable!” she snorts. “No wonder he went elsewhere.”
“Poppy! That’s not nice.”
“I know, I’m sorry, but comfortable should never be a word you use to describe your sex life.”
“Hmm. I mean I wasn’t self-conscious with him.”
“So, what sort of stuff turns you on? There are clubs you can join you know?”
“Jeez Poppy, I’m not sure I want to go there with you on any of that.”
“Maybe we need a few glasses of wine tonight to talk that one through.”
I don’t reply. I’m not sure I’m prepared to go into the details of my hang-ups about sex.
“Do you know where we are, Poppy?”
“What do you mean? I’m not the one that lives around here. Don’t be asking me questions like that when I’ve got a six-month-old baby strapped to my back.”
“Kidding.” Not.
We trudge through field after field before we finally come out on a road that I’m slightly familiar with. It’s way after lunch time and the cereal bar we had this morning was clearly not enough to see us through, especially seen as Lily has been feeding on Poppy a few times now.
“Ugh, I’m proper starving now Rosa. Please tell me there’s a shop somewhere near here.”
“Yes,” I lie.
There are no shops around here, just a small hamlet where even the Post Office has closed. The red postal box is blocked up but still visible on the side of a residential house. The house that Mr Crane, the gardener, lives in.
We walk by and Poppy doesn’t fail to notice Kane’s Land Rover outside. Unfortunately.
“That’s that gardener’s car, isn’t it?”
“Not sure, don’t think so, there’s lots of cars like that around here.”
“No, I’m sure it’s his. Look, it’s got that bumper sticker on it.” She points at the joke.
“Oh, for goodness sake. ‘If the car is a rockin’, don’t come knockin’.’ How awful!”
“I think it’s kind of funny,” she sniggers.
“Yeah if you’re like… twelve.”
“Shall we knock?”
“Erh, no.” I lift my hands up onto my hips in an act of stubbornness.
“Come on, I’m about to die of starvation here and you’re being snobby about a bumper sticker.”
I cross my arms. “Ugh. Go on then.”
She wastes no time and raps three times on a brass door knocker, cast in the shape of a fox’s head.
I half imagine she’ll run away like she would have done when we were younger, leaving me standing there with my mouth open and all sorts of excuses to fabricate.
There’s a loud bark from the other side of the door in response.
I take several steps back. I’m not keen on being chewed alive by the owner of that bark.
It’s Kane that opens that door, of course, holding onto the collar of a chocolate brown Labrador. It could have been Joe, or even Mrs Crane, but with my luck, it had to be Kane.
He looks up from his stoop at Poppy and then smiles when he sees me.
“Oh, hi, I’m Poppy, my sister, Rosa, was very rude the other day in not introducing me.”
The dog calms down and comes to greet us both, tail wagging in a friendly fashion.
“Well that’s very nice of you to come all the way out here to tell me that. I’m Kane.” He offers out his hand to Poppy, who eagerly grabs hold of it.
“Tut.” I can’t help myself. Why on earth would he think that we are knocking at his door just to introduce ourselves?
Then he laughs. “No seriously, what can I do for you both?”
“Well,” she starts.
I’m bored already with this flirting that is clearly not going anywhere as she has her man’s baby strapped to her back, so I interrupt.
“Is it possible to borrow a banana or a biscuit or something? She’s hungry.”
Poppy looks at me aghast. “Borrow a banana?”
I shrug my shoulders. Yes, it did sound a bit ridiculous when she relays it back to me like that but I just want to cut to the chase.
Kane’s face erupts into a laugh. “Sure, come in and I’ll see what I can do.”
Poppy follows him inside, stooping through a ridiculously low door to enter what looks like a kitchen, leaving me standing out on the doorstep.
“Come on, otherwise the dog will escape,” he calls back to me.
“Ugh.” I trudge behind them, my shoulders sagging.
“Sit down.” He gestures towards some wooden chairs nestled under a chunky pine table that looks like it was made in situ when this cottage was built. “Do you want a brew, there’s some in the pot.”
“Yes please,” chirps Poppy.
“For goodness sake,” I mutter under my breath and bend down to pat the dog who has curled up at my feet on the stone flagged floor.
“What’s she called?”
“Belle.”
The dog’s ears prick up at her master calling out her name.
My sister starts laughing and slaps the table.
“Priceless.”
I shake my head at her and whisper across, “Don’t.”
I’ve always liked my middle name, but not when it has been given to a dog. Especially Kane’s dog.
She zips her lips with her finger and thumb which doesn’t go unnoticed by Kane.
“Milk?” he asks
We both nod and he places the teapot, two mugs and a jug of milk in front of us along with a pretty bowl with sugar cubes in it. I’m impressed. I like sugar cubes. I plop in two with the little silver tongs that are in the bowl and decide that I need a pair of these in my life.
Poppy stands up and indicates for me to extract Lily from her sling, but before I can get to her Kane is already there. He lifts her out and hands her at arm’s length back to Poppy.
He then stands back against the Aga, with his arms folded in front of him and a wistful look on his face. “So, what happened then ladies? You get lost?”
“Sort of,” Poppy says, eyeing up a cake she’s spotted in a plastic cake box on the counter next to him.
He notices. “Do you want some?” He lifts off the lid to reveal a rather luscious looking lemon-drizzle cake.
“If you’re offering?” She nods enthusiastically.
Out of principle I decline, but look on with jealousy as she bites into a huge slab that he cuts for her
.
“Aren’t you having any?” she asks him.
“No, not for me. I’m on a protein diet.” Lifting up the front of his t-shirt to reveal a rather impressive washboard stomach.
“Ugh,” I mutter under my breath to prove to myself that the sight of a toned tanned stomach does nothing for me.
“I’m not, I’m on a breast-feeding diet.” Poppy boasts.
He screws up his forehead like he’s confused.
“So, this place yours?” she asks, with her mouth full of cake, picking up crumbs that she has sprayed onto her plate and popping them back in her mouth.
I tut again, partly because she was brought up not to speak while her mouth is full, but also because I know it isn’t his cottage and am surprised she thinks it is. It is beautiful and cosy; full of antiques and flowers. Not that this guy didn’t deserve to have a place like this, or even that I would know whether he has a wife or a girlfriend that could make a place look like this. Just that I know it isn’t his and this meaningless chit-chat is irritating me. I have a for-sale sign outside my house and my life is, sorry, has, fallen apart and today my sister and I bonded in a way that we don’t often do and we’re sitting here wasting that time with meaningless chit-chat with a gardener called Kane.
“No, it’s my aunt and uncle’s home. I live in Oxford.”
“Ooh, it’s lovely in Oxford. Do you garden there too?” She goes on.
“Hah, no. I’m not a gardener. I’m just helping my uncle out while I’m on Easter break from the college.”
I do a double take. College? How old is this guy? I’d put him about the same age as me, thirty. College? Really?
“What are you studying?” Poppy asks, which I’m actually quite interested in the answer to, not because I’m interested in him, it’s just I had a view on the guy and it’s been ruffled a little.
“I’m not exactly studying, well not in the pure sense of the word anyway. I’ve graduated already and I’m a professor, researching life sciences.”
The mug slides out of my hand, bounces off the table and crashes onto the flagged floor. I jump up to avoid being scalded by the tea and step on the dog’s tail; she yelps and scurries off cowering behind Kane’s legs.
Lily starts screaming at all the commotion, so Poppy stands up and starts walking her around the kitchen. “I’ll take her outside to try and calm her down.” She heads off towards the front door.
“Shit. Shit, I’m so sorry.” I move my open hands from the mug, to the dog, to Kane and back to the mug.
“Hey, no worries.”
Kane pats Belle, and sufficiently soothed, she trots off to her bed in the corner of the kitchen. He then bends down and picks up the broken pieces of the mug. I crouch down to join him and hitch a breath when I’m an inch away from his face and catch a scent of his aftershave. It’s the same as the one I bought Charles, the one he never wore unless I asked him to. I’m confused and suddenly stand at the same time as he does, my head smashing into his chin and sending him back onto the oven door handle of the Aga.
“Fuck,” he rumbles, from his position on the floor.
Oh no, I’ve really annoyed him. What a clumsy idiot I am. I kneel down and put my hand to his head.
“Oh God, I’m so, so sorry.”
“I’m fine, no harm done. But you will have to make it up to me.” A smile erupts on his face.
My mouth drops open, like I have just heard what he said but can’t believe that he means what I think he does. The only thought that is going through my head right now is, how? How am I going to make that up to you? And as much as I don’t want to say it and as hard as I press my lips together so I don’t. I do.
“How?” I ask slowly and nervously.
He laughs again. “Don’t look so worried, I won’t ask you to sleep with me. Not yet anyway.”
“Ugh,” I snort and stand quickly up. The arrogance of the man.
“Erm, what’s going on in here?” Poppy re-enters the kitchen with a much calmer Lily, to find Kane on the floor clutching his head and me standing over him.
“Nothing, we’re leaving.” I grab Lily’s sling off the table and thrust it at her.
“Wha… I’ve not finished my cake.”
She grabs the half-eaten cake off the plate, shoves it into her mouth and shrugs her shoulders at Kane, who is still chuckling sat on the floor.
“I never did give you that banana,” he shouts after us, “I’ll give it to you another time Rosa Belle.”
I hear the dog bark at her name as I stomp down the road.
“Banana indeed. I know what he’s thinking of. Arrogant man.” I mutter.
Poppy racing to catch up with me.
Chapter Twelve
Rosa
It’s Poppy’s last night and we’re only into the first fork-full of our farewell meal and she is at it again.
“So, let’s test that you’ve remembered everything you will and will not do when I’m gone.”
“Do we have to?”
“Yes, you promised.”
“Okaaayyy.” I pour her another glass of wine.
“I will continue to get over Charles, because he is a cheating pig and doesn’t deserve my love.”
“Check.” She air-ticks.
“I will demand that the solicitor sorts out this money nonsense even if it involves getting the Police involved.”
“Check.”
“I will join a gym and one other social club of my choosing this week.”
“Check.”
“Do you have to keep doing that? It is very annoying you know.”
“Check.”
I throw my napkin at her. “Seriously Poppy it’s really blooming annoying.”
She looks at me over her glass and shrugs.
“I will dye my hair back blonde, because actually I liked it that way and I will do what I want with my body.”
“Hmm, now that one’s got me thinking.”
“Why? I do actually prefer it blonde, I’m not doing it because Charles likes blondes.”
“I know, not your hair, your body. This whole sex thing.”
“What whole sex thing? I told you before, I don’t want to know about any bondage clubs or anything like that. It’s disgusting.” I screw up my face.
“Oh dear Rosa. Have you not seen Fifty Shades of Grey?”
“No, but I’ve heard about it.”
“Well anyway, I’m not going to go on about sex clubs, but what I do want to say to you is that you need to be able to enjoy your body and perhaps have some meaningless sex.”
“Ugh, can we not talk about this?”
“Why, what’s the big deal?”
“I don’t know.”
“How many guys have you been with?”
“What in the biblical sense?”
She laughs. “Did you really just say that?”
“Yes.”
“Well don’t say it to anyone else. This is a safe zone,” she points her hand back and forth between us, “you can say whatever you like to me, but if you don’t want to be taken advantage of, then I think we should talk about it now, because I’ve got an inkling that you’re not as experienced as perhaps your age would suggest.”
“Two.”
She stares at me for a while. “Two? Like you’ve slept with two men?”
“Yes. Harry Jacobs and Charles.”
“Harry Jacobs?” she shrieks. “You had sex with Harry Jacobs? But you didn’t even date Harry Jacobs, Tasha did.”
“I know.”
“Okay, so I’m building up a picture now.” She shuffles in her seat. “I’m assuming you didn’t have an orgasm with Harry Jacobs, because everyone knows how crap in bed Harry Jacobs was.”
“Do they?”
She nods and then continues. “So did you have an orgasm every time you and Charles had sex, or fifty percent of the time, or something else?”
“Look, I’m not playing this game anymore, it’s too much.” I place my fork in the middle of my half-ea
ten meal.
“Why is it? I’m just trying to help you and for that I need to know how sexually enlightened you really are?”
“I’m British. We don’t have these conversations.”
“Well I’m British too and I do.”
“Yes but you live in America where things are a bit more liberal.”
“No, they’re really not. Anyway, it’s actually because we live in the twenty-first century and women are not second-class citizens anymore.”
“I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
I can feel my face flushing up and stand up to clear the plates into the kitchen and avoid her critical stare, but Poppy isn’t shaken off that easily and she follows me.
“Have you ever had an orgasm?”
“Yes… I think so.” I look up from scraping the food into the waste.
“You think so? You would know if you had. Jeez, Rosa, you seriously need to get some education girl and I don’t mean reading about it on the internet or in books.”
“I don’t know what all the fuss is about? I’m sure orgasms are overrated.”
“Well how would you know if you haven’t had one?”
“It sometimes felt… you know…nice.”
“Nice?”
“Humpf. Do you want pudding or not?” I rip the lid off a carton of ice-cream.
“Of course. Stop dabbing at it like that.” She takes the ice-cream scoop off me and spins it around in the tub like a professional.
“Did he go down on you?”
I hold my hand up in front of her face. “Too much.”
“So, he didn’t.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I pick up the two bowls of Pavlova. “Come on let’s go in the living room, the ice cream’s gonna melt if we don’t stop messing about.”
The diversionary tactic doesn’t work and she lays it on the line, waving the scoop in front of my face.
“Promise me Rosa, before you fall in love again, you experiment first. Then at least when you do fall in love with a guy you’ll be sure that he is prepared to give you the stars.”
“Stars?”
“Yes stars, and you’ll know what I mean when you have an orgasm.”
“Ugh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just eat ice-cream instead.”
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