by Pat Rosier
Of course, George had had his say about funeral arrangements. And Sylvia had offered local knowledge and connections, so there was not a lot to arrange. Poppy rang Stefan first, and said, no, she didn’t think he should come over for the funeral unless he wanted to for himself, and heard the relief in his voice. Coming when he had, he told her, had been the best thing, he’d been humbled by George’s courage and finally learnt to respect his father. He said he would ring Katrina, and on the day of the funeral, whenever it was, they would get all together, at his place; May-Yun had suggested they all remember him together; his voice broke as he told her this.
Sylvia next. She said she would come right over, as soon as she had ‘rung that brother of mine and put a rocket under him.’ Once she had talked to him she would contact the undertaker, so the first thing to decide, she warned, would be the date of the funeral. Poppy thought sooner would be better as there was no-one coming from far away, and told Sylvia that her mother was taking George’s death very hard.
It was when she was talking to Martia that Poppy cried, tears of real sadness. Her goodbyes with George had been ongoing and gentle, a tugging away of the father she loved, so this final separation had nothing in it of the wrenching and anguish of Kate’s death.
It wasn’t until she hung up from talking to Martia that she realised she hadn’t told Jane. Jane had visited briefly in her lunch hour, sitting with them for a few minutes trying to contain her restlessness. Since she had disentangled her emotions involving George and his death from those towards Jane, Poppy didn’t mind Jane’s meagre sharing of this part of her life. Neither did she try so hard to attend to the details of Jane’s separation from Héloise. As a result they were more relaxed with each other and Poppy could enjoy sharing her small knowledge of London with and joining in her enthusiasm for this new venture.
Jane had assumed that Poppy would spend time in London with her and so far Poppy had gone along with this; they both knew no details could be planned as long as Poppy needed to be with George.
Just as Poppy thought Jane’s answer-phone was going to click in there was a breathless, ‘Hullo?’
‘Hi there, it’s me.’
‘Hello me. I was just sorting out the spare room with the radio on…’
‘Jane. George is dead.’
‘Oh. Oh, I’m sorry Poppy. How are you?’
‘I’m okay actually, it’s Susanna who’s devastated.’
‘What can I do? I’ll come over, shall I?’
‘There’s no need, really.’ And there wasn’t. ‘Sylvia is coming, the doctor is still here, I think, and I am fine. Sad, tired, and fine. He went so quietly, Jane, just a little ragged breathing and he was gone. Then Susanna broke down. And I’d better go and see how she is. Jane? Are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m still here. I feel bad that you don’t want me to come.’
‘Well, do then. That would be fine, too. It’s just that it’s fine if you don’t.’
‘Oh. Well, if you’re sure, I have got to…’ her voice trailed off.
‘Yes, I’m sure. I’ll ring again later.’
‘Yes. Yes, please do. And Poppy…’
‘Mmm?’
‘I really am sorry, about George.’
‘Yes, I know. Thanks. I’ll talk to you again later.’
Susanna would not leave George. Sylvia came and they settled on Friday for the funeral. The doctor went, leaving behind a sedative for Susanna and emphasising that she really should get some sleep. As the door closed behind her Sylvia looked around the room. ‘Is there a footstool or something? A couple of pillows, a blanket.’ Poppy caught on. ‘Give me a couple of minutes,’ she said and went out. Susanna continued to cry, quietly now.
‘Here you are.’ Poppy had a picnic stool, cushions, pillows and blankets and together she and Sylvia arranged Susanna in her armchair alongside George. She agreed to take the sedative and soon nodded off.
‘I’d kill for a cuppa,’ Sylvia said, so she and Poppy went into the kitchen. Poppy didn’t plan to go to bed either, not until the undertaker came for George in the morning. She would have liked him to come back, but went along with what Susanna wanted and Susanna wanted to be with him tonight and then no more. ‘He’ll be gone by the morning,’ she had startled Poppy by announcing as they arranged the stool and cushions for her feet, ‘there’ll be nowt but a dead body by then, I’ll not be wanting to see that.’ I don’t need to understand, Poppy thought and told herself to just let it be.
Over the tea Sylvia talked about herself and her mother and how, after nearly forty years of fighting and sniping, she could finally relate to her differently. ‘Because I see her differently, I suppose. She’s not the enemy any more.’ Poppy was struggling with a wave of exhaustion but she wanted to hear this, so she nodded vigorously.
‘Go on.’
‘Well it’s pretty odd. The therapist calls it “reframing”. I call it growing up I suppose. You and George and the stars. Thank heavens for the stars!’ And she laughed at herself.
‘You’ll have to explain.’
‘Looking at stars, reading about them, it’s a whole other dimension – put things in perspective, showed up my mean-spiritedness to my mother. With the help of said therapist. And then you took no notice of our squabbling, you acted as though we were an ordinary mother and daughter.’ She poured more tea for them both. ‘Not that I think we’ll ever be close like you and George, but it’s much nicer being civil to each other. And I will look out for her, you know.’
‘What about your brother, Oliver is it?’
‘Selfish twit! Said he couldn’t come to the funeral, he’d send his wife. Not any more. You’ll have noticed how our mother dotes on him.’
‘Uh huh. He’s only been once since I came.’
‘Figures. She sees him when he wants something.’
‘What about the other brother?’
Sylvia shrugged. ‘Lost in America. Because he wants to be. I gave up.’ Poppy did not understand how anyone could ‘lose’ a family or be lost by one, but was too tired to ask any more. Sylvia kissed her on the cheek as she left, promising to be back first thing in the morning with the undertaker. ‘And I’m taking the rest of the week off work,’ she added on her way to the door.
Jane sat with Poppy at the funeral. Rachel came. There were thirty-something people in all Sylvia said afterwards, including her brother and his wife. The chairman of the Cleveland Museum spoke, and Poppy for George’s family, and the music was as George had ordered it. Susanna had to be supported on either side by her children leaving the chapel and did not move from her chair while people milled around at the house with cups of tea. She had requested only family back at the house, and Oliver had come, briefly. Sylvia offered to stay the weekend with her mother if Poppy wanted to ‘do other things’, so by nightfall she and Jane were back at Jane’s house. As soon as they arrived Poppy knew she wanted to ring home, apologising at Jane’s disappointed look, and promising to not be more than an hour.
As she embarked on a detailed description of the funeral, Katrina interrupted her. ‘I know I’m not known as the motherly sort, but I’d rather know how you are,’ she said. ‘Where are you and how are you and what will you do now?’ So Poppy explained about Sylvia staying with her mother, and a little of the background to that, and about Jane going to London in a week or so and said she didn’t know what she would do next. There was a few moments’ silence, and then Katrina spoke. ‘You do sound okay. And I’m glad you’re not being saddled with Susanna…’
‘She’s all right, you know,’ it was Poppy’s turn to interrupt, ‘and she did really care for George, and he for her.’
‘I dare say you’re right dear, and I’m glad of it. And I don’t actually have any advice for you about what to do next! Will you go to London? What about you and Jane, in the long term?’
‘I don’t know, Katrina, I just don’t know.’ Poppy was beginning to feel miserable. ‘I think maybe I just want to come home, but there’s Jane
and I and… well, I really, really don’t know!’
‘Well, dear, I’m sure you will, know what you want to do that is, in a while. Maybe you’re best not to try to decide for a day or two and maybe that wasn’t a good question to ask you right now,’ and Katrina steered the conversation back to the funeral. ‘My greetings to Jane, and you take care of yourself my dear,’ she said as she rang off.
May-Yun wanted to know how she was and hear about the funeral. Ivan had made a photo-board with pictures of George and members of the family over the years, and they’d keep that up until Poppy had seen it, she told Poppy, and they’d had Katrina around last night and toasted George.
‘How is Stefan doing?’ Her brother was at work.
‘He’s all right,’ his wife reported, ‘sad, I think, about lost opportunities over the years, but it makes him more understanding with his own boys.’ That was the most May-Yun had ever said about her husband to Poppy.
‘And Jane? She is well?’ So Poppy told her about the London job too, and about her own ambivalence about what to do next.
‘Perhaps you would like to see Jane in her new place before you come home.’ May-Yun always made suggestions gently. ‘And perhaps you would like some time on your own first to allow everything to settle a little before you make decisions.’ May-Yun had done it again; got to where Poppy needed to go before Poppy herself did. Poppy thanked her, and sent love to the rest of the family. She sat back in the sofa and closed her eyes; tomorrow she needed to go off on her own, walking somewhere, maybe even stay away overnight, May-Yun had seen it, why hadn’t she? She knew the answer as soon as she thought of the question. Because Jane had been waiting with as much patience as she could muster for the funeral to be over so she and Poppy could be – well, could be whatever they were, without a big chunk of Poppy’s attention elsewhere. Jane’s head appeared around the door.
‘Finished? I meant to say to give my love to everyone. Damn. Anyway, I’ve got some soup…?’
‘In a minute.’ Poppy patted the sofa beside her and when Jane was sitting took both her hands.
‘Tomorrow,’ she said seriously, ‘I have to go off, somewhere on my own, maybe even overnight and, I dunno, just, you, know, sort out for myself… there’s been so much, so many feelings…’ she tapered off at Jane’s downcast expression. ‘I know,’ she struggled on, ‘that’s not what you want…’
‘It’s not what I want that matters right now.’ Jane was looking directly at Poppy. ‘Of course, I was hoping we would spend the weekend together – could we maybe go away together – no, that’s not what you were saying,’ she hastened on before Poppy had even shaken her head. ‘Come here,’ and she pulled Poppy into a hug. ‘I can be very grown-up you know,’ she said into her hair, ‘and wait my turn.’
It’s not about people being lined up waiting their turn, Poppy thought, and felt too tired to say so. They agreed that she would go back to George’s in the morning and, if it was all right with Susanna, take his car and go off until Sunday. She refused to worry about finding a place to stay even though it would be a Saturday night in July but did agree to take Jane’s mobile and leave it turned on from the late afternoon.
Jane dropped her off at Susanna’s in the morning – George’s will was quite explicit that the house would be hers – and she walked into the kitchen to find Susanna and Sylvia sitting in grim silence on opposite sides of the table. Her stomach sank. Taking a mug from the bench she sat down and poured herself some almost-hot tea from the pot in the middle. No-one had spoken.
‘What’s up?’ Her voice sounded too loud. She didn’t care.
Susanna remained silent, picking up a spoon and stirring her tea. Sylvia shrugged at Poppy.
‘My mother wants my brother to be sitting here, not me, and I’m on the verge of giving up.’ Her voice was flat. ‘It’s no good expecting Oliver to do anything that’s not in his own interest, Ma, he never has and he’s not likely to start now.’ She glanced apologetically at Poppy. Susanna’s head jerked up, her eyes bright with tears.
‘You know I hate you calling me that,’ she practically snarled, ‘and you’ve never given Oliver a chance…’ So far she had not acknowledged Poppy’s presence in any way.
‘Yes, I forgot, Mum.’ Sylvia’s voice was heavy with patience. ‘And you have given Oliver enough chances for both of us, and when has he ever done anything just for you?’
Susanna’s shoulders slumped. Poppy wanted desperately to be out of there; she had opened her mouth to ask about the car, when Susanna spoke.
‘I know. I know.’ Her voice was low and shaky this time. ‘I can’t stop hoping…’ Then, ‘Please don’t go.’ Poppy spotted the car keys by the phone, picked them up and waved them at Sylvia. ‘Till tomorrow?’ she mouthed at Sylvia, who nodded, yes. As she walked past Susanna, Poppy paused and put a hand briefly on her shoulder.
Too impatient to bother with a map, Poppy took the road she knew to Guisborough and drove on to a parking place at the moors. She locked the car carefully, then unlocked it for a nearly full water bottle on the back seat and strode off on the first path, pausing only to decide to stick to the well-formed way, straight on, left forks, so she was sure to find her way back to where she had started from. The day was grey, but did not look like rain; she had only a light jacket tied around her waist.
Walking fast, head back, she took great lungsful of air, concentrating on her surroundings, enjoying the beginning of the purple heather haze that would soon coat the whole landscape. Gradually she felt herself relax, taking in the calm of the enduring, uncaring moors, moors that were here long before she came, were untouched by her presence and had a longevity exceeding hers by millennia; given half a chance, she thought, then abandoned such considerations for the pleasure of being there. At the first fork she picked up a stone and put it in the left pocket of her shorts, her usual reminder to herself of which direction she was taking.
An hour later, the sun still not fully overhead, she stopped and took a long drink of the water, watching some nearby black-faced sheep as they grazed. She was hungry, so swapped the stone to her right pocket and headed back the way she had come, no longer fretting about decisions to be made, knowing she had twenty-four hours of undemanding time ahead of her.
There was an ice-cream van at the car-park so with the largest cone on offer taking the edge off her appetite she headed for the coast. South of Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay she thought, but not as far as Scarborough. She knew as soon as she drove into Ravenscar that she had found the place for the night; a room at a bed and breakfast on the cliff-top sealed it. Lunch was urgent again, so she found a tea-rooms. Fortified, she wandered until she came across a cliff-top path that took her away from the town, at a slower pace than in the morning, thinking about how the coast was and was not like parts of the coast at home in New Zealand.
The afternoon passed dreamily, Poppy largely oblivious to other holiday-makers, only occasionally required to respond to a greeting along the path. Every time her mind focused on Jane, or Susanna, or what next, she drew it away, making herself concentrate on a cloud, a plant or butterfly or passing bird. Crouching beside the path she examined a single branch of heather in detail, marvelling at the cluster of tiny flowers that would, later in the season, multiply across the moor into the famous purple heather haze. Of all the people she knew, she thought, George is – was – the one who would share moments like these with her. She looked quickly around then broke off a small tip of the plant, putting in her pocket. For George, she told herself and kept her hand in the pocket.
She ate a fish-and-chip supper on a bench among screaming seagulls, remembering to ring Jane’s and tell her answer-phone where she was staying for the night. Then she turned the mobile-phone off and stowed it at the bottom of her day pack. ‘I don’t want to go to London,’ she heard herself say to the cheekiest seagull, the one almost standing on her foot, stretching its neck up towards the paper packet on her lap. She threw a handful of chips as far as she could and th
e mob scurried after them.
Soon after dark she was in bed, sitting up with her notebook on her knees – the notebook she had not written in for several weeks. After half-an-hour all she had done was a series of doodles swirling down a page. She wrote home, then London with a line through it. More doodles. Surely she could come up with more than ‘yes’ to home and ‘no’ to London. She wrote Jane and looked at the word for a long time, remembering the woman who had arrived in Auckland eight months ago, sent to stay with Poppy by George – the late George. A tear fell on the page, Poppy doodled through it. Dear George, dying as he had lived – she went to add that to her earlier list of clichés, then didn’t bother – quietly taking his own path. For the first time it occurred to Poppy that he could have tried to meet Katrina’s expectations of him – ambition and matching income – but he had left that to her to do herself. He seemed truly to have had no regrets about his life; he took his portion and was satisfied. ‘I love you George,’ Poppy said to herself crying freely, easily, ‘I love you and I’ll miss you.’
Jane had come to New Zealand on a mission for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and had fallen in love with Poppy, telling her so on what was generally accepted as the eve of the millenium. Poppy’s emotions got engaged more slowly, or perhaps she took longer to acknowledge them, inhibited by the on-going presence of Héloise in Jane’s life. She wondered whether, had George not got ill, had she come to England in December as planned, Jane perhaps already settled in London, would they have then worked out a way be together on one side of the world or the other, maybe even both?
Silly to wonder, she told herself, it hadn’t been like that. Nor had Jane come home in January and said right away to Héloise how she felt about Poppy. It hadn’t been like any of her romantic notions, getting on with her life in Auckland, taking no risks, waiting to see… She had come for George, for herself and George and the other had happened around that. Poor Jane, she thought for the first time, struggling to change her life in her own way with me suddenly thrust into the middle of it. And now, already, she didn’t think of Jane with the same desire. Had George’s death changed that? Or was it the trip to London without telling? Or both, or neither? Perhaps it was Jane, so keen, so excited at the chance to live in London, and she, Poppy, so anxious to go home, yes home, to the life she knew and loved, not a new life, not any new life. She and Jane, they had wanted each other so badly when she arrived. How had that changed so quickly? How was it that the eight year difference in their ages had begun to seem more like twenty?