by Amy Andrews
A smile touched Poppy’s lips. ‘I know. Tomorrow night,’ she murmured, snuggling into Ten’s side. ‘I can feel it in my bones.’
Ten turned his head to face Julia, crossing his fingers at her. But Julia needed more than dubious gestures. She needed guarantees. And for that she was even willing to throw a prayer out there into the universe, which felt especially close at the moment.
She didn’t have a good relationship with God. Any god. In fact, she didn’t really believe in any of that stuff. But tonight she’d shaken on a truce with Ten – so clearly she’d crossed into no-man’s-land.
So here went nothing.
Okay, if you’re up there, I mean really up there … well firstly, you can go to hell because seriously, dude, giving a twenty-nine-year-old cancer is just plain mean. But seeing as how you did see fit to do so then maybe you can make amends by sending us some clear weather and some goddamn northern lights. I don’t think that’s too much to ask seeing as how you’re God and all. And it’s not like I’m asking you for something every bloody night, right? I didn’t even ask you to cure Poppy. In fact, I haven’t asked you for anything since I asked you to bring Scarlett home so she could see Poppy being awarded the maths prize in grade eight. But I’m willing to give this one last shot. A chance to prove yourself. Yes, I know I’m not supposed to ask you to prove your existence, but I’m sorry … the more grandiose the claim, the more proof I require.
So just … please. Please. She’s dying. And I love her and I don’t know what else to do. Please help me give her this. Amen.
Julia lay looking out at the drifting snow for a long time, waiting for the igloo to explode in one huge, divine, kick-ass smoting for her less-than-reverent prayer.
It didn’t.
So maybe there was hope for the northern lights yet.
* * *
The weather did not cooperate the next night, with more snow falling, but Poppy’s belief that it would happen was infectious and the weather forecast for the third night was for more favourable conditions. In the meantime, they went on a reindeer safari, made snow angels and snowmen and had snowball fights with the other tourists. They ate and drank and strangely, despite the circumstances, they were merry.
A kind of fatalistic sense surrounded them and all three were determined to embrace everything that this magical place had to offer. Julia fretted about Poppy being warm enough, but the cold put welcome colour in Poppy’s cheeks and she couldn’t remember a time in the last six months when Poppy had looked so healthy.
The irony was not lost on Julia.
On their last night in Lapland they shared a meal and too much ouzo with a group of tourists from Greece. A couple of them had guitars and there was an impromptu, internationally flavoured jam session with Ten. Poppy beamed through it, her cheeks glowing, her eyes sparkling. Julia got two offers to spend the night in other igloos. Tempting offers as well. Good-looking men with Mediterranean tans who clearly looked after themselves. At any other time Julia would most definitely have been interested. But she had her whole life to get laid by good-looking Greek men.
Tonight was special. Tonight was the night the northern lights would come and she only wanted to share that with Poppy.
And Ten, of course …
* * *
Snuggled into their igloo just before midnight, three sets of eyes were cast to the brilliantly clear sky, and Julia could feel herself getting more and more pissed off. An hour had passed, the ouzo had long worn off and not even the breathtaking celestial display was enough to dampen her ire.
‘Come the fuck on,’ she huffed at the glass ceiling. Poppy hadn’t made nine the last two nights – midnight was pushing it.
Poppy laughed. ‘Patience, grasshopper. It’ll happen. A watched pot never boils et cetera.’
‘Yep,’ Julia said, forcing a positivity she didn’t feel into her voice, not wanting to be a buzz kill when Poppy was so chirpy and very much awake still. ‘Definitely. Absolutely. It’s going to happen. Of course it will. I prayed for it so it’ll happen.’
‘You prayed?’ Poppy laughed, raising herself up on her elbow to look over Ten at Julia. ‘Bloody hell, it’s a wonder the igloo wasn’t struck by lightning.’
‘There’s still time.’
Poppy laughed some more, collapsing back on the bed, disappearing behind Ten’s long, lanky frame, and Julia felt a pang of jealousy. This wasn’t how she’d imagined they’d see the lights together. Without Ten, she and Poppy would be lying side by side in the dark, staring up into the night. Whispering excitedly, waiting for the moment.
The thought brought tears to her eyes and she blinked rapidly to push them back. ‘There’s no moon,’ she said in an attempt to distract herself from the push and pull of her roiling emotions.
‘Oh Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars,’ Ten murmured.
Julia shut her eyes, tears threatening again. Bette Davis always did get the best lines.
‘There!’
Julia’s eyes flew open at Poppy’s exclamation and followed her pointed finger, just catching the faint green glow as it disappeared. She sat up abruptly in her bed. ‘Oh my god.’ She grinned and looked at Poppy. The night sky lit up again as if a green genie, newly released from the lamp, was hovering above them. ‘Oh my god,’ she whispered. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Poppy grinned back as the glow flared once more. ‘It’s awesome.’ She held out her hand. ‘Come lie with us.’
Julia’s breath caught at the request. She glanced at Ten. He looked very cosy there with Poppy plastered to his side, their hands interlinked. But he nodded and said, ‘Come on, Jules.’
Fighting back more stupid tears, feeling needier than she ever had, Julia crossed round to Poppy’s side of the bed and climbed in next to her. The beds were big enough for three, but Ten and Poppy shuffled over to make room for her anyway.
Poppy threaded her fingers through Julia’s as soon as she’d settled and squeezed her hand. Julia squeezed back. This was how she’d always imagined it would be.
For the next half-hour none of them really said anything; they just lay there holding hands, Poppy in the middle, gasping in awe as the sky became the cathedral – its massive stained-glass windows dancing and swirling with light and colour that was completely other-worldly.
‘Isn’t it amazing, Julia?’ Poppy sighed eventually.
Julia nodded. ‘Stunning.’
‘I wish Mum was here. She’d love this.’
Julia squeezed Poppy’s hand, the wistfulness in her voice heartbreaking. ‘Yes. She would.’
Julia wished she could say something that would ease this one last hurt for Poppy. Erase it from her mind in a time when she should be allowed to be thinking only of herself. But there wasn’t anything to say. Scarlett would have loved this very much – it was, after all, utterly spiritual. But she’d made her choice. Julia could only hope that when the time came Scarlett would finally step up and be the mother that Poppy had always yearned for.
‘We’re all under the same sky, Pop,’ Julia whispered. ‘She’s here with us in spirit.’
But she doubted Poppy heard her; a snuffly noise alerted Julia to the fact that Poppy had finally succumbed to sleep. Given it was almost one in the morning, she wasn’t surprised.
Julia lifted her head off the bed to look at Ten. ‘I should go,’ she mouthed.
He shook his head and mouthed, ‘Stay,’ sincerity blazing in his eyes.
Julia hesitated, torn between wanting to stay and feeling like she didn’t belong here with them. But the pull of Poppy won out. ‘Thank you,’ she mouthed, sinking back down again and returning her gaze to the heavens.
They watched the rest of the display together in silence as the most precious person in the world, to both of them, slept between them.
Julia never wanted the night to end.
Chapter Eleven
Quentin couldn’t believe there wasn’t another way to get to where they needed to go. He looked up the almost vertical stone
path that disappeared into the morning mist, then longingly down at Kashmir Cottage, and then back at Poppy and Julia.
Poppy looked fragile and pale, velvety-brown eyes huge now in her face, dark circles ringing them. She was wearing simple yoga pants and a flowing white cotton top with a warm purple wrap around her shoulders in deference to the early-morning chill. She seemed different here – quieter and gentler, like she felt she didn’t need to put on a show anymore. There was no more hiding it – she was dying, and anyone who looked could see it in her face and the fragility of her body. The monks they had passed in the airport and on the streets the days before had stopped as they had taken her in, pausing before bowing their heads and sometimes muttering a prayer over her. Quentin wanted to shoo them away, knowing they would make her feel conspicuous, and that she would hate it.
Julia’s chin was thrust stubbornly forward, one foot poised on the first stone as she waited for Poppy to catch her breath. Julia was wearing what was no doubt her version of hippy chilled – tight black pants and a clingy black skivvy that had caused more than one passing tourist to have a dangerous trip on the stones. She caught Quentin’s eyes and there was a warning look in hers: Don’t mess with the plan.
But Quentin had experience with far more effective bullies than Julia trying to silence him. He thrust out his own chin and stared her down, before focusing on Poppy. ‘We don’t need to go up there, Pop.’ He fixed her with what he hoped was his most earnest gaze as he pointed skyward. ‘The teachings are in McLeod Ganj. We’ll get our tickets here, in the town, later today. You won’t get to see Himself up there today.’ He gestured up the steep incline.
Poppy smiled at him. ‘Does the going look too tough for you, city boy?’
Quentin sighed again, then smiled. ‘Race you to the top.’
But he didn’t, of course. He took her right arm, and Julia took the other one, and they started the ascent like they were taking a country stroll; like they weren’t bodily supporting another human between them; like it was easy to manage the punishing climb with another person in tow. Nimble monks and impressively muscled tourists in yoga pants clambered past them like goats, sometimes stopping to ask if they could help, all determinedly climbing upwards, their eyes on the prize.
The climb was so hard, and Quentin was so worried about how the altitude and ascent were affecting Poppy, that he barely noticed the view. She was his sole focus during their pit stops. He plied her with water, massaged her feet, and checked how she was going. Finally, she put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Stop,’ she said, motioning to the blanket beside her for him to sit. She pointed to the vista before them. ‘Just look.’
Quentin did as he was told. The place they had chosen to rest was about halfway between the guesthouse owned by the Dalai Lama’s brother, and the Dalai Lama’s own home further up the 2000-metre peak. It was so early the sun was still a thin buttery ooze through the pine trees, outlining them all golden. A cowbell tinkled from somewhere higher up the path. And Quentin had to admit – the view was like nothing he had ever seen. The white-tipped mountains of the Dhauladhar poked their heads into the sky, as eagles surfed the currents around their peaks. Below, the plains of the Kangra Valley spread out like something you might see from the top of the beanstalk. He could make out the curving tiled roofs of some of the higher dwellings, yoga retreats and monasteries, and there was a grace and peace to the whole scene that touched Quentin in some peculiar way he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
The whole thing made him feel simultaneously big and majestic himself, godlike, and small and afraid, utterly human. He shook his head and rolled his shoulders to try to dislodge the unsettling feelings, but they lingered. This was a place to remind you of your limited humanity against the vast splendour of the universe, but also to bring home the awesome wonder of your physical state. A fluttering, snapping sound drifted up to him on the thin morning air, and he frowned.
‘Prayer flags,’ Poppy said, watching his face with a small smile on hers. ‘Thousands of them, all over the valley. Picking up the breeze.’
Quentin studied her as she took in the scene below them. He had been right; there was something different about her here. And he realised the same was true of Julia, who seemed less hurried, less certain, as she, too, surveyed the scene around them. Perhaps there was something different about him as well.
It was this place.
The world had seemed different from the moment they had arrived at the airport, eighteen clicks from lower Dharamsala. Kinder, somehow. Sure, white taxis still honked their horns in the larger town, tourists jostled and Instagrammed themselves, and the streets were crowded with internet cafés and souvenir shops. But the whole thing had a slower, gentler quality. The people they had come across looked at them, into them, like they were trying to discern their story. They asked after them – their families, their health. They checked what their guests required in a way that seemed far more genuine than something learned in a school of hospitality. Quentin felt as if they were among friends, held in some bubble where the normal rules of cut and thrust seemed somehow vulgar. He wondered if he was just reading too much into the whole thing because of the proximity of the world’s most famous spiritual leader.
Quentin leaned back, feeling the cool earth under the blanket, and deciding he could probably just about handle resting here a while. Surprisingly, it was Poppy who rose to move first. ‘Time’s a-wastin’,’ she said, rising, brushing herself off and clapping her hands. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’ Quentin and Julia jumped to their feet, and each took an arm as they hit the path again.
By the time they reached the top, Quentin’s lungs were screaming like he’d just finished a three-hour set covering AC/DC. Julia was red in the face and her hair clung stickily to her forehead. But Poppy still looked like she had some reserves in the tank, despite her overall pallor and frailty. Maybe it was because they had mostly carried her up the hill. Once they rounded the last bend, they found themselves going down a slope that met a path snaking around the leader’s compound. A number of monks and others were circling the path.
‘It’s the kora, a walking meditation,’ Poppy said in a small voice, nodding to the path around the buildings. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘Really?’ Quentin was glad it was Julia who voiced her exhaustion and lack of enthusiasm aloud and not him. Poppy’s disgusted ‘city boy’ from earlier still rang in his ears. ‘Can’t we go grab a Coke first?’
Quentin frowned. ‘Do they even drink Coke here?’
Poppy considered the two of them, her head to the side, and then looked back at the path, watching orange-robed monks turning a series of large drums. ‘It’s about the marriage of wisdom with compassion,’ she started, and Quentin steeled himself for some more walking. After all, wisdom and compassion were pretty hard to argue with right now. God knew he could use a fat dose of both. But Poppy smiled at them. ‘Maybe I need to use some compassion of my own and give us all a rest.’
‘Hallelujah,’ Julia sighed, finding a renewed burst of energy as she headed for the area outside the open-air temple, where monks and tourists mingled and did business.
While Julia went off to source drinks, Quentin settled Poppy on a small rise, overlooking the scene. ‘We can go see the temple soon,’ he promised, taking her hand. ‘And then do the kora. Okay?’
She smiled and nodded, and he decided to take advantage of their unexpected alone time to talk to her about what had been bugging him.
‘Pop,’ he started, and she turned to look at him, dark eyes wary.
‘Mmmm …?’
‘Why this?’ It troubled him, dammit. He didn’t want her to need to go on a Buddhist pilgrimage to find her peace. He wanted her to know she was enough, perfect, without anyone else telling her. ‘Why Dharamsala? Why this guy?’
Poppy shrugged, and looked back over the scene. Quentin saw her eyes follow Julia as she was stopped by a young guy with an iPhone. He assumed the guy wanted Julia to take his pictur
e, until he lined Julia up in front of the temple and started snapping her instead. ‘Shameless,’ she sniffed.
‘Poppy,’ he growled. He wouldn’t be distracted. He knew all her tricks now.
She sighed, and rolled her body towards him on the blanket. ‘I just always wanted it,’ she said, pulling off her beanie and running her hands over her smooth scalp. ‘From the first time I saw a documentary about him, I’ve been fascinated. He always looks so happy.’
‘But you’re happy,’ Quentin insisted. He wanted it to be true. She nodded, but he felt it in her. There was something within her that wasn’t happy. There was a part of her that felt sad, and not just because of what was happening to her now. He had sensed it from the first time he had met her.
She was a contradiction. On the one hand, she was so assured, so methodical and controlled. On the other hand, she was awkward and afraid. She had never let anyone too close, apart from Julia, and he wondered why. He wanted to grab her thin shoulders and shake her, make her tell him. Or demand it from her, sulk and stomp and say he’d earned the right to know. But something about this place – the climb and now looking out over this scene of serene buzz before them – made it seem somehow profane. He needed to wait. She had to want to tell him.
She touched his arm lightly and gestured at the scene. ‘Take me to the window. Let me look at the moors with you once more, my darling. Once more.’
His heart pounded at its confines in his chest as he looked at her, small and pale and so ridiculously beautiful, like a dandelion, clinging determinedly to its stem, but at danger any minute of blowing away into the breeze if you got too close, if you blew too hard. ‘Wuthering Heights,’ he said quietly.
‘Can’t let you have all the good lines.’ She smiled at him.
He waited. There was more in her face.
‘I told you my mother didn’t like me when I was growing up.’ Her voice was clear but detached, like she was reciting multiplication tables.
He nodded, looking at her but not wanting to speak in case he broke the spell.