by Clare Ashton
“Sounds divine.” Oh, for the love of god, who was Poppy channelling now?
“I was lucky. I’d just been promoted to Events Manager at Clean Water, the charity I work for. It was before prices went really crazy. I couldn’t afford it now.”
Poppy glanced at the Jaguar and wondered if that was true. “You must be doing frightfully well.” And she closed her eyes, unable to bear watching the scene for herself.
When she opened them again, Pip crossed her vision. She was taking her leave with a sideways glance of concern, “Going to get some sweets,” she muttered.
“Ok darling.” Poppy beamed, trying to assure Pip everything was tickety boo.
When the shop door closed behind Pip, the two former friends were left to face each other alone.
Rosalyn was close enough for Poppy to appreciate how kindly time had treated her. There were traces of laughter lines around her eyes, a hint of concern pinched between her eyebrows, but yes, life had treated her well. Rosalyn’s full lips were rude with health. Her skin was smooth and inviting to the touch, but crossed with a captivating faint scar on her left cheek, where a childhood encounter with brambles had left its mark. And those sparkling blue eyes. It had been years since Poppy had the opportunity to admire them so closely. She’d always envied their crystal azure, but now she succumbed to their depths, mesmerised by the bursts of icy colour and light.
A trace of rose flushed across Rosalyn’s cheeks. “Eyes to lose yourself in,” Rosalyn murmured, enthralled.
Whether Poppy’s admiration had been exposed or she was the target of the same scrutiny, Poppy didn’t know. But she certainly blushed.
“I do apologise,” Rosalyn said. She stepped back and raised her hand. “I know you’re in a rush.” She paused. “Perhaps we’ll bump into each other again?”
“Perchance,” Poppy chimed, and if she’d had anything suitable handy she would have gagged herself there and then.
Rosalyn gave a friendly wave and sauntered back to the car.
Her retreat was a thing of beauty – swaying hips, elegant arms, glimpses of toned body beneath her T shirt – and Poppy watched with a mix of awe and vacuousness. Rosalyn lowered herself into the car and drew her long legs inside with a fluid movement Poppy could only admire.
The shop door ripped open and its bell rang Poppy to attention. For a moment, the doorway was filled entirely, then the colossal figure of Dai Edwards appeared at her side. At six foot and six inches and several feet wide at the shoulder, Dai was the epitome of a second row rugby player. A little of his bulk had gone south of late, after hours on the pitch had been exchanged for weekend pints, but Dai had the kind of physique of which you wanted to be on the right side. A lion when playing rugby, Dai could be an intimidating figure, but off the pitch he was more akin to a lamb.
“Poppy, I’m sorry love. I thought she’d be gone by the time you passed.”
Poppy smiled at his mellifluous Welsh baritone. “It’s ok Dai. I’m fine. It was just a bit of a surprise.”
He bent at the knees and when his face drew level with Poppy’s it was apparent he was frowning.
“You look pale love. So don’t go telling me you’re fine. Come here.” And he drew her into his chest with a thump. Arms the size of the average man’s thighs enveloped her and if she’d had any ill feeling inside before, it was forced out in a gust by Dai’s ferocious hug.
When he released her, it took a moment for her ribs to expand and air to inflate her lungs to normal. He drew her under a protective arm and they watched Rosalyn rearrange her belongings on the passenger seat of the Jaguar.
“Did you talk to her?” Poppy asked.
“Yes, only briefly mind. I knew you’d be passing around now and I wanted to tell you she was home before you bumped into her.”
Poppy peeped up at Dai and pursed her lips. “I’m all right. Thank you though. It was a long time ago and I’m surprised she remembered my name.”
“Remembered your name?” Dai stared at her in consternation. “Pah! Poppy girl, you’re trying to make light because you’re the most joyous girl on the planet. But you don’t have to pretend with me. I don’t care how long ago it was, Rosalyn Thorn is always going to knock you off your stride. There’s nothing like an old best friend to muddy the waters, especially one as undeserving as that.”
Poppy blushed and steered the conversation away. “Do you know if she’s staying long?”
“A week or two she said. Don’t know why. I can’t remember her visiting before to be honest. Must be something special.”
Poppy shrugged in agreement and they both stared at Rosalyn’s car, trying to fathom what brought the successful Londoner back to Wells after all these years.
“Her folks do still live at the Hall, don’t they?” Dai asked.
Poppy nodded. The Thorns had lived at Rhiw Hall for twenty-five years, and even though they were a five-minute brisk walk away, it may as well have been on the other side of Wales. “Never see them, but they are still there.”
“Maybe she’s getting married.” Dai spoke absently, but Poppy’s heart did a somersault in an unpleasant way. “It would make a beautiful place for a wedding that Hall.” Dai looked at Poppy with a twinkle in his eye. “Shall I ask her? I bet that’s why. I’m going to ask her.”
“No. God. No.” Poppy surprised herself with the vehemence of her reply. Why had she been so emphatic? Her heart raced and she had to breathe in to calm herself.
Dai gave her a confused look that verged on the afraid. It was a look he gave Poppy or his girlfriend when he didn’t understand and feared what might lie beneath.
“All right then,” he said diplomatically. “Maybe a wedding. Maybe not.”
Again they stared. Rosalyn straightened herself in the front seat, ready to drive away.
“Bet you a pint it is though,” Dai muttered. “There’ll be no shortage of blokes after her.”
Poppy looked at him, unable to express the thoughts that stormed through her head and the emotions that tied her tummy in knots. It had surprised and confused her, such an unexpected concoction of feeling at the sight of her old friend.
Dai observed Poppy for a few moments, his eyes flicking from her expressive eyebrows to her mouth, which was crooked with a smile at the best of times. She didn’t envy him attempting to comprehend her thoughts. She didn’t understand them herself.
“Best not to ask then,” he sighed.
The shop doorbell tinkled and a content Pip joined them, paper bag in hand. By the hint of caramel dribble and theatrical mastication, Poppy guessed she’d purchased her favourite toffees.
“She gone?” Pip chewed and squelched over her words.
“Who?” Poppy was still rather detached from the moment.
Pip rolled her eyes. “Rosie.”
“Oooo,” Dai breathed in sharply. “I wouldn’t call her that anymore. Definitely a Rosalyn these days.”
Pip grunted and joined the huddle. Poppy rested her hands on her sister’s shoulders and Dai gave her a comforting squeeze around her own.
She gazed at Rosalyn reflected in the rear-view mirror, her beauty captivating her once more. And for a moment Rosalyn’s eyes focused on Poppy with a glint of excitement, but she snapped round and stared at the trio, from Dai to Poppy, then Pip and back again. Whatever thoughts passed through her mind must have disappointed, and the air of friendliness from a few moments before seemed to dissipate. Rosalyn glanced at their group one last time and turned back with resignation. The Jaguar started with a powerful roar and pulled away.
Chapter 3.
Dai and Pip bantered about toffees and their voices faded as Poppy wandered in a daze towards the square. The Jaguar had disappeared within seconds, but Rosalyn’s presence lingered.
“Mary had a little Lamb
She thought it very silly
She threw it up in to the air
And caught it by its
Willy was a watchdog…”
Poppy could hear the chant
of eight-year-old Rosalyn. They sat facing each other, legs crossed, on a bench at the edge of the square. She imagined her friend so vividly she could almost feel their hands slap together as they chanted. Clap together, cross left, clap together, cross right.
“Willy was a watchdog
Sitting in the grass
Along came a Bumblebee
And stung him on his…”
She could remember Rosalyn’s smile, the one where her eyes shone with the exhilaration of indulging in the forbidden.
“This one’s even better.” Rosalyn lowered her voice and leaned closer.
“Mary had a little lamb
She also had a duck
She put them on the mantelpiece
To see if they would f—”
“Rosalyn Thorn!”
The voice had bellowed from behind Poppy. She shot off the bench, her internal organs inhabiting parts of her body unused to such company. Mrs Morgan Morgan bore down on them, her normally ruddy complexion a thunderous puce.
“Rosalyn Thorn. Your father would be ashamed. And leading Poppy astray too.”
Rosalyn remained serene and smiled sweetly. “To see if they would fall off, Mrs Morgan. That’s the last line.”
Poppy could hear it. That precise accent. It had always been there. She’d never noticed the way Rosalyn spoke as a child. Rosalyn was her friend and they were the same in all the ways that mattered to Poppy and different only in ways that were exciting.
That was the bench – the seat halfway along the square, which teetered on the cobbles, the specific stones varying depending on who’d last inhabited the seat. It would enrage some of the older inhabitants, driven to shift the bench so it wouldn’t lean or creak or rock with every motion. It was a hopeless pursuit, and the bench always contrived to find some way of irritating.
Poppy became aware of a chomping noise, a rather sticky chomping noise. Pip’s hand waved in front of her eyes and the noisy chewing snapped Poppy back to the present. Her sister held a much diminished bag of sweets.
“Pip! You’re not meant to eat them all now.”
She grinned at Poppy, the toffee coating her teeth and lending her a cheeky rotten smile.
“You’re supposed to have one now and save the rest. You can’t turn up at school a complete sugar crazy.” Poppy tried hard to deliver a reproachful look, but knew her eyes betrayed her. Pip grinned wider, her lips squeaking over the elastic toffee.
“Come on.” Poppy snatched the bag from Pip and scrunched the corners shut. “Mum will give them back when she picks you up from school,” she said, and they walked on.
Pip chewed and gulped her mouth empty and Poppy was expecting her to protest but she said, “Was Rosalyn your girlfriend?”
“What?” Poppy was not expecting that at all.
“Rosalyn? Was she your girlfriend?”
“God no. Why?”
Pip shrugged.
“Well she wasn’t.” And Poppy regretted her snappy tone.
Pip continued to stare and Poppy felt compelled to elaborate. “It was a long time ago and we were very young. The last time she talked to me was when we were sixteen.”
Pip gave a look designed to make any non-teenager feel lame.
“Yes I know people have sex…have boyfriends when they’re sixteen, but… But I didn’t. Wasn’t. Not at all. ”
Pip stared at her, both amused and appalled.
“She wasn’t my girlfriend. Let’s just leave it there.”
Poppy held her breath, but that seemed to be the extent of Pip’s enquiry and they resumed their amble.
“But you do fancy her.”
“I do not.” The words spat out of Poppy’s mouth with an incredulous laugh.
“Yes, you do.”
“I do not.”
Pip nodded with a knowing smile.
“Do not.” Poppy’s voice was beginning to climb to a screech, and she took a hold of herself before they could descend into a sisterly bicker of the ‘do toos’.
“So.” Poppy pretended nonchalance and broke into a languid stroll. “Why do you think I fancy her?”
“Because you were being really weird.”
“Was I?” Poppy tried to sound light.
“Yeah. Really, really weird.”
“In what way?”
“You were being like Owen Davies with Joanne. I thought you were going to punch her on the arm next, or drag her down the hill.”
“Oh.” Poppy stared at Pip. “Well, I’m sorry it seemed that way, but I do not fancy Rosalyn Thorn.”
“Ok.” Pip shrugged. “Shame.”
“Why?”
“Because she fancies you.”
“She does not!” Poppy stopped with a stamp of her feet.
“Why not?”
“Because!” Poppy’s whine was at such a pitch she was possibly making a dog a mile away howl in pain. She gulped and retrieved her voice. “Because. One, Rosalyn Thorn isn’t gay. And two...”
Because Rosalyn Thorn was beyond Poppy at sixteen, already more mature and sophisticated. And that the successful metropolitan woman should look at the village café owner with anything like admiration was beyond unlikely.
Poppy smiled sadly at Pip. “She didn’t like me.”
Pip, at last, seemed satisfied and they again resumed their walk.
“So.” Poppy’s heart sank as Pip went on. “Why didn’t you tell her I was your sister?”
Oh god. Why didn’t she say Pip was her sister? “I don’t know. Does it matter? Do you think it matters? Do you think she thinks it matters?”
Pip curled her lip in bewilderment. “Well, she’ll think I’m your daughter. Is that what you want? It’s what everyone assumes when they don’t know us.”
Yes, Poppy knew that.
“Are you trying to protect yourself from her?”
“What?”
“You know, like when Anne Jones says she’s got a boyfriend from another school, just so Glyn Davies won’t bother her, because he’s a two-timing bastard and she doesn’t want anything to do with him, even though he’s the best-looking boy in the whole school, and I can tell that Rosalyn is really good-looking.”
“Ok, ok,” Poppy said, flummoxed and out-witted on several fronts. “One. I don’t want to hear you say the 'b’ word.”
“What? Bast—”
“Yes, that one.”
Pip rolled her eyes.
“Two.” Poppy sighed. She couldn’t decide which was more remarkable, that Pip, whose sights extended as far as a spotty boy at school, could appreciate the beauty of Rosalyn, or that she had perceptively discerned Poppy’s admiration of the visitor.
Poppy cupped her sister’s face in her hands. “My lovely Pip. It’s the sweetest thing in the world that you think Rosalyn Thorn could fancy me. And yes, she is beautiful.” Dear god she was beautiful. She’d always been a pretty girl but Poppy had never imagined the woman she’d turn into. “And I do think she’s very attractive, but I don’t fancy her.”
Pip started to protest.
“Believe me. If I were the last person alive, Rosalyn wouldn’t fancy me.”
Pip sighed defeated. The sisterly balance was restored, with Poppy as the adult and Pip the junior.
“Now. You’re going to be late.” Poppy laughed. “Run!”
Pip glanced at her watch and cursed something indistinct under her breath, too quiet for Poppy to berate with confidence. Pip launched along the pavement in great bounds, limbs flailing in improbable directions, making her forward motion a feat that defied science.
“See you tonight,” Poppy shouted, and she smiled after her sister with adoration as she disappeared over the bridge.
Poppy’s mother, Emma Jenkins, had owned The Wholefood Shop in Wells since Poppy was a toddler, and it had changed little as far as Poppy could recall. Her father, Iwan, had carved the shop sign, an ear of wheat either side of raised lettering, and the premises retained the original multiple-paned Georgian windows. The neat white rendering d
isguised the building’s age from the outside, but inside the ancient oak interior twisted and leaned like the rest of the square. A step down from the street and Poppy was inside the small shop.
Dark shelves displayed plain bags of whole oats, flour and every dried legume imaginable, and rows of large amber jars contained all the spices a British cook could desire. A fan of small paper bags hung next to a metal scoop dusty with turmeric, the last spice to be purchased. When Poppy was younger, the air was fragranced with teas and spices – jasmine, Lapsang Souchong, ground coriander and star anise – but now the smell of fresh bread and cakes suffused the air from the café kitchen. Up the twisting staircase, The Real Food Café was Poppy’s charge, while her mother tended the shop and worked in a small studio in a modern extension beyond the counter.
This morning her mother stared into space, chin propped on two hands and elbows set firmly on the shop counter. She gazed unblinking at an empty space in the middle of the shop. This was not an unusual sight for Poppy, but it did seem to bother the elderly customer who stood twitching beside her. Cerys Mathews, dressed in neck-to-toe khaki woollens, sidled over to Poppy.
“Is she all right? I only asked if she had any paintings for sale.”
“Ah.” Poppy smiled. “That would be enough.”
Her mother turned, the tassels on her vivid Patagonia cardigan twirling with her, and she parted the bamboo curtain and disappeared into the bright studio beyond.
“I think she means to come back,” Poppy said.
“Oh. Good.” And they both peered towards the sound of clattering frames and canvases.
“Were you after something in particular?” Poppy thought it best to enquire, because it was likely her mother had not.
Cerys gave an earnest frown and raised her purse, pinched between her fingers like a mouse eating a sunflower seed. “Well, I’m after a nice painting of the area for my sister. Grew up here like me, but moved away see, and she misses the place.”
Poppy nodded encouragement.
“Someone recommended your mam and I’ve had my eye on her paintings before. I thought it would be nice to have a work by a local artist.”