Poppy Jenkins

by Clare Ashton

  “So,” Dai said, with a deep breath and as if he were about to leap into a fire. “Rosalyn is still Rosalyn who liked blokes, but it turns out she likes the ladies as well. Not that this indicates her future behaviour or inclination, and she’s free to choose who she finds attractive based on her own individual taste.”

  “That sounds right. To the best of my knowledge.”

  Dai sighed in satisfaction, but then frowned. “Hell of a mouthful though, isn’t it?”

  Poppy smiled. “Well, that’s people for you.”

  “Complex buggers, aren’t they?” And they both stared into the distance.

  “So you never…?” Dai looked coy. “You know…”

  “What?”

  Dai nodded his head to the side. “You never…?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, you know, Poppy. You never, like, did it?”

  “No we did not.” Poppy opened her mouth with outrage.

  “Not at school?”

  “No.”

  “When you were teenagers?”

  “No.”

  “Not even a practice kiss?”

  “No, we did not…. Oh.” Poppy slapped her hands over her face, but too late to hide Dai throwing his head back in uproar.

  “I knew it.” He laughed. “I bloody knew it.”

  Poppy threw down her hands and attempted a hard stare. “Watch it, Dai Edwards. I’m preparing a best-man’s speech soon and there’s a lot of material I could dredge up.”

  Dai grinned from ear to ear. “You’re right. You’re right. Still worth it mind.” And he beamed a smile which spoke volumes about how entertained he was.

  Chapter 28.

  Poppy had laughed about it with Dai, but she was still hurt by Rosalyn’s behaviour. After the tears of laughter had numbed the initial sting, the underlying injury and confusion remained.

  Poppy hoped the family’s return from work would be a distraction, but she felt more anxious. They seemed aware something disturbed her. Voices were too quiet. People turned away when she met their eye as if they’d been caught observing.

  She approached her mother who was washing up in the kitchen. “I’m going for a walk,” she said.

  Her mother’s look was an embrace in itself, full of love, support and empathy for her daughter’s distress. “Come and find me if you want to talk,” she said. “Wake me if you need to.”

  Poppy pursed her lips and shook her head. “I’m ok, Mum. I’ll be fine.” She slipped from the house before Pip could entreat Poppy to take her too.

  The sky was deepening to indigo and the sun burned orange over the hillside. She considered each direction, but every way seemed to hold Rosalyn: the Hall up the track, Moel Gwyrdd a recent memory. Every part of her life held an echo of Rosalyn and without conscious decision she wandered along the river.

  Not far from the house, she slipped off the path through the bushes and down to a shingle beach hidden beyond. She sat on a branch of driftwood, bare of bark and pale grey from a hundred washings. She slipped off her shoes and toyed with the water. It trickled over smooth stones and around her toes, stinging with cold contrast to the humid night air.

  And there she stayed, dipping her toes into the water until she could stand the chill no longer then submitting the other foot to the same torment. The light faded. Darkness fell. The edges of the river softened into dusk.

  “Poppy?”

  She recognised the voice in an instant. Poppy turned her head to indicate she’d heard, but made no sound.

  “Can I talk to you? Please?”

  Poppy’s shoulders sagged with submission and she heard Rosalyn push her way through the leaves. Poppy’s heart ached anew. She didn’t turn, but she could feel Rosalyn was close.

  “I’ve been trying to find you. Sam said she saw you.” Rosalyn’s quiet voice trailed away.

  Poppy nodded.

  “It sounded as if she was rude,” Rosalyn said. “She comes across abruptly at times.”

  Poppy laughed with derision.

  “And I…” Rosalyn shuffled on the pebbles behind Poppy, clearly uncomfortable. “I wanted you to know, Sam is just an ex. She’s my friend and boss, but that’s all. There’s nothing more.”

  Jealousy erupted inside Poppy. Its blaze consumed her body and mind. For a moment she hated the thought of Rosalyn and Sam in any kind of intimacy. Then the feeling subsided in shame. Resentment simmered inside and Poppy stood and faced Rosalyn. “It’s none of my business what she is to you.”

  Rosalyn’s appearance took her by surprise. Even in the dusk she looked pale. For a moment, Poppy wanted to reach out and comfort her, but her indignation thrust up her defences again.

  “It’s none of my business.” She picked up her shoes and started to leave. “Just…” She halted, her eyes hot with furious tears. “How long have you loved women? Tell me that.”

  Rosalyn’s mournful gaze met Poppy’s. “Always.”

  She’d said it in the quietest of whispers, but its impact made Poppy step back. “Always? But you can’t have. Did you hide it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Poppy breathed.

  “Why do you think? This isn’t the idyll you imagine, Poppy. The people of Wells are the most parochial and bigoted I’ve ever encountered.”

  “I’ve never had a problem with anyone.”

  “Maybe you haven’t.” Rosalyn looked desperate. “But Poppy, you are so well loved, you could commit a murder and people would say ‘I’m sure she had her reasons like’.”

  Rosalyn’s impression of Dai grated and she bristled at the attack on her fellow townsfolk.

  “There’s no need for that,” Poppy snapped.

  “Don’t you remember what it was like growing up?” Rosalyn pleaded. “It’s twenty years since I realised I loved women. That’s a long time.”

  “Twenty years ago?” Poppy said, still in disbelief. “We’d have been eleven or twelve. How did you realise so young?”

  Rosalyn smiled. “Don’t you remember my room? It was covered in posters of female pop stars and actresses. I aspired to be like them and didn’t think it unusual at first. But later I realised, there was something more about their beauty I coveted.” She stared at the ground, the shame apparent in her demeanour.

  “Was that all?” Poppy stuttered. “Did you do anything about it?”

  “No.” Rosalyn said flatly. “I ignored the inclination and had boyfriends instead. I snogged and smooched like everyone else, and it wasn’t awful,” she paused, “but then I kissed a girl.” She looked at Poppy, her expression almost afraid. “I expected it to be repugnant. That’s what everyone assumes. People were disgusted by gays even holding hands. But it was…” she seem weakened by the memory, “…it was beautiful.”

  “When?”

  “I was twelve.”

  “But you had boyfriends. I never saw you with anyone else. There was always a handsome boy trailing after you.”

  “Poppy,” Rosalyn frowned with anguish, “I’ve never slept with a man.”

  “What?” Poppy spat out an incredulous laugh. “But… When you came back from holiday? That Christmas? Everyone said you’d lost your virginity.”

  “I did.” Rosalyn’s voice was neutral, as if she lacked the strength to feel any more emotion. “It was with a woman.”

  Shock, hurt and jealousy slapped Poppy all at once. “Then why? If you were a lesbian why did you get rid of me?”

  “Because it was you I loved.”

  Poppy trembled. “I don’t understand.”

  “The beautiful kiss when I was twelve? It was with you.” Rosalyn bowed with the confession. “Our practice kiss scared me witless. I thought you’d find me disgusting if you knew how I’d enjoyed it. I was terrified you‘d tell someone.”

  “But you didn’t fancy me,” Poppy retorted. She couldn’t believe Rosalyn’s admission, or didn’t want to.

  “Perhaps. I don’t know.” Rosalyn gathered her thoughts. “I always loved you
. Our relationship was always more potent than friendship. That term is too weak for what we had. And kissing you,” she gazed at Poppy, “there is no better word for it, it was lovely. It made me tingle and flutter inside, the same way it did when I cuddled behind you at night.”

  Rosalyn seemed exhausted by her confession. She leaned on the old branch and lowered herself onto its smooth seat.

  Poppy stared at her, wide-eyed.

  “I could have lived with all that,” Rosalyn said. “I did live with all that. And I carried on seeing boys, and admiring those women on the walls, and loving you. But then you bloomed.” The breath was punched from Rosalyn’s body. “How you bloomed.”

  Rosalyn stared at Poppy with imploring eyes. “At fifteen turning sixteen you changed. And the warm fuzzy feelings for you turned to lust. I spent entire lessons mesmerised by your lips, wondering how good it would be to kiss you again and how much further I’d take it. I adored you. I dreamed of you. I couldn’t help fantasising about you.”

  Poppy stepped back with realisation. “You stopped staying the night. That’s when it began.”

  Rosalyn nodded. “I couldn’t trust myself anymore. It was too easy to indulge in a sleepy, lustful caress.” And Rosalyn clutched her arms around herself in defence.

  Poppy watched her friend, distraught at their past and the pain they’d both endured. She put her hands to her head in frustration. “If only you’d told me.”

  “I did.”

  “What?”

  Rosalyn was coy. “I don’t think you remember. You were very drunk.”

  “When?”

  “The Christmas party.” Rosalyn looked ashamed.

  Poppy blushed with embarrassment at her behaviour at the party and her inability to recall the night clearly. “Tell me what happened,” she whispered.

  “It didn’t go well. I was nervous and you were too drunk to understand any of the subtle ways I was telling you. I kept trying to explain, but you just wanted to dance. You looked so beautiful, and boys kept asking you to the dance floor. I lost my patience and, I’m sorry, I kissed you.”

  “You kissed…me?”

  “You were very drunk and didn’t understand what I was doing. For a moment you kissed me too, but then you started laughing. You kept shouting ‘What are you doing?’”

  The painful veracity of the memory rang true in Poppy’s head. The images clarified with painful lucidity. Poppy had returned Rosalyn’s kiss not forced her.

  “I was humiliated and scared someone had seen us,” Rosalyn continued. “And I was devastated you thought it such a joke. You kept laughing.” Rosalyn looked at Poppy with guilty pain. “I pushed you away and left. I didn’t see you again before leaving for the holiday.”

  Poppy was silent. The truth had hit hard and left a chill. She imagined Rosalyn running from the party, spurning Poppy forever, and running into the arms of a woman. Poppy couldn’t help the jealousy that curdled at the thought.

  “Who did you meet?” Poppy whispered. “The woman at Christmas? Who was she?”

  “She was a student working behind the hotel bar. I lied and claimed to be at university too. I think she realised I was younger – not as experienced as she was.”

  The detail did nothing to quell Poppy’s jealousy or quench her frustration. “But why?” Poppy cried. “I still don’t understand why you dropped me.”

  “Dropped you?” Rosalyn said with a hoarse laugh. “You make it sound so easy, as if giving up a musical instrument. Tearing myself from you was excruciating pain, like being forced to cut off my own arm. But I couldn’t endure the alternative anymore.

  Poppy stared at her in disbelief.

  “Don’t you remember what it’s like?” Rosalyn asked more gently. “Don’t you remember the vivid awakening when you sleep with someone for the first time? Suddenly you know what it feels like, what it smells like, how it sounds. You crave the sensation of another person’s arousing touch. It’s not a vague, fuzzy desire anymore. It’s overwhelming lust.”

  Rosalyn stared at Poppy, anger and sorrow red in her face. “I pictured all the sex I wanted with you in vivid detail. The desire never stopped. The thought of every little touch and kiss drove me insane. Even if you’d forgotten the party, I couldn’t be your friend any more. I wanted to kiss you, hold you and fuck you. It was unbearable.”

  Rosalyn breathed heavily, the emotion of the memory draining her. “I pleaded with Dad to send me to another school. I thought if you were there at the weekend I might bear it. But every, single, day?” She looked spent at the recollection.

  Poppy took in Rosalyn’s words and understood her turmoil. “But didn’t you see anything of yourself in me? Didn’t you recognise any of it in me?”

  Rosalyn’s eyebrows raised in despair. “No, I didn’t. Everyone liked you Poppy. You were generous and kind – everyone’s perfect girl next door. And when you bloomed at last, every man had eyes for you. You were surrounded by boys with their tongues hanging out. Don’t you remember?”

  Poppy tried to recall, but she couldn’t picture it. She’d had little interest in boys at high-school. She was friendly, but didn’t give their special attention any credence.

  “That’s why I assumed you’d married Dai, when I came back.”

  “But….if you’d told someone.” Poppy was distraught. “I’m sorry my reaction was awful. I was so drunk I couldn’t tell which way was up. But any other moment. Any other time. Everything could have been different. Why didn’t you tell someone?”

  “Who?” Rosalyn said desperately. “You and your family were the most liberal and accepting people I knew. And you’d laughed. What chance did I have with the local yokels?”

  “That isn’t fair,” Poppy snapped. “I’m one of those local yokels, and so are my friends and family. You didn’t like many of them, but they’re good folk.” She inhaled deeply, trying not to be distracted by Rosalyn’s bigotry. “Your parents then? You could have told them.”

  “Oh, my wonderful mother?” Rosalyn looked incredulous. “My mother who struck terror into my heart whenever she mentioned our ‘unnatural friendship’. Every time I quaked, thinking you’d recognise me for what I was.”

  Poppy’s anger subsided. She remembered the same anguish when she’d overheard those accusations.

  “But your dad? Does he know even know?”

  “No.”

  Poppy was stunned. “But he’s your father. Your poor dad.” This was the reason for David and Lillian’s anguish and the distance from their daughter. How many lives had been stunted by Rosalyn’s secret?

  “He was never there. Not when I needed him. It was always mother who dealt with me.”

  “But now?”

  Rosalyn avoided her gaze. She crossed her arms and pinched her fingers deep into the flesh. “I’ve managed well enough without them. There’s no need to tell them.”

  Poppy felt desolate at the gap that had grown between child and parent. She couldn’t bear that happening to anyone. How lonely Rosalyn must have been.

  “If only you’d told someone. Anyone,” she whispered.

  “Poppy. People hated me.”

  “You don’t give them a chance. Think how different things could have been if you had?”

  “Really? How many times do you think I heard people bitching about that ‘stuck up Rosalyn Thorn’? I was labelled a troublemaker, just because I questioned people’s cosy little existence in this back-of-beyond town. How do you think they would have reacted?”

  Poppy stood up straight with indignation. “This is a rural place, yes, but these are good people. They’re willing to learn and accept.”

  “They would have torn me to pieces,” Rosalyn spat. “It was bad enough I was female – a woman who didn’t know her place in this second-rate town run by mediocre men and their mates. If I’d given them the ammunition of being a lesbian...” She trailed off, her face full of scorn.

  Poppy’s heart ached for charismatic and brave Rosalyn Thorn who’d been struck down and
weakened by her own sexuality. Poppy breathed hard, the emotional encounter leaving her spent. The conversation churned in her mind, and her feelings stung all over again. But she arrived at the same end – anger at Rosalyn’s bigoted opinion of the townspeople.

  “You didn’t give them a chance,” Poppy murmured, defeated. “You didn’t give me a chance.”

  “I had to protect myself.”

  “But you hurt me.”

  They both stared at each other, bruised and in pain.

  Chapter 29.

  Poppy had stumbled through the failing light, lost for words. She tapped on the cottage window and held a cheerful countenance long enough for her mother to wave good night then rushed to her room. With the light off, she closed the door and threw herself under the bed covers.

  She clutched the duvet over her head and cried for her younger self. The memory of lying in the same bed at sixteen was vivid – curled around her pillow, sobbing and clutching it to her heart. She had blamed herself for losing Rosalyn, assuming she had a shortcoming, and felt inferior at the rejection. How excruciating now to realise it was all to do with Rosalyn.

  “Always.”

  The memory of Rosalyn admitting she’d loved women from the start cast a shocking chill inside Poppy. She clutched at great handfuls of hair, frustrated at her friend’s secret.

  “Because it was you I loved.”

  Poppy clutched tighter, remembering Rosalyn’s words, and a tide of conflicting feelings overwhelmed her: hurt that Poppy had been humiliated through no fault of her own. Despair that someone she’d adored had worshipped her in return. A glimmer of hope, for what Poppy knew not. And anger at Rosalyn’s prejudice against everything Poppy held dear.

  Poppy slept in fits, and when she accompanied Pip into Wells the next morning it was in a numb haze. She took a shift in the kitchen and worked quietly alongside Derek. Her mind travelled over the last few days, trying to make sense of the past in light of the present, but to no further satisfaction.

  By the end of the day, she began to emerge from her torture and she strolled down the stairs to check on her mother. Emma stood behind the counter, wearing her reading glasses, engrossed in a sheet of paper.