by Marc Scott
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The warm August weather meant that many of the early diners seated in Chez Blanc had not bothered with coats and jackets. Sitting chatting on one of the tables of the restaurant were Bree and Kayleigh. They had both enjoyed a mini chicken kiev starter, washed down with some expensive Merlot, and were waiting for their main course to arrive. The pair had begun to think that it may have been a wasted journey. There was no sign of Poppy, and the young waitress serving them had simply pulled a face when asked where she might be. Bree had bought a new cream-coloured top from Escada that morning. She wanted to look her best for her reunion with her newfound sibling. She had also endured a mini-makeover at the local beauty parlour. It was the first time that Kayligh had seen her best friend make any real effort with her appearance for years. Her friend didn’t want to tell her, but she found her uncanny resemblance to her mother almost frightening now. Suddenly Kayleigh received a sharp kick in her ankle beneath the table as her best friend declared, ‘She is here! She just came in through the back way, that’s my sister!’
It was early evening, almost eight o’clock. Chez Blanc was not too busy at that time. A table of four sour-faced women, two pairs of elderly pensioners and a couple with an infant child were seated. The main topic of conversation in the dining area was the unexplained damage caused to the travel agent’s window in the high street. Patrons were concerned that the random act of vandalism may have been down to some travelling football fans on their way to a game. If only they knew!’
Danny had stopped calling Poppy at around seven o’clock and cancelled his night out to cover for his missing waitress. He feared that she may have had another altercation with Cameron. He hoped that was not the case.
There was nothing wrong with Bree’s eyesight. Poppy had walked in through the back entrance of the restaurant and could clearly be seen hanging up her green bomber jacket. As she made her way into the kitchen she brushed past a terrified-looking Chantelle who was carrying some bread rolls through to the dining area. Poppy didn’t need words, the stare she gave the shaking young waitress was enough to cause her to tilt her plate, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs across the restaurant carpet. Poppy made her way to the large refrigerator and helped herself to some ham and a piece of cheese. She was hungry, she hadn’t eaten a thing that day. If nothing else, she knew that she always had free food at her place of work. Reaching into the cutlery drawer she grabbed a bread knife and reached for the French stick on the side of prep table. Matt had been busy at the stoves and had not realised that she had arrived. He caught a first glimpse of her as he turned for some seasoning. ‘Shit!’ he said. ‘I didn’t see you come in, you made me jump.’ Poppy looked him square in the face as she cut two slices of bread. That knife in her hand was certainly doing nothing for the Geordie chef’s nerves.
‘I didn’t think you were coming in,’ Matt said, watching Poppy add some pickle to her ham and cheese roll. Her eyes never left him once as she sampled her food. The usually confident northerner was lost for words. As he watched Poppy use the sharp instrument in her hand to cut another slice of bread, he felt the need to try to explain his actions. ‘We need to talk, Poppy, about this morning, we need to talk.’ Poppy remained silent. She was enjoying this moment. She placed the knife which had been giving the Geordie chef so much concern onto the side of the draining board and chewed hard on the crusty corner of her roll, teasing him, as if to say to him, ‘What do you think I will do now?’ Her silence made him nervous, very nervous.
Danny suddenly appeared and made his way past the pair of them, heading for the storeroom. ‘Hello, love,’ he said as he passed by. ‘I didn’t know if you were coming in tonight.’ Poppy still said nothing. Her eyes seemed to be fixed on Matt’s twitching features. Danny returned with a high chair that had clearly seen better days and began wiping it over with a dish cloth before making his way back to the dining area. ‘I wish these bloody people would tell me when they are bringing bloody babies in here,’ he said. ‘They will have to make do with this now.’ As he walked away, the restaurant owner’s parting comment gave Matt even more reason to be anxious. ‘Have you told her that the bloody girl is here, that she has come back?’
Playtime was over for Poppy. The expression on her face changed quickly as his comment sank in. Gone was the smirk of someone taunting the chef about his encounter with the waitress. It was replaced with a look of anger, real anger. Matt reacted quickly, brushing the bread knife along the work surface, out of reach of Poppy’s hand.
‘I told her,’ Poppy said, her voice raw, her tone angry. ‘I told her not to come back here.’ Matt stood in front of her, feeling slightly braver now that there was less chance of him being on the receiving end of that sharp blade. ‘I fucking told that bitch!’ Poppy screamed, her eyes now full of venom. Matt grabbed both of her wrists and looked down at her. He had seen her when she was angry, very angry, but had never seen that look of rage in her eyes before, not with the loudmouth large woman that had threatened her, not with him when they had shared that first encounter. This was something completely different. Poppy’s face began to twist and turn. She bit hard on the corner of her lip. ‘I fucking told her!’ she said again, through gritted teeth. ‘I fucking warned that bitch!’
Matt tried to reason with her, reaching out and holding her arms. ‘Let’s go outside,’ he said. Poppy tried to free herself from his grasp, but the chef asked her again, ‘Let’s go outside for a walk.’
But in Poppy’s brain that mellow hissing sound had already started. A few laughing voices began to echo around inside her head. She tried to look past Matt and focus on some colours, some warm colours, any colours, but they were not there. All she could see was the face of that girl, that terrible girl that had twisted her mind around the previous week. Matt could see that she was beginning to hyperventilate, she was no longer in control. ‘Poppy,’ he said with genuine concern in his voice, ‘talk to me!’
Again, she searched her brain, trying to find something – the sun, a stream, a river. Where are the colours? she thought. Where are the colours? Matt tightened his grip slightly on her arms and spoke in a calm and measured voice. ‘You don’t want to do anything stupid, Poppy,’ he said. ‘Remember, you don’t want to go back there, you don’t want to end up in prison.’
Poppy began to breathe more deeply, still searching for some peaceful thoughts to enter her scrambled mind. ‘You can do this, Poppy,’ Matt said. ‘You can do this, keep taking deep breaths. Remember the colours, the blue sky, the bright sun, everything will be OK.’ As she breathed out longer breaths she slowly began to see those colours back in her head. They were faded but they were good colours – blues and greens and even yellows. She saw the stream, she saw the lake. It was alright, everything was going to be alright.
‘I am OK now, Matt,’ she said. ‘You can let me go.’
Matt shook his head. ‘Just wait one more minute, Poppy. Just hold onto me for one more minute.’ She took several more long breaths and slowly her head began to clear. The hissing sounds were still there but they were fading, the echoes of laughter had all but gone. The moment was over. Poppy took one more deep breath and released herself from Matt’s grip.
‘I need a drink,’ Poppy said and turned to enter the dining area. Matt went to speak but she got there first. ‘I am OK, really, Matt, I am OK. I just need a drink now.’
When Poppy entered the seating area she did not look left or right in fear of seeing the reason for her anger. Moving directly to the bar, she poured herself a double vodka and downed the drink in one go. She felt slightly more at ease and repeated the exercise. Again the drink barely touched the sides of her mouth before it had been fully devoured. Matt stood in the doorway for a few seconds and was joined by his latest conquest who had been hiding in the staff toilets. Danny was busy trying to assemble the table on the front of the high chair. He was completely oblivious to what had just happened in the kitchen. Chantelle’s squeaky
voice suddenly piped up. ‘She is a fucking nutter!’ she said. ‘She should be locked up!’ Matt shook his head at the dizzy-headed teenager as though to warn her not to say anything more.
Poppy stared down at the stainless steel sink behind the bar. Things were still not right in her head, she knew that. She hoped that the alcohol would have helped calm her nerves, but she was wrong. That hissing sound had been replaced by a fuzzy whirring noise. Strange images began to appear in the unwashed wine glasses in front of her. She closed her eyes tightly. She knew she didn’t want to look, she knew she shouldn’t look, but a laughing voice called out somewhere deep inside her brain. It was not a random voice, like all the others, it was that girl’s voice, it was Bree’s voice. It was calling out to her, it was mocking her. Lifting her head slowly, Poppy looked directly to the middle table and saw both Bree and Kayleigh staring at her. One whispered something to the other, they both laughed. That image was enough, it was all Poppy needed. Suddenly that sound inside her head increased tenfold and was accompanied by an orchestra of gaggling laughter. Her face twisted, she bit the corner of her lip harder than ever before, her fists tightened, her head was spinning. She closed her eyes and muttered under her breath, as her headspace searched desperately for the calming colours to return. Why didn’t she stay away? she thought. Why didn’t she just leave me alone? Poppy could feel the rage now. It began to climb inside her, like molten lava rising in a dormant volcano. One last time, her inner conscience screamed out for some shades of soothing colours to appear, but they wouldn’t, they had deserted her now.
In a split second Poppy’s arm swung violently to the right and sent the CD player flying into the wall. Her other arm swiftly followed, hurling four wine glasses crashing over the side of the bar. ‘I told you!’ she screamed at the top of her voice as she moved forwards at a rapid pace from behind the bar and headed into the dining area. ‘I fucking told you not to come back here! I fucking warned you!’ Danny turned away from his task with the high chair and took a step forwards, into Poppy’s path, but her momentum could not be stopped. She shoved him to one side and sent him flying head first over the high chair, his shoulder crashing against the side of the dining table, causing the startled mother to clutch her baby close to her chest.
The whole restaurant fell silent as Poppy marched over to the table where Bree and Poppy sat. The girls looked up in total shock. There was a brief pause. Most of the diners in the restaurant froze, as if they were playing a game of statues. The mother holding the small child watched on as her husband lifted his arms halfway in the air, as if he thought that this was a hold-up. Before she realised what was happening, Bree felt Poppy’s hand on her throat and found her sister’s face less than six inches away from her own. Kayleigh began to lift herself from her chair. ‘Let her go!’ she yelled. ‘Let her go!’
Poppy’s other hand pushed Kayleigh firmly back into her seat. ‘Shut up!’ Poppy snapped. ‘This is fuck all to do with you!’ Bree’s hand reached across her newfound sibling’s wrist as she tried to free herself from her grip, but Poppy had no intention of letting her go. ‘I told you not to come back here!’ she barked. ‘Why couldn’t you just leave me alone!’ Bree was dumbstruck. She wanted to say something, but it was difficult to speak with Poppy’s hand wrapped around her throat.
Kayleigh tried again to reason with Poppy. ‘Just let her go, we can sort this out, just let her go!’
The rage in Poppy’s eyes now fixed firmly on Kayleigh. ‘I told you to keep your fucking mouth shut!’
Bree’s ‘bestie’ reached forward and tried to free her friend from Poppy’s grip. ‘She is your sister! She is your sister!’ she screamed.
Poppy shook her head and made her feelings clear. ‘She is no fucking sister of mine!’
Across the room Danny was struggling to get to his feet. Chantelle cowered behind Matt. The chef did not seem to have an appetite for this conflict. Everyone else was still playing statues. The elderly couple had their forks raised halfway to their mouths, small bits of meat dangling from them. The small child’s father had now lowered his hands and began searching in his jacket pocket for his mobile phone.
Poppy’s attention had switched back to her unwelcome visitor. ‘I told you he was not my dad. Why couldn’t you just listen, why did you have to come back?’ Poppy tightened her hold on Bree’s neck, causing her to gag slightly. Kayleigh instinctively rose to her feet and reached out in a bid to protect her friend, but Poppy was ready, Poppy was always ready! Her head swung back and jolted forwards with alarming pace and accuracy, butting Kayleigh fully on the side of her cheek and sending her crashing to the ground. With her other arm, she pushed her hand with great force into Bree’s throat, sending her reeling backwards over her chair and slamming her body into the adjoining table. Without any hesitation Poppy grabbed the neck of the bottle of red wine the girls had been drinking and raised it high into the air. A second later it was brought down onto their table, shattering tiny fragments of glass everywhere.
Poppy held the half-broken bottle at arm’s length, as if to warn off any of the restaurant’s patrons that might want to get involved in this argument. But in truth no one in that restaurant was even thinking about taking the crazed waitress on, least of all Matt, who seemed to be rooted to the spot. The Geordie lad may well be a bad boy in the bedroom, but he was clearly out of his depth here. Poppy looked around her. She had an audience now, no one was saying anything, no one was doing anything. Holding the jagged edge of the bottle at arm’s length, Poppy made a statement. Her voice was a little shaken, but her words were clear. ‘That’s it!’ she said. ‘You can all stare. You can all stare at the crazy girl. You got what you wanted, this is what you all fucking wanted!’
Danny was sitting upright now, rubbing his battered head. He tried to reason with his waitress. ‘No, Poppy, put it down, please put the bottle down, we can sort this out.’
Poppy shook her head. ‘No, Danny, we can’t, not anymore, we can’t sort this out, not now!’
Bree was still sprawled out on the restaurant floor. She moved slightly and put her hands up at her sides and appealed to her sister. ‘I came here to talk, Poppy, I only wanted to…’ She didn’t get to finish her sentence. ‘Shut up!’ Poppy barked. ‘Shut up, all of you. You have done it now, all of you. You push me and prod me and keep fucking pushing me, until, until this!’ She looked over at the anxious-looking chef who hadn’t moved an inch. ‘You wanted to see me at the limit, Matt, you wanted to see me go over the edge. Well, I haven’t even started yet!’
Kayleigh started crawling on her hands and knees, doubled over in pain, sobbing as she clutched the side of her badly swollen face. The woman with the small child was in tears too, holding the frightened baby so close to her she was in danger of smothering him. Her husband was looking away from the scene of Poppy’s floorshow, his hands fumbling around under the table. The old couple had now dropped their cutlery and were clasping hands across the table, as if judgement day had arrived.
Breathing heavily Poppy looked down at the culprit for all this mayhem, her sister. Bree was still perched on the floor, her beautiful designer blouse sporting the dark red patterns of the spilled Merlot. Suddenly, Bree started to shuffle herself forward, across the wine-stained carpet. She was still in a state of shock as she reached out for the support of a table. Her hand slipped at the first attempt to grip the top of the edge, but it found its mark on the second. Slowly she began to pull herself up, looking over at her wounded best friend who was curled up in a ball just a few feet away. Poppy had not moved an inch, tiny streams of red wine trickling down her sleeve from the weapon in her hand, her face still filled with twisted anger. Her breathing became more rapid as she turned from one way to the other, the jagged edges of the broken bottle pointing a clear warning to all those around her. The restaurant was silent, deadly silent.
And then, almost in slow motion, right in front of her sibling’s eyes, Bree stood tall.
It is said in times of great danger that your brain gives you two options, fight or flight. Bree was certainly not going to run away. She was just a few feet away from her angry sister now, and despite the fact that her first instinct had been to move backwards, her feet did not listen to her brain. Taking small steps, she was clearly shaken, but her face had a look of determination about it, as though something was drawing her closer to the danger. Nobody made a sound. Poppy’s eyes moved from side to side as her heart pounded harder in her chest. Her nostrils flared as her sister took another step forward. Bree was now just inches from the serrated edge of the bottle. She could almost taste the trickle of expensive vino sliding down its brim. The atmosphere was palpable.
Poppy’s trembling hand held the outstretched bottle firmly as she looked at the brave but foolish girl in front of her. She had told her not to come back, she had warned her. Is this what she wanted, is this what she really wanted, for her pretty face to be cut to pieces? Poppy’s eyes looked straight ahead, directly into her sibling’s gaze. She expected to see a look of fear, total terror, but she was wrong, her sister was calm, she didn’t look frightened at all. Stretching her head forward a few inches, Bree found her neck nestled against the jagged edge of the broken bottle. She stared deep into her sister’s eyes and spoke calmly. ‘I know that you won’t hurt me, Poppy, I am your sister.’