Caspar was on his way out to a party in Belsize Park the following evening. He offered to drop Poppy off at St Clare’s en route.
‘Nervous?’
‘What, of your driving?’ Poppy grinned and shoved a gummy bear into his mouth. ‘I’m used to it by now.’
‘Nervous about the class. Getting your kit off.’
‘Yes.’ She could admit as much to Caspar. ‘But that won’t last, will it? The first five minutes will be the worst.’
‘Sure you don’t want me to come in for a bit, keep an eye on you?’ He winked. ‘Make sure they don’t laugh? Ouch—’
Poppy whacked him on the arm.
‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll be okay. I just hope the heating’s on.’
Caspar’s petrol light flashed with renewed urgency. Spotting an Esso garage up ahead, he pulled onto the forecourt.
‘Won’t be a minute. Give me one more gummy bear… not another green one,’ he protested, because Poppy always fobbed him off with those. His eyes lit up as he glimpsed a coveted red gummy bear in the bottom of the bag.
Poppy had seen it too.
‘Here, have a lovely yellow one—no, no!’ She let out a yelp as Caspar made a grab for the bag. They wrestled over it for several seconds. Then the bag split. Gummy bears catapulted in all directions.
Grinning, Caspar picked the red one off the dashboard and popped it into his mouth.
‘You should know better than to fight with me. Don’t I always win?’
‘Petrol,’ Poppy reminded him, because if he didn’t get a move on she was going to be late.
While Caspar was filling up, she slid off the passenger seat and began collecting the scattered gummy bears. By the time she scrambled upright, he had disappeared into the shop to pay.
If she hadn’t been so busy chasing gummy bears, Poppy realized afterwards, she would have seen Tom sooner.
If she’d stayed down on the floor a few seconds longer, she would have missed him altogether.
But there he was, clearly visible under the bright fluorescent garage lighting, making his way back from the shop with a packet of Benson & Hedges and a can of Coke in one hand, a copy of the Evening Standard in the other. The tangled curls and glittering dark eyes were just as Poppy remembered them. He was wearing jeans—maybe the same pair he had worn last time she’d seen him—and a dark grey polo-necked sweater beneath a black leather jacket. The way he walked was the same. Nothing about him had changed. If she touched him, Poppy realized, she knew exactly how he would feel.
She sat frozen in the passenger seat, too shocked at first to react. It felt like hours but was probably no more than a couple of seconds. I’ve got to move, thought Poppy, dazed. I’ve got to attract his attention.
Tom’s car was obscured from view by an RAC van. All she could see was the bumper. But he was heading for it, and if she didn’t do something sharpish, he was going to climb in, start the engine, and disappear.
Galvanized into action, Poppy launched herself at the door handle. As she did so, the car Tom was about to get into started up. Someone else was driving. Poppy panicked and tugged again, frantically, at the handle. Slippery with sweat, her hand slid off. The car with Tom inside began to move and thanks to the angle of the RAC van and the petrol pumps, she still couldn’t get a good look at it.
‘Stop… help… WAIT… STOP!!’ screamed Poppy, realizing too late that she was the helpless victim of a child lock. Any second now, the car would pull out into the road. This had been her chance in a million and she’d almost blown it. Her heart racing, Poppy threw herself across to the driver’s side and leaned as hard as she knew how on the horn.
‘Here. Don’t say I never buy you anything.’
An unopened bag of gummy bears landed with a crackly thud in Poppy’s lap. Caspar climbed back into the car.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing.’ Poppy was too shell-shocked to explain. She felt sick. She couldn’t eat a gummy bear now to save her life.
‘Last-minute panic?’
‘No.’
‘Well, something’s happened.’
‘Your car horn doesn’t work.’
Caspar waved his keys at her. ‘Not without these in the ignition.’
Hell.
‘And there’s a child lock on this door. You don’t have children,’ said Poppy.
‘The chap I bought the car from had them fitted. Kate was showing me yesterday how to work them. Sorry, couldn’t you open the door?’ said Caspar. ‘I didn’t realize they were still switched on.’
Around Poppy, at varying distances, sixteen pupils stood before their easels observing, drawing, re-drawing, and shading the contours of her body. Every detail mattered. Their concentration was total. When they spoke, they did it in whispers.
The group comprised seven women and nine men, ranging in age from eighteen to eighty. The only disparaging remark about their new model had come from a tall older woman in a hand-crocheted tunic, complaining about Poppy’s lack of saggy bits and wrinkles. Nobody had ogled her either. They were too busy drawing to leer.
Poppy gazed at a peeling patch of wall. Her mind was elsewhere—back on a chilly garage forecourt on the Marylebone Road—but her body was right here doing its job.
At least seeing Tom again had given her something else to think about other than the fact that she was sitting here minus her clothes.
Money had been tight for the last few weeks and Poppy had been forced to give the Cavendish Club a miss. When she visited it the Friday before Christmas, she heard the jaunty, bluesy sound of Alex on the piano as she reached the stone steps leading down to the entrance of the club.
Inside, half the office parties in London appeared to have crammed themselves willy-nilly into the three interlinked cellars. The place was heaving with tipsy secretaries and excitable clerical types with their shirtsleeves rolled up and their ties awry. Everyone was celebrating their last day at work. Ugly men waving scrawny bits of mistletoe were looking hopeful. There was a lot of smudged lipstick about. Poppy found herself fending off the enthusiastic attentions of a burly lad in a reindeer suit.
‘If you don’t give me a Christmas kiss, you’ll hurt my feelings,’ he pleaded.
‘If you don’t take your hands off my bottom,’ said Poppy with a grin, ‘I’ll rip your antlers off.’
She found Rita in her usual corner of the bar, looking festive in a bright red dress and snowman earrings. The first thing she did was buy Poppy a drink.
‘Still speaking to us then? I thought you might have decided you’d had enough of these jazz types.’ She watched Poppy take a thrifty sip of her lager and downed her own drink in one. ‘Come on love, get it down your neck. Don’t worry, I’m buying.’
Was Rita looking older? Were there shadows under her eyes, carefully but not totally masked by concealer? Poppy watched her stub out one cigarette and straight away light up another. There was an air of recklessness about her tonight, a definite I-could-do-with-a-Valium look in her eyes. The smile was put on. And she kept glancing across in the direction of the stage, as if compulsively checking that Alex was still there.
Maybe they’ve had a fight, thought Poppy. Maybe Rita had been a bit free and easy with her own Christmas kisses and Alex had got jealous. Or vice versa.
Or there was more to it than that, and she had discovered he was having an affair—
Poppy stopped herself before she got carried away. This was her trouble, she was always imagining things and leaping to conclusions. There were, after all, any number of reasons why Rita might be on edge.
Poppy glanced over her shoulder and saw a pregnant girl standing over by the fire exit. Rita had mentioned ages ago that she hadn’t been able to have children. Briefly, almost casually, she had said, ‘No, no kids. It just didn’t happen. Still, never mind.’ But behind the brave, don’t-care façade, Poppy had glimpsed the pain, and the number of soft toys in Rita’s house had been another giveaway. The sight of a pregnant woman must remind her every time of what she had missed.
As for her and Alex having an argument… so what? It was what married couples did, and for the most mundane reasons. Alex had probably left his socks on the bathroom floor… squeezed the toothpaste in the middle… spent too long with his mates in the pub.
‘Let’s hear what you’ve been up to then.’ Rita finished the second cigarette in a series of fast, jerky drags. ‘Managed to get yourself another job?’
Poppy told her about St Clare’s, which had now broken up for Christmas. Then she went on to tell her about the end-of-term party in a pub around the corner from the college, where during the course of the evening, each student in turn had come up to her and said, side-splittingly, ‘Gosh, I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.’
‘They’re a nice enough crowd,’ Poppy sighed, ‘but their idea of humor is to say, “What’s this, cellulite?” And you should see some of the finished drawings. One old dear had me looking like Joyce Grenfell on speed. She’s seventy-three and thinks she’s Picasso, except she wears a black wig. Rita, are you okay?’
‘Hmm? Sorry, I missed the last bit. Something about cellulite.’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Poppy.
She watched in horror as Rita’s heavily mascaraed eyes brimmed with tears.
‘Damn, this is doing my image no good at all.’ Rita’s voice cracked. She fumbled uselessly in her bag for tissues.
People were beginning to notice and Rita’s make-up was woefully un-waterproof. Poppy led her through the crowded cellar to the exit.
‘I hate these sodding steps,’ mumbled Rita. ‘Oh God, we’re going to freeze to death. What do I look like? I swore I wouldn’t let this happen…’
Poppy had brought her outside because she knew the ladies’ loo would be packed. Now they’d reached the top of the steps, she wondered what to do next.
‘Where’s your car?’
‘Parked round the back.’ Rita sniffed. ‘I haven’t got the keys. They’re with Alex.’
A black cab turned the corner. Poppy flagged it down.
‘Where to, love?’
‘I don’t know.’ Poppy looked at Rita. ‘Home?’
‘Not without Alex. Oh, I get it.’ Rita shook her head. ‘You think we’ve fallen out. It’s not that.’ Wearily she added, ‘I only wish it was.’
The streets were icy. Poppy’s feet were numb. She started to shiver. The cab driver was beginning to look fed up.
‘We don’t want to go anywhere,’ she told him, pulling open the door and jumping inside. ‘Just keep the engine ticking over. And the heater on.’
Rita sobbed noisily. The cab driver provided a box of Kleenex. Poppy had to wait several minutes before she heard what had happened.
‘…you know what men are like, all this macho “I’m okay” stuff, when really all they are is scared out of their wits.’ Rita sighed and blinked back more tears. ‘Well anyway, Alex wasn’t feeling so clever so in the end I made the appointment for him. We went together and the woman checked him out. Dead nice, she was. Kept saying she was sure it wasn’t anything to worry about, but to be on the safe side, he’d better go and have a few tests. So we went along for those this morning. We’ve got to see the specialist tomorrow for the results. Oh Poppy, I know what they’re going to tell us.’
Rita’s voice began to break again. The floor of the cab was covered with bits of damp shredded tissue. With practically no make-up left she looked quite different. Poppy held her hand.
Reassurance wasn’t what Rita wanted. Cheer-up-it-might-never-happen speeches would do no good because as far as Rita was concerned, it already had.
‘He’s being so brave,’ she told Poppy. ‘Just carrying on as if nothing’s changed. I’m the one embarrassing myself, bawling like a baby. It’s just, I feel so helpless… and so bloody angry… Christ, I’m the one who drinks too much and smokes too much. If something like this has to happen, why can’t it flaming well happen to me?’
All Poppy could do was sit there and listen while Rita ranted on. By the time the meter had clocked up eight pounds fifty, the tears had pretty much dried up. By ten pounds fifty Rita had renewed most of her make-up. Poppy paid the cab driver while Rita did her lipstick, and realized that she would have to go home now. All she had left was enough money for the bus.
‘You’re a good girl.’ Rita gave her an awkward hug. ‘And thanks for putting up with me. What a way to spend an evening, eh? You must’ve been bored stupid, having to listen to me droning on and on. God, I’m a selfish cow.’
‘You aren’t.’ Poppy hugged her back. ‘Look, I have to go now. Give my love to Alex.’
At home in bed, Poppy couldn’t sleep. She lay staring up at the ceiling thinking about Alex and going over in her mind everything Rita had said.
I’ve only just found him, Poppy thought with trepidation. This can’t happen. I can’t lose him again. Not yet.