In those first few moments, she hadn’t even been sure that the bedraggled figure on the veranda was Dan, but close up there was no mistaking him. His hipster beard was straggly and his sodden hair was like rats’ tails. Rain dripped down his nose and water pooled from his boots onto the decking.
‘This must be a shock,’ he said in a croaky voice.
Poppy noticed the dark circles under his eyes and realised that the water running down his face might not only be raindrops.
‘It is but … come inside. You’re drenched. How did you get here?’
She stood aside so he could walk into the studio.
‘I got a plane earlier and then a minibus to the harbour … and then I had to beg someone to bring me across in one of those yellow speedboats. It cost me forty quid just for a fifteen-minute ride over here!’ He dumped his rucksack on the tiles. ‘As if I wasn’t soaked by the rain, that thing was like riding a bucking bronco on water.’
‘You’re lucky you managed to get across at all in this weather. The scheduled ferry has been cancelled because of the storm.’ Poppy had no sympathy for Dan being forced to pay out for the jetboat. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I – I don’t really know. I just got on the plane from Birmingham and then from Newquay and – here I am.’
He looked around him at the studio and artwork, but the walls might have been transparent. He was physically in the room but absent mentally. Something wasn’t right or else why was he here at all?
Poppy touched his arm. ‘Dan?’ she said softly. ‘What’s happened?’
He looked at her with an expression of pure desolation ‘It’s my dad. He’s dead.’
She reeled. ‘Dead? I’m so sorry. B-but what about Eve? Why aren’t you with her?’
‘She can’t handle it … not in her condition.’
Dan sniffed loudly and Poppy choked back a sob herself. She’d liked Dan’s dad, Pete, a lot. He could be a bit loud, but he was funny and jolly; in fact, he had far more of a sense of humour than Dan had. They’d often shared a joke and Pete had actually phoned Poppy and told her how upset he was when Dan had first left. It was shocking that he appeared to have died so suddenly.
‘My God. What a terrible shock. What happened? He was only sixty.’
‘Heart attack. You know he liked to enjoy himself. The fags and the whisky.’ Dan heaved in a breath.
‘What about your mum?’ Dan’s mum and dad had split a long time ago and his mother now lived in New Zealand.
‘She knows. I had to tell her … God, that was awful … horrible …’ He covered his face with his hands.
‘I bet it was. Poor you – and your mum, hearing the news from so far away.’ Poppy grabbed some paper towels and handed them over, still trying to process the terrible news.
‘She was no fan of Dad and they were barely speaking since they split up, but she was very upset. She couldn’t stop crying and saying “no, not my Pete”, so I had to let her new bloke comfort her and phone back. You’d never think Mum and Dad were at daggers over the divorce terms and virtually throwing things at each other. Anyone would think she still loved him.’
‘She probably did. You don’t let go of love that lightly, if at all,’ said Poppy, thinking of Jake’s words to her. Of her own feelings now, about Dan. They were confused too. She was on the verge of tears herself, seeing his distress.
Dan reached for her and she let him cling to her, while she made soothing noises, but at a loss as to how she could possibly comfort him. Maybe she couldn’t and he only needed her to be there, with her. Yet the whole situation also felt wrong. Dan shouldn’t be here. He was in the wrong place … with the wrong person.
‘I really liked your dad and he was always kind to me. I can understand that your emotions are all over the place, but wouldn’t it be better to tell Eve all of this – how you feel? Won’t she be really upset that you’ve left her and flown out here to see me?’
He stared at the tiles. ‘I don’t think Eve will mind,’ he murmured.
‘But she must do!’ she cried in frustration. ‘How could she not be upset that you turned to me for support when you need it most and not her? I’m sure she can cope better than you think.’
Dan twisted his tissue round and round, his voice racked with misery. ‘I’ve fucked up everything.’
Poppy tried to comfort him, laying her hand on the back of his coat. ‘None of this is your fault, Dan. You couldn’t have done anything for your dad and Eve needs you now, and the baby.’
‘The baby?’ he said as if he’d no idea what a baby even was, let alone that Eve was expecting his in a few months’ time.
The tiny down on Poppy’s arms stood on end. Something was wrong. Had Dan had a total breakdown?
‘Your dad must have been looking forward to his first grandchild, but you’ll still have the baby, Dan. You and Eve.’
She genuinely meant to comfort him. She couldn’t wish this kind of pain on him, or anyone, and she was seriously worried about his mental health. The events of the past few months had been enough to tip anyone over the edge, even if Dan had brought most of his problems on himself.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things worse. I only meant that you and Eve will have the baby to love soon.’
Dan looked up, his face a picture of total misery and despair. ‘That’s just it. We won’t because it’s not my baby. Eve’s been lying through her teeth to me all along. It’s Gabe Hartmann’s baby. You know, that tosser MD who runs Vargo’s Construction? Turns out he was shagging her too but he wouldn’t leave his wife.’
Poppy’s jaw dropped. ‘I don’t understand—’
He cut in. ‘It’s over between Eve and me. That’s why I’m here. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I’ve made the biggest fucking mistake of my life. I threw away everything that meant the most to me. I need you, Poppy. I still love you.’
Poppy gawped at him, lost for words. Oh God, this wasn’t how she’d expected her evening to go at all.
Twenty minutes later, Poppy sat opposite Dan as he sipped a Bacardi-laced mug of hot chocolate while wearing her winter dressing gown and fluffy socks. His wet clothes were drying over the heated towel rail in the shower room. He’d finished sobbing, but she placed a box of tissues by his side just in case.
The phrase ‘I still love you’ was still too much for her to comprehend. She’d longed for those words once, now she felt sick at hearing them, but this was absolutely not the time to break that news to Dan.
‘Feeling better?’ she asked.
‘I think so.’
‘At least you’re dry and warm,’ she said, realising that she was talking to him like he was a child. Apart from the rum in his hot chocolate, he might as well have been. Her dressing gown just about fastened, enough to cover his decency at least.
‘When did Eve throw you out?’
‘Two days after Dad died. He was taken ill at my auntie Gill’s birthday party. We called the paramedics, but he was dead within half a minute, so there was nothing they could do. It was horrible. I can’t believe it. One moment he was Dad and the next he hit the patio and he was gone.’ He shuddered. Poppy sat next to him and took the mug from him and held his hand. She didn’t know what else to do.
‘I really am so sorry, Dan,’ she said, devastated at the idea of big, funny, kind Pete losing his life so young.
He burst into tears again and buried his face in her shoulder, clinging to her. She tried to hold it together for his sake and let him have another good cry.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t seem to stop.’ His hands were shaking as she handed him his drink.
‘Don’t apologise. I don’t know what I’d do without my mum and dad … but you should let people know where you are. And don’t you have loads to deal with? The funeral arrangements? Finances and things like that?’
‘Auntie Gill’s been helping me sort things out, but there’s nothing else I can do until the funeral. I ought to call her and my mum, but my phone’s dead. Can I borrow yours?’
‘Course you can. I’ll give you some privacy. I’ll be down in the studio. I’ll try and find you somewhere to stay.’
His face fell. ‘Can’t I stay here?’
Even though she’d already worked out he might ask, Poppy was still dismayed. ‘I don’t think that’s a great idea. For a start, I don’t have room. It’s a studio flat.’
‘Well, I can’t stay anywhere else.’ He pursed his lips. ‘I kind of expected you to put me up in the circumstances.’
‘If you’d called me, I’d have tried to arrange something more comfortable,’ she said, thinking that she’d also have done her best to persuade him not to come at all or said she wasn’t on Scilly. ‘I’ll help you find somewhere,’ she added reassuringly while guessing she was clutching at straws. It wasn’t as if St Piran’s was bursting with hotels and the few places that existed would be more than likely fully booked in the main season.
‘Thanks,’ he muttered, with a distinct edge of sarcasm.
While Dan used his mobile to call his auntie, Poppy escaped downstairs to use the landline but also to take a few moments to calm down. She phoned round the two bed and breakfasts on St Piran’s and the Moor’s Head but all rooms had been reserved for many months. She considered phoning round some of the accommodation on the other islands but she’d need to find a boat to take Dan across. It was unlikely anyone would want to go out onto the rough seas and it would cost a fortune.
The alternative was to try a neighbour, but Fen had gone to visit a friend in Plymouth. Poppy didn’t want to let Dan sleep at Fen’s cottage or Archie’s without their permission, even though she had the keys. She could ask Fen, she supposed … but somehow, it was too personal and intimate to discuss with Fen. Whether she liked it or not, she felt Dan was still her responsibility.
She walked back into the studio to find him staring out of the window at the rain.
‘I couldn’t find a place for you to stay, so I’m afraid you’ll have to sleep on the floor.’
‘The floor?’ he said as if she’d told him he had to sleep in the cat basket.
‘Yes. The floor.’ Surely, she thought, he hadn’t been hoping to hop back into her bed? She tried to sound cheery and positive. ‘I’ve got an airbed and sleeping bag, so you should be comfy. Zoey managed on the air mattress for a week and you know how picky she is.’ She smiled encouragingly.
‘Well, if it’s OK for Zoey, I guess I’ll have to manage. I can see you’re short of space. It’s much pokier up here than it looked on the internet. I bet you were gutted when you first saw it.’
‘Actually, I was pleasantly surprised and the owners helped me redecorate it. It’s fine for one,’ she added pointedly.
A squall of rain pattered against the window. Dan stared at the grey sea, where waves slopped against the harbour wall, and the island boat that was safely tied up alongside the quay. ‘Christ, look at that rain. I had no idea the weather could be this shit here. It was all so idyllic when we came.’
‘The storm will blow over by nightfall,’ she said, biting back a comment about it being a good job he’d decided not to come to St Piran’s to open the studio with her, then. She kept reminding herself he’d suffered a terrible loss and she needed to cut him masses of slack. It was hardly surprising he had no thought for anyone else’s feelings when he’d lost his dad so suddenly, but after so many months apart, she couldn’t help thinking that he’d always been selfish and thoughtless, she just hadn’t noticed how much until now. ‘I’ll just go and fetch the air mattress and pump.’
Poppy managed to scrape together two portions of mac and cheese and found a couple of beers that Jake had brought over before he’d left. She let Dan pour his heart out about his dad, and his childhood memories, good and bad.
He blew his nose again and she handed over the half-empty box of tissues. ‘I was wondering if you’d come to the funeral with me.’
She almost dropped the box. ‘What? I-I—’
‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but I need your support. I don’t think I could get through it without you.’
‘You’ll have your family. I really liked your dad and I do want to pay my respects …’ She’d never considered that he might expect her to go with him. Of course, she wanted to help and support him but … ‘I’m not sure I can leave the studio at short notice,’ she said.
‘Why not? It’s your own business, isn’t it? You can’t be that busy out here.’
‘Actually, we are. This is one of our peak times. I’d need to find someone to cover …’
Tears trickled down his cheeks again.
She was torn in two. ‘Look, I want to come to show my respects, believe me, but I’ll have to see what I can do.’
By half past ten, they were both exhausted, so she suggested he get some rest and helped him blow up the mattress and make up the bed.
She disappeared into her shower room to change into her pyjamas and he did the same, emerging in only a pair of boxers. Even that was a weird enough sight: Dan in his pants. She tried to avert her eyes as he strolled around the kitchenette, collected a glass of water and took it to his makeshift bed on the floor. The thought that they’d once slept naked together every night made her cringe. He wasn’t unattractive; he was fit and lean from his gym and mountain biking habit, but he was now a stranger to her, sexually.
She couldn’t help comparing him with Jake who was more naturally muscular. Jake also had a nicely hairy chest unlike Dan, who, if she wasn’t mistaken, seemed to have waxed or shaved off the light dusting of hair he used to have around his pecs and down his stomach. Maybe it was to better define his abs or something. She wished she hadn’t noticed, but it was hard not to with him virtually naked in the flat. What would Dan say if he knew she’d slept with Jake? She shuddered to think.
And while the thought of Dan in the nude made her shudder, the thought of Jake naked gave her shivers of a different kind.
‘Goodnight then,’ said Dan, snapping her out of her thoughts about warm, naked bodies entwining in the bedroom of Archie’s cottage. How far away that seemed now, how long ago … though the memories were as vivid as a painting. She could smell Jake, fresh from the shower, and feel his warm skin under her fingertips and his thick dark hair in her hands. She shook the image away.
Dan eyed the airbed the same way that Leo eyed the wrong flavour of cat food when the shop hadn’t had a delivery.
‘Night,’ she said, climbing under her duvet. She switched off the bedside lamp and heard him thumping the pillow and grumbling as he turned this way and that on the mattress.
She lay awake for a while, listening to the rain against the panes and the slosh of water on the shoreline, while trying to process the fact that Dan had landed on her doorstep and what she’d do with him next …
She didn’t know how much later it was when she woke with a start.
‘Fucking hell!’ Dan shrieked and Poppy fumbled for the lamp. Her heart banged away like crazy.
‘What’s the matter?’ she called. ‘Dan?’
The light clicked on and she blinked. He was sitting up, with his hands in the air. Leo was standing on his stomach, hissing.
‘What the hell is this thing doing on me?’
She scrambled out of bed, still half asleep. She clapped her hands. ‘Leo! Get off him!’
Leo jumped onto the floor.
‘How did it get in?’ he shouted.
Poppy scooped up Leo and deposited him on her bed. ‘He is called Leo and he’s a cat, not an “it”. Wait … did you open the skylight in the shower room?’
‘Yeah. It needed some fresh air in there. I was trying to be considerate, you know … you always hated me not opening the window after …’
Poppy cringed. ‘Too much information. Leo must have got in through the skylight. He usually stays at Fen’s overnight, but he must have come out through his cat flap. He’s only trying to be friendly.’
‘He can’t sleep here with us.’ Dan pulled the duvet up to his neck, presumably to protect himself from Leo, who was no longer interested. Instead Leo lay on Poppy’s side of the bed, stretched out all four paws and yawned. His leg had healed nicely, she thought, which was much-needed good news.
‘I’m not throwing him out. He must be missing Fen and he’ll probably spend the rest of the night on my bed.’ She climbed back under her duvet and nudged him gently onto the other side of the bed. ‘Shift over, Leo,’ she said and for once he obliged.
Dan glared at the cat in disgust. ‘I’m allergic to animal fur, you know!’
Poppy was determined that no matter what the circumstances, Leo was staying put. ‘Then open another window.’