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  Too bloody right, Quentin wanted to mutter. But he didn’t, which just showed he was capable of evolving, despite what his father thought.

  Scarlett gathered herself, sucking in a breath. ‘But oh, I do love you, my Poppydevine.’ There was a wonder and vulnerability in her voice that Quentin had never heard before. It hit him with ferocity in the stomach, because he recognised the feeling.

  Scarlett wasn’t done. ‘What a beautiful woman you have become, Poppy. And it’s all down to you. I don’t deserve any compassion for how badly I messed everything up with you.’ She tapped herself on the chest, close to her heart. ‘But I’m here, asking for it anyway.’

  Finally, Poppy’s face changed. It was as though a light had gone on inside her. ‘Shh.’ Poppy stood and held out her arms and her mother stepped into them. After a few moments she pulled back, and her face, too, was wet with tears. ‘What do you mean?’ She spread her arms wide, gesturing at the place, the gardens and the buildings outlined in the moonlight. ‘What do you mean, you don’t deserve compassion?’ She smiled, and Quentin remembered what Poppy had said about the Dalai Lama’s words. Compassion.

  Something seemed to click into place and Quentin had the strangest feeling that His Holiness had somehow engineered the entire event. His breath caught in his throat as he wondered how Poppy could be so magnanimous, after everything, after all the hurt. He blinked back tears and tuned to his fiancée, who was still reassuring her mother.

  ‘Look at this place. All you have done here; all you’ve built, all the lives you’ve saved. And it has my name.’ She smiled more broadly. ‘Of course you deserve compassion, more compassion than I’ve ever been able to find for you.’

  Poppy sat back down with a slight thump, and shuffled along closer to Quentin, patting the seat beside her. Scarlett sat next to her, and Poppy lay her head down in her mother’s lap. Scarlett started to pat her hair, and Poppy’s voice, when it came, was very soft, as though she was suddenly exhausted from the day and the emotion of the evening.

  ‘We’re good, Mum,’ she murmured. ‘We’re all good. Everything’s going to be fine.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  An hour later, Julia and Ten were trying to convince Poppy to have an early night. Scarlett had disappeared for a moment and Julia was worried that Poppy wouldn’t last all day tomorrow – her wedding day – unless she had a good night’s sleep.

  Scarlett entered the dorm clasping an oddly shaped bottle. ‘Before you go to bed, darling, I want you to have this,’ she said and handed it to Poppy with a flourish. ‘This is perhaps the biggest reason I wanted you to come to India.’

  Poppy held the tiny green bottle up in the soft light. It seemed to be filled with some kind of liquid. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sacred water,’ Scarlett whispered. ‘From the Ghudja Springs, high up in the mountains.’ She lowered her voice still further. ‘It has world-renowned healing properties. I trekked for three days to get it.’

  Poppy sat there, open-mouthed, holding the bottle in her hands while a molten ball of rage exploded in Julia’s chest. She had to be kidding. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she snapped. ‘Get a grip, Scarlett.’

  ‘Now don’t be like that, Julia,’ Scarlett pleaded as Ten and Poppy turned to look at Julia.

  Ten’s face was full of thunder, clearly pissed off with the sacred water bullshit, but Poppy’s mouth formed a perfect surprised O at the outburst. Which Julia understood perfectly. All of their lives, Julia had been a staunch supporter of Scarlett’s alternativeness, had been the one to shrug off the older woman’s eccentricities and jolly Poppy along until she did, too.

  God, how many times had she lain awake at night and wished Scarlett had been her mother? Scarlett, who had always seemed so at peace, so spiritual, who tinkled when she walked, smiled beatifically, spoke calmly and said deeply wise things like, The quieter you become the more you can hear and If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.

  All her mother had ever said was, Think of your reputation, Julia. Which translated to ‘think of the Shrewsbury reputation’. And, Mr and Mrs Rich-Bastard are coming around for cocktails tonight, put on a pretty dress and smile at their son.

  In her own house she’d felt like some bargaining chip, a pawn to be moved around her father’s chess board like something out of Victorian England. Useful but not necessary. A chattel. A belonging. Whereas in Scarlett’s house she’d felt like she belonged. She’d felt included. Scarlett had always seemed genuinely interested in what Julia had to say, had listened and had talked in return about the world with wisdom and wonder in her eyes instead of dollar signs.

  Scarlett’s attention had felt like rain on parched skin.

  Considering that Julia’s mother holidayed in Paris, wrote faceless cheques to the latest fashionable charity and believed in accessorising with Tiffany, it had seemed terribly exotic and exciting for Poppy to have a mother who swanned off to an Indian orphanage, did good works with her own two hands and whose only accessories were tinny bangles and henna tattoos.

  Yep, Julia had been utterly fascinated by Scarlett from the very first day they’d met. And that week she’d spent camping with Scarlett and Poppy on the beach at Byron Bay would always be in her top-ten memories.

  But. Even through her adoration, Julia hadn’t been blind. Scarlett just simply hadn’t been around very much and that had hurt Poppy. Sure, her mother hadn’t been around much either, but then she was rarely present even when she was right in front of her. At least when Scarlett had been around she made Julia feel like she was the centre of her universe.

  And so Julia had made excuses for Scarlett, because despite all the woman’s shortcomings, she’d liked her so damn much. And because she hadn’t been able to bear Poppy’s hurt and disappointment, Julia had taken on the role of chief mitigator. How many excuses had she made for Scarlett over the years? How many small white lies had she told to Poppy and herself, trying to make up for Scarlett’s emotional neglect?

  She wanted to come to your graduation, Pop, but hundreds of orphans depended on her during those dreadful floods.

  She wanted to be there for the nationally televised Maths Mastermind, but being asked to Delhi to speak on child exploitation is a huge honour, Pop, something to be so proud of.

  She loves you really, Pop, she’s just trying to be a mother to so many who need her.

  But there was no excuse for this. For freaking sacred water. Not when she knew how strongly Poppy – her daughter who was dying – felt about woo-woo medicine.

  Scarlett’s presentation of this supposed elixir flew in the face of what everyone knew – everyone except Scarlett, it seemed. Scarlett, who had insisted all along that Poppy would pull through this because some freaking voice up here in the mountains had told her she would.

  Anyone who looked at Poppy could tell she wasn’t long for this world. It had been clear to everybody who’d met her in recent weeks. And yet Scarlett, Poppy’s mother, was so blinded by her convictions that she couldn’t see what was right in front of her.

  Julia was pleased and thankful that Poppy had decided to come to India and make it right with Scarlett. But Scarlett also had to make things right with Poppy. And this wasn’t the way to go about it.

  They all had to face that Poppy was dying. It sucked. But it was an inescapable truth.

  Julia took a deep, ragged breath, reaching for a calm she didn’t feel in a situation she didn’t want. ‘Scarlett, I love you,’ she said, ‘but this has got to stop.’

  Scarlett shook her head. ‘No.’

  Julia was about to argue, but Poppy got in before her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, Mum.’

  Scarlett’s head shook more definitively, her bangles tinkling with the movement. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘No. I have watched you being put through the wringer for the last eight months with this … conventional medicine—’

  If it hadn’t been so deadly serious, Julia would have laughed at the comic way Scarlett’s lip had curled and her fa
ce had screwed up as if she’d just had arsenic shoved on her tongue. She spoke about modern medicine as if it was some kind of satanic cult instead of an instrument of good that had saved billions of lives in one way or another.

  ‘—this modern-medicine myth you were so gung-ho on. Watched week by week, month by month, as it did nothing. Nothing. As you got sicker and thinner and paler.’

  She reached over and grabbed the bottle out of Poppy’s hands. ‘I have seen this work incredible miracles. I have witnessed amazing cures. I have watched as people afflicted with terrible conditions have bathed in it and been cleansed and healed. In the pool area, where the water flows into a natural warm spring, there are walking sticks and walking frames hanging from the trees all around like candy canes at Christmas time. It’s inspiring.’

  Poppy shook her head sadly. ‘This isn’t a dicky hip or leprosy, Mum. This is cancer.’

  Scarlett looked around at all of them, her eyes pleading with them to understand, to not dismiss her. ‘What have you got to lose, Poppy? You say it doesn’t work. That there’s no scientific basis for it. No double-blind study, no human trials. But every toxic chemical they pumped into your body had all that and none of it worked. I refuse to believe that you’re going to die. I refuse to believe that any god would be so cruel as to take you from me. But if you truly believe that your death from this is inevitable, then I repeat, what have you got to lose?’

  ‘Look at me, Mum,’ Poppy said, her eyes huge above rail-like cheekbones, dark smudges defining the perimeter of her prominent eye sockets. ‘Do you really think it’s going to do any good? Now?’

  Scarlett’s eyes filled with tears. She grabbed Poppy’s hands. ‘If only you’d listened to me sooner. If it had been up to me, if you’d let me in enough, allowed me to help you with medical decisions, then you could have been benefiting from this much, much sooner.’

  Ten took a step forward and a noise which Julia could best describe as a growl came from the back of his throat. ‘You’re not seriously going to unload an I-told-you-so on her now, are you?’ he demanded.

  Scarlett released Poppy’s hands. ‘No … of course not …’

  ‘Of course not.’ Ten nodded emphatically. ‘Because if it’s such a miracle cure then it’s not going to matter when she gets it, is it?’

  Julia winced at the blatant hostility in Ten’s voice. Part of her, as usual, wanted to rise up in Scarlett’s defence, tell Ten to shut his mouth, that he couldn’t speak to Scarlett like that. But the other part knew that he was right – miracles weren’t supposed to have expiration dates. And he had as much stake in this conversation as she did. He had as much right as she did to be pissed, to question supposedly sacred water.

  ‘I … don’t know, Quentin. Maybe. I hope not.’

  ‘This means a lot to you, doesn’t it?’ Poppy asked quietly.

  Scarlett looked at her daughter. ‘You have no idea how much.’

  Poppy gave a brittle half-laugh. ‘Really? As much as five missed mother-and-daughter days? As much as an emergency appendectomy with only the school headmistress by my side? As much as an empty seat at my university graduation?’

  Julia watched as a tear slid down Scarlett’s cheek. ‘I’m truly sorry, Poppy. I know I wasn’t there for you. I know I screwed up. But I’m trying to be there for you now.’

  It was on the tip of Julia’s tongue to say but you haven’t been there. You could have cooked pasta with her in Tuscany. You could have seen the northern lights with her. You could have sat at the feet of the Dalai Lama with her. You could have made lasting memories that would comfort you in the bleak days ahead.

  But you were here. In India. Trekking for three days to collect dubious water from some freaking mountain spring with who knew what bacteria count floating around in it.

  Poppy held out her hand for the water. ‘Okay.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No!’

  Both Julia and Ten spoke at the same time as they made a beeline for the bottle exchanging hands. Poppy, startled at their reaction, blinked at them owlishly as they approached quickly from both sides, grabbing for the water. Ten was faster, plucking it out of Poppy’s hands.

  Scarlett looked at them both reproachfully. ‘Do you think I would poison my own daughter?’

  Julia remembered Poppy returning to school after a term break with an infected toenail and announcing that she thought Scarlett was trying to poison her. When Julia had asked her to explain, Poppy had kicked off her shoe to reveal a disgusting poultice made from god knew what. Apparently, it was from some ancient recipe an Indian shaman had given to Scarlett on one of her many travels. It had looked like lumpy vegemite and smelled like roadkill. They’d both decided on the spot it was better for Poppy to risk amputation than have to live with the twice-daily dressing requirements that Scarlett had handwritten for Julia to follow to the letter.

  Scarlett lived by the (thankfully) ancient medical creed: If it tastes awful and smells worse, it’s probably good for you.

  Julia wasn’t so sure about that. She lived by the edict: If it tastes awful and smells worse, leave it the hell alone. On the other hand, if it tasted good and smelled better, you either ate it, squirted it on your neck or fucked it.

  It hadn’t led her wrong so far.

  ‘I’m not so sure her immune system is up to drinking unfiltered water,’ Ten said much more tactfully this time, his tone conciliatory.

  Julia nodded. They’d bought so much bottled water they could tip it into a hole in the ground and open their own damn spring.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Poppy dismissed, pulling the bottle off a resisting Ten and twisting the lid.

  ‘Wait.’ Julia could hear the panic in her voice. ‘I think Ten’s right.’

  He quirked his eyebrow at her. ‘How’d that one taste going down?’

  Julia smiled but continued. ‘I really think we need to consider …’ She glanced at Scarlett, not wanting to offend her, her sacred water or her adopted country any more than they already had. But her duty of care was to Poppy. Ten’s hot button had been mangy dogs. Julia wasn’t comfortable with Poppy – with any of them – drinking any water that wasn’t sealed in a nice clear plastic bottle with a label she could read. In English.

  ‘What?’ Scarlett enquired waspishly. ‘What do we need to consider?’

  Julia glanced at Ten. He nodded his head encouragingly. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘just how many … lepers have bathed in that sacred water, before we let Poppy drink it?’

  ‘Julia!’

  Scarlett’s horrified voice had the desired shaming effect. ‘I know, I know, it’s not very PC of me,’ Julia said, holding up her hand as Scarlett looked like she was about to launch into another spiel, ‘and I’m sure I’ll suffer some kind of karmic kick-back over it, but this is India, right? I mean, aren’t there like dead cows floating in waterways everywhere?’

  ‘I think,’ Scarlett said stiffly, ‘you’re referring to the Ganges. It’s about one thousand miles in that direction.’ She pointed out her office door.

  ‘Okay, no wait, to be fair, Scarlett, I see Julia’s point,’ Ten jumped in. ‘I mean what collection method did you use? Did you just … scoop it up randomly during or after opening hours when every person with a walking stick or a communicable disease in India had been to wallow in it or—’

  ‘I collected it further upstream,’ Scarlett interrupted, glaring at the two of them now. ‘And yes,’ she said, raising her finger in warning at Ten, who’d opened his mouth again, ‘I checked it thoroughly for dead cows first.’

  Poppy, whose head had been pinging back and forth between the three of them, laughed. She ran her hand up Ten’s arm, patting it absently, and smiled at Julia. ‘It’s fine,’ she said, nodding assuredly. ‘Really. If this is important to Mum,’ she looked at her mother, ‘if this is what she needs to feel like she’s done what she can to help, then I’m okay with that. And,’ Poppy shrugged, ‘she’s right. What have I got to lose?’

  Scarlett reac
hed for her daughter’s hands again. ‘It would mean so much to me, darling.’

  A spike of anger surged into Julia’s bloodstream. Nothing like emotionally blackmailing your terminally ill ­daughter. She glared at Scarlett, but Scarlett only had eyes for her daughter, and the conviction that Julia saw there was powerful. Scarlett wasn’t trying to control Poppy, she wasn’t even being frustratingly obtuse for once. She clearly, honestly, truly believed that Poppy was going to be miraculously cured by the sacred water.

  Poppy unscrewed the lid completely and pulled it off. Julia shot a helpless look at Ten. He shrugged slightly, but she could tell he was ready to leap into action should Poppy so much as breathe strangely afterwards.

  ‘Here goes,’ Poppy announced, winking at them. ‘Bottoms up.’

  As Poppy tipped back her head, Julia fought the urge to grab the bottle and at least wipe it over several times with her hand sanitiser. Damn it, why hadn’t she thought to do that? She held her breath as Poppy swallowed, glugging it all down in one hit.

  When she was done, she wiped her hand across her mouth and handed the bottle back to Scarlett.

  Nobody moved for a long, pregnant moment. The three of them just stared at Poppy. Julia was waiting for Poppy to start salivating or break out in hives. Ten looked like he was pumped to give her the kiss of life should she suddenly succumb to some fucked-up mountain strain of dead-cow, leprosy-cum-Ebola.

  But Scarlett was looking at Poppy as if her hair was going to suddenly grow back and she was going to gain the ten kilos she had lost over the past months.

  ‘Okay, show’s over, folks.’ Poppy laughed. ‘It’s done now, so you can all quit looking at me like I’m going to either throw away my metaphorical crutches or go to Jesus.’ She squeezed Julia’s hand and kissed Ten lightly. ‘Haven’t we got a wedding to plan?’