Numbered Page 24

  Almost.

  He pulled back and looked up into her eyes as she sat across him, her shoulders square, her face bright with the knowledge of the desire that pulsed between them.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered, and his voice came out hoarse and low. Not right. ‘I love you,’ he said again, this time so loud and clear it rang through the clearing. ‘You are the love of my life, my beautiful wife.’ As he said the words, he felt tears start to well at the back of his eyes at the thought of just how true the statement was. He loved her so much, and this one, perfect instant might be all they ever had. Tears stung his eyes as he tried desperately to blink them away and cursed himself. He should have shut up, left well enough alone. She would hate this; she would hate seeing him sad like this.

  But she smiled at him, and put a finger to his lips. ‘Shh,’ she said, stroking his bottom lip sensuously. ‘I know.’ Then she slid down onto him and started to move against him in the firelight. ‘Can you feel me?’

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak again. He could feel her – her body and her heart and the beautiful perfection of her brain – knowing him, feeling close to him, wanting him.

  ‘Then you know,’ she whispered, leaning down and pressing her chest against his as she pushed him deeper into her. Her breath caught as he went deep inside her and he hesitated before she moved harder against him, refusing to let him go carefully with her. ‘Then you know how much I love you, too.’

  He nodded.

  ‘How much I want you.’

  He nodded again, the tears threatening to spill onto his cheeks.

  ‘How you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.’

  He put his hands on her hips and pushed himself deeply into her. Nothing he had ever felt had been this intense. It was almost unbearable. He wanted it never to end, and at the same time he wasn’t sure if he could take much more.

  As he watched her let go, wild and free and full of life, his heart grew so big in his chest he wasn’t sure he could endure it.

  ‘I know,’ he said, reaching up to cup her face, full of the need to feel her skin and stay connected to her. ‘I really know.’

  And they let go together, and Quentin was no longer capable of coherent thought. He just dissolved into the sensations of Poppy – her mouth, her skin, and the way she lit him up from the inside in a way that was entirely new to him.

  Later, she snuggled against him, and he could almost hear her purring as they both started to drift into sleep.

  She turned her head close to him, whispering in his ear, ‘There’s something else I need to tell you.’

  Really? Right now? Quentin wasn’t sure he could concentrate on much beyond the feel of her skin and the sensations of his body recovering from the pleasure they’d taken.

  She laughed, as though she knew what he was thinking, and tried to move back. He dragged her closer; there was no way she was getting away.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Remember I told you what I was worried about, how I wanted two things from the time at Dharamsala?’

  Quentin nodded, his brain racing. ‘About your mum?’

  She nodded encouragingly. ‘And what else?’

  Oh no, not that. He didn’t want to think about that now. He had thought about it so many times. Couldn’t she just leave him this one second, when he didn’t have to think about that?

  ‘About the end,’ he said, knowing his voice sounded flat and petulant.

  She nodded against his shoulder. ‘I was worried about what I would think about, when the time came.’ Her voice became husky and he cradled her tenderly against him, wanting her to stop, but also glad she was talking to him about it. They never spoke of this stuff.

  He waited, but she said nothing. ‘And?’

  ‘And now I know,’ she said, and she didn’t sound sad, or worried. She sounded happy. At peace.

  ‘Do I need to ask?’

  ‘Nope.’ She laughed. Then she sat up, allowing him to see her face properly in the firelight. ‘That instant.’ She swept her hands around the scene. ‘This place. You.’

  ‘The best sex of your life,’ Quentin said, grinning in a way he hoped was adorable.

  ‘Now don’t get ahead of yourself,’ she joked back.

  He must have looked stricken, because she laughed and snuggled against him once more. ‘All of it,’ she said, breathing deeply in a way he now knew well; the way she did just before she dropped off to sleep. ‘The sex, the moment, the sleeping outdoors.’ She paused. ‘But most of all, you. Loving me.’ She paused again. ‘And crying.’

  ‘I was not crying,’ he objected.

  She laughed again and he could feel her happiness like it was alive. ‘Okay, caveman,’ she agreed, punching his stomach lightly. ‘You didn’t cry.’ She sighed and settled into him. ‘But you sure did look beautiful.’

  * * *

  Quentin rolled onto his side and felt the first rays of the sun warming his cheek. He nuzzled into Poppy’s neck, reflecting that neither of them had slept so well or so long in weeks. As he did, his half-awake brain registered a problem. As he dragged himself out of the deep well of sleep he had fallen into, the dark, nasty feeling from the night before, the one he had felt thinking about Jonti’s words, took hold again. A portal into another state.

  Poppy was cold, and her breathing was shallow.

  He sat up and looked at her. She was even paler than she had been yesterday, and she looked like she was barely alive. He shook her roughly. She groaned lightly but didn’t rouse.

  ‘Poppy, Poppy.’ He started softly, but when she didn’t respond he began yelling.

  Nothing.

  He bundled her into his arms and ran down the hill, his heart racing, kicking the fucking threshold sign over as he went.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Oh my god,’ Poppy murmured as she looked out over the flat landscape of Paris from the tiny balcony of their shoebox apartment in Montmartre. ‘This is so perfect. It’s exactly how I pictured it.’

  Julia nodded. A clear dusk blanketed grand avenues and tiny cobblestone alleys alike, so crisp Julia felt like she could reach out and crinkle it in her hand like cellophane. The Eiffel Tower rose like a giant erection in the middle of it all – a modern iron phallus out of place amid the subtle majesty of aged sandstone and ancient architecture.

  Lights started to wink all the way up its framework and outline the sweeping boulevards. Soon night would claim the city and another page would be ripped from Poppy’s life.

  From behind them Ten passed Julia a wrap and she threw it around Poppy’s shoulders. The evening air held a real nip and thankfully Poppy didn’t protest. She just snuggled in, resting her beanie-covered head against Julia’s shoulder, as she continued to absorb the grandeur in awed silence. The hilly, haphazard clutter of Montmartre surrounding them was in stark contrast to the wider city fanning out before them.

  Julia put her arm around Poppy’s shoulders and hugged her closer. The scare she’d given them two days ago in India was still fresh in everyone’s minds.

  By the time Ten had arrived back at the village, Poppy had revived somewhat, but her weakness had been marked. Ten had been terrified that the end had come and Julia hadn’t been that far behind.

  Yes, Poppy was dying. But in all of the ways Julia had pictured Poppy’s last moments (and that nightmare ran on an almost continuous loop through her head), none of them had been in a mountain village in India far away from world-class medical facilities. India might have had sacred water, but Julia knew they were going to need drugs to get her through the end – the seriously good kind – and a health-care system that was capable of delivering them any damn time they wanted.

  Julia had suggested that it was time to go home – it had always been their intention to return to Australia for Poppy’s last days. But Poppy had insisted that she was fine, that they go on to Paris. That she needed to see Paris. Had to see the Eiffel Tower before she died.

  So … they’d come to Pari
s.

  ‘Are you ready for tomorrow?’ Julia asked.

  ‘Am I ready to take my clothes off in front of a bunch of strangers and let them draw me? Sure.’

  Julia could hear the low hint of amusement in her friend’s voice but it didn’t stop her from shuddering at the thought. Her internal critic would never let her be so free. Her internal critic would run something like this.

  Don’t lie like that, Julia, your left side is better. Arms above your head, Julia, makes your giant boobs look perkier. Suck in your belly, Julia. Should have done more sit-ups, Julia. And invested in that hideously expensive cellulite cream. But they test it on animals. Who freaking cares if it works? OMG, why didn’t you wax, Julia?

  Julia shuddered again. ‘You’re a braver woman than I am, Poppy Devine.’

  Poppy turned her head. ‘I’m dying, Julia.’ She smiled gently. ‘Naked’s nothing compared to that.’ She looked back at the view. ‘It’s all just skin.’

  Julia blinked back the tears. ‘Way to pull the dying card, Pop,’ she said, forcing a lightness into her voice.

  ‘Keeping it real right to the end, that’s me,’ Poppy quipped.

  Maybe. But to hear her friend being so matter-of-fact was awful. Poppy seemed to have come to some kind of acceptance, while Julia was still fighting the inevitable.

  Not to mention the fact that if their positions had been reversed Julia was pretty damn certain that her vanity wouldn’t allow even the approaching spectre of death as an excuse to get her kit off in front of a room full of strangers.

  Well, not all strangers. She’d be there. And Ten. And bloody fucking Scarlett.

  ‘About that,’ Julia said, seeing an opening she’d been trying to create for the last two days now. ‘About the … end.’

  Poppy turned to her, one bony hand on the railing near Julia’s, the other clutching the edges of the wrap and bunching it together at her throat. ‘What about it?’

  She looked at Julia with purpose, as if she’d been waiting for this very conversation. A dog barked in the distance and the rattle of nearby traffic wafted up to them. ‘Ten mentioned that you … didn’t want anybody there with you … at the end.’

  Poppy nodded calmly. ‘That’s right.’

  Julia sucked in a breath. She’d been hoping that Poppy would deny it. Or look at her and say, ‘It’s okay, I’ve changed my mind.’ But she didn’t look like she was going to do either anytime soon.

  ‘I don’t … understand why you want to be alone,’ Julia said. ‘I can’t bear the thought that you might … that you might be scared or—’

  ‘It’s okay.’ Poppy lifted her hand off the railing and smoothed it over Julia’s. ‘I won’t be. I know what I’m going to think about in those last moments. It’ll be okay.’ She squeezed Julia’s hand. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Poppy … I don’t think you’ve thought this through properly.’

  Poppy glanced at her with reproach. She sighed. ‘This is my fault. You’ve always mothered me and I’ve let you because it was nice to have someone looking out for me for a change, but I’m all grown up now, Juju. And I’ve been thinking things through properly for a long time. You’re the one who’s been telling me I think things through too much.’

  Julia nodded. Guilty as charged. ‘So why suddenly listen to me? Why make such a snap decision without talking to us about it first?’

  Julia didn’t even realise at first that she’d said us. And even if she had realised she wouldn’t have retracted it. Since their mountain-top argument she and Ten had been in this together.

  ‘A snap decision?’ Poppy laughed. She got that crinkle between her eyes that told Julia she was not pleased, but she laughed anyway.

  Just like Poppy to not even get mad when they were discussing her death.

  ‘You don’t think I’ve thought about the fact that I’m going to die and how I want that to happen in great depth?’ she asked calmly. ‘You don’t think I’ve played out the million and one different incarnations of that in my head?’

  Julia shut her eyes. It did seem very unlike Poppy. And hell, she’d give her soul to not be having this conversation, but Julia was pretty damn sure she knew why Poppy had made her decision and she couldn’t let it go unchallenged. ‘I think you’re doing this to save us the gut-wrenching heartache of watching you take your last breath.’

  Even now the back of Julia’s eyes burned just mentioning it out loud.

  Poppy’s gaze didn’t waver from hers. ‘You think that’s wrong of me? You want to watch me die, Julia? Really?’

  A tear trekked down Julia’s cheek, hot against her cool skin. ‘No. I’d sooner gouge out my eyes. I want to watch you live, Poppy. I want to watch you grow old. But we’re not going to get that luxury. You think it’s going to suck any less sitting outside your door?’

  ‘Yeah … I do.’

  Julia blinked back more tears.

  How could she really believe that?

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘You were the one who told me that no-one could tell me what to do with my life. That I was in charge. Surely that goes for my death, too?’

  Julia shook her head back and forth. No, damn it. No. ‘No.’

  ‘Julia … I thought you’d understand that?’

  Julia fought the huge welling of emotion in her chest. The kind that brought forth big, ugly, snotty tears. The kind that once you let it out, it didn’t stop. The kind that made articulation impossible.

  ‘Part of me does.’ Julia struggled with the emotional tornado raging inside her, struggled to find the right words, knowing that she could sway Poppy with sound argument and reasoned debate. Knowing she could always sway Poppy with sound argument and reasoned debate.

  ‘But this is not a normal situation and, like it or not, it doesn’t just involve you. This is not a decision you can make without at least talking it over with the people who are most affected.’

  There was reproach on Poppy’s face again. ‘So I don’t get to be selfish? Not even in this?’

  No. Julia shut her eyes against the censure in Poppy’s. Especially not this.

  ‘I’m asking you to see this from my side. From Ten’s side. From Scarlett’s.’

  Poppy sighed. ‘Tell me why you want to be there.’

  ‘Because I can’t bear the thought of you all alone at the end. It’s like a knife in my heart. I want you to be surrounded by love. By the people who love you.’

  ‘Oh, Julia,’ Poppy murmured, lifting her hand to cradle Julia’s cheek. ‘You think I’ll forget that you guys love me?’

  Julia placed her hand over Poppy’s, aware of each bone and knuckle, aware of its coolness, its dryness, aware that her friend was slowly slipping away.

  ‘No, I don’t think you’ll forget. I think you’ll be unconscious. In a state where there are no thoughts, where you won’t know or be able to articulate anything. But you just might be able to hear us telling you that we love you and be able to feel us touching you. I want you to feel our love pressing around you, pressing in on you when you go wherever the hell people go when they …’

  Julia didn’t even know how to phrase it – every word she could think of sounded worse than ‘die’. In the end she didn’t even try. ‘I want our touch, our voices and our love to be with you right at the end when nothing else can be.’

  Julia watched Poppy’s face, saw the tremble of her mouth and the shine of tears in her big brown eyes. Saw a hundred different emotions flit across her face and watched as she blinked the tears away and reined her emotions in. ‘That’s very sweet, but I’m … asking this of you. Please.’

  ‘Don’t. Please don’t ask that of me.’ Ask me anything else, just not this. ‘Wasn’t Ten enough?’ she murmured, desperate for anything to distract Poppy from her request.

  Poppy laughed and for a moment Julia thought she might relent, but that determined chin jut was still there when the laughter faded and Julia knew what she had to do next.

  ‘If it’s me …’ She took a
deep, wobbly breath, the mere thought enough to suck every oxygen molecule from her lungs. ‘If you don’t want me there … if you want it to be Ten … that’s fine … really.’ Julia removed Poppy’s hand from her cheek and placed a kiss against her palm before she interlinked their fingers and drew Poppy’s hand against her chest. ‘Just not alone, Pop, please don’t do this alone.’

  ‘Julia, no.’ Poppy squeezed her hand. ‘This isn’t about excluding you. Really, it’s not. It’s something I need to do alone.’

  She took a step forward and lay her head against Julia’s chest, her cheek resting near their intertwined hands. Julia wrapped her arm around Poppy’s slight shoulders and hugged her close, letting the tears fall unchecked. It wasn’t right to feel so much heartbreak in one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

  ‘You’ll understand … one day – hopefully a long time from now.’ Poppy’s voice was muffled, but Julia heard every heartbreaking word. ‘In the meantime, I hope you can forgive me.’

  Julia swallowed against the huge lump of hurt lodged in her throat.

  She hoped so, too.

  * * *

  At ten the following morning, with an easel in front of her, Julia’s heart was practically in her mouth as Madam Dubois stood at the front of the life-art class and spoke to her dozen students in French. It had taken Julia days when this trip had first become a reality to find the right studio for Poppy. They were on the second floor of a whitewashed building in the middle of a warren of picture-perfect, narrow cobblestoned alleys, and it had cost her a bomb to convince Madam Dubois that her request was genuine, not some giggle-fest to fill their tourist card.

  Poppy was going to get her life-art class and Madam Dubois got an unusual subject for her students to draw. Along with enough money to see her through several long, cold, hard winters should the peasants ever revolt again.

  Ten was standing on one side of Julia, drumming his fingers against his thighs, his nervousness rolling off him in waves as he stared at the empty velvet chaise lounge behind Madam Dubois as if it was the rack. Scarlett, on the other side of her, sat perched on her stool, looking as Parisienne as possible in her black pants, blue horizontally striped skivvy and a beret, her charcoal stick poised to go.