Numbered Page 7

  A muted sob filled the heavy silence as Poppy shut her eyes. Tears spilled out from behind her closed lids and she made a low keening noise.

  It sounded like an animal in pain and clawed at Julia’s gut with hot talons.

  ‘Poppy,’ she whispered.

  ‘Are you in pain?’ Ten asked.

  Poppy didn’t answer, just shook her head from side to side, more tears escaping.

  Julia also stood. ‘What can I do?’ she asked – begged was closer to the mark. In this instant Julia knew she’d do whatever she could to ease Poppy’s distress.

  ‘I want you to make it stop,’ Poppy moaned.

  Julia struggled to keep the fear and panic out of her voice. Make what stop? ‘The pain? You’re in pain?’

  Poppy hiccupped as she continued to sob. ‘It,’ she said. ‘I want you to make it stop.’

  Julia sat down again, defeated before she’d even begun. She couldn’t do that. With access to a veritable fortune she could probably get anything Poppy wanted. Sure, she’d refused to touch it, but there were always exceptions to pride and principle and Poppy was it.

  But she couldn’t buy what Poppy wanted.

  ‘Shh, baby, shh,’ Ten said, pressing his forehead to hers, cupping her cheek in his hand, his thumb stroking over Poppy’s closed eye. ‘Shh now.’

  Julia watched as the deep, low timbre of Ten’s voice and the rhythmic brush of his thumb slowly quietened Poppy and she drifted back to sleep.

  She’d never felt helpless before but she did now. And she hated it.

  ‘Pass me her phone,’ Julia said, sitting higher in the chair. It was on top of the bedside table right next to Ten.

  He handed it over. ‘I think it’s locked.’

  Julia took it and quickly tapped in Poppy’s pin code. Her thumb flew across the screen as she searched for the app among the crowded screens.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked.

  Julia ignored him as she continued the search, finally locating the bucket list app and opening it up. There had to be something in here she could do for Poppy. Now. Right now.

  Julia’s thumb got busy again as she flicked through the list.

  So much active stuff. Stuff Poppy wouldn’t be up to for a while. Then number nine jumped out at her. Buy a pet snake – keep and feed for at least a month (check with Biology department re appropriate sub-species).

  Perfect. There were some things she couldn’t fix but she could get Poppy number nine.

  She glanced across the bed. Or Number Ten could anyway.

  ‘Can you get me a snake?’

  To give Ten his due, he didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘A snake?’

  Julia leaned forward to give him the phone. ‘Number nine.’

  He read it. ‘What kind of snake?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she dismissed. ‘One that will make her happy.’

  ‘So no pressure, then …’

  Julia thought further about the care and feeding a snake might require and shuddered. ‘Not too big. Something friendly and … vegetarian would be good.’

  ‘I think vegetarian snake is an oxymoron.’

  It killed Julia that with Ten’s apparent smarts (if his leaving score was indeed real and he hadn’t paid some sad geek chick to write the answers to his finals all up her leg) she couldn’t make some quip about him being the only moron in the room.

  He looked at her and his lips quirked, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. ‘And I’m sourcing this snake because …?’

  Julia shrugged. ‘You wouldn’t be the first lead singer to have a pet snake. Use your rock connections.’

  ‘Do I look like Alice fucking Cooper to you?’

  ‘You look more like Alice than I look like Samuel L. Jackson,’ she retorted.

  Honestly, what was the good of having a rocker at your disposal if he couldn’t find a small, friendly, vegetarian snake when you wanted one?

  Poppy stirred again, mumbling something, and Julia watched as Ten stood and gently stroked his thumb across her cheekbone until she settled.

  A lump rose in Julia’s throat.

  He glanced at her, and she saw the hollow feeling in her gut reflected in his eyes. ‘Leave it with me.’

  * * *

  Three days later they were home and Poppy was the proud owner of a three-metre albino Darwin Carpet Python. It looked kind of like a yellow zebra with freaky white eyes. ‘I’m calling her Madam Curie,’ Poppy announced as they gazed at the huge reptile sleeping under a heat lamp in its enormous glass tank.

  ‘Do we know it’s a she?’ Julia asked. She was fairly certain Ten hadn’t been so bothered with checking important points like sub-species or sex.

  ‘Oh come on, look at her,’ Poppy said. ‘Have you seen anything more girly in your life?’

  Julia shook her head. All Madam Curie needed was a set of fake eyelashes and she’d be all set.

  ‘I love her,’ Poppy sighed, staring through the glass. She glanced at Julia. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Now we just have to keep the damn thing alive.’

  ‘Do we have food?’

  Julia nodded, although she preferred not to think about it. There was a ziplock bag full of dead baby rodents in the freezer – not the gourmet fare she usually stashed there.

  Ten had said he’d do the feeding. So at least he was going to be of some use.

  Julia slid her arms around Poppy’s shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze. She could feel bones. She’d never been aware of Poppy’s bones before. ‘You should sit.’

  Poppy squeezed her back hard, belying the fragility that was scaring the bejesus out of Julia. ‘I’m not going to break.’

  ‘I know. But you should sit anyway.’

  ‘Julia …’

  ‘Humour me. I’ll pull up a chair right near this macabre reptile tank.’ Madam Curie’s tongue flicked out in seeming approval.

  ‘Okay, fine.’

  Julia gave a whoop as she dragged over the brand-new recliner she’d bought yesterday. She’d bought two actually, not wanting Poppy to feel conspicuous. They’d always joked about living together when they were old and grey, two spinsters with matching old-lady chairs. Looked like they were getting a headstart.

  Julia fussed around settling Poppy into it, grateful that she’d agreed to move out of her flat and move into Julia’s. It made sense. Julia’s apartment was bigger and closer to the hospital and Dr Dick had lectured Poppy on the necessity of live-in support.

  ‘Okay, here’s the deal,’ Ten said, emerging from the kitchen where he’d been rummaging around for the last half-hour. ‘We’re going to stay up late, swap some manly stories and in the morning,’ he said, pulling out an appliance from behind his back, ‘I’m making waffles.’

  Poppy laughed. ‘Oh goody. I love waffles.’

  Ten bowed slightly. ‘As you wish.’ He glanced at Julia. ‘Great kitchen by the way. I could die in there and go quite happily.’

  And then he was off again, like an excited puppy with a new chew toy, oblivious to the blow he’d delivered to Julia’s solar plexus with his faux pas. That will do, Donkey! She stared after him, her breath stuck in her throat.

  ‘It’s fine, Julia,’ Poppy said. ‘He didn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, fixing a smile on a face that felt as frozen as the air in her lungs. And she did know logically that had Ten been thinking properly – thinking at all – he’d never have chosen those words. He’d been at Poppy’s side all day for three whole days, for which Julia, grudgingly, had admired him.

  That didn’t mean she didn’t want to help him on his way to that happy ending right about now. And not the good kind dished out by dubious massage parlours.

  ‘Come on,’ Poppy insisted. ‘Sit with me.’

  Julia sat and seethed. Luckily Scarlett came along to distract her. ‘Julia,’ she said. ‘You don’t mind if I make some changes around here, do you?’

  ‘Changes? Like redecorating?’ Julia liked the kitsch retro
feel of her place. It was cool and hip and suited her Betty Boop vibe.

  ‘Oh no, I mean—’ she waved her hand around in the air ‘—shift some items around. The feng shui in this apartment is all wrong. Poppy needs some good feng shui.’

  Julia glanced at Poppy, who was rolling her eyes. ‘Okay … sure.’ If by some whacky miracle good feng shui gave Poppy an edge then Julia couldn’t care less what Scarlett did. It was all just stuff. Although god alone knew what dead baby mice did to feng shui.

  ‘Ah, Quentin dear …’ Scarlett’s voice faded as she trailed into the kitchen.

  ‘Are you still sure it was a good idea to get Mum involved at this point?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Pop. I know you’re mad. I know you and your mum aren’t close and she’ll flit around and be trivial, but …’ She shrugged. ‘She’s your mother.’

  ‘I was going to tell her in a few days.’

  ‘I know. But she’d have been so hurt when she realised you’d waited so long to tell her and then, I know you, you’d feel guilty about it, and at the risk of sounding like Scarlett, you don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.’

  Poppy sighed. ‘You do know me.’

  ‘We’re going to need plants.’ Scarlett’s voice became louder again as she entered the room with Ten in tow. He smiled at Poppy. ‘Write this down, Quentin,’ she said as she wandered around the large open living area inspecting it more thoroughly than the pest inspector who’d been last week.

  Julia smiled. Only Scarlett, who carried her journal everywhere, would expect somebody to have a pen and paper at the ready. But Ten followed her patiently, pulling out his phone.

  ‘So … is she moving in?’ Poppy asked.

  ‘No.’ Julia frowned. At least she hoped not. ‘I think she’s planning on … coming and going.’

  Poppy gave a soft snort. ‘Imagine my surprise.’

  ‘Lush, green plants,’ Scarlett said as she continued her assessment. ‘And take down these venetians to let the light in … maybe some gauzy green fabric at the window instead that can billow with the breeze … how are you with a screwdriver?’

  Ten opened his mouth to reply but Scarlett had moved on. ‘A water feature over here,’ she said, tapping her finger to her mouth. ‘We’ll make a wellness altar, I think … have some incense burning, fresh flowers every day and string some lights around it …’

  Poppy rolled her head to the side. ‘Still think it’s a good idea?’

  Julia blanched at the tackiness of a wellness altar with fairy lights and a water feature, but what the hell, she already had a three-metre girly snake ruining the ambience. ‘Sure,’ she said. If it made Scarlett happy.

  Poppy laughed. ‘I’m going to remind you of this conversation when your apartment looks like a Chinese brothel.’

  Chapter Five

  Quentin rolled over and looked at the woman his arm was pinned underneath. Even sleeping deeply and snoring slightly she was cute. She looked different now, in the couple of weeks since the operation, and since she’d decided to cut her hair, but she was still cute as hell. From the moment he’d met her, there had been something about her quirky smile, sharp tongue and brown eyes that had captivated him. Now, with that young Sinead O’Connor buzz cut, she was all eyes and smile. And let’s face it, he’d always held a candle for Sinead. But Poppy was even more delicious. She had a tiny and completely preoccupying dip above her top lip. He found himself constantly wanting to put his little finger there. She joked that she felt like she had a semi-permanent moustache, the amount he’d been doing it.

  He squinted as the early-evening light winked in through the window. He had thought she might not be as interested in lazing around in bed with him after the operation, but he’d been wrong. And boy, he had never been so glad to be wrong. Being in bed with Poppy was fast moving to the top of his list of favourite things. It was even bumping out the Sunday-afternoon session of Australia’s Next Top Model. And that was some achievement.

  Quentin didn’t want to get out of bed, but he had made the band a promise that he wouldn’t miss this gig. And he had an ulterior motive for wanting to make sure he got there on time today. But he sure hated waking her.

  He tried to extract his arm very carefully, wriggling it inch by inch from under Poppy, and breathing very quietly so as not to disturb her.

  It didn’t work; she was awake in a heartbeat.

  ‘Ugh, you cruel bugger,’ she moaned, rolling onto her side. ‘Even before I was dying I hated waking up. Where’s your heart?’

  Quentin smiled because he was pretty sure his heart was wherever this woman wanted it to be right now. Even the miserable sentence she’d just uttered sounded like it had a wry, acerbic smile at its core. And that was why he couldn’t get enough of her. She had the most fascinating, confusing brain.

  And it kept getting even better, seemingly unaffected by the indignities her body was experiencing. Like last night (or had it been this morning?) when they’d lain in bed for hours playing Poppy’s favourite game: Queen for a Day. Like all things with Poppy, the game had rules. A lot of rules. But they only served to make the game more interesting. In Queen for a Day, you got to say three things you would change in the world if you were in charge for a day. But they weren’t allowed to be system-changing things. You couldn’t vastly re-create the world. After all, that wouldn’t be right, given you only had it for a day. So, no. You could only make minor tweaks that made life better in marginal ways for the inhabitants of your world. And you couldn’t do things that were clearly magical. For example, Poppy had been very clear that ‘no more cancer’ was intellectually lazy and not in the spirit of the game. It had to be a change that could be legislated or decreed by the hand of humans, not gods. This was real life, after all. Sort of.

  Oh, and you couldn’t be king. That was another rule: queen or nothing.

  Quentin had found himself becoming quite addicted to the game, much as he was addicted to Poppy’s smell. And her skin. And the taste of her lips. This morning he had pleased Poppy enormously by coming up with three fixes that she’d found acceptable. They’d met all her rules and she’d even declared them clever. Especially the one about bouncers at bars and nightclubs being required to do a conflict-resolution course before being licensed. If there was anything Quentin loved more than listening to Poppy’s ideas it was being told she liked his. What a sap he was becoming.

  ‘I already told you,’ he chastised her, tickling her in that sweet spot just under her ribs. ‘You aren’t dying, remember? I know all about these things. I work at a hospital.’ He knew she loved him squeezing and tickling her, even though she feigned outrage. She had expressly forbidden him from being gentle with her.

  Just because I have cancer doesn’t mean you can treat me like a geriatric.

  Lucky, because he couldn’t keep his hands off her.

  Quentin also knew that Julia hated all his arse-pinching, hugging and physical play with Poppy, but he didn’t give a fuck. For two reasons. Firstly, Julia was a damn killjoy, and he would do almost anything he could to annoy the hell out of her just for the satisfaction of seeing that irritated look cross her smug face. Secondly, Poppy liked it. He knew she liked it, because she squealed and yelled at him, which she always did when she liked something but didn’t really want to let on. He could see it in her eyes. It made her feel like she was still alive. Julia loved her, but all her cotton-wool wrapping made Poppy feel like the end was nigh and Julia was just trying to keep it at bay a few more days. It made her crazy.

  ‘Café,’ Poppy reminded him, sitting up in bed groggily before groaning and lying quickly back down. She shielded her eyes from the sunlight with an arm. ‘Is that where you’re off to now?’

  ‘No,’ Quentin said, frowning. He’d already told her this. ‘The gig at the Jubilee, remember?’

  He leaned over to kiss her as he pushed off the bed, and breathed in the now familiar but still maddening smells of her. He felt her wriggle herself into a slightly different posit
ion as he kissed her, so that her chest was turned from him. He grimaced as he realised what she was doing. He wanted to tear that damn pyjama top off her, and get rid of the weird binding bra thingy she’d taken to wearing everywhere, even bed. He wanted to touch her, all of her, and make her feel good. He wanted to show her that while her body might feel different to her, he didn’t feel any differently about it. He was sad for her that she had lost her breast but he still wanted her with an urgency that made him feel like that gauche fifteen-year-old boy shamelessly chasing Helen Harper around the school. He sighed. This wasn’t the time. But later, that damn bra contraption was meeting its maker. And he knew just the ticket to help him with that objective. Which reminded him, he needed to get going.

  ‘Bye, sweet one,’ he said, wanting to say more.

  But she held a finger up to his lips. ‘Uh-uh,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You gotta remember the rules. You don’t remember the rules, you’re not allowed to come round here anymore.’

  He smiled. He loved that she absolutely knew she held the upper hand in this affair of theirs, despite the cancer, where other girls would perhaps be afraid he might leave and become clingy and afraid. She was so brave. It made him hard as hell.

  She frowned at him, those interesting eyes narrowing. ‘You remember, right?’

  He nodded. ‘No lovey-dovey talk.’

  She clapped her hands like he was a slightly dense pupil who’d managed to get his times tables right. ‘Good boy,’ she said, rewarding him by leaning forward for another kiss.

  ‘Not until after you’re better,’ he reminded her darkly.

  ‘Mm,’ she agreed shortly. ‘Now get the hell to work. You think you’re going to be my toy boy?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ he said, standing up and getting into his jeans. He was pretty sure she was copping an eyeful from the bed, so he exaggerated his movements, making his arse wiggle cheekily as he pulled them on. He was nothing if not a showman.

  Then he turned back to her. ‘Now remember, we have a date tonight.’

  She nodded gravely. ‘Number six,’ she agreed. ‘What time?’

  ‘Should be home by two am,’ he said, reaching for his wallet and keys.