Page 92 of Pride and Privilege

“Sorry to intrude,” said Roscoe.

The woman stared at him for a moment. Harvey—Poppy had told him her brother’s name—pulled a face, mouthing something indecipherable at Poppy. She narrowed her eyes at him, pulling a face he remembered often seeing on his sister Evie. Harvey seemed about as cowed by it as he or Hugo had ever done. The boy shrugged one shoulder then returned to his video game, seeming to dismiss them all from his thoughts.

Poppy towed Roscoe to the sofa at the same time as her mother gestured towards it saying, “Sit, sit. I’ll make tea. Do you want tea, Roscoe? Coffee?”

“Coffee, please. Milk, no sugar. Or I can make it?”

“No, no. You sit. I’ll get right on it.” She walked off to the little kitchen but not before shooting Poppy a look that very clearly said,You have some explaining to do.Poppy pretended not to notice it.

When her mum returned with their drinks, he sipped his and kept quiet, listening without looking like he was trying to. In fact, he tried to sink into obscurity, give them what privacy he could. Though he felt huge and ungainly in the small room, his weight making the sofa dip until he felt the hard edge of its frame. Or was it a sofa bed?

There was one other door in the corner of the room. It appeared to be a one bed flat, which meant itmustbe a sofa bed, the living room doubling as a bedroom. Three people in a small one-bed flat. His mews house maisonette was only one bedroom but built on a bigger scale entirely. This living room would fit into his kitchen. And this was where they all lived? Poppy’s mum and her two brothers?

“…and they’re cutting jobs anyway,” her mum was saying. “They’re going to cut my hours, and then—”

Her voice cracked. Poppy lay her hand on her arm.

“Harvey,” Roscoe said, leaning towards the boy. “Do you like cars?” It seemed a fair bet, given he was playing a racing game.

The boy looked suspicious. “Yeah…?”

“Come down and see mine.”

So they went down to the carpark, and Harvey didn’t have to see his mother cry.

Roscoe was quiet on the drive back to his flat. But Poppy knew what was coming. “No,” she said, when he opened his mouth to speak.

He flashed her a glance, jaw stubborn. “Why not? You know how easy it would be for me to help them.”

“How would they ever repay you?”

“I wouldn’t want them to.”

“It’s only a blip,” she said. “Liam will find something else. And I’ll tide them over in the meantime.”

“By not doing your course. By not going part-time at work. Or by moving back home. Four people in a one-bedroom flat.”

“If that’s what it takes. We’ll sort it out. We don’t need charity.”

“It’s not charity. It’s me helping someone I care about.”

She said nothing, thoughts stuck on a blunt, heedless refusal, panic at its edges. He had just started to see them as equal, just stopped seeing her as someone too vulnerable and pathetic to even touch. And now this. But it was an opportunity to show him she was strong, that she would never be dependent on him. She could do it all herself. Fix it all herself.

Why show him the flat? That unglamorous side of her life? Maybe so he could see how far she had come.

“Yesterday,” began Roscoe, “you asked me to give you myself and stop holding back. But now you’re holding back from me. You’re notlettingme give you myself. The money is nothing to me. It doesn’t matter. I just want tohelpyou.”

Her stomach gave a guilty twist. His eyes were fixed on the road, but she still saw the hurt there. The frustration he had spent the whole day doing his best to temper.

“Don’t they get a choice, Poppy? What do you think they would choose? If you won’t let me help you, at least let me help them.”

“It’s too much, Roscoe,” she protested, though his tactic was starting to work, slipping through her defences. Could she reallydecide for her mum, Liam, Harvey…? They might hate having to do it—her mum at least, Liam a little—but they would say yes.

“If I’m not contributing,” she explained, “they might end up needing support for months until Liam finds work. It could be thousands of pounds.”

“I’ll pay their rent for a year.”

She shot him a look.

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