Page 92 of Second Verse

‘You do seem lighter,’ Poppy observed.

‘Yes, I am. I feel like I’ve shed some stuff that was holding me down.’

‘The marriage or the job?’ Poppy asked.

‘Both. Among other things,’ Norah said. She realised she was setting up a segue, so her mouth wanted to do this, even if her brain wasn’t so sure. ‘I was arguing with my mum, and she told me something,’ she began tentatively.

Poppy immediately tensed. ‘What?’

Norah inhaled deeply through her nose. ‘She told me why you ended things with us back in the day,’ she said quickly.

Poppy was wide-eyed with horror.

‘Because she told you to,’ Norah continued. ‘Right? That’s what happened?’

Poppy’s mouth opened and shut a few times before it could achieve any speech. ‘God, how didthatcome up?’

‘We were fighting. She lost her marbles and confessed, James Bond Villain style,’ Norah said with a half-smile. ‘You could have told me what she said to you. At the time. Or now.’ She was doing her best to keep her tone light as air. She wanted this to seem like a very casual conversation. Precisely because it wasn’t.

‘I couldn’t,’ Poppy said shortly.

‘Why?’ Norah asked.

At that moment, they got to the front of the ice cream queue. ‘What do ya want, love?’ the guy in the van asked.

‘Why?’ Norah said, ignoring the man. She needed to know.

Poppy looked between her two interrogators. ‘It’s too much. I can’t find the words.’

‘OK,’ he said evenly. He turned to Norah. ‘What about you?’

Norah shook herself, quickly scanning the board. ‘Er, I’ll have a Nutella sundae.’

‘I’ll have that too,’ Poppy said quickly.

The man began putting together the first sundae, and Poppy looked at Norah. ‘I think we should leave this topic.’

Norah was handed her sundae. ‘Do you?’

‘Well, it seems like you already know what happened,’ Poppy said. ‘I don’t have anything to add.’

Norah spooned ice cream into her mouth, trying to drown her disappointment in refined sugar.

‘Here’s yours,’ the man said, handing over the next sundae to Poppy.

Norah decided that if Poppy didn’t want to talk about it, she should respect that. And then promptly changed her mind. ‘Yeah, but I’d like to hear it from your angle.’

‘What for?’ Poppy asked, looking like the most miserable person to ever hold a sundae.

‘Have I upset you by bringing this up?’ Norah asked. ‘Because you don’t seem...’

‘I’m not upset,’ Poppy said.

Norah could see that was bollocks.

‘Sorry to interrupt, but is someone going to pay for these?’ the ice cream man asked.

‘Oh, yeah.’ Poppy tapped her phone on the card reader.

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