Page 18 of Special Delivery
‘Good,’ Poppy said. She spun around and marched off, but within three paces Maeve was wailing again. As if it were a siren song, the kelpie trotted up and Maeve quietened.
James jogged over and grabbed his dog by the collar. ‘Come on, Eileen, we’re going the other way.’
‘Waaaaaaah!’ screamed Maeve.
‘Come. On. Eileen.’ James tried to pull the puppy in the opposite direction but it was refusing to budge.
Poppy began walking away and the dog strained against its collar, barking at full volume. Maeve started thrashing her head against the pram, which took her wailing to an eardrum-piercing new level.
‘I think Eileen is trying to get back to your daughter,’ called James. ‘I’ve seen this happen before. It’s a protective instinct thing.’
‘I don’t care,’ snapped Poppy. If he thought she was interested in the psychology of canines, he had a sorely misguided idea of what she found interesting (i.e. Mecca sales and pelvic floor war stories). As she strode off, the puppy barked like a maniac and Maeve’s screams rattled the windowpanes of nearby houses.
‘If we walk next to each other’—he was jogging back to her—‘your daughter will stop crying, and Eileen will slow down so she can get used to the leash.’ As if to demonstrate his point, the kelpie parked itself beside the pram and Maeve instantly stopped wailing.
Poppy glared at his perfectly windswept hair. The fabric of his t-shirt was fluttering in the breeze but his features were set in stone, as detached and inscrutable as ever.
Poppy tightened her fingers around the pram. ‘No way,’ she said. Her walks around the golf course gave her time to think and listen to cheesy podcasts and call Dani and her mum and do whatever she pleased while feeling the wind on her face and enjoying the sense of control and purpose that came with steering a pram. Most of her days felt like treading water—waiting for Maeve to go to sleep, waiting for Maeve to wake up—but when she was pushing a pram, she was in charge.She did not need an intruder, especially such a douchey one, ruining this sacred ritual. ‘I walk in silence,’ she added over her shoulder as she stalked away.
‘Waaaaah!’ screamed Maeve.
RUFF-RUFF-RUFF-RUFF, barked the psycho dog.
‘How’s that silence going?’ called James.
Poppy spun on her heels, her blood turning to molten lava. She couldfeelhis smirk. ‘I don’t want to walk with you,’ she hissed. Somewhere inside her consciousness, her mother tutted. Poppy had never been so openly rude in her life. If he hadn’t realised he wasn’t welcome, then he was either outrageously stupid or, as she was beginning to suspect, a bona fide robot.
He shrugged. ‘The feeling’s mutual, but I need to train my dog and my shift starts soon so my time is limited.’ He looked bored now. ‘So we going?’
Poppy’s knuckles whitened on the pram handle. What was worse? His company or a screaming baby? Her brain was not cut out for this mental arithmetic. With a dull clunk in her frontal lobe, she realised the worst would be a combination of the two: her walking ahead with a screaming baby while he walked behind, judging her every parenting move with a full view of her saggy-bum leggings.
‘Fine.’ She pushed off, leaving him to catch up. The nerve of him! Trapping her in this predicament, especially when she’d made it clear how much she didn’t want his company.
They strode in silence, Poppy’s muscles so tense with irritation she was almost spasming. She needed to work out a way to get rid of him. Could she do something to the dog?
Suddenly, Poppy’s phone dinged in the cup holder. Shepulled it out and blinked at the name on the screen. Patrick.Of all times!
Her eyes darted to James, whose gaze was locked on the path as if trying to manifest her non-existence. Poppy angled the screen away from him and opened the message.
What was name of shipping heir from Mykonos? Need asap for meeting
The three dots under the message indicated he wasn’t finished. And just as well. After ten months of almost zero contact, this couldn’t be it. You couldn’t spend nine years with someone, have their child and tell them about the birth, only to be met with virtual silence until he needed a business lead.
The next message appeared.
Urgent!
Poppy stared at the phone. Seriously?! This was how he was playing it? Nohi, nohow are you, nohow’s my firstborn child?—just a demand for help remembering the name of a hairy dude from an underground bar. Poppy’s hand dropped to her side and she lifted her face to the sky. Hot tears were suddenly welling behind her eyes and she needed gravity to tip them back down.
This was classic Patrick. He’d hardly acknowledged Maeve’s birth. Why would he suddenly reconnect out of the blue? She should have known better than to expect anything meaningful from him. But then, why did her stomach suddenly feel like a cement mixer on acid?
She snuck a glance at James. For a fraction of a millisecond their eyes met, but just as quickly his gaze darted away. Well, good. She did not want his pity.
Suddenly: another beep.
URGENT!!!
Jesus!Poppy swore under her breath and began tapping furiously. A litany of responses swam through her mind, all of them heavy on the f-word. He’d ignored her for ten months but still expected an instantaneous response?! She tapped and deleted and tapped and deleted. Finally, she pressed send.
