Page 40 of Special Delivery
‘Yes, for the Easter long weekend. I have a cabin at Burrendong Dam, but I won’t be able to go with my dodgy hip. I could give you my keys and you can take Maeve up. You’d both love it.’
‘Burrendong?’ Poppy wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not really into fishing.’
‘Oh, love, that doesn’t matter at all. Go for the bushwalking and stay for the skies. It’s really magical. I think you should go. You deserve it.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. The idea of a holiday—even in a dusty country caravan park—felt too indulgent when she should be focusing on getting her life sorted for Maeve. Yes, this had been a crazy week, but she was making progress. For example, the house was clean. (Victory!) And soon her lawn would be denuded of those frost-muddled leaves. (Possibly.) There was real and significant progress happening on the other side of the hedge. You just had to look hard—and atvery specific times. It would be risky to stall the momentum now.
No, she would stick to her current plan and have lunch with her parents and the neighbours, then watch TV while they played a round of digestive golf after pudding. Great. Yes. Fifth-wheeling on her parents’ double date and enduring endless questions about single parenting in the age of social media.
‘It’s so quiet up there,’ mused Mary.
Poppy thought of her mum’s screechy storytelling.And then it was a MALE midwife!
‘How quiet?’ Poppy asked.
‘Quiet enough to hear the magpies swoop, love. Pure serenity.’
Poppy lifted her daughter into her lap.Serenity. No questions about Patrick, or assertions that leaps were a figment of the modern imagination. Big skies and no-one in the world to judge her. That’s what she needed right now.
Poppy grabbed another jam drop from the plate and a smile spread across her face. ‘Okay, Mary—I’ll do it.’
CHAPTER 18
The cabin’s corrugated-iron walls were painted pale yellow and the tin roof was a weathered green. A stack of cobwebbed plastic chairs sat on the verandah with a crusty welcome mat at the door. There was not a breath of wind and the water shimmered at the base of the valley like a mirror of the sky. Poppy heaved her luggage up the stairs, grimacing in the unseasonal heat.
Mary had given her the keys to the cabin along with two Tupperware containers of lemon slice and jam drops. The jam drops were for Poppy and the lemon slice was for Mary’s family, who would be staying in the cabins nearby. Her instructions to Poppy were simple: watch out for snakes andrelaxez-vous.
Inside the cabin, a scratchy canvas couch faced a small television with a mustard-coloured kitchen in the rear. In the bedroom, the sateen mustard bedspread threw sepia-toned light like an Instagram filter. If you shimmied the bedside table into the corner and pushed the bed frame against theopposite wall, a portacot could fit in the gap. Maeve was already making good use of it, exhausted from her first long drive. The cabin was kind of beautiful in a nostalgic, seventies kind of way. Poppy opened the kitchen windows and breathed deeply. It smelled of eucalypt and dust and … yoghurt?
She opened the esky and groaned. Her half-litre tub of Chobani had split at the base and a goopy white paste covered everything inside: the figs, the strawberries, the tomatoes, the cheese, the bread rolls. Everything was ruined. The lone champagne bottle was so covered in yoghurt it looked like milk, but at least it could be rinsed off. She turned on the kitchen tap, which made a guttural choking sound. Brownish water spurted out, ricocheting off the sink and sending brown splotches all over her white linen shirt. Poppy swore and tucked her shirt under her bra so the water now spattered her bare stomach. She waited until the water ran clear then began washing the fruit under the tap. The cheese and bread which had been wrapped in paper bags were already starting to sour. At this rate, she’d be on a fruitarian diet for Easter.
‘Hello-ooo?’
Poppy jumped at the sound and spun around.
What the hell?!
James’s tall frame filled the doorway. ‘Hi,’ he said, the corners of his mouth twitching as he glanced at her stomach.
‘Oh shit.’ Poppy pulled down her top. ‘I was just …’ She gestured to the sink and the fruit. He would have no idea what she meant. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m here to get the slice.’ He pointed at the Tupperware on the bench. ‘Mary said you’d bring it.’
‘Mary? What?’Ohhhhhhh. ‘Mary is yourgrandma?’
‘Yep.’
‘But why do you call her Mary?’
James shrugged. ‘She hates being called Grandma. Makes her feel too old.’
Poppy’s mind drifted back to James’s ute in her street. ‘That … explains a lot.’
‘I thought she would have told you.’
Poppy shook her head, her sluggish brain struggling to keep up. ‘I guess that means you and the bikini model …?’
James creased his forehead. ‘Who?’
