Chapter 24
‘Poppy!’ Nel said. ‘This is a nice surprise.’
Her niece gave her a nervous smile. ‘Can I sit down?’
‘Of course.’
Poppy sat, tucking her long stockinged legs underneath her.
‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Viv shut the door behind her.
Nel looked from Poppy’s checked tunic to the clock. It was eleven twenty-five. ‘Aren’t you meant to be at school?’
‘I snuck out the gate behind the hall. I have a double free period so they won’t even notice I’m gone.’ She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, her knuckles white. She looked at the patterned carpet for a moment before looking up.
Nel sensed she wasn’t sure where to start. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Can I ask you something?’ Poppy paused, then went to speak, then stopped and sighed. ‘Actually, never mind.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, doesn’t matter.’
Nel moved her own chair closer to Poppy’s and took her hand.
‘Whatever it is, you can trust me.’
Poppy took a deep breath. ‘Can I talk to you as a doctor? So it can be confidential?’
‘Well, you’re my niece so I’m not really supposed to be your doctor, but sometimes in small towns or emergency circumstances it’s okay. Why don’t you tell me what’s happened and I’ll work out how to help you?’
‘And you won’t tell Mum?’
‘If you’re in danger I’ll have to report it. Not to Lauren, but to the Department of Family and Community Services. Are you in danger?’
Poppy shook her head, looked back at the carpet. ‘How old were you when you, like …’ She swallowed. ‘You know …’
‘When I …?’ Nel suspected she knew what Poppy was asking, but she waited for her to go on.
Poppy exhaled loudly. ‘Lost your virginity.’
‘For me that didn’t happen until I was at uni in Sydney, but that was later than most people.
My last few years of school were pretty strange.
Are you thinking about having sex?’ She kept her tone businesslike.
Matter of fact. As though she was asking whether Poppy was considering having sushi for lunch.
Poppy fiddled with a loose thread on the sleeve of her jumper. ‘I guess.’
‘I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.’ Did Lauren know? If she did, she hadn’t mentioned it, which seemed unlikely. ‘Is it a new relationship?’
Poppy nodded. ‘We’ve been friends for a while, but we’ve only been together for like a month or so. His name’s Jack. He’s in the year above me.’
‘Have you had boyfriends before?’
She shook her head.
‘Have you and Jack talked about having sex?’
She nodded.
‘Are you feeling any pressure from him to do it?’
She shook her head again, pushing a lock of long brown hair behind her ear. ‘I want to, but Mum’s made me like literally terrified of getting pregnant like she did.’
‘You did a smart thing, coming to see me,’ Nel said, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘I know it’s not easy to talk about this stuff. Have you told your mum about Jack?’
‘No way,’ Poppy said, looking at Nel as though she was mad. ‘She’d literally never let me leave the house again.’
‘Maybe she would surprise you.’
‘Doubt it,’ Poppy said.
Nel thought through her options. Technically it was possible for her to treat Poppy—it was considered unethical to treat an immediate family member, but a niece wasn’t considered immediate family, and there was no legal requirement to notify the parents of a fifteen-year-old before prescribing contraception—but none of that would matter to Lauren.
‘Which doctor do you normally see?’ Nel asked.
‘We go to a clinic in North Carrinya,’ Poppy said. ‘But she’s a friend of Mum’s and she’s not very …’
‘Discreet?’ Nel offered.
Poppy nodded. ‘And Mum knows all the doctors there.’
Nel opened the cupboard where Rob kept samples provided by pharmaceutical reps. She’d reorganised it last week so she could find things more easily. She took out a couple of condoms and turned back to Poppy. ‘How much do you know about contraception?’
‘A bit.’ She gestured to the packets in Nel’s hand. ‘They made us put one of those on a banana last year.’
‘Well, that’s a start.’ Nel gave her a run-down on the pros and cons of condoms and other contraceptive options.
‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I can’t treat you, so I’m going to make you an appointment at a clinic up at Mount Clare with someone you can trust. You’re getting older so you need a doctor you can talk to openly, without worrying about confidentiality.
They’ll be able to prescribe a good long-term contraceptive.
In the meantime, if things get … serious … you need to use one of these.’
She handed Poppy the condoms, then she looked up the number for the Mount Clare clinic and picked up the phone. She wrote down the details of the appointment and passed the page to Poppy.
‘Four thirty on Thursday. How will you get there?’
‘I can get the bus.’
‘You sure? I can drive you if you need me to,’ Nel said, hoping Poppy would decline the offer. How would Lauren react if she discovered Nel was chauffeuring Poppy to and from sexual health appointments? It didn’t bear thinking about.
‘It’s fine, Auntie Nel. I get the bus up there, like, all the time.’
‘What will you tell your mum?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ll make something up.’
‘Okay.’
Poppy’s expression changed. She pressed her lips together, suppressing a laugh.
‘What?’ Nel asked.
‘I was just imagining having this conversation with Granddad. He would literally die.’
Poppy’s eyes widened, realising what she’d said, and she let out a stifled laugh.
Nel got the giggles too. A wave of hysterical grief overcame them and they laughed until tears ran down their faces.
When it finally passed, they sat looking at each other, breathless.
Nel reached for a box of tissues and held it out to Poppy who took one and blew her nose.
Her face became serious again. ‘Thanks for helping me, Auntie Nel.’
‘That’s okay.’
It felt good to be able to help her. She looked so young though, sitting there in her school uniform, all skinny legs and freckles, and Nel felt the sudden urge to protect her from the inevitable pain and heartbreak of living in the world.
‘You know … having sex will change things, Poppy. Fifteen is young to handle the emotions that’ll come with it.’
Poppy nodded.
‘You don’t have to do it until you feel completely ready,’ Nel added, but she sensed it wouldn’t make any difference. ‘So, tell me about this boy. Jack. What’s he like?’
Poppy smiled. ‘He’s really, like …’ She looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right word, as though she was contemplating all Jack’s extraordinary qualities and finding language inadequate. ‘Nice,’ she said eventually, rolling her eyes at herself.
‘Really nice, huh?’ Nel shook her head and clicked her tongue. ‘Oh my goodness.’
Poppy’s unexpected visit meant Nel was running behind, so Viv grabbed her a wrap to eat at her desk.
She only had fifteen minutes, but she couldn’t resist a little online stalking.
If Poppy wasn’t going to tell Lauren about her new boyfriend, then it was Nel’s duty to check him out, surely. Any decent auntie would do the same.
Poppy’s Instagram grid was full of selfies. Poppy laughing. Poppy pouting. Poppy making a peace sign. Poppy and her friends posing in front of a full-length mirror, their skirts short and legs long. Poppy in a tiny yellow bikini, frolicking in shallow waves.
Nel sighed. Social media mystified her. She’d only joined Instagram to follow medical publications and journalists who shared interesting research.
She’d been on Facebook since high school, but her current profile was under the name Penny Foal and her ‘friends’ were mostly acquaintances from her uni days.
She never posted anything. She never even ‘liked’ anything.
Her profile picture was the sun rising over Coogee Beach.
She’d closed her first Facebook account, but there was nothing she could do about Maddie’s page.
She still checked it every few months. A sadistic habit.
Surely it won’t be there this time, she would think, each time she typed ‘Madeline Marshall’ into the search field.
But each time her best friend’s beaming face would smile back at her, a shock of red hair cascading over freckled shoulders, eyes twinkling. Frozen in time at sixteen.
It was still there when Nel last checked a couple of months ago.
Was it still there now? Unable to resist her curiosity, she opened Facebook and typed Maddie’s name.
And there it was. She skimmed down the feed to see if the messages were still there, even though she knew they would be.
If the Marshalls hadn’t closed down Maddie’s account, there was no way they would have deleted the comments accusing Nel of murder.
Yes. Still there. She clicked the tab shut, wishing she hadn’t looked. She was meant to be looking up Poppy’s boyfriend!
She went back to her niece’s Instagram profile and scanned her follower list for a Jack. There was only one. Jack Barnett. Nel clicked on his profile.
It was immediately clear why Poppy was smitten. Jack had shoulder-length brown hair, blue eyes and dimples. He held a guitar in every photo. She clicked on a reel of him playing an acoustic version of a Harry Styles song. He did seem nice. Talented too. So why was she so worried for Poppy’s heart?
It was almost six o’clock by the time the last patient left. Nel reached for her phone, hoping to see a message from Jimmy, but there was nothing.
Any news on the file? she typed, as Viv appeared in the doorway.
‘Okay if I come in and restock?’
‘Sure.’
A reply flashed on Nel’s phone.
Didn’t get the chance to talk to Frisk today. Hopefully tomorrow.
Nel sighed.
‘Nice to see Poppy earlier,’ Viv said, taking a large bottle of handwash out of a cupboard under the sink. ‘She’s a beautiful girl.’
‘She is. I don’t envy her though, being a teenage girl in this day and age. It’s a bloody minefield.’
Viv laughed. ‘You sound like an old lady!’ She started to refill the soap dispenser. ‘I know what you mean though, with SnapChat and TikTak and what have you.’
Nel smiled.
‘You know,’ Viv’s voice softened, ‘I might have had a daughter the same age as Poppy.’
‘Really?’
Viv turned the bottle back upright and sat it on the sink. ‘I was pregnant when Lauren had Poppy, so she’s been my touchstone over the years. However old Poppy is, my baby would be just that bit behind.’
‘What happened to your baby, Viv?’
‘The father and I weren’t … together. Not properly.
He was just a … you know … a friend, I suppose.
’ There was a faraway look in Viv’s eyes.
‘I was forty-three. Growing up I always assumed I’d have kids, but by then I’d accepted that it wasn’t going to happen for me, so it was a shock when I found out. For me, but even more so for him.’
Nel just nodded, giving her the space to keep talking.
‘He wanted me to have a termination.’ She paused, her eyes glassy. ‘I hadn’t decided what I would do, but then I lost the baby so my decision was made for me.’ She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes with her fingertips, trying to avoid smudging her mascara. ‘God, look at me, how silly!’
‘It’s not silly, Viv. It’s not silly at all.’