CHAPTER 19
Poppy’s fingers hovered over her phone. Would it be positive parenting or soul-sucking suicide to send an Easter message to Patrick?
‘Happy Easter!’ called a familiar silhouette from the doorway.
Argh! Poppy’s phone clattered onto the table and Maeve looked up from her play mat.
‘I thought you might need sustenance,’ said James, opening the door and waving a box of Cornflakes and a three-litre bottle of milk. ‘I can’t leave these with you—you have no idea how much my nephews eat—but if you’re hungry you could make a bowl now and I’ll take the rest back.’
‘Oh, er, thanks,’ said Poppy, wishing she wasn’t still in her pyjamas. ‘I’ll just change. Can you watch Maeve?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, just raced into the bedroom, grabbing a t-shirt from the floor and pulling a hairbrush from her suitcase to smooth her bed hair. It was only eight thirty, for god’s sake. Being in your pyjamas at this hour was completely acceptable on a public holiday, especially when you had a newborn. It wasn’t her fault James always looked so fresh.
When she came out, James was cradling Maeve in the crook of his arm as he rummaged in the cupboards. ‘She started grumbling so I picked her up,’ he explained, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. His forearm was so big that Maeve lay on it like a bed.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’ he asked, pulling two bowls from the cabinet. ‘It’s chaos back at our cabin.’
‘Um, okay,’ said Poppy. ‘Can’t refuse a man who brings me food.’
‘Good to know.’ James grinned and, inexplicably, she felt her stomach drop. Hunger pangs, obviously.
James filled the bowls with Cornflakes and poured the milk all with Maeve on his forearm. It was so dexterous .
‘I haven’t had Cornflakes in years,’ remarked Poppy to distract herself as she took Maeve back. ‘Not since I was backpacking. Cornflakes always remind me of hostels.’
James pulled out two spoons from a drawer under the sink—Poppy would have never found them there—and put them in the bowls.
‘They remind me of camping,’ he said, making his way towards the verandah with the bowls. Poppy followed. ‘When I ate them overseas, they always tasted different from the ones back home.’
‘I seem to remember they were saltier in Europe,’ said Poppy grabbing the play mat with her spare hand.
‘And sweeter in America,’ said James.
Poppy nodded. ‘Yeah.’ She’d been about to say that.
She lay the play mat on the verandah and placed Maeve on top.
‘When was the last time you had Cornflakes?’ asked James.
‘No idea,’ Poppy said with a sigh. ‘Probably about ten years ago, when I went backpacking with my best friend. We were so skint we always had to choose the cheapest hostels. Rickety beds, crap showers, the constant stench of booze and BO. It was the best.’
James smiled and Poppy accidentally smiled back.
‘I went travelling with my brother for a few months after uni,’ he said. ‘We were those Aussie guys you meet at every hostel—wearing footy shorts and thongs even when it was freezing, surviving on beer and baguettes. Unhealthiest I’ve ever been in my life, but jeez it was fun.’ He looked down towards the dam and then back at her. ‘Couldn’t do it now, though.’
‘No,’ Poppy agreed, her gaze settling on Maeve, who was tugging the fringing on the play mat. ‘Somehow we all grow up.’
‘Or we try not to,’ said James. ‘I’m going back to uni next year. Hopefully studying medicine. It’ll be strange being the oldest guy in the lecture hall, but I don’t care. I made the decision for me, no-one else.’ He lifted a giant spoonful of Cornflakes to his mouth and gulped them down. ‘FYI, you don’t need to fill up on cereal today. There’s so much food up there.’ He gestured towards the cabins up the hill. ‘My mum starts planning Easter lunch before we’ve even digested Christmas pudding. It’s an affliction.’
Poppy smiled at the spoon in her hand. ‘Thanks for inviting me to join you,’ she said.
‘Not at all. You’re doing me a favour.’ James scraped the last of his Cornflakes from the bowl. ‘She always tries to force-feed me the leftovers so it’s always useful to have someone else to share the eating load.’
‘I wonder why she thinks you’d be hungry.’ Poppy smiled, inclining her head towards his empty bowl. ‘You inhaled that.’
James shrugged. ‘Cornflakes are fucking delicious.’
Poppy looked down at her bowl to hide her chuckle. The sun felt warm on her face as it slid long shadows across the verandah. It was so quiet she could hear the patter of a magpie’s feet as it landed on the corrugated-iron roof. She scooped up a spoonful of Cornflakes. She’d forgotten: they were delicious.
As they stood up to clear the bowls, James said, ‘Hey, I’m sorry I showed up with no warning. I forgot to consider you might not be up and at ’em yet.’
Poppy turned to him, puzzled. Maeve was still happily turtle-backing on the play mat.
‘What?’ he asked.
Poppy picked up her daughter and playmat. ‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘You seem so different from when we first met.’
James grimaced as he opened the screen door for them. ‘Yeah, I feel bad about that, sorry. It had been a weird day. Although’—a wicked smile crept across his face—‘I’d like to remind the jury that you didn’t have a pram.’
Poppy tried to elbow him as she passed. ‘You try carrying a baby in the peak of summer. My parking choices were completely justifiable.’
‘It’s okay.’ James patted her on the shoulder. ‘I forgave you instantly.’
It was like his hand left an imprint on her. Something ballooned in Poppy’s chest and she tried to quash it. The conversation, the casual touching; this was veering into something she couldn’t put her finger on and it was making her nervous. When had this truce sneakily emerged? She was supposed to hate him. Poppy racked her brain for one of those conversation starters to change the subject. Should she ask his views on organised religion?
James got in first. ‘Do you have plans this morning?’ he asked, pulling a scrubbing brush from the cupboard under the sink. The sunlight through the window had transformed his hair from dark blond to honeyed gold.
Poppy nodded. ‘I’ll put on the baby carrier and go for a hike. Maeve loves a walk. As in, she loves to sleep while I walk. It suits both of us.’
‘Do you reckon …’ He trailed off. ‘Nah, don’t worry.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
Poppy narrowed her eyes. His blank-faced man-of-mystery routine was so annoying. ‘Tell me,’ she said.
James turned on the tap and began scrubbing the bowls. ‘I was going to ask if I could join you with Eileen. But it’s okay. I know you wouldn’t want that.’
Poppy bristled. ‘Don’t presume to know what I want.’
‘So you want me to come?’
Poppy felt a familiar twinge of frustration in her rib cage. Did he practise this reverse psychology?
‘I can grab Eileen and be back here in half an hour,’ said James, his inflection halfway between statement and question.
Poppy dropped the play mat in front of the couch and lowered Maeve onto her back. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Sure.’ This wasn’t entrapment; she had implied he could come, and now he’d offered to come. She just wasn’t sure she wanted him to—or if she’d purposefully made him think that she did. Had she? She stared at the garish colours underneath her daughter. She had to remember not to be so ambiguous around this guy. Somehow, he had the power to make her second-guess her every word.