The Polly Principle by Davina Stone

Chapter 17

Polly was sitting in the occupational therapy craft room slathering a large cardboard “7” with gold paint. She could easily have bought the numbers 70 at a party shop, all covered in glitter for ten dollars, but somehow it felt important to make them herself.

She hadn’t gone to so much effort for Dad in years, even though he’d done his best to hand out the olive branch. Maybe it was time…

Everyone else had gone home, except Judith, who was flitting around tidying up after the art therapy session. Polly flicked her a glance. The last two days Judith had seemed a little more cheerful, her shoulders less defeated. Polly had even caught her humming to herself.

Surely Judith wasn’t getting back with Mark?

It happened all the time though, didn’t it? People deciding to break up, then backing away from the finality of it all and limping on for another round. Even deciding to have a baby, as if that would magically fix things. And then there it was, another innocent little life brought into the mix.

Mum had told Polly once, in her totally insensitive way, that she was the result of a make-up fuck. That if Polly hadn’t come along, Mum would have left years before.

She was just one huge mistake, responsible for prolonging her parents’ misery.

Polly swiped too much paint onto the brush and watched it dribble a big arc across the table.

“Tsk.” Judith was by her side with a cloth. “Put some newspaper down, you mucky pup.”

“What are you so chirpy about?” Polly commented darkly. And then wanted to unsay it, because it broadcast the fact that she was personally about as chirpy as a crow with a broken wing. Of course, she was happy that Judith’s mood had improved, just not if it involved that douchebag Mark.

Judith gave a little giggle.

Polly put down her paintbrush with a suspicious frown. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“You haven’t taken him back, have you?”

“Technically, he hasn’t gone anywhere to take him back from. I mean, he’s still living in the house, we just have separate rooms.”

“Jude, I really don’t like the sound of this.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“What then?”

Judith fussed around washing paintbrushes and laying out paintings to dry.

“You haven’t agreed to give it another go, have you?” Polly asked suspiciously. “Don’t believe him if he says he wants to try again; it’s just fear of change, not a change of heart.”

“I know, I know. In fact, Carts warned me about tha—”

“Carts!” Polly’s eyes popped wide. “When did you see Carts?”

Judith was hiding behind her hair. “I bumped into him in Woolworths. We had a discussion about whether you could make that fake mince taste as good as real mince in a spag bol. I said you could and Carts said you couldn’t.”

“Really.” Polly couldn’t help a little smirk. They would probably have both talked that through for a good ten minutes, very seriously.

“Yes. And then he asked me how I was going and I—um—burst into tears. Which was kind of embarrassing over a tray of Cumberland pork sausages.”

Polly’s eyebrows flew up. Judith kept hiding behind her long, blonde hair.

“I can hear what you’re thinking, Polly,” she said after a moment. “And of course I’m not going to do anything rash. It’s just that he’s nice. And kind. And he listens like he’s interested in what I have to say. I’m not used to being listened to.”

Polly gripped the paintbrush and zipped her lip. She’d been just about to tell Judith it was too early, and that besides, Carts was not the kind of guy to have a rebound relationship with. But seriously, as if she was in any position to pass judgement. Her head had been going round and round for the past week over Solo’s revelations. The evening had started off fun and turned heavy, and she’d been so close to asking him home and humiliating herself. It had come as a shock when he’d gently but firmly turned her down, not in words, but certainly in actions. Never had a peck on the cheek felt more like a slap.

He’d been friendly but distant ever since. The vibe was nothing close to what they’d had. And the truth was, she missed it like crazy. Missed the touch of his hands, missed his lips, missed his kisses, those eyes weaving themselves into some crazy place inside her that she thought she’d managed to stamp out for good.

She’d not slept properly; she’d even lost her appetite. At least that was a small bonus. She’d got on the scales this morning and found she’d lost two kilos. In a week. A week!

Any other time she’d be air-punching.

As an act of defiance, she’d gone partying with some old friends from university on Friday night, a crowd who she saw less often but who were fun and frivolous. Sure, it had been a blast and she’d had a humdinger of a hangover on Saturday morning, but it hadn’t filled the space inside her that had Solo written on it.

Somehow—when she’d finally dragged herself out of bed to get some shopping—she’d found herself in a craft shop, staring at knitting needles, because if you were going to be an auntie, you had to knit something for the baby, didn’t you? But after the mess she’d made of a single blanket square, the poor kid would probably be a teenager before Polly got something finished. And worse, she kept seeing Solo’s hands in her mind’s eye, and what she had them doing didn’t remotely resemble knitting.

So work had ticked by with stilted conversations over morning tea and Solo rushing off after PTSD group yesterday saying he had something urgent to do. What was urgent at 9.30 on a Wednesday night? Officially, she was losing her mind.

Sighing, Polly laid the 7 out to dry and started on the 0.

“Carts is a really nice person,” she said without knowing whether she meant it as a warning or encouragement.

Clearly Judith saw it as the latter. “He said yoga might help, that it really calmed his mind after a major break-up. Do you know what happened?”

Polly made a careful stroke with her brush. “He got engaged, or rather, didn’t. Anyway, he’s… he’s not that lucky with women.”

Judith swivelled, surprise on her face. “Why ever not?

“Way too nice.”

“Oh, that’s sad. He’s got lovely eyes.” Judith removed her art apron. “Anyway, I said I might see him there tomorrow night. The Thousand Petalled Lotus, at the surf club on the beach.”

“Jude, your voice has got that sing-song note it gets when you’re pretending you don’t want a piece of Leon’s apple strudel.”

Judith skipped around with jam jars of paint water, clattering them into the sink. “Why don’t you come too?”

Polly looked at her askance. “You’re joking, right?”

“No, you’ve been really jumpy lately. I reckon some deep breathing would do you a world of good.”

What she needed, Polly decided glumly, was some wild tantric sex. With somebody who seemed to have opened all her chakras, then slammed the lid shut when he got to the most important one.

But maybe Jude was right. She needed to centre herself. Regain her inner focus and re-align herself with her single status.

Which was why, Friday after work, Polly found herself lying with her back supported on a bolster, arms out to the side, palms up and her legs in a weird, froglike pose, feeling like she was at a pre-birthing class.

“Breathe deep into your belly…. feel it expand… now let the breath go in three stages… belly… ribs… shoulders. Fully empty the lungs of air… Beautiful… That’s right. Imagine the air reaching your fingertips as you breathe back in.”

The woman sounded like she was in some kind of mesmeric trance. Polly squeezed her eyes closed, because otherwise she’d see Judith or Carts doing the same weird froggy thing and she might get the giggles.

Like this, with her bits practically swinging in the breeze, it was hard not to think about Solo. How could he totally open up to her and then suddenly withdraw? In fact, if you wanted to really explore it, that’s what they’d done since they met, hadn’t they? Both of them. Night one, Solo exited the stage; night two, she’d done a runner; potential night three, there she was slathered against her car door, panting, and he’d turned and walked off.

So now she knew who the guy in the photo was. And it filled in some pieces of the puzzle. But not all of them.

Because who the bloody hell was Em?

He wasn’t telling her everything.

Oh, shit, now where was she? Breathing in or out, ribs or belly?

She wriggled her back into the bolster, which started her thighs cramping. This was actually really anxiety-provoking. Not at all freakin’ calming.

Focus on Miss Mesmeric.

After what felt like an hour of pan pipes, Polly was practically ready to claw her Lululemons off. She rolled off her bolster in an ungainly heap, rolled up her mat and was out of the room already waiting when Carts and Judith exited.

They were both looking remarkably floaty and enlightened. Which clearly meant the problem was with her.

“That was divine,” Judith enthused. “All the tension has left my body. Just from doing nothing but breathe for an hour.”

“Fern’s an amazing teacher,” Carts replied. “I come in here all wound up and leave feeling like I’m walking six inches off the ground.”

It was tempting to say he’d hit the ceiling if that was the case, but Polly’s nasty little demon needed to be kept in check. What the hell was wrong with her?

Whatever it was, restorative yoga wasn’t the fix she needed.

Carts said, “Why don’t we go for a quick drink at the pub?”

“Won’t that undo all the good?” Judith frowned.

“No way,” Polly said, suddenly feeling much brighter. “I think it would be the perfect end to the evening. I’m happy to OM before I take a sip of gin and tonic.”

“Silly,” Judith said, but she was playing with her messy up-do and glancing sideways at Carts from under her lashes.

“Would you like to?” he asked Judith shyly.

“Oh, all right then. You’ve twisted my arm.”

If that was a twist,thought Polly, I’m a yogi.

Before long they were seated at a table at the Shamrock, yoga mats at their sides, a pint of lager, a glass of mimosa, a gin and tonic, and a dish of peanuts in front of them.

For the first time in a week, Polly actually felt her shoulders relaxing.

Carts settled next to Judith. “I thought we should even up the numbers,” he said. “So I messaged Solo and he’s coming to join us.”

Polly nearly bolted out of her chair. “Oh, you didn’t need to do that. I’m not staying and then there will be three of you again, so all that trouble for nothing.” So awkward. And her showing off her blubber in her Lululemons, too. Though her baggy T-shirt covered the worst of her thighs.

Which was utterly crazy since she didn’t seem to have a problem about her thighs when they were wrapped starkers around Solo’s butt. Maybe he was right, maybe she did have a case of distorted body image.

Carts and Judith both gave her puzzled looks. “But you said you had nothing on this evening.”

“Got to finish planning for Dad’s birthday.”

“Wow, that’s sounding more and more like a military exercise,” Judith said. She turned to Carts. “Polly has made a banner for her Dad’s birthday party. It looks pretty but she’s messier than a three-year-old when she paints.”

Carts smirked indulgently at Polly then gave Judith a moony look. “I’d love to be more artistic. I’m like, colour by numbers. Could you teach me?”

“I’m not really an art teacher, I do art therapy.”

“Like that ink-blot stuff?”

“Rorschach, you mean?”

He nodded and Polly felt like she was in the exclusion zone.

“Not really. That’s more psychologists’ realm, and it’s not used much anymore. No, I use art as a means of helping people to express their emotions, you know—grief, sadness, anger. Getting the feelings out onto paper can really help.”

“Wow.”

“And you’re an accountant, aren’t you?”

Oh, here it went, the sussing out a potential partner game.

“’Fraid so, hence the lack of artistic genius.”

Judith gave a cute shrug. “Doesn’t follow. People don’t slot so neatly into categories. Why shouldn’t you be an artist and an accountant? I bet there’s hidden talent in there.”

Carts blushed.

Polly started to plan her escape—maybe the ladies’ loo window? Either that or another drink. She should leave, before Solo got here, but… she drained her glass. “Anyone for another?”

“We’re fine, thanks,” Judith and Carts chimed in unison. Polly did an internal eye-roll as she sidled over to the bar. She waved a desperate hand at Paddy, who was still serving someone else and winked at her.

He was finally coming her way when his gaze shifted over her shoulder and a voice that made her toes curl said, “I’ll get these. What’ll it be, Polly?”

Arggghhh. She wanted to gnaw on the fist holding up her twenty-dollar note.

“Oh, hi there,” she tried for casual but it came out as a squeak. “I’m fine to buy my own.”

“I know you’re fine to buy your own.” The patience in Solo’s voice would have been admirable with a toddler on the verge of a tantrum. “But I’m offering.”

“Right.” She felt too weak-kneed suddenly to put up a fight. “Gin and tonic then. Thanks.”

Even after a yoga class, two drinks wouldn’t be considered over the top, not in the circumstances.

“I’ve hardly seen you all week,” he said, leaning on the bar next to her.

Huh, it wasn’t her who’d dashed off on Wednesday night after the PTSD group, was it?

“Oh, you know how it is with a full ward, we’re all running around like headless chooks.”

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s been pretty crazy.”

They took their drinks and went and sat back down.

There followed another twenty minutes of Judith and Carts hitting it off big time, and Polly and Solo sitting quietly and rather awkwardly sipping their drinks. When Judith made moves to go, Carts jumped up just as Polly did the same.

“My car’s parked near yours,” Polly gritted through tight lips. “I’ll walk with you, Jude.”

Judith didn’t look enthused by the idea. “Really, Poll, I’m fine.”

Carts was jangling his own car keys. “Yep, I’m actually going. I’ll walk you. Bye, guys.”

Judith flashed him an exclusive show of teeth, leaving Polly gaping after them as they left, both instinctively ducking at the doorway.

“Interesting body language,” Solo said as she sank reluctantly back down.

She stared at the squished bit of lemon at the bottom of her glass. “I’m not sure it’s a good thing.”

“Why not?”

“Judith’s not ready yet, and Carts is always ready.”

Solo laughed in a way that made her body tingle from head to toe.

“I told him after Alice to back off women for a while and he did fine. He focused on his own wellbeing, hence the yoga. But he’s smitten with Judith. And if events were different, I’d probably say they’re well suited, but…”

“Quite a matchmaker for someone who doesn’t believe in love.”

She shrugged. “I make no secret of the fact that I enjoy it for other people. It’s just, I think I happen to be—”

“What?”

“Incapable.” It came out almost on a little sigh, not how she’d meant it at all.

“I don’t think I buy that.”

Polly tightened her lips one more notch. “Believe it or not, it’s the truth.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Because of your mum and dad? Our parents aren’t our destiny.” She flicked her eyes up and saw that delectable sideways twist to his lips. “Otherwise I don’t give much for my chances.”

She huffed out a laugh. “They fuck you up, your mum and dad.”

“Ha, not only your parents. I reckon there’s more to this than you’re telling.”

Her scalp prickled. “Like what?”

“Like something—or someone else.”

Polly scoffed, way too loudly. “God, you love to dig around, Dr J.” She turned to face him on the bench and hoisted a leg up, held onto her ankle. His eyes flicked to her sheeny leggings then away quickly.

Yep, he was still interested. One up to her.

“Okay, I’ll make a deal,” she said. “You tell me your heartbreak and I’ll tell you mine.”

His chin retracted and his eyes clouded for a second. “Not sure if that’s fair. You’ve got a lot more dirt on me so far than the other way round.”

“Oh, come on, I’ve told you all about my fucked-up childhood.”

“Hardly. You’re a tightly closed book masquerading as a full-page spread.”

The obvious double meaning made her smirk and he grinned up from under his lashes. It was disconcerting how he seemed to get her, but it felt good somehow, like a pair of warm arms enveloping her.

She drew in a big breath. “Okay. The reason I left home at sixteen was, yeah, I couldn’t stand being around Dad, and partly because of a guy.”

“Knew it!”

She cast him the stink-eye. “Stop looking so smug. It’s not that incredible a deduction. Teenage girl, unhappy at home, looking for an out. Go figure.”

They grinned at each other.

“Okay, so I was pretty infatuated, I’ll admit it. Gave the bastard my virginity. I thought I was in love. He was a musician. Danny O’Dougherty; played in a band called Streets of Dublin. Irish, of course, super-cute, and did the bastard know it. I met him when his band was on a tour of outback pubs. He’d finished his tour in our town, so he stayed on for a month or two working on Dad’s farm. He basically seduced me. Told me I was his everything and, guess what? My sixteen-year-old hormonal brain believed every word. So I followed him to Perth. Only to turn up at his house to find Danny’s naked butt grooving on top of some other desperate little groupie.”

“Jesussss!”

She flicked him a glance, saw those silver eyes spark, and it made her heart do a hop and skip.

“What did you do?”

Polly pushed the hair away from her face with both hands. “In a very un-me-like fashion, I backed quietly out of the room and sat down in an alley and cried for three hours.”

He didn’t speak, but his eyes were immeasurably soft and that made a little hiccup of pain rise up in her throat. Amazing how you could plaster it all over until someone cracked you open so that all your gooey middle was ready to spill out.

“Then I went and got a tattoo.”

“The, er, one, on your…?”

“Yep, my serpent. It cost me most of the money I’d brought with me, but I didn’t give a rat’s. And then I went looking for a job. I got turned down by about twenty places and then I walked into this weird, second-hand book shop, with this big blonde woman bustling around inside. She took one look at my face, said ‘you poor little darling, in you come’… and that was it… that was my new mummy hen.”

“That’s whose house you live in now?”

Polly nodded, swirled the ice in her glass. “Rowena Montgomery. And Alice, her daughter, is my very best friend.”

“And she’s the one in England with her fiancé, who you—”

“Yes, but that’s a long story.”

Solo smiled. “For another day, right.”

“So, now I’ve bared my soul, how about you? Who broke your heart, Dr J?”

He stared into his pint for long moments. “I had a long-term girlfriend since university.”

She’d known as much. He was rebounding. “Did it end recently?”

“Roughly nine months ago.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “We grew apart. I guess we were like Judith and her boyfriend. Comfortable. We’d been together a long time.”

“So was it you or her? Who broke it off?”

He was stroking patterns in the condensation on his glass, his head averted. She saw a muscle tic in his jaw. He’s not over her, she thought.

“Her. But I could see the sense of it.”

“Very magnanimous of you.”

He gave a downturned smile and she just couldn’t leave it there. “Was there another guy involved?”

“Nope.”

He was lying, you didn’t need a degree in social work to tell that. Suddenly, she didn’t want to play this game anymore. There were sharp little needles stabbing into her chest.

“I see,” she said. “You know what, two G&Ts on top of yoga and I’m pooped. I think I should go home.”

“Yes. Right. I’ll walk with you.”

“Nice of you to always offer, Dr J, but I’m quite capable…”

“You think I want to sit here drowning my sorrows on my own?”

She felt her shoulders sag. “I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to have another heavy conversation.”

“Maybe we should do something fun for a change?” he ventured.

Her heart betrayed her by bumping hard against her ribs. “What— you mean now?”

“No, not now, over the weekend, maybe? I don’t know, maybe we should go somewhere, out into the bush, explore a bit.”

She sighed and gathered up her belongings. She wanted to say it was too confusing, all this advancing and retreating. Like some kind of weird dance that neither of them knew the steps to.

“Oh, I don’t know… you know how I don’t date—”

He finished for her “—work colleagues. Yes, you told me already.”

Which was a joke really, after the other night, and they both knew it.

As they made their way onto the street, Solo moved ahead, walking backwards in front of her, arms spread wide. “Come on, we enjoy each other’s company, what’s to lose? I’m only here for a short time, we’re good together”—he waggled his eyebrows and she couldn’t help laughing—“and we’re both walking wounded apparently, so…”

She tilted her chin. “Speak for yourself. My wounds are long healed, thank you.”

“Okay, scarred then. And both big, grown-up people; we know the score. Why not enjoy some no-strings time together?”

Why not indeed? She had no logical argument against it. At the end of his locum, Solo would go back to Sydney, and she’d… she’d go back to being a party girl. Yeah. No strings attached, a free spirit.

She tossed a raft of curls over her shoulders. “Okay, what have you got in mind?”

“How about we go for a bike ride?”

“Put me on the back of that thing? You have got to be joking!”

“Have you ridden pillion before?”

She actually hadn’t. In all her adventures she’d never once been on a motorbike, not even Joe’s dirt bike on the farm.

“No. Besides, how could I? You don’t have another helmet do you?”

“No, but I can get you one. Just let me have your head measurements and I’ll buy you one.”

“For one ride?”

“Maybe it’ll be more. Who knows?”

Her spirits lifted. Yes, it would be fun. And lovely to get out of Perth, go up the coast to the pristine northern beaches. The weekend after this was Dad’s party and that wouldn’t be fun at all, so spending time with Solo, maybe even in bed afterwards… Her body buzzed suddenly like a kid who’d just been promised a ride on the big dipper.

She beamed up at him. “Okay, then you’ve got a deal.”