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Poppy Hollingworth

Poppy Hollingworth is an aspiring novelist, specialising in general fiction and life writing. She recently graduated from the University of Warwick with a 1st-Class Honours Degree in their BA English Literature and Creative Writing Programme and is currently a student of the Goldsmiths MA Creative and Life Writing Programme. Poppy has been writing since she was nine years old and is currently working on two novels: A Story About and This is a Book. She also writes poetry in her spare time and maintains an active poetry account on Instagram.

Email: poppy_hollingworth@hotmail.com

Phone Number: 07951 383950

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poppyannhollingworth/

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A Story About

 

Part 0: A Story About Before We Begin

 

Maxim was an amazing person, who was sometimes a bit of an asshole. Or maybe he was an asshole, who sometimes did amazing things.

Maybe he was just an amazing person.

Maybe he was just an asshole to me.

Maybe I’m projecting.

Maybe Maxim was nothing more than a normal eighteen-year-old boy, about to finish high school, about to go to university, about to make new friends, meet new people, and explore the world.

Maybe Maxim was someone extraordinary.

Maybe it depended on who knew him.

 

When Maxim was thirteen years old, he decided that he wanted to dye his hair hot pink. The school told him that he couldn’t because it was against school dress code. So, Maxim went away and drafted a proposal to raise money for breast cancer. If he managed to raise five hundred dollars then he would dye his hair. He presented this proposal to the school principal.

It turns out that it’s pretty difficult for someone to say no to a thirteen year old who’s willing to do something like that.

The principal conceded.

And so, Maxim set out to raise money.  All of his friends donated, all of his friends’ parents donated, all of his teachers donated; he even went around the neighbourhood knocking on people’s doors.

Maybe Maxim had the kind of smile that made it difficult to say no to him.

He ended up raising nearly six hundred dollars in aid of breast cancer.

He and Mum went to the supermarket, bought a bleach kit and some pink hair dye, and dyed his hair in the kitchen sink.

He squealed when the cold water from the tap hit the back of his neck.

“It’s cold!”

“Oh, you’re fine,” Mum said as she held his head down. “And stop struggling, you’re making my kitchen dirty.”

Maxim was the kind of person who was brave enough to dye his hair hot pink but was terrified of cold water dripping down his back.

But maybe that’s just called being normal.

I didn’t donate any money to Maxim’s charity. At the time, I also had the underneath section of my hair dyed hot pink, and a small part of me was convinced that Maxim was stealing my thunder. I never voiced these thoughts aloud and Maxim never asked for them.

Pink hair suited him.

He had the kind of smile that made it difficult for things to not.

 

When Maxim was seventeen years old, he got his driving license and a parking permit and asked for a car in which to drive himself to school. Mum let him use the old 2005 Kia Sedona Minivan, complete with DVD player and seven seats. It was the car in which she had taught Maxim and me to drive and the only car she didn’t care if he mistreated. (It had been written off after a hailstorm two years earlier. Apparently, it was only worth two hundred dollars. It was worth even less after Maxim was finished with it.) For reference, it was not a cool car. For Maxim’s eighteenth birthday, his two best friends gave him magnetic flame decals that he stuck on either side of the minivan.

They didn’t make the car any cooler.

There was a girl at Maxim’s school who was very particular about the spot in which she parked her own car and also, about who parked next to her: it always had to be her best friend. They were those sorts of girls.

Maxim was the kind of person who found those sorts of girls incredibly irritating.

During one lunch break, Maxim was driving back from buying takeaway and saw that this girl had also driven off-campus to pick up food. So, he parked in her spot, her favourite parking spot, even though it was further away from his next class.

Then, he got out of his car, stood in the middle of the car park like an old-fashioned policeman, and directed his fellow students into very specific parking spots so that it was completely impossible for this girl to park anywhere near to her friend.

The girl knew it was Maxim who did this.

Probably because he told her.

Maxim was the kind of person who had a single dimple in the centre of his right cheek. It only appeared when he laughed or was trying not to.

Maxim was the kind of person who could never hide his smile.

Because even if his mouth didn’t move, his dimple would appear, cheeky and winking.

A lot of people hated that dimple.

A lot of people loved it.

Even more people did both.

 

Maxim was my brother. He was my father’s monster, my mother’s cherub, his teacher’s Max, his friend’s dude. He was my granny’s darling, my grandad’s Big Max, and my other grandmother’s Daniel (when she got all the cousins confused).

He was one person and he was thousands. He was the same and different to all of us.

There was a part of Maxim that none of us knew. A darkness none of us could touch and a lightness none of us could attain. There was always something just out of reach to anyone who was not him.

Maybe it was hiding in his dimple.

Maybe now, it is hiding in Mum.

I’ve never thought to ask.

 

Maxim was a person. Maybe it doesn’t matter if he was amazing. Maybe it doesn’t matter if he was normal.

Maxim was alive.

Maxim was kind.

Maxim was an asshole.

Maxim made grand gestures.

Maxim body slammed me onto the living room floor.

Maxim let me hug him when I was cold because he was like a living radiator.

Maxim ignored me when I wanted his attention.

Maxim talked incessantly when I just wanted to be left alone.

Maxim never remembered to message me when I moved out of home to go to university, and

Maxim would have been there in half a second if ever I said that I needed him.

 

Maybe Maxim was just Maxim.

Maybe it was nothing more extraordinary than that.

 

Part 1: A Story About How I Got to Where I Didn’t Know I Was Going

 

Where are you?

I turned my phone screen off. It buzzed and lit up again almost immediately. This time the text read:

 Reply to me.

 I pretended not to see it.

“Who is it?” Luke walked into the room, carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses.

“Just my dad.”

“What does he want?”

“Nothing.”

Luke sat down on the other end of the sofa to me. He held the wine bottle tightly between his thighs, working at it with his cheap, elderly corkscrew.

Fuck’s sake.” He had split the cork, the silvery tip of the corkscrew scraping against the neck of the wine bottle.

“It’ll be fine,” I said. “Just try again.”

The cork came out in three parts. A little bit fell into the wine. We would have to fish that out later. Luke poured me my first glass. It was red, and glugged out of the bottle in pulses, thick and opaque. He put the glass down and then filled the second one, lowering his head to make sure the amount of wine in each one was equal.

“Cheers.” He held up his glass and I tapped mine against it. The sound of crystal against crystal chimed through the room, only to be muffled against our lips as we drank.

The wine was thick in the back of my throat. I swallowed and it was rough.

When Luke and I first met, he only ever drank white wine. I was the person who properly introduced him to the world of reds. After that, he never looked back. I watched him drink, watched the edges of his lips as they started to stain purple.

“You’re staring,” he said.

“Sorry.” I drank some more. I swished the wine around my mouth so that my teeth would be indigo when I smiled. “I need to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk,” Luke said. “I’ve had a bad day.”

“Well, I do want to,” I told him. “It’s about what happened last night.”

“What about it?”

“Luke, I was on a night out. With my own friends. And then your friends eavesdropped on my conversation and – and they reported back to you.”

“And?”

“Luke, you can’t do that.”

“Welcome to small town life.”

“But we’ve broken up.” I had another drink, a bigger gulp this time. I closed my eyes and could feel the wine, velvety rough on my tongue. “You can’t monitor me like this.”

“We have broken up.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He smiled and there was wine in the corners of his mouth, collecting on the dry skin of his lips.

“Yes,” I said. “We have.”

“But you’re still here.” He tasted like red wine when he kissed me, and I was sure I tasted the same when I kissed him back. He put his glass of wine on the floor and moved both of his hands to my waist, dragging me closer.

“Now’s your chance,” he whispered in my ear. “Is there anything my friends may have overheard that might make me angry? It’ll be better if you tell me first.”

I sat still in his lap; my torso warm against his. I drank more wine. Luke had texted me earlier that day to tell me that his friends – friends who I had never met – had seen me in the pub the night before. His friends had listened in on my conversation with my own friends. I had been talking about a couple of guys I’d been chatting with. Conversations I’d been having since Luke and I broke up.

“I was messaging Tim and Jake,” I finally admitted.

“Cool.” Luke stiffened. I leaned away. “I’m glad that you were talking to my two least favourite people.”

My phone buzzed on repeat, inching its way across the side table with each vibration. Dad was calling me.

“Are you going to answer?” Luke asked. He still had his hands on my waist; I could feel his thumbs pressing again the underneath of my ribcage.

“Maybe I should.” My finger hovered over the green button at the bottom of my phone screen.

“Or…” he kissed my cheek. I put my phone back down.

 

After we had finished our first glasses of wine, Luke handed me the bottle and I poured another two. We drank these ones a little more slowly than the first. If I closed my eyes then I could pretend the wine was satin, wrapping my tongue like a Christmas present. I leaned my head against Luke’s shoulder, and he put his arm around my shoulders.

My phone rang again, and the wine was so soft in the back of my head that I almost couldn’t hear it.

“How was your weekend in London?” Luke asked. “Did you meet your Mum okay?”

“I did. Her flight landed early so we both managed to get to St. Pancras at about the same time.”

“And she left today?”

I nodded. “She’s staying with my grandparents in Sheffield for a bit now.”

“When does she go back to Dallas?”

“I’m not sure. In a couple of weeks maybe.”

“When do you go back to Dallas?” He looked at me through his eyelashes.

“Easter holidays.” I drank the remaining dregs of my wine. Luke already had the bottle of wine in his hand and gave it to me to finish it off.

“Are you excited to go back?”

“Very.” I finished filling the glasses and looked up at him, twisting my head at a strange angle to see him better. “It’s my home.” He put his hand underneath my chin and tilted my head back to kiss me. The wine in my stomach whispered its approval and I opened my mouth to kiss him back. I could feel my neck creak as I strained to reach his mouth.

“We’ve broken up,” I said when we parted for air.

“We have,” he agreed and then he kissed me harder.

“We can’t keep doing this,” I said. He pulled me up, back onto his lap and held my hair away from my face.

“But we are.”

“It’s got to stop.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re not acting like we’ve split up, Luke.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” He fed me wine from his own glass. A drop spilled over my lips and dripped off my chin. I wiped it away with the back of my hand. My phone buzzed as a message came through.

“Maybe you should check it,” Luke said. “It might be important if your Dad is still messaging.”

With a sigh, I looked at my notifications bar.

 

            Where are you???

            Do you know where Mum is?

            Get Mum to call me.

            Call me.

            Poppy, call me.

           

I frowned as I read through Dad’s stream of messages. Almost as though he knew I was looking at my phone, he called again. This time, I answered.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at Luke’s.” I frowned and put my glass down on the table beside me. “Are you okay?”
“You need to leave.”

“What?”

“You need to go back to your house and pack.”

“Pack?” I blinked. I could feel the red wine sitting in the back of my skull, heavy and numbing. “Pack for what?”

“To fly to Dallas.”

“When am I going to Dallas?”

“Tonight.”

“What’s going on?”

“Just trust me. Go and pack.”

I was silent for several seconds. So was Dad.

“For how long do I need to pack?”

“Two weeks.” He hung up without another word. I messaged him:

 

What’s going on?

I can’t tell you. He responded instantly. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you. You can’t be alone.

I’m not alone, I typed. I’m with Luke.

I’ve got in contact with Mum. She’ll be with you soon.

I didn’t respond.

Go and pack, he sent another message. Mum will be with you soon.

My fingers shook as they hovered over my phone screen. I swallowed, and it was as though the red wine had solidified in a lump in my throat.

Try not to panic, sweetheart.

I won’t panic if you tell me what’s going on.

I’m sorry. That was all his last message said. I’m sorry. But sorry for what? My phone began to buzz again, but this time, with a call from Mum.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?” Her tone was calm and collected, but something about it didn’t sound like hers. It was as though someone else had climbed into her mouth and was controlling her tongue.

“I -I’m still at Luke’s.”

“How long will it take you to get to your house?”

“About two minutes. Mum, what’s going on?”

“Okay. I need to you to pack. Can you do that for me?”

“I know, Dad told me. Mum, why are we flying to Dallas?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. Granny and I are in the car now. We’ll be at your house in an hour.”

“But why can’t you tell me now?” I wished I could keep my voice as calm as Mum’s, wished I could borrow the person who had stolen her voice.

“I just,” and here was where her voice started to crack, a hairline fracture in her words, “I just have to tell you when I see you. Poppy, my love, please trust me.”

I opened my mouth but forgot to speak.

“We’ll be at your house soon. You need to be ready and packed.” Mum hung up the phone.

I stumbled when I got to my feet, the half a bottle of wine suddenly rushing to my head.

“I need to go home,” I told Luke. “Now.”

“I’ll drive you.”

 

I hadn’t bitten my nails since I was seven years old. During the drive home, I chewed a hangnail on my thumb, yanking it loose with my teeth. I licked away the blood that dripped down towards my wrist and it was warm and salty, and tasted like red wine.

Once we reached my house, I went inside without waiting for Luke. He followed me. I stood in the middle of my bedroom, the biggest room in a house for five people, a room I was proud of, a room that I temporarily was calling home.

It had never felt smaller.

“Something’s going on,” I said aloud. “Something is wrong. Something has happened.”

“You don’t know that,” Luke tried to tell me.

My phone buzzed. Another message from Dad:

Where are you???

I told him that I was back at my house and was about to start packing.

Good, he typed.

Please, I said, you have to tell me what’s going on.

I’m sorry. Mum will tell you everything. Stay strong. I’m sorry.

Sorry. The word bounced around in my head. Sorry. It didn’t make sense. Sorry. No one had to apologise. Sorry.

Why?

What happened?

I’m sorry.

I didn’t know what to do.

 

I didn’t realise that I was lying on the floor until Luke pulled me into his lap. I didn’t realise I was crying until he wiped my tears away with his thumb. I leaned away from him.

“I need to pack.”

“Just sit for a minute.”

“No.” I wiped my own tears, so roughly that I got my eyelashes wedged underneath my eyelids. It burned to cry, and even more to blink.

“Poppy, just sit.”

“No!” I pushed Luke’s arms away from me, disentangling myself from his grasp. “Leave me alone.”

“I’m not going to,” he said softly. “Not when you need me.”

I don’t need you, but I didn’t say that out loud. It took me about forty minutes to pack everything; I rammed any item of clothing that came to hand into my suitcases, shoving so many clothes inside that I had to sit on each case to zip it closed.

“Something’s wrong,” I told my bedroom, my suitcases, my coat, Luke.

“I know.” His voice was soft.

“Something’s happened.”

“I know.”

“Something bad.”

“I know.”

“But what?” I looked at him, at where he sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But you’re about to find out.”

“Nothing can have happened to Grandad,” I said. “Because we wouldn’t fly to Dallas for that, we’d go to Sheffield.”

“True.”

“And nothing’s happened to Mum or Granny because they’re driving to get me.”

“Also true.”

“And Dad seems fine as well.”

“He does.”

Mum called me again. I answered on the first ring.

“We’re about fifteen minutes away,” she said.

“Okay. I’m all packed.”

“Good. We need to drive back up to Sheffield so Granny and I can get our things. Our flight is at six a.m. tomorrow morning.”
I looked at my watch. It was about half nine. “Is there enough time?”

“There has to be. See you soon.” She hung up.

“Did she tell you anything?” Luke sat on the floor next to me. I shook my head. “Nothing at all?” he pressed.
“No!” I snapped. And then quieter: “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise.” He held out his hand and I leaned away from his touch. He retreated with a sigh. “Any other ideas as to who it could be about?” Luke rethought his word choice. “Or what?”

Suddenly, my mind went as clear and as empty as an ocean without wind. Crystalline as the Mediterranean.

“Maxim,” I whispered. How had I forgotten about Maxim?

“What about him?”

“He’s the only one I haven’t heard from. And he’s the only one who’s still in Dallas.”

“Your Dad’s in…?”

“New York,” I explained. “Business trip.”

“Is he flying to Dallas now as well?”

“He must be.” I pulled my hair, scratched at my scalp. “No one is telling me anything.”

“Have you tried messaging Maxim?”

“Not yet.” I looked down at my phone with a new sense of distrust.

“Do you want to try?”

“Maybe.” But that was a lie. I didn’t want to. And I couldn’t explain why. I tried to force myself to turn on my phone and open up my chat with Maxim. To ask him if he knew why our parents were acting like psychos. Then, I remembered something.

“It can’t be about Maxim,” I said, relief ringing like a bell.

“Why not?”

“Because he’s gone on a day trip with his friends today. He asked Mum last night if he could skip school and she said it was fine.” I turned my phone off and placed it face down. “So it’s not worth even trying to message him. He won’t respond to me if he’s busy.”

“There, see.” Luke placed a hand on my shoulder. “Everything will be all right.”

Before I could reply, my bedroom door flew open and Mum and Granny raced inside. I stood up and we all faced each other, a strange triangle of wild eyes and unanswered questions.

“How did you get in?”

“Your housemate was smoking outside and let us in,” Mum said. She walked across the room and held onto my arms with each hand, so tightly that I couldn’t move, and I could feel her fingernails like claws against my skin. She was calm, so calm that she was pale, but her eyes were streaked with red.

“Sit down,” Mum told me. Her voice was calm. We both knelt down on my bedroom floor, knees touching, bones bumping.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

“You remember that Maxim was supposed to be going out for the day with Melanie and Natasha today?”

“Yes.” I looked away from her before I could drown in her calm, red eyes. “Did he have fun?”

“He didn’t turn up at Natasha’s house at the time that he promised. They phoned him and he didn’t pick up.”

“Stop.” My voice was a whisper.

“So, they went to the house.” Mum ignored me. “The back door was unlocked, and they went up to his bedroom. He was unconscious in bed.”

“Stop it.”

“They called the police.”

“No.” Why wasn’t she listening to me? Why wasn’t she stopping? Shut up, shut up, shut up, a phrase like an emergency siren, wailing against my skull.

“The police came to the house. An ambulance was there as well.”

I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t listening anymore, but the words got caught and knotted on my tongue.

“He was pronounced dead on arrival.”

“No.” I pulled away, ripped her claw hands off my arms. “No.” My eyes were dry; had I forgotten how to blink? “No.” I rocked back and forth. The carpet was so hard against my knees, rough against my skin. “NO!”

Maxim was eighteen years old.

“He’s not dead,” I told Mum.

He had played in a piano recital just the day before.

“He’s not,” I told her again.

He was going on a day out with his friends today.

“HE’S NOT,” I bellowed the words; they started at the bottom of my stomach and exploded from my mouth. “HE’S NOT DEAD. HE’S NOT. HE’S NOT DEAD.”

I had messaged him. Yesterday. And he had responded to me. We had spoken. He was alive.

Maxim Hollingworth was.

Not.

Dead.

 

 

 

Part 2: “Funeral Blues” – W.H. Auden[1]

 

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

 

Maxim performed this poem for a school project when he must have been about ten years old. He performed it to an audience of other students and their parents.

He performed it because it had always been Mum’s favourite poem. She used to tell us that she wanted this poem to be read at her funeral.

And Maxim had always promised her that he would.

As a part of his presentation he held a strand of snowflake fairy lights entangled in his hands.

“The stars are not wanted now,” he read aloud, “put out every one.” And he turned each snowflake off.

One.

By.

One.

 

 

Part 3: A Story About Becoming a Different Person

 

“He’s not dead,” I whispered to Mum.

“I know,” she whispered back. “They’re lying to us. They’re all lying.”

“He’s not dead.”

“He isn’t.”

“He’s not, not, not dead.”

“I know.” Mum said again before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. She held my hands in hers and her fingers were warm. “That’s why we’re flying back tonight. So we can see for ourselves that he’s not.”

“I messaged him,” I whispered. “I messaged him yesterday.”

“Then message him again.” Mum stroked my cheek with one hand, cupping my face with her palm. She hadn’t done that since I was a really little girl. “Message him and tell him that we’re all coming home. That we’re going to see him soon.”

Finally, I was able to open mine and Maxim’s chat on my phone.

Heya, I typed. You ok??

He didn’t respond.

“We need to go,” Granny reminded us gently from the corner in which she had been standing. I hadn’t looked at her properly until now. Her eyes were also red. All three of us stared at each other with eyes like red wine, drowning ourselves in velvet.

“We do.” Mum stood up. “Let’s get your cases in the car.”

“I need to brush my teeth,” I announced.

“Okay. Try and be quick.”

Downstairs, I shut myself in the bathroom.

“He’s not dead,” I told my hands as they put toothpaste on my toothbrush.

“He’s not dead,” I told my face as it stared back at me from the mirror.

“He’s not dead,” I told the sink, stained and grey with mouldy toothpaste.

Luke opened the bathroom door and walked inside.

“He’s not dead,” I told him. Luke put his arms around me. He made my world too small with his body and suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

“Stop.” I pushed him away.

“It’s okay.” He opened his arms again, ready to take me back into them.

“Stop.” I walked away and left him behind, arms reaching and empty.

Back upstairs, Mum was on the phone to Dad. I had one final look around my bedroom. On the mantlepiece was the little figurine that Maxim had given me for my eighteenth birthday. He had bought it on a family holiday to Miami the summer before.

Maxim was eighteen years old.

I picked up the figurine and it fit perfectly into the palm of my hand, its blue and green hair curved against my fingers and its bright yellow shoes stopping just before my wrist.

“Are you ready?” Mum asked me after she hung up on Dad. I nodded. I put my hand in my pocket and the figurine fit perfectly inside there as well.

“Wait.” Luke caught hold of my hand. He brought me closer to him and gave me another hug.

“Keep texting me, okay?” he said. “I’m not going to sleep tonight. I’m going to keep talking to you. And I can get a flight out to Dallas whenever. Just give me the word.”

I got into the backseat of the car, Mum got into the passenger seat, and Granny drove the three of us away.

I didn’t bother with my seatbelt but rather, stretched myself out across the backseats, pretending to be asleep so I could convince myself I wasn’t crying. I pressed the figurine against my mouth, and it smelled like paint and plastic.

“He isn’t dead,” I whispered to my little rainbow figure. He smiled without response. The plastic heart on his chest was big and it was red.

It looked like red wine on the edges of someone’s lips.

 

He’s gone, I sent to Luke a few minutes later. He’s gone.

I’m sorry, he replied.

Suddenly, something Luke said to me before we drove away flashed through my head. I got my phone back out and sent another message to Luke:

Please don’t come to Dallas.

But I want to.

No. Don’t. Promise me that you won’t.

I want to be there for you. I want to help you. You can’t deny me this. Please.

My lungs were too big for my chest. Too small for my breath.

You can’t come, I typed. Please.

Okay, he replied. Fine. I promise I won’t do anything until you’ve at least landed in Dallas.

I sighed and put my phone away. In that moment, I knew I would never see Luke again. Finally, we had managed to split up for good.

I was a different person now.

The Poppy who couldn’t leave Luke alone, who couldn’t stop going around to his house and drinking his wine: she was dead and long gone. I was a new Poppy, birthed in the split second that my life changed forever. And I didn’t need Luke, nor did I want him.

He and I had finally split up.

But I never could have imagined that it would take something like this to get here.

 

 

 

 

 

[1] https://allpoetry.com/Funeral-Blues