Read the book: «The Postcard: Escape to Cornwall with the perfect summer holiday read»
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Copyright © Fern Britton 2016
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Jacket illustration © Shutterstock.com
Fern Britton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007562978
Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780007562985
Version 2017-12-21
Dedication
To my darling Winnie, with lots of purrs, Mumma.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Part One: Winter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Part Two: Spring
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
The baby was crying. Penny listened. Would her mother hear? She opened her eyes wide but could see nothing in the deep blackness of her small bedroom. She rolled over to face the closed door. The perfect line of light from the landing barely illuminated the carpet. She heard the door of the drawing room open downstairs and the soft tread of her mother ascending. There was the comforting ‘shush’ of her mother’s stockinged legs as they brushed together approaching Penny’s door, walking past, then headed into her baby sister’s room.
‘Have you had a bad dream, darling?’ her mother murmured.
Penny listened and caught the rustle of baby Suzie being gathered from her cot and into her mother’s arms.
Suzie had stopped crying and was snuffling. Penny heard the kisses and imagined them being dropped onto Suzie’s soft scalp and downy hair.
‘Mummy’s here, darling. It was just a naughty old dream. Now where’s Bunny?’
Penny, five years old, tightened her hold on her own teddy, Sniffy. She pulled him into her arms and sniffed his flattened, furry ear. She whispered to him, ‘Suzie has had a bad dream. She’s only got Bunny but I’ve got you.’
Eventually Suzie was soothed back to sleep and her mother walked back and past Penny’s room. Penny called, ‘Night-night, Mummy.’
She got no reply.
1
Penny Leighton didn’t feel right. She hadn’t been feeling right for a long time now. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she had felt right.
She was lying in her big marital bed. The Cornish winter sun had not yet risen and she could see the dark sky through a crack in her exuberant poppy curtains. She’d thought them so cheerful when she’d bought them. She looked at them now and closed her eyes.
She had to get up. She had an important call to take at eleven o’clock. She opened her eyes and squinted at her phone. Ten to seven.
‘Morning, my love.’ Simon stirred and reached under the duvet to put his hand around her waist. ‘How did you sleep?’
She closed her eyes. ‘Hm.’
‘Is that a hm of yes or a hm of no?’
‘Hm.’
‘Did Jenna wake up?’
Her look said it all.
‘Oh dear. Why won’t you wake me? I’m more than happy to see to her.’
‘Then why don’t you?’
‘I don’t hear her.’
‘There doesn’t seem any point in us both being awake then.’
Simon thought better than to reply. Penny had not been herself recently, quick to criticize, withdrawn and moody. He’d felt the sharp side of her tongue too often of late. He decided to make some coffee and bring it up to her but the act of shifting the duvet, even slightly, caused her grievance. ‘Why do you always pull the bedding off me?’ She pulled the duvet tight around her chin. ‘It is winter, you know.’
‘I didn’t mean to. Coffee?’
Penny knew she’d been unkind and rolled over to face him as he sat on the edge of the bed, back towards her, slipping on his T-shirt from the day before. She reached out and stroked the side of his hip. ‘I’m sorry. Just a bit tired. I’d love some coffee, thank you.’ He stood up and she let her arm fall back onto the sheets.
She said, ‘I do love you, you know.’
He ran his hands over his bald head and picked his glasses up from the bedside table. ‘I know. I love you too.’ He smiled at her and, putting a knee onto the mattress, leant over to kiss her. She put her hands on either side of his face and returned the gentle kiss. ‘Coffee, tea or me?’ she smiled. From across the landing came the grizzly morning cry of their daughter, ‘Mumma? Dadda?’
‘Shit!’ groaned Penny.
Simon eased himself back off the bed. ‘I’ll get her. Stay there and I’ll bring you your coffee.’
Penny had her coffee in the luxurious silence of her peaceful bed. Winter in Cornwall held a quiet all of its own. No tractors would be out until the sun came up. No bird would be stirring in its nest and no parishioners would be beating their way up the vicarage path to give Simon another burden of responsibility. Finishing her coffee she stretched and wriggled back down into the warmth of her covers. She’d wait five minutes, just three hundred tiny seconds, she said to herself, and then she’d feel strong enough to get up and face the day.
Unable to put off the inevitable any longer, Penny tore herself out of bed and stared into the bathroom mirror. First she examined the two spots on her chin and then the circles under her eyes. She stood sideways and lifted her nightie to see her pale and wobbly tummy. She’d seen fewer pleats in the curtains of the local cinema. Whose stomach was this? She wanted her own returned. The firm and rounded one that she’d taken for granted for all those pre-baby years. Dropping her nightie and shrugging on her dressing gown, which still smelt of Marmite even after a wash and half a day hanging on the line in the sun, she slopped down to the kitchen.
Jenna was in her high chair and Simon was attempting to spoon porridge into her. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ he said encouragingly.
Jenna opened her mouth and grinned. Pushing her tongue out, she allowed the cereal to ooze down her chin. Simon spooned it back in.
It came out again, and before Simon could catch it Jenna had put her hands into it and rubbed it into her face and hair.
‘Would you like a banana, then?’ he asked, reaching for a baby wipe.
Jenna shook her head. She had just turned one. ‘Mumma.’
‘Mummy’s a bit tired,’ said Simon.
Penny sat at the table. ‘Too right Mummy’s tired.’
‘Get this down you.’ Simon passed her a fresh cup of coffee. ‘A caffeine hit should make everything look better. By the way, I’ve emptied the dishwasher for you.’
Penny gave him a cold stare, suddenly irritated again. ‘You’ve emptied the dishwasher for me? Why for me? Because it’s my job, is it? The woman’s job is to empty the dishwasher? Is that it?’
‘Oh Penny, you know what I meant. It’s a figure of speech. Like when you tell me you’ve done my ironing for me.’
‘Well, that is for you. It’s yours. Do you ever do the ironing for me?’
Simon took his glasses off and began polishing them. ‘You know what I mean.’
Penny picked up Jenna’s breakfast bowl. ‘Come on then, monster, have your porridge.’
Jenna obligingly opened her mouth and tucked in.
Simon, returning his glasses to his face, tried a cheerful smile. ‘Good girl, Jenna, you wouldn’t do that for Daddy, would you?’
‘Why do you refer to yourself in the third person?’ asked Penny. ‘Don’t say Daddy, say me.’
‘It’s just a fig—’
‘A figure of speech.’ Penny popped the last spoonful into Jenna’s mouth. ‘Everything is a figure of speech to you, isn’t it? Pass me the wet wipes.’
She expertly mopped Jenna’s face and hands, hoping that Simon felt inadequate watching just how deftly she did it, then lifted her from the high chair and handed her to her father.
‘I’m just going for a shower,’ she said.
He looked anxious. ‘How long will you be?’
‘As long as it takes.’
He looked at the kitchen clock.
‘Well, I can give you ten minutes then I have to go.’
‘You can give me ten minutes? How very generous.’ Penny went to leave the kitchen.
‘Sarcasm does not become you,’ Simon blurted.
‘That wasn’t sarcasm,’ she threw over her shoulder. ‘Sarcasm takes energy and wit and I am too tired for either.’
Walking up the stairs was an effort. Her body was not responding to the caffeine. Everything was an effort nowadays. She looked forward to nothing, she laughed at nothing, her brain felt nothing. Nothing but an emptiness that – and may God forgive her – even Jenna’s dear face couldn’t always fill.
She turned on the shower, stripped off her nightclothes, stood under the hot water and cried.
The morning crept on. By ten thirty Penny had Jenna washed and changed and back in her cot for her morning sleep.
Simon had gone off to his parish meeting about the upcoming Nativity service, complaining that he’d be late, and porridge bowls still sat in the sink under cold and lumpy water.
Penny was in her room dragging a comb through her newly washed hair. She badly needed a cut and a colour, but trying to find a couple of hours when someone could mind Jenna was hard. She stared for the second time that day at her reflection. God, she’d aged. Crow’s feet, jowls, a liver spot by her eyebrow … She’d had Jenna when she was well into her forties and it had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. Harder even than leaving her life in London.
In London she had been somebody: a busy, single, career woman; an award-winning television producer with her own production company, Penny Leighton Productions.
Now she hardly knew who she was. Again she felt guilty at how horrible she’d been to Simon. Taking a deep breath she slapped on a little mascara and lip gloss and vowed to present him with steak and a bottle of wine for supper.
She got downstairs and into her study two minutes before the phone rang on the dot of eleven. Penny took a deep breath and plastered on a cheery persona.
‘Good morning, Jack.’
‘Hello, Penny, how is life at the vicarage treating you?’
Jack Bradbury was playing his usual game of feigned bonhomie. He laughed. ‘I still can’t believe you’re a vicar’s wife.’
‘And a mother,’ she played along.
‘And a mother. Good God, who’d have thought it. How is the son and heir?’
‘The daughter and heir is doing very well, thank you.’
‘Ah yes, Jenny, isn’t it?’
‘Jenna.’
‘Jenna … of course.’
The niceties were achieved.
‘So, Penny …’ She imagined Jack leaning back in his ergonomic chair and admiring his manicured hands. ‘We want more Mr Tibbs on Channel 7.’
‘That’s good news. So do I.’ Penny reached for a wet wipe and rubbed at something sticky on the screen of her computer. Jenna had been gumming it yesterday.
‘So, you’ve got hold of old Mave, have you?’ asked Jack.
‘I emailed her yesterday,’ said Penny.
‘And how did she reply?’
‘She hasn’t yet. The ship is somewhere in the Pacific heading to or from the Panama Canal, I can’t remember which.’
Jack sounded impatient. ‘Does she spend her entire bloody life on a cruise? Does she never get off?’
‘She likes it.’
‘I’d like it more if she wrote some more Mr bloody Tibbs scripts in between ordering another gin and tonic.’
‘I’ll try to get her again today.’ Penny wiped her forehead with a clammy palm. She wasn’t used to being on the back foot.
‘Tell her that Channel 7 wants another six eps, pronto, plus a Christmas special. I want to start shooting the series in the summer, ready to air in the New Year.’
‘I have told her that and I’m sure she wants the same.’
‘I’m not fannying around on this for ever, Penny. David Cunningham’s agent has already been on the blower. Needs to know if David will be playing Mr Tibbs again or he’ll sign him up to a new Danish drama. And he’s asking for more money.’
‘I want to talk to you about budget—’
‘You bring me old Mave and then we’ll talk money.’
‘Deal. I’ll let you know as soon as I get hold of her.’
‘Phone me asap.’ He hung up before she said goodbye.
Old Mave was Mavis Crewe, an eighty-something powerhouse who had created her most famous character, Mr Tibbs, back in the late 1950s. Penny had snapped up the screen rights to the books for peanuts and the stories of the crime-solving bank manager and his sidekick secretary, Nancy Trumpet, had become the most watched period drama serial of the past three years.
Penny’s problem was that she had now filmed all the books and needed Mavis to write some more. But Mavis, a law unto herself, was enjoying spending her unexpected new income by constantly circumnavigating the globe.
Penny rubbed a hand over her chin and found two or three fresh spiky hairs. She’d had no time to get them waxed and, right now, had no energy to go upstairs and locate her long-missing tweezers.
She pushed her laptop away and laid her head on the leather-topped desk. ‘I’m so tired …’ she said to no one, and jumped when her computer replied with a trill. An email.
TO: PennyLeighton@tlx.com
FROM: MavisCrewe@sga.com
SUBJECT: Mr Tibbs
Dear Penny,
How simply thrilling that Mr Tibbs is wanted so badly by Channel 7 and the charming Jack Bradbury. It really is such a joy to know that one’s lifework has a fresh impact on the next generation of viewing public.
Another six stories, and a Christmas special? But my dear, that is simply not possible.
I wrote those stories years ago as a young widow in order to feed my family. Mr Tibbs has done his job, I’d say and I don’t have the patience to think up more adventures for him.
Can you not simply repeat the old ones?
Yesterday we went through the Panama Canal. Absolutely extraordinary. Very wide in parts and very narrow in others. We are now sailing in the Pacific and stopping off at Costa Rica tomorrow. Why don’t you drop everything and join me for a few weeks? Enjoy our spoils from dear Mr Tibbs.
With great affection,
Mavis Crewe CBE
Penny couldn’t move. She read the email again and broke into a cold sweat. No more Mr Tibbs? Put out repeats? Go and join her on a cruise? Did the woman have no idea that so many people’s careers were hanging in the balance because she couldn’t be arsed to write a half-baked whimsy about a fictional bloke who solved the mystery of a missing back-door key? Anger and frustration coursed through her. She pressed reply and started to type.
TO: MavisCrewe@sga.com
FROM: PennyLeighton@tlx.com
SUBJECT: Mr Tibbs
Dear Mavis,
If we have no more bloody scripts there is no more Mr Tibbs. Do you want to throw away all that you’ve achieved? I certainly am not going to let you. The end of Mr Tibbs would mean the end of your cruising and the end of me. PLEASE write SOMETHING! And if you won’t do that, I shall have to find someone else to write Mr Tibbs for me, with or without your help.
Penny
She hovered over the send icon. No, she needed time to think. She couldn’t afford to fall out with Mavis. She must sweet-talk her round. She pressed delete and began again.
Dear Mavis,
How lovely to hear from you and what a fabulous time you must be having!
I respect your wishes to put Mr Tibbs ‘to bed’ as it were. He has indeed served you well and given much pleasure to our viewers.
Which brings me to a difficult question. If you won’t write the next six episodes and a Christmas special, someone else will have to. Before I find that special someone, do you have anyone you would prefer to pick up your nib? Someone whose writing you admire and that you feel could imitate your style?
No one could be as good as you, of course, but this could be an exciting new future for the Mr Tibbs’ franchise as I’m certain you agree.
With all my very best wishes – and have a tequila for me!
Penny xxx
She read it through once and pressed send.
‘Right,’ she said to the empty room. ‘The office is now shut for the day’. She switched off the computer and threw her iPhone into the desk drawer. ‘I am going to eat cake.’
*
Jenna always woke from her morning nap at about twelve thirty, so Penny had some fruit cake with a milky cup of coffee and flicked through a magazine, all the while feeling a creeping anxiety about how Mavis would react to the email. Mavis was no pushover and would recognize Penny’s bluffing for what it was. She was beginning to regret sending it. But what was the worst that could happen? Mavis refusing point-blank to write anything? So what. Penny would do as she threatened, find a new writer, pay them a quarter of Mavis’s fee, and stuff her.
She heard Jenna’s little voice calling from her cot upstairs.
‘Coming, darling!’ responded Penny, and she put all thought of Mavis out of her head.
Penny loved Jenna with a fierceness that was almost as big as the fear she had that she was not good enough to be her mother. She would gladly die for her, but the endless hours of playing peekaboo and looking repetitively at the same old picture books, pointing out the spider or the mouse or the fairy, was killing her. There were days when she couldn’t wait to put Jenna to bed and then, while she was sleeping, would be riven with the horror of not being good enough.
Repetitive.
Exhausting.
Mind-numbing.
Frightening.
Nerve-shredding.
She watched in envy as the young mums in Pendruggan appeared to revel in picnics on the village green, swimming lessons, tumble tots, musical games and the endless coffee mornings with other women trading their inane chatter.
Penny had been invited to one once. As vicar’s wife she tried to do the right thing, but the amount of snot and sick and stinking nappies – not to mention stories of leaking breastpads and painful episiotomies – really wasn’t her thing.
The truth was she missed work when she was with Jenna, and she missed Jenna when she was at work. Her love for Jenna was overwhelming, so big that it was impossible to connect with it, but …
She missed an organized diary, a clear office with regular coffee, and power lunches.
She missed flying to LA. She missed being in control of her life.
And she missed her London flat.
She had kept it on when she married Simon, telling him that it would always be useful, a bolthole for both of them, although neither of them had been there since Jenna was born.
But Jenna was here now. Here to stay. How could Penny be lonely with this beautiful, perfect, loving little girl who depended on her for everything? Penny looked at her daughter, sitting in her pram, ready for a trip to Queenie’s village shop, just for something to do. She bent down and tucked the chubby little legs under the blanket. ‘It’s cold outside.’ Jenna lay back and smiled. ‘I love you, Jenna,’ said Penny. Tears pricked her eyes. She angrily wiped one away as it escaped down her cheek.
‘Mumma,’ said Jenna. She held her hands out to Penny. ‘Mumma?’
‘I’m fine. I’m fine, darling,’ Penny said with a tight throat. She found a tissue in her coat pocket and wiped her face. ‘Now then!’ She stretched her mouth into its trademark grin. ‘Let’s go and see Queenie, shall we? She might have some Christmas cards for us to buy.’
‘’Ello, me duck.’ The indomitable Queenie was sitting behind her ancient counter opening a box of springy, multicoloured tinsel. ‘’Ere, ’ave you ’eard the latest?’
‘Nope,’ said Penny. ‘It’d better be good because I’m starved of news. Jenna’s not too good a raconteur yet.’
‘Ah, she’s beautiful. Wait till she does start talkin’ – then you’ll want ’er to shut up. Give ’er ’ere. And pull up a chair. You look wiped out.’
Penny sank gratefully into one of the three tatty armchairs that had appeared recently in the shop. Queenie liked a chat and most of her customers enjoyed a sit down.
‘This chair’s very comfortable,’ sighed Penny, sinking into the feather seat.
‘Ain’t it? Simple Tony got them for me over St Eval. Someone was chucking them out.’ Queenie sat down with Jenna on her lap and Jenna reached up to pull at the rope of pink tinsel Queenie had thrown round her shoulders. ‘Real pretty that is, darling, ain’t it? When you’re a big girl you can come in ’ere and ’elp me get all this stuff out.’
Jenna crammed a thumb in her mouth and sucked it ruminatively.
Penny shut her eyes and enjoyed the peace. ‘Tell me the gossip then, Queenie.’
‘Well, you know Marguerite Cottage what’s just behind the vicarage?’
‘Oh God, yes. The builders have been making a racket for months.’
‘Well, I had the estate agent in here the other day. Come in for her fags. Silk Cut. Not proper fags at all but that’s what she wanted. Anyway, I asks her, “Oh, who’s buyin’ Marguerite, then?” and she says, “It’s been let for a year by two fellas from up country.” I says, “Well, good luck to ’em if they’re ’appy together.” And she says, “One of them is a doctor and the other an artist.” So I says, “Stands to reason. These gay boys are very arty and nice-natured.” And she says, “They’ve got dogs, too.” And I turn round and say, “Well, they always ’ave dogs.” And she turns round and says—’
Queenie stopped mid-flow and looked at Penny. ‘Oi, Penny, ’ave you fallen asleep?’
2
The following morning Simon crept out of bed and left Penny snoring quietly. She hadn’t been sleeping well at all since Jenna had arrived, but she always refused his offer to share the night-time feeds. He knew how tired he was with a baby in the house, so goodness knows how tired she was. Simon stood on the landing and looked through its curtainless window. From here, in the winter before the trees were in leaf, you could just see the sea at Shellsand Bay. The waning moon was low in the sky and spilling its silver stream onto the dark waves. It was so peaceful. He sent a prayer of gratitude for his wife, his daughter and his life.
Downstairs he put the kettle on and, while he waited for it to boil, he tidied up the previous day’s newspapers. Tomorrow was recycling day.
He enjoyed the order of recycling and was fastidious about doing it correctly. He opened the paper box. Someone – Penny presumably – had put a wine bottle in it. Swallowing his annoyance he picked it out, replacing it with the newspapers, then opened the box for glass. It was almost full. He counted eight wine bottles, not including the one in his hand. All were Penny’s favourite. He put the lid back on and stood up. So this was why Penny had been so moody. She was drinking.
Too much.
She had always liked a drink. When they first met she had never been without a vodka in her hand. But she’d settled, and although enjoying the odd glass of wine, he had not seen her the worse for wear since she’d been pregnant with Jenna.
Upstairs, he woke her gently. ‘Coffee’s here, darling.’
Penny opened one eye. Her wavy hair was over her face and she pushed it out of the way as she sat up. ‘Thank you.’
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
She looked at him with suspicion. ‘Fine. How are you feeling?’
‘Good. Yes. Very good.’ How was he to broach this new and tricky subject? ‘Shall I buy some more wine today? I think we’re low on your – our – favourite.’
‘Are we? We polished off a bottle with the steak last night, I suppose.’
Simon thought back to last night. She had been halfway down a bottle of red wine by the time he got home. ‘Yes,’ he said carefully.
‘Well, if you’re passing the off-licence, get some.’ She took the coffee cup he was proffering.
He took a mouthful of his own coffee. ‘We seem to have got through the last lot of wine quite quickly. And you are still breast-feeding.’
She gave a heavy sigh. ‘Oh, I see. Are you lecturing me?’
‘Heavens, no.’
‘It sounds like it.’ She put her cup down and got out of bed. ‘I need a pee – and, as it happens, an aspirin. I have a headache.’
He pushed his glasses a little further up his nose and looked at the carpet.
‘Don’t give me that attitude.’ She glared at him. ‘I have a headache, not a hangover.’
The morning followed its usual routine. Penny treated Simon with the cool indifference that had recently become second nature to her. (When had that habit started, she wondered.) And he trod round her as if on eggshells. Eventually he left the house to do God knew what and Penny saw to Jenna.
Jenna was washed and dressed, breakfasted, entertained and put down for her nap. She was overtired and it was making her silly and difficult. Penny checked her forehead. ‘Is it those naughty teeth?’ she asked. Jenna nodded her pink-cheeked face and a string of drool dribbled from her mouth. ‘Poor old Jen.’ Penny kissed her daughter’s damp head. ‘I’ll get the Calpol.’
Cuddled on Penny’s lap, Jenna suckled at Penny’s breast while keeping a sleepy eye on the picture book being read to her. She fell asleep before the end giving her mother a chance to drink in the sight, sound, and smell of her. The overwhelming love Penny had for Jenna hurt. It also filled her with a kind of panic. She had never been the maternal type and had honestly thought that she would never marry. She had had endless unsuitable affairs with glamorous and handsome men, not all of whom were single, but she hadn’t ever imagined falling in love with someone. Or someone falling in love with her. But both things had happened when she’d found Pendruggan, the ideal location for Mr Tibbs. She had been cruel to Simon when she’d first arrived, had thought him a parochial innocent, a drippy village vicar, wearing his vocation on his sleeve.
He had originally been keen on her best friend Helen, who had just moved into the village. Penny had teased him, but Cupid had shot his arrows capriciously. The oddest of odd couples fell in love and were married. That was a miracle in itself, but Simon’s God had one more surprise for them. Jenna. Penny leant her head back on the Edwardian nursing chair and looked around the nursery: soft colours and peaceful, the Noah’s Ark night-light that the parishioners had presented to them on Jenna’s birth, the cot given to her by her godparents, Helen and Piran, the photograph of Penny’s father. How he would love his granddaughter. And next to his picture, legs dangling over the shelf, was her love-worn Sniffy, the bear her father had given her when she was a baby.
Penny shut her eyes for a moment and felt the familiar stab of grief. She missed her father every day. In her unsettled childhood he had meant everything to her, until he died. She spoke to him, ‘Daddy, look how lucky I am. Jenna, Simon, success.’ She felt her throat tighten. ‘Why aren’t I happy, Daddy? Can you help me to feel happy? Help me to be nicer to Simon? A good wife?’
Once Jenna was tucked into her cot, Penny felt drained; if the pile of laundry on the landing hadn’t been winking at her she’d have gone back to bed. The aspirin was working on her hangover but not her spirits. She heard the sound of raking from the garden and closed Jenna’s door. Looking out of the landing window she saw Simon, returned from wherever he’d been, raking leaves on the back lawn. His breath was steaming in the chill air. He looked happy creating neat piles. He stopped for a moment, aware of her gaze. He waved up at her. She waved back and debated whether to take him out a cup of tea as a peace offering.
She took the tea out to him and gave him a kiss.
‘What have I done to deserve this?’ he asked, pulling off his warm gloves.
‘It’s a thank you,’ she said. ‘And an apology. I am so sorry I’m being a cow to live with. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
He put an arm around her waist and hugged her. ‘You’re just a bit tired. We both are. Babies do that, apparently. You’ll be fine.’
‘Will I?’
‘Absolutely. By Christmas you’ll be as right as rain.’
Penny nuzzled into the comfort of Simon’s old gardening jumper. ‘I don’t want to hear the C word.’
Simon kissed the top of her head. ‘Well, there’s a few weeks to go yet and Jenna is old enough to sit up and enjoy it this year. You’ll bring her to the Nativity service, won’t you?’
‘Only if I can put her in the manger and leave her there.’ She looked at Simon to check his reaction. ‘Only joking. Of course I’ll bring her. She’ll enjoy seeing her daddy at work.’
Penny had commandeered the vicarage’s old dining room as her office. Her desk sat under the big Victorian sash window through which the December sun shone weakly. She swung on her new office chair, watching the dust motes that sallied in the air. An estate agent might call this a ‘handsome room with tall ceilings, wood panelling, and magnificent large fireplace’. Which was true. But it was also very cold. She thought about lighting the fire but couldn’t muster the energy to find newspaper and kindling.
She opened her laptop and plugged in the charger, then fished her phone from the drawer where she’d chucked it yesterday.
There was a text from her best friend, Helen.
Hiya. Piran and I wondered if you and Simon would like to go into Trevay one night this week for a bite to eat. We’ll go early so that Jenna can come too. I need a cuddle with my goddaughter! H xx
Penny read the message twice. Helen had been Penny’s friend for almost twenty-five years. They’d worked together as young secretaries at the BBC and Helen had married a handsome womanizer with whom she had two children. Finally, tired of the repeated humiliation of finding the lipstick and earrings of other women in his car, she divorced him, left Chiswick, and found her paradise in Pendruggan, in a little cottage called Gull’s Cry, just across the green from the vicarage. She was now happy with the handsome but difficult Piran.
Penny’s eyes filled with tears again at the thoughtfulness of her friend. ‘We’ll go early so that Jenna can come too.’ Helen knew how hard Penny found it to leave Jenna with a baby-sitter, the anxiety she felt about being apart from her little girl.
Helen understood Penny’s determination to be a better mother to Jenna than her own had been to her.
She replied. ‘Darling, how lovely. I’ll talk to S. xxxx’
She put the phone back in the drawer – ringer off – and checked her emails. She scanned to see if there was one from Mavis. There wasn’t. What did that mean? Had Mavis read the email or not? A cold sweat of anxiety swept over Penny again. Oh God! If she didn’t get Mavis to write more scripts she’d have to find a writer who could do them in a similar style. And quickly. And if that didn’t work there would be no more Mr Tibbs, no more work with Channel 7, and she’d be a laughing stock in the industry, all her old foes sniggering and toasting her downfall. She shivered as a ghost walked over her grave. She remembered something Helen had once said to her, ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean to say people aren’t out to get you.’
She pulled herself together and replied to all the easy emails, deleted the rubbish ones, and left the others for later.
She heard the back door swing open and Simon’s voice. ‘Darling?’ he called. ‘Any chance of another cuppa?’
She dropped her head into her hands and took a deep breath. She forced a smile onto her face and called back, ‘Perfect timing. I’m just finished here.’
As it was almost lunchtime, the cuppa turned into scrambled eggs on toast. Jenna was still sleeping and both husband and wife were greatly appreciating the unexpected peace.
‘By the way,’ said Penny, ‘I had a text from Helen. She’d like us to go to dinner in Trevay with her and Piran. Early, so that Jenna can come too.’
‘That sounds good.’ Simon put his knife and fork together, wiping the last toast crumbs from the corner of his mouth.
Simon sensed that Penny was in a better mood and felt confident enough to bring up a tricky subject. ‘Penny, I really do think a nanny to help you with Jenna is a good idea.’
Penny looked at him wearily. ‘No thank you.’
‘But it would be such a help for you. You could concentrate on your work, go for lunch with Helen, have your hair done. The other day you were saying how you dreamt of spending the day at a spa. Massages and all that stuff.’
‘I can do that when she’s older but not while she needs me.’
‘She’ll always need you. You are her mum and a very good mum. But I worry about you and—’
‘And you worry about how much I drink?’
Simon pulled an expression of regret. ‘Well, yes, if I’m truthful.’
Penny carefully put her knife and fork together and folded her hands in her lap and said as calmly as she could muster, ‘Maybe a little more help from you would be good. Once Jenna has gone to bed for the night, where are you?’
Simon bridled. ‘We’ve been through all this before. I have to work.’
‘I’ll tell you, shall I? Monday, confirmation class. Tuesday, bible study. Wednesday, the parish council. Thursday, sermon-writing night. Friday, the bloody under 16s disco night … Shall I go on?’
‘No.’
‘And now it’s almost bloody Christmas with all that entails! So which night is Penny night? Hm? Tell me.’
‘Well, that’s what I’m saying. We get countless offers from ladies in the parish to mind Jenna and I know you don’t want that. But if we had a nanny, someone you can trust, you could get out more. See Helen. It makes sense.’
Penny put her hands to her temples and squeezed hard. What Simon said made some kind of sense, but why couldn’t he see that she loved Jenna so much that no one could look after her like she did?
There was a loud knock at the front door. ‘I’ll get it,’ said Simon, relieved by the timely interruption, and left the kitchen to walk down the hall to answer.
The knock had woken Jenna and Penny went to get her.
Jenna’s dear face was pink and puffy with sleep. She put her arms around Penny’s neck and rubbed into her neck.
‘Hello, baby girl. Do you feel better after your sleep?’
Jenna looked over her mother’s shoulder and gazed out of the window. ‘Woof woof,’ she said.
‘Woof woof to you too, my love. Now, shall we change your nappy? Then have some nice lunch? Hm?’
‘Woof-woofs,’ said Jenna, pointing at the window. Penny glanced down and saw two languid Afghan hounds sniffing round the garden. One cocked its leg on the old apple tree and the other was squatting on top of a heap of Simon’s raked leaves with a look of serious intent.
Penny banged on the window. ‘Shoo! Shoo!’
The dogs looked up and the one who’d finished peeing wagged its tail and barked a greeting.
Hurriedly changing Jenna’s nappy and wrapping her in a warm shawl, Penny ran downstairs, calling for Simon.
She found him loafing by the gate, hands in pockets rattling his small change and chatting to three men in matching sweatshirts. They were laughing together, plumes of steam escaping their warm mouths and hitting the cold air. Behind them was an enormous removal van blocking the gate to the vicarage.
‘Woof-woof,’ said Jenna and started to giggle. Simon, hearing her, turned and said, ‘Ah, this is my wife, Penny, and my daughter, Jenna. Darling, these chaps have come all the way from Surrey. I said you wouldn’t mind putting the kettle on for them. It’s damned cold out here.’
Penny fought the urge to scream and said coldly, ‘There are two dogs fouling my garden. Are they yours?’
The oldest of the matching sweatshirts, the foreman Penny guessed, rubbed his cold hands together then pointed to a man who was trying to open the front door of Marguerite Cottage, and said, ‘They belong to him.’
A man in his early-thirties, scruffily dressed in old jeans and a T-shirt with a stripey jumper over the top, was patiently trying one key at a time from the bunch in his hand.
‘Excuse me!’ shouted Penny.
‘No need to shout, darling,’ said Simon, taking her arm. She shrugged him off. ‘How can he hear me otherwise?’ she hissed.
The man had got the door open and had turned to give the three removal men the thumbs up.
‘Excuse me!’ Penny shouted again. ‘Are these dogs yours?’
The man smiled and lifted his hand in an apologetic greeting.
‘I’m awfully sorry.’ He came towards them and held out his hand. ‘Hello. My name is Kit and I’m your new neighbour. I’m moving into Marguerite Cottage.’
Penny didn’t take his hand. ‘Would you please remove your dogs from my garden and clear up any mess you find? My daughter is learning to walk and I like to keep the garden clean and safe.’
‘Oh yes, of course.’ Kit kept up his warm smile. ‘I’m so sorry.’ He called to the dogs. ‘Terry, Celia – come here.’ The animals ambled towards him and allowed him to rub their ears.
‘Welcome to Pendruggan, Kit. I’m Simon.’ Simon held out his hand. ‘Lovely dogs.’
Kit shook Simon’s proffered hand. ‘Celia thinks she owns the world. She definitely rules me. Terry is very easy-going but don’t try to befriend him. If he likes you, you’ll know.’
‘Please don’t let them come in to my garden again,’ said Penny.
‘Woof-woofs,’ said Jenna, straining sideways to get out of Penny’s arms and down to the dogs.
‘No, darling, don’t touch them. They may bite,’ she ordered.
Kit smiled at her. ‘Well, they haven’t bitten anyone yet, but let’s not tempt it on our first meeting, shall we?’
Penny switched her attention to the removal men who were clearly waiting for their cup of tea. ‘How long will you be blocking our drive?’
‘I’ve said they can take as long as they like.’ Simon smiled. ‘It’s easier for everybody if they tuck in here, off the road. Marguerite doesn’t have easy access. And we don’t need to go out again today, do we?’
‘I may want to go out,’ Penny said through clenched teeth.
‘What for?’ smiled Simon.
While Penny was thinking of an answer Queenie, dressed in a moth-eaten fur coat and with a scarf wrapped round her head, approached them from the shop. She was going as fast as her arthritic hips would let her, keen not to miss out on a bit of village news.
‘I saw the lorry and I thought, “Ooh there’s me new neighbours.” I like to welcome anyone new to the village, don’t I, vicar?’
‘You certainly do. Gentlemen, this is Queenie who runs the village shop and is the fountain of all local knowledge.’
Queenie smiled and pretended to be abashed. ‘Oh, he’s a charmer is our vicar. Anyways, I bet you boys are ’ungry, so I’ve brought you some of me famous pasties. They’re yesterday’s, but I’ve heated them up so they’ll be fine.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said the chief removal man gratefully. ‘They’ll go down lovely with a cup of tea.’ He looked hopefully at Penny who refused to catch his eye.
Inside the vicarage, the phone began to ring. Penny passed Jenna to Simon. ‘I’ll get it. And don’t put Jenna anywhere near those dogs or their poo.’
Queenie watched her go. ‘She’s always busy, that one. I don’t think you’ll get a cup of tea out of her today. Eat them pasties before they go cold and I’ll go and make the tea. Come up to the shop in a minute, ’cause I can’t carry an ’eavy tray down ’ere.’
She patted the pockets of her original 1950s fur coat. ‘I nearly forgot. This ’ere is the post what’s come for the new tenants of Marguerite Cottage.’ She handed over several letters. ‘Most of them is the electric company and water and so on but one of them looks like a card. Probably welcoming them boys into their new ’ome.’ She screwed up her eyes and squinted through her rather greasy spectacles. ‘Doctor Adam Beauchamp and—’ Simon stopped her from continuing. ‘Queenie, this is Kit, our new neighbour. I think that post is for him.’
Queenie was unembarrassed. ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure. Our postman, Freddie, ’e’s ever so good, he asked me to look after these for you.’ She handed the envelopes to their rightful owner.
‘Thank you.’ He took them from her. ‘Those pasties smell awfully good.’
‘Oh they are,’ grinned Queenie. ‘Come with me up the shop and I’ll get one for you if you help me with the tea tray.’
‘It would be my pleasure. Do you mind if the dogs come too?’
‘Not at all. I ’eard you two had dogs. That’s lovely. Like children to you, I ’spect. By the way I’m not just the village shop, I’m the postmistress too, you know.’
Simon watched them go and felt it safe to let Jenna down from his arms.
Penny shouted at him from the front door, ‘Simon! Please come. Quickly. Something terrible has happened.’ She was pale with shock.
Simon picked up Jenna and ran to his wife.
3
‘What on earth is it?’ Simon steered Penny with one hand, all the while gripping Jenna who was wriggling under his opposite arm, into the drawing room. ‘Sit down and tell me.’
Penny sat shakily, her hands in her lap, her fingers weaving restlessly. She stared, unfocussed, at their wedding picture on the wall.
Simon waited.
‘Mumma?’ Jenna put her arms out and whined for reassurance. ‘Mumma?’
Penny spoke. ‘It’s my mother. An old friend just rang. Thought I should know. She’s dead.’
Simon frowned and put his hand on Penny’s. ‘Your mother is dead?’
Penny nodded, her face almost grey with shock.
‘Is she sure, your friend? How does she know?’
‘It was announced in the local paper.’
‘When?’
‘Last week, but she’s only just seen it.’
‘But why didn’t Suzie tell you?’
Penny shrugged helplessly. ‘We haven’t spoken since that terrible lunch. Maybe she thought I didn’t want to know? Maybe she thought I wouldn’t speak to her if she had called? Or maybe,’ she brushed a tear from her eye, ‘she’s punishing me just a little bit more.’
‘But, darling.’ Simon stood before her his hands in his corduroy trousers, out of his depth. Penny had never told him what had happened over that lunch. He hadn’t known her then and she had steadfastly refused to discuss either her mother or her sister since, other than that they were cut from her life. He said, ‘Maybe she just doesn’t know how to approach you? Could you ring her?’
Penny shook her head. ‘No. You are my family now, Simon. And I’m so grateful to you for loving me.’
‘Oh that’s the easy bit. You are very lovable.’ He put Jenna down. ‘You’re in shock. Your mother has died and you need time to process it all. There’s plenty of time to think about the future. How about a drink? Tea – coffee? Or would you prefer something stronger?’
Penny gave him a wry smile. ‘This morning I was drinking too much, wasn’t I?’
‘Yes, well. I think this calls for a drink.’
Instead of the kitchen he walked towards the drinks cupboard. ‘Brandy? I’ve some lovage cordial too – shall I put some in?’
Penny said nothing. Jenna climbed onto her lap and, putting a thumb in her mouth, stroked Penny’s hair.
‘Get this down you.’ Simon placed the glass in front of her.
*
Penny was just seven when her father had his first heart attack. That day she had woken early, about six, she supposed. The sun was already up because it was summer. She had heard the back door open and click shut. Her father must be checking on his greenhouse. She crept out of bed and just missed the creaking floorboard outside her mother’s bedroom. She stopped and listened for anyone stirring. All quiet.
In the garden the birds were busy chatting to each other and a fat thrush was pulling at an early worm. She threaded her way across the dew-soaked lawn, past the scented orange blossom bush and under the golden hop archway into the vegetable garden. There was her father, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, his eyes screwed up against the smoke as he tied up a stray branch of cucumber.
He jumped when he saw her and closed his eyes, holding his chest. ‘Oh my goodness, Penny. You gave me a fright.’ Then he laughed and she giggled as he held his arms out to wedge her on his hip, the cigarette still dangling from his lips.
‘Naughty, naughty,’ Penny admonished him.
‘Don’t tell Mum,’ he said conspiratorially, stubbing it out in a flowerpot.
She smiled. She liked sharing his secrets. ‘I won’t,’ she said.
‘Good girl.’ He looked up towards the house. ‘All quiet on the Western Front?’
She nodded.
‘Want a cup of coffee?’
‘With sugar?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Of course.’
In the far corner of his greenhouse was hidden a little camping stove, a bottle of water, jars of coffee and sugar and a tin of Carnation milk. There was also, hidden in a large cardboard box, a bottle of Gordon’s gin: another delicious secret that no one else shared.
The smell of the methylated spirits and the match as it caught the flame for the camping stove was intoxicating.
‘Do take a seat, madam.’ Her father snapped open a rickety folding chair and placed an ancient chintz cushion on the seat. She sat, her bare feet, with sodden grass stalks sticking to them, barely touching the gravel floor.
‘Are you warm enough?’ he asked. ‘You must be cold in your nightie. Here, would you like my cardigan?’
She nodded and enjoyed the warmth of his body heat stored in the wool as he draped it over her shoulders. The kettle was boiling and he made them drinks. He had two spoons of coffee, no sugar and black. She had one teaspoon of coffee, two of sugar and a large dollop of the condensed milk. She didn’t really like coffee but she didn’t want to hurt him by saying so.
He sat on an old wooden crate and pulled a serious face.
‘So, young lady, what have you got on at school today? Latin? Quantum Physics? Or a little light dissection?’
She giggled. ‘Daddy, I’m only seven. I’ve got reading. Sums, I think. Music and playing.’
‘A full and busy day then.’
She nodded. ‘Yep. What about you?’
He lit another cigarette. Rothmans. Penny thought them terribly glamorous.
‘Well, I’ve got to show a lady and a man around a very nice house that I think they should buy.’
‘Why do you think they should buy it?’
‘Because it is pretty, has a sunny garden, and their little boy will be able to play cricket on the lawn.’
Penny drank her coffee. The sugar and the Carnation milk made it just about bearable. ‘Can I come andsee it?’
‘No. Sorry, madam.’
‘Is it as nice as our house?’
‘Gosh, no. Ours is much nicer. And do you know why it’s nicer?’
Penny shook her head.
‘Because you live in it.’
‘And Suzie. And Mummy,’ she said loyally.
Her father stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Of course. Them too. Now, are you going to help me open these roof lights? It’s going to be hot today.’
For twenty minutes or so she helped him with the windows and fed the little goldfish in the pond and put out some birdseed while he pottered in the veg patch checking on the peas and lettuces.
They heard the back door open. Her mother stood on the step. ‘Mike? Are you out there with Penny?’
‘Yes, my love.’ He smiled and waved to his wife. ‘We’ve just been doing the early jobs.’
‘Well, come in or she’ll be late for school.’
Penny couldn’t recall the next hour or so, although over the years she had tried. There must have been breakfast, getting ready for school, kissing her mother goodbye and hugging her baby sister. But try as she might there was a blank. Her memory jumped straight from her father holding her hand as they walked back across the lawn, to the interior of her father’s car. It was big and dark green and the leather seats were warm under her bare legs. When it was just the two of them her father let her sit in the front next to him. Sometimes he let her change gear, instructing her when and how to do it. This morning was one of those days.
‘And into third. Good girl. And up into fourth.’
It was a happy morning. Even the man on the radio reading the news sounded happy. When the news ended and some music came on, her father lit another cigarette and opened his window, leaning his right elbow out into the warm air and tapping the steering wheel with his fingers. She was looking out of her window at a little dog walking smartly on a lead with a pretty lady in a pink coat when they stopped at the traffic lights. The noise and impact of the car running into the back of them was like an earthquake.
There was silence and then she started to cry. Her father asked in a rasping voice, ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes,’ she said through shocked tears.
‘Thank God.’ Her father, ashen, and with a sheen of sweat on his forehead, was finding it hard to speak, gasping for every word. Penny was scared. ‘Daddy? What’s the matter?’
Her father’s lips were going blue and his eyes were starey.
A man watching from the pavement ran towards them and spoke through the open window.
‘You OK, sir? I saw it happen. Wasn’t your fault, it was the bloke behind.’
Her father didn’t answer him. He was still struggling for breath but was now clutching at his left arm.
‘Daddy!’ Penny was frightened. ‘Daddy, what’s the matter?’
The man called the gathering crowd for help. ‘Quick, someone call an ambulance. This bloke’s having a heart attack.’
The police were very kind to Penny and a young police lady took her to school. Years later, when she was an adult, Penny wondered why she’d been taken to school at all. Let alone by a policewoman. Had they phoned her mother and she’d suggested it? That would make sense as it meant her mother could then go straight to the hospital. But who had looked after Suzie? Either way, Penny’s next memory was of being called out of her reading class and being taken to the headmistress’s study.
‘Ah, Penny,’ she’d said, ‘do sit down. You’ve had quite an adventure this morning.’
Penny didn’t know how to answer this so she just nodded.
‘Your daddy has been taken ill but the doctors are looking after him. Hopefully he’ll be OK but you may have to prepare yourself to be a very brave girl.’ Mrs Tyler looked directly into Penny’s eyes. ‘You understand?’
Penny didn’t understand, but said, ‘Yes.’
‘Good girl. Now, off you pop and be good for Mummy when you get home tonight.’
Penny spent the rest of the day in fear.
Somebody must have taken her home from school. It certainly wasn’t her mother because she was already home when Penny returned.
Penny ran to her and hugged her with relief. ‘How’s Daddy?’
Margot unwrapped herself from Penny. ‘He’s been very silly. He’s been smoking too many cigarettes and drinking too much gin. I’m very cross with him and so are the doctors.’
‘I told him off this morning,’ Penny said without thinking.
‘Told him off? Why?’
Penny was afraid she’d got her father into trouble. ‘Because …’
‘Was he smoking in the garden?’
Penny said nothing.
Her mother strode in to the kitchen and wrenched the back door open. Penny ran after her but couldn’t stop her finding the two cigarette butts. ‘Was he smoking these?’ Margot held them up.
Penny nodded and moved instinctively to protect the large cardboard box containing the contraband gin. Margot reached past her and opened the box.
She pulled out the bottle. ‘Did you know this was here?’
Penny remained mute. Margot shouted. ‘Did you know this was here?’
‘Yes,’ Penny said, feeling like a traitor.
Her mother looked at Penny with poison. ‘So you are responsible. It’s your fault he’s in the hospital. If you had stopped him, we wouldn’t be in this mess but if he dies now we won’t have anything. No Daddy, no money. If we are thrown out of this house it will be your fault. I hope you remember that.’ Penny lived in fear for several days, expecting to hear that her father had died and that it was all her fault. But he came back to her. That time.
The free sample has ended.
