‘How many times are we going to go over this?’ She snatched up a ginger nut before the beady-eyed, nest-building robin got it, and bit into it noisily. ‘We are going to Brazil,’ she said. ‘It’s your dream and we’re going to go for it!’
He ran his hand over his head. ‘Am I being selfish? What about you and your work?’
Before he could take another bleat, Penny was on him. ‘Stop being so sodding negative. I do believe Brazil has running water and electricity and phone lines and the internet! I can run my office from there easily. In fact, it may be better than being here. And Jenna is seven going on twenty-one and bursting for an adventure.’
‘She takes after you.’ Simon gloomily drank his coffee.
Penny sat up and looked him square in the eye. ‘Do you know what she told me last night?’
‘No.’
‘She told me that her friends at school were collecting things for the children you will be working with.’
‘What things?’
‘Hairbands, football shirts, pens, notepads, balls, make-up. Stuff that street kids have never had. She’s even set up a website with her form teacher, Miss Lumley, so that she can keep them up to date with her blogging and vlogging.’
‘Really?’ Simon’s eyes were shining with emotion.
‘Yes, but keep it under your hat and act surprised because I wasn’t supposed to tell you.’
He turned his gaze back to the garden and Jenna’s cherry tree. ‘It is going to be all right, isn’t it?’
‘It’s going to be bloody amazing!’ Penny stretched out to take his hand. ‘I know I’m not always the greatest vicar’s wife in the world, but the important thing is that I am your wife and the only one you have. Even the bishop has started to afford me some respect. He managed to look me in the eye rather than my cleavage last time I saw him … a huge step for mankind.’
‘He doesn’t understand strong successful women.’
‘Well, he’s going to have to. There are a hell of a lot of us about.’
‘Supposing the accommodation is even more basic than we’ve been led to believe? You might hate it.’
‘You forget I have spent most of my working life on film locations with a chemical toilet and cold showers. I never get the luxury Winnebago, believe me. Brazil will be sunny, hot, sexy, all the things that you and I could do with.’ She smiled at him. ‘It’s going to be fun.’
He smiled at her wearily. ‘Dear God, I hope so.’
Somewhere in the house the phone began to ring. ‘Ah, that’ll be God now, telling you to buck up,’ said Penny. ‘I shall say you’re out.’
Penny headed for the phone in the hall, dodging round a pile of boots and coats ready for the charity shop, and reached for the receiver.
‘Holy Trinity Church, Pendruggan. Good morning.’
‘Penny, is that you?’ asked the querulous voice of the bishop. ‘You were a long time answering.’
‘Maybe because we still have the old-fashioned telephone plugged into the wall.’
‘You must ask my office to sort you out a modern cordless one.’
Penny gritted her teeth. ‘Yes. We were turned down.’
‘Have I caught you in the middle of something?’
‘Not at all. We are only packing our lives up for Brazil.’
‘Of course. Brazil. Simon will be marvellous. He’s exactly the sort of man for the job. I must say when I did my ministry in Sudan, many moons ago now …’
Penny closed her eyes, preparing to hear another of the pompous old fart’s dreary tales of self-aggrandisement.
‘The Sudan!’ she said. ‘How … interesting.’
‘Oh my word, it certainly was. The people took to me immediately and the more I worked with them in their villages, taking the good news of the gospels with me, the more they truly loved me. I remember a day when a young woman with a small child on her back came to me and asked, in all humility, “Are you Jesus?”’
‘Well I never,’ said Penny, rolling her eyes at her husband, who was stepping over the coats and coming towards her. ‘How charming! You must tell Simon. He’s right here.’
‘Who is it?’ mouthed Simon.
‘God,’ she mouthed back.
Simon took the receiver from her and shooed her away. ‘William. How kind of you to call.’
Penny collected her coffee from the garden, tucking a couple of ginger nuts into her cardigan pocket, and returned to Jenna’s room. She was faced again with the scattered detritus of moving her life halfway across the world. There had been tears and fierce negotiations about what could go to Brazil and what would have to stay behind and go into storage.
‘But, Mumma, Blue Ted won’t be able to breathe in a crate.’
‘Oh yes he will. Teddies like to hibernate and it’ll be a big adventure for him to be in the big warehouse with lots of other people’s teddies.’
‘No it won’t.’
‘Yes it will.’
‘But he’ll miss me.’
‘Well,’ Penny had thought on her feet, ‘we shall send him postcards.’
‘He can’t read without me.’
‘So you’ll have lots of fun reading them to him when we get back.’
At which point Jenna had burst into tears and thrown herself on the bed with Blue Ted beneath her.
It had finally been agreed that Blue Ted and Honey Bear and Tiny Tiger could all go to Brazil in her flight bag, but the Lego, stilts and dolls’ house had to go into store.
Standing now in her daughter’s denuded room, Penny knew she only had a few hours to make these last books, games and teddies ‘disappear’ into storage before Jenna returned home from school.
As she worked, her mind picked at the anxiety she felt about leaving Pendruggan. No matter what she had told Simon, the move to Brazil was not going to be easy. She was a woman who liked to be in control of her environment. She needed her work, her hairdresser, the theatre, shops, and her independence. In Brazil she would have none of these safe anchors. She had to admit to herself that she would find it hard.
Simon, by comparison, would be in his element. He had been handpicked to join the missionary team in Bahia, to help the abandoned children who lived on the streets. Some were just babies, cared for by other children. They were exploited in every way imaginable. The Mission gave them shelter, teaching and food. Penny knew that Simon would plunge straight in and immerse himself totally in the
