face clouded momentarily. ‘Ah, Mummy’s told you, then?’
Penny nodded.
‘I’m sorry, sausage, its doctor’s orders apparently and you don’t mind being at Uncle Nick and Auntie Dawn’s do you?’
‘Not really, but I’d rather be with you.’
He put his arm around her and hugged her to him. ‘And I’d rather be with you.’
‘Penny!’ Her mother was shouting at her. ‘Penny! Wake up. Jenna’s screaming.’
Penny opened her eyes – and Simon was standing in front of her …
‘Penny, have you been drinking? What’s going on?’
She couldn’t think of a suitable answer. He turned and walked away. ‘I’d better see to Jenna. One of us has to be a responsible parent.’
*
‘He looked at me with such – disappointment.’ Penny was sitting at Helen’s kitchen table in Gull’s Cry, nursing a dry mouth and a headache.
‘Well, can’t you see why?’ said Helen worriedly. ‘Penny, how could you have done something like that when you had Jenna upstairs. Anything could have happened.’
Penny looked at her forlornly. ‘I’ve never felt as low as this. I have no energy. I look forward to nothing. I want everything to just stop. I feel I’m going mad. Mr Tibbs has come to an end, my mother has died – wouldn’t you have a little drink too?
Helen, who had had a particularly unpleasant argument with Piran not half an hour before Penny had arrived, had little patience left. ‘Penny, I’m worried about you. It’s just not like you to be so defeatist. Yes, it’s a tough time right now but you have so many blessings to count. Your life is peachy compared to others.’ She started to tick the list off on her fingers. ‘A house, a husband, a daughter, a business, money in the bank, friends – what more do you want? If I were you I’d be skipping round the village green every day, thanking my lucky stars. Couldn’t you use this time to take a little break, enjoy being with Jenna while she’s still so tiny and get back into all the TV stuff in a year or two?’
Penny was stung. ‘But if I was out for that long people would forget about me! And I know I should be grateful, of course I do. But why do I feel so unhappy? Why don’t I feel the happiness I should feel?’
Helen felt out of her depth and said more gently, ‘Penny, you must snap out of it. Go for a walk. Read a book. Go to a spa?’
‘Simon says I need to get a nanny.’
‘You do need to get a nanny.’
‘I don’t want a nanny.’
‘It wouldn’t be for you, it’s for Jenna.’
‘Because I’m such a useless mother?’ Penny’s voice started to rise in panic.
‘No, no,’ Helen tried to calm her. ‘No one is saying that but …’ She took a moment to think of the right words. ‘But you need a break and some help.’
‘I just need some sleep and for Simon to be around a bit more.’
‘And you could have that if you had a nanny.’
Penny sat back in her chair and rubbed her make-up-less eyes with her fingers. ‘I’d love a spa day.’
‘Then let’s do it.’ Helen leant across the table and held her best friend’s hand.
‘Who will have Jenna?’ countered Penny.
‘Simon will.’
‘But he’s always so busy.’
‘I’ll ask him. Anyway, it’s your birthday soon, isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I’ll tell him it’s an early birthday present. Or a late one. ’
When Penny got back to the vicarage, Simon had more than a whiff of burning martyr about him. ‘Jenna’s had her supper and bath.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’m sure she’d like a story from you … if you aren’t too tired.’ To Penny’s mind he put the emphasis on the word tired to suggest she might still be full of wine.
‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’
‘Right.’ He collected up some leaflets for the Parish Council meeting. ‘Well, I’m off.’ He picked up the keys to his Volvo. ‘See you later.’
As the door clunked shut behind him Penny had to fight the urge to run after him, tell him she was so sorry for getting drunk. Sorry for being a horrible harridan. Sorry for being a bad mother. Anything to stop him from leaving her. She needed his reassurance, his security. She wanted him as she had wanted her father when he had finally left her.
She looked at herself in the mirror behind the kitchen door. Who was she? She looked like a mad woman. Her face frightened her.
Frantically she splashed herself with cold water, dried her hands by running them through her uncombed hair. She could hear Jenna calling from upstairs.
‘Come on, Penny. You can do this,’ she said to her reflection before calling out, ‘coming, my love.’
When Jenna had finally fallen asleep, Penny crept out on to the landing and down to her office. She knew she couldn’t bury her head in the sand and checked her emails. Nothing from her contacts or Jack Bradbury or Mavis Crewe. This is how it starts, she thought, one day the phone stops ringing and your career stops too.
She scrolled down her list of opened emails and found the one from her sister via Marion. She read it again. What kind of sister would withhold the information about her mother being ill, let alone dead? And to go ahead with the funeral, which she wasn’t sure she’d have attended anyway, without letting her know. Penny’s hurt balled into the back of her throat where it writhed and tightened until her body spat it out in one long wail. She sat rocking backwards and forwards on her office chair, unable to stop the noise or the tears, which now ran down her cheeks in a constant stream. She found her voice and sputtered into the air. ‘Help me! Someone help me. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t do this any more. I’m so tired. Please help me someone!’ Her throat constricted again and more sobs followed, but there was no one to come. After some time, and experiencing the odd sense of floating outside her body that had recently been so strong, she went to the downstairs cloakroom and rummaged on the shelves behind the coat racks where she kept the first aid tin. She opened it and the familiar smell of Savlon leaked out. She found what she wanted and put them in her cardigan pocket. She went to the kitchen, filled a large glass with tap water, and walked up the stairs
She took the strip of tablets from her pocket and carefully popped each one from its foil blister, lined them up on the bedside table, then went to look in on Jenna. She stroked the sleeping face and whispered ‘I love you so much’ to her tiny daughter. Her tears dripped on to the warm cheek of her beloved girl, causing her to give a little reflex jump, but she didn’t
