The Postcard Read online

  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-c
heeked 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.’