The Postcard: Escape to Cornwall with the perfect summer holiday read

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 (#u88ef9dde-d742-5cc1-8d8d-92fefd778fc8)

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.’