Fern Britton - The Postcard

She felt her pulse quickening and her breathing become shallow. Her fingers were shaking. She couldn’t make herself open the emails. She scrolled down to see if Mavis had replied. Nothing. A black dread settled over her. She heard the roar of her own blood in her ears. Shit shit shit. What was she going to do? Where was the old Penny who would have known what to do and would have done it? Overwhelming grief at the loss of herself bore down on her shoulders and she wept silently, her tears falling on the sleeping Jenna. She deleted Jack’s emails and shut her computer down again.

And now it was just after midday and she was exhausted, but this feeling was not simply tiredness. Since she’d heard about the death of her mother an extra layer of darkness, an invisible membrane, was separating her from the world. She had often felt like this as a child, particularly after her father had died. A feeling that she didn’t really exist, that life rushed around her and she simply glided through it like a ghost. Occasionally she’d reach out a hand to touch a wall or her leg, just to make sure she was real, but it still didn’t feel right.

As a child, she had tried explaining it to her mother. ‘You’re liverish,’ Margot had sniffed.

‘What does that mean?’

‘That there’s nothing wrong with you.’

It was one of the many things she looked up in later life. Her computer dictionary gave the meaning as ‘slightly ill as in having a liver disorder’ or ‘unhappy and bad-tempered’.

Well, she’d certainly been unhappy.

And now her mother was dead and the feeling had come back. She wandered through the downstairs rooms and hovered at the closed door to her office. She told herself that she should go in and get on with some work. Work had always been her salvation; a raft to cling to when storms raged.

‘Keep going, Penny, keep going,’ her father had told her when she started to learn to use her Hula Hoop. She had kept going every day of the summer holidays until she became really very good at it. It was the same mantra she had applied to her work and to every contraction that had squeezed Jenna into the world.

Keep going, Penny, keep going.

Now, standing outside her office door she said it to herself again. ‘Keep going, Penny. Just open the door. Keep going.’

‘Hellooo.’ A stranger’s voice came from the back door and startled her.

She jumped in fright.

Her heart was in her mouth. ‘Hello? Who’s there?’

Thank God Simon had taken Jenna out for the day. If she was to be murdered by a stranger at least they were safe.

The voice called out again. ‘Hello? It’s your new neighbour. Kit?’

The bloody man with the uncontrollable dogs! She’d tell him where to go.

Penny stomped to the kitchen where she found Kit standing apologetically at the open back door with a large bunch of flowers. He smiled, not unattractively she was annoyed to notice, and proffered them to her. ‘Good morning. These are from Terry and Celia and me.’

Penny’s pursed lips were not the reaction he had expected but he continued valiantly, ‘As way of an apology for the way they behaved yesterday.’

‘I’m very busy, but thank you.’ She took the flowers. ‘I’d offer you tea or something but—’

He stepped over the threshold. ‘That’s very kind of you. I’d love a coffee. I won’t keep you long as I have a busy afternoon ahead.’

Penny frowned. She had been about to tell him that she had a busy afternoon ahead. ‘I don’t have much time myself,’ she said acidly.

He pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down. ‘What a lovely kitchen.’

‘Thank you.’ She filled the kettle whilst quietly hating him.

‘Are all the cupboards original?’ he asked, looking around.

‘Yes. Do you take milk? Sugar?’

‘Black, two sugars. They look Edwardian.’

‘They are.’ What was this, Bargain Hunt ? ‘Here’s your coffee.’

‘Thanks. How long have you been here?’

‘A while.’ She looked pointedly at the wall clock above the Aga.

‘I’m sorry – I’m being intrusive. I’m just interested in getting to know the village and my neighbours and all that stuff before Adam comes down.’

In spite of herself she was interested. ‘Ah yes. Where is he at the moment?’

‘Finishing off some odds and ends at his old practice – he’ll be here before Christmas though. I’ve been sent ahead to get the cottage set up with all his little home comforts. I’ve got a builder coming later this morning. I have permission to put in a couple of skylights.’

‘Oh? I thought all the building work had been finished.’ She took a mouthful of coffee and thought of all the noise and dust she had just endured.

‘I’m a painter. The spare bedroom will be my studio and the roof windows will give me the northern light that is so good.’

‘Who’s your builder?’

‘Bob. Bob the builder.’ Kit laughed at his own joke.

Penny smiled and said ‘Sinewy bloke? Very brown? Favours short shorts and always has a cigarette on?’

‘That’s him.’

‘He’s known as Gasping Bob.’

‘Behind his back, I hope?’

‘No, no. To his face. Almost all the locals have nicknames here: Dreadlock Dave, Flappy, Twitcher, Simple Tony—’

‘Simple Tony? That’s a bit un-PC, isn’t it?’

‘Not here, and anyway, it’s what he likes to be called. He’s a dear man and a very good gardener.’

‘I’m looking for a gardener. Perhaps you could give me his number?’

‘He doesn’t have a phone. He says they make him go all fizzy or something. But you’ll find him in the back garden of Candle Cottage. Polly owns the house and she lets Tony have the Shepherd’s Hut there. Best let Polly introduce you to Tony as he’s a bit shy.’

‘Is he good? At gardening?’

‘Well, put it this way, a couple of years ago Alan Titchmarsh came to open the village summer fayre and Tony gave him a few tips.’

Kit drained the last of his coffee. ‘Great. I’ll get in touch.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Well, I’d best be off. Gasping Bob said he’d be here by two thirty and I know you’ve got a lot to do.’

Penny felt a sudden fear of being left on her own in the house. Simon had taken Jenna out in order to let her absorb the news of her mother and think more about contacting her sister. ‘Go for a walk on the beach,’ he’d said. ‘The fresh air will help clarify your thoughts.’ But now she found the company of Kit, a stranger, very important to her sanity.

‘Don’t go. Not yet. Bob’s not known for his timekeeping. Let me make you another coffee?’

Kit looked surprised but he accepted and watched as Penny filled the kettle from the old brass tap over the butler’s sink.

With her back still to him, she said, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been rude. I had some bad news yesterday. My mother died.’

Kit looked at her with concern. ‘I’m so sorry. And it’s me who has been rude. I shouldn’t be here. Would you like me to go?’

‘No. Please stay. She and I didn’t get on very well and I haven’t seen her for quite a while. But, it’s still been a shock.’

‘It must be.’

Penny nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s made me feel rather numb and … I can’t explain it.’ She brushed away the embarrassing tears that had sprung from nowhere. ‘It feels unreal.’

‘I’m a good listener and very discreet if you want to talk?’

She shook her head. ‘That’s kind, but I’m fine. It has felt good just being able to say the words out loud to somebody. I am going to have to say it a lot more now, I suppose. I have to tell people that my mother is dead. It’s convention, isn’t it?’