by Jenny Colgan
Penny winced. “I don’t . . . you know, I don’t get on with Mum like you do. And it’s the last thing I want . . . she’ll just be so disappointed. Sometimes I feel like she’s been waiting for me to do something like this my whole life.”
Lizzie tried not to show how true this was. “She’ll be OK.”
“Look, she’s happy for the first time in her life, doing this stupid drama school thing.”
Unbelievably, RADA had deigned to allow Eilish in. She had taken to wearing colored headscarves and large earrings, and talked about becoming the next Brenda Blethyn. Penny had found it embarrassing, and had barred her from coming in the shop without several hours’ warning so she could get Sloan out of the way before he was rude about her.
Lizzie looked at her. “You know,” she said gently, “we’re being very negative about this. How do you know he won’t be . . . you know, pleased? I mean, you guys are in love and everything, aren’t you?”
Penny swallowed. “Pleased?”
“Yes, you know, happy. Maybe he loves you, and you might be having his baby and that will be a good thing.”
Penny looked away as her worst fears surfaced.
“Lizzie, he doesn’t even know me. I’m supposed to be a rich bitch working for fun,” said Penny, looking as disconsolate as Lizzie had ever seen her. “I mean, I’m just so different from him . . . he reads the Telegraph. He thinks . . . he thinks he’s going out with someone else.”
“No, he doesn’t,” said Lizzie. “You’re his gorgeous Chelsea girlfriend, aren’t you? And I’m sure he doesn’t care a fig either way. You’re his Chelsea girlfriend, who just happens to have his baby. Move into his flat, or just pretend you’re . . . uh, an eccentric messpot. Who’s to be any the wiser? You could sort the rest out later. As far as he knows you’re just a nice girl. None of that shit matters anyway. You know, what spoons to use and stuff. Nobody gives a toss.”
“You think?” said Penny, unwilling to admit to the world she’d described to Will. But she thought of the way those women looked at her when they went to bars and restaurants. Why had she never met his mother? What on earth would his mother think? Boys didn’t care as much about these kinds of things but women . . . women knew straightaway.
Penny looked at her stomach sadly. How could she be so foolish, so ridiculously undone by a handsome face and a roll in the hay? This wasn’t what she’d planned for herself at all.
But Lizzie’s words had inspired a small hope. What if he did want to take on responsibility? They had had fun together, but it was so sudden, so soon.
She closed her eyes and imagined his face, spreading wide with delight.
“Oh my God! A little baby!” he’d say, then he’d pick her up and fling her around and spin her in the air, then put her down gently and carefully as if she were made of china. Then he’d take her to meet all his friends and his parents and they’d love her and . . .
A single tear ran down her face.
“Would you like to eat some French toast?” said Lizzie, who’d almost subconsciously started whisking eggs to calm her nerves. “Otherwise I’m going to eat it all, and I was rather near to getting into my old black trousers.”
Penny paced up and down, still staring at the phone. There had been several cute and inquiring text messages from Will. Each one made her head for the door, determined to confront him head on, her heart full of hope. Every time she’d stop and wonder at the implausibility of meshing her life to his.
“I’ve got to know,” she said. “I’ve got to know. There’s no point putting it off.”
“He loves you,” said Lizzie loyally. “And what a beautiful baby it will be.”
“Shh,” said Penny. “That’s not helping.”
The phone rang again.
“Oh, come on, Penny,” said Will. “It’s gorgeous out there. I don’t want to be stuck at home.”
“I need to come and see you,” said Penny. “At home.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. She had it on speaker so Lizzie could hear.
“Uh, are you sure you wouldn’t rather go to the park? It’s lovely.”
“No,” said Penny. “I want to come around.”
There was another long pause.
Will hadn’t been expecting this; usually girls were all too keen to get him to theirs; cook for him and show him how lovely they were around the house. He counted on it. But Penny was different: so mysterious.
Still. She was different. She was special. Maybe the time had come. Will blinked rapidly and took the plunge. She’d look after him . . . wouldn’t she?
“All right,” said Will finally. He sounded quiet, decided, rather muted. Penny looked at Lizzie expectantly.
Will gave an address in east London.
“I suppose you’ll hop in a cab,” he said.
“Uh, yeah . . .” said Penny, who was already fingering one of their grandmother’s many, many bus timetables.
“What do you think?” she said to Lizzie the second she was off the phone.
“I think he knows already,” said Lizzie. “He’s a young bloke, his girlfriend is sick, and now she wants to come around to discuss something. What else is it going to be?”
“I think I’m going to be ill again,” said Penny, sprinting for the toilet door.
The journey from Chelsea to Clapton was one of the longest of Penny’s life. She watched as the beautiful mansion blocks and pastel houses gave way to the formidable square structures of Belgravia and Mayfair; along the tatty bustle of Oxford Street and beyond; past Centerpoint and on past the bookshops of Charing Cross Road, along the Strand, and Fleet Street, and on to Liverpool Street, to change and get on an older, tattier bus. Why buses serving cheaper postcodes should be nastier than those serving nicer ones she didn’t understand at all, but just sat upstairs, her head leaning against the window, trying to keep the nausea down.
One second she would imagine a world where she inhabited Will’s trendy loft, maybe sitting cross-legged on the floor, a neat baby bump in front of her while all their trendy friends (faces mostly blurred) came by and teased her, and Will announced she was getting more beautiful with every month that passed. And they would have a little girl and call her Chelsea. Or maybe that was common, she couldn’t decide. Well, Bill Clinton’s daughter was Chelsea, and so was that girl who used to date Prince Harry, so it couldn’t possibly be.
And then she saw herself, pregnant, huge, lumbering through streets inexplicably covered in snow, crying to herself. Then she realized she was thinking of the film Oliver! Or a cold hospital room, filled with other silly girls, looking at a pair of howling twins . . .
125b Nitclose Road wasn’t at all what she was anticipating. She was expecting a converted schoolhouse. Or maybe just a huge warehouse, like the home of the man from the old “Easy Like Sunday Morning” adverts, with an open wall and an industrial lift. Or a vast studio with great vaulting windows.
In fact, 125b Nitclose Road was a side entrance to a gloomy-looking Victorian terrace. It was filthy with soot, and the front garden was covered in black bin bags and an old sofa that sagged, looking soggy and disconsolate. Bits and pieces of various bicycles cluttered up the path.
There were five doorbells, all unreadable, by the small door. Penny picked up her phone to call, but just as she did, the door swung open, and Will stood there, at the bottom of a grimy flight of stairs littered with pizza delivery leaflets and brown envelopes.
He stood there, staring with a strange, apologetic look on his face.
“Well,” he said. “Hmm. Have you heard of the new Bohemians?”
Penny felt as if she’d been knocked out by her second major shock of the day. Unsteadily, she followed him up the filthy stairs and into a tiny bedsit. There had obviously been a last-minute tidy-up—several pairs of trainers had been lined up underneath the cheap wardrobe—but there was no disguising the shabbiness of the brown carpet and green curtains.
Will winced. “So,” he said, “welcome to my, uh, humble a
bode.”
Penny looked at him, too shocked to speak. “But I thought . . . I thought . . . but you’re a successful artist.”
Will started boiling the small kettle in the corner. “Coffee? I’ve only got instant, I’m afraid. And powdered milk. I, uh, don’t have a fridge.”
“You don’t have a fridge.”
Will rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Look, Penny, I know I’ve put off having you over.”
“I can see why,” said Penny, feeling chilled inside.
“But I thought . . . you should know the truth. I really like you and—”
“You’re actually a tramp.”
Will looked ashamed. “Well . . . I sell one picture every month or so . . . then there’s materials and I have to pay off my student loan, and, you know, I like to use my money to socialize . . .”
Penny thought of all those expensive dinners she hadn’t eaten, those nights out where he’d taken care of everything, in his suave manner. She looked at his battered brown leather jacket again, hanging on the back of the door, and had a sudden flash of realization. It wasn’t battered because it looked better that way. It was battered because it was all he had to wear.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“I really like you,” said Will. “So I thought . . . you should know . . . I’m not quite in the same league as you, financially speaking . . .”
She looked at him. Now she knew why Minty had been trying to warn her off. She’d thought it was jealousy, but it wasn’t. It was something else altogether.
“You were sharking me,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“You’re a shark. You go to nice bars to pick up rich people hoping they’ll fund your art. Aren’t you?”
And boy, did she know how that was done.
“No!” said Will, his face reddening. He wasn’t a shark . . . he didn’t mean to, but he’d found his looks and his accent made things easy and . . . well, otherwise, how was he going to live? He didn’t want to live in Nitclose Road all his life, and was it so wrong?
“I mean, I go where, you know, patrons of the arts hang out, I suppose . . .”
Penny backed away cautiously. “Were you looking for a meal ticket?”
“No,” said Will. Oh God. Agreeing to her coming here was the worst decision of his life. He gestured around slightly despairingly. “Well. I don’t want to lie to you, Penny. I mean, it would be nice to be able to work somewhere . . . you know, get my own real studio, something like that.”
He looked slightly ashamed for a moment.
“And, Pen, I really, really like you. I mean, I think I lo—”
Penny realized she was shaking. This could almost be funny. Two grifters, grifted. Well, it could have been funny. If it wasn’t for . . .
“Uh, Will,” she said. He stopped what he was saying and looked up. “You know, I don’t have any money either.”
He looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m looking after my grandmother’s flat while she’s ill. That’s why we’ve never had you over. She’s my dad’s mother and my dad was never really part of our lives and we don’t even know him. It just came out of the blue. I’m from Brandford. Mum’s a dinner lady.”
Will stared at her, as if she was the one who’d just dropped the bombshell. “But . . . but . . .” he said. “You knew all those places to go.”
“I read magazines all day.”
“And you work in an art gallery.”
“Sloan thought it would be good for business,” said Penny. “You know. Little market-stall worker stuff. He thinks it’s hilarious.”
Will’s mouth was actually hanging open.
“I don’t believe this,” he said, although of course, it explained everything. He’d just thought her money was a bit crass. Plus, she’d been willing to do things in parks that posh girls didn’t mind doing either; it was only ever his middle-class girlfriends that were a bit uptight. It hadn’t occurred to him for a second that it wasn’t brash money; that it was no money at all.
I know something else you wouldn’t believe, thought Penny, but all her protective instincts kicked in and she didn’t say anything, just looked at him closely.
Will was fumbling with the neck of his T-shirt as if it was constricting him. He’d given up any pretense of making coffee, and had gone bright red. Penny swallowed hard. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, without its hard edge.
“But you still really, really like me, right? We’re still, you know. In lo—”
Within a tiny millisecond, the space of a blink, there it was. It took him just a tiny sliver of a moment too long to look at her.
“Of course,” he said. But everything had changed.
Lizzie made salami with fennel on pasta and took it in to Penny, who ignored it. Lizzie eyed it hungrily.
“Are you going to stay in bed forever?”
“Yes,” said Penny, sobs still racking her frame.
“You know, it might be fun,” said Lizzie. “Having a little baby.”
“Being a single mum back in Brandford and raising a baby,” said Penny. “Maybe I could get a job in a school. You know. Cooking. Hey, maybe I’m going to have twins.”
Lizzie patted her on the shoulder. She’d never asked this question before.
“Did you . . . were you in love?”
Penny looked up. There were four hundred sodden tissues littering the duvet.
“Uh-huh!”
Through the day, Penny didn’t get out of bed, and Lizzie was beginning to feel like a full-time carer. On Saturday night the doorbell rang just as she was taking Penny another mint tea. Lizzie’s eyebrows shot up.
“Don’t get excited,” said Penny. “It’s Brooke and Minty. I invited them up. Told them what’s happened. People love to hear about misery and maybe they’ll give some advice. Or cheer me up or something.”
“Or something,” said Lizzie definitely, as she jumped off the bed and went to answer the door. Brooke and Minty were standing there, both in jeans so tight they could have fainted and not fallen over. Minty looked almost triumphant.
“POOR Penny,” she said loudly. “I’m SO sorry for her. I did try and warn her you know. Gold-digging rat.”
“He’s a cad,” said Brooke. “We knew it, I’m afraid. Is this your place?” She peered into the room with a look of unfeigned horror on her face.
“It’s industrial chic,” said Lizzie.
“This smells like that old lady who lived here,” sniffed Minty.
“Would you like to come in?”
“I can’t stay long,” said Brooke. “Charles is taking me to dinner at the Wolseley.”
“Oh, how boring,” said Minty. “We’re going to Crazy Bear. It’s so loud there, I haven’t the faintest clue what Oscar is banging on about. It’s great.”
“Follow me,” said Lizzie. “Uh, would you like a snack?”
She thought sadly of her lovely fennel and salami, which she’d hoped to tempt Penny with, then polish off.
The girls sniffed loudly.
“I’d like a cocktail,” said Minty, striding into the room with her shiny boots.
“Ooh, yah,” said Brooke, marching in too and yelling to Penny. They bustled through leaving Lizzie feeling like the waitress. The doorbell rang again.
For crying out loud, thought Lizzie. This better be good news.
Amazingly, her Brandford friend Grainne was standing in the doorway.
“Hi,” said Grainne dully, staring at the floor.
“Hey, there,” said Lizzie. “Come in. What brings you to this neck of the woods?”
“I thought you’d be in,” said Grainne.
“On Saturday night. Well, that’s good,” said Lizzie. “I’m glad that’s the kind of thing you’d be quite happy to rely on and come all the way from Brandford without a phone call or anything. You know, just to make sure.”
“I’m very lonely,” said Grainne. “Have you got anything to eat?”
&nbs
p; “Salami and fennel?” said Lizzie weakly.
“I don’t really like salami,” said Grainne. “And I don’t know what fennel is. Is it some pretentious new thing you have now you live in Chelsea?”
Lizzie shrugged.
“But it’ll do, I suppose.”
In the sitting room the girls from downstairs were sprawled about, long legs up on the sofa and coffee table, cigarettes dangling, as if they’d never had to worry about spilling or breaking anything in their lives. Which they hadn’t, of course.
“Hiya, guys!” said Penny. Somehow Penny had managed to leap out of bed, squeeze into her super-tight jeans and a halterneck top—and a pair of heels for Christ’s sake—and clear enough space on the sofa to lounge on it, looking nonchalant.
Brooke tilted up her indoor sunglasses and inspected her closely.
“God, Penny,” she breathed. “You look like you’ve had a tit job.”
Penny had noticed that her breasts felt a little bigger. She supposed this was part of it too.
“Lucky cow,” said Minty. “I had ten days in hospital after mine.”
“And you told us all you’d been having a torrid affair with an Argentinian gaucho,” said Brooke accusingly.
“Oh, I was fifteen,” said Minty. “What was I supposed to tell you?” She patted her neck-height crystal-ball tits affectionately.
“Yes, well,” said Penny, giving a slightly fragile giggle. “There have to be some side benefits.”
“God, yes,” said Minty. “Count up the side benefits. There’s the big tits and . . .” She fell quiet. “Um, not having periods,” she added. “That’ll be handy.”
“You still have those?” said Brooke scornfully. “God, how much do you weigh?”
“Of course I don’t,” said Minty quickly. “No one who’s anyone has periods.”
“So anyway, darling,” Brooke said to Penny, “join the club.”
“You’re pregnant too?”
For an instant, Penny had an image of them bowling around with matching three-wheeler buggies, having a great time.
“Good God, no. Whatever gave you that idea? No, darling, three abortions at the last count.”
Penny was amazed. “Really?”
“Oh, yes. Know this excellent chappie. It’s like having a haircut.”