Drowning in the Shallow End

by Charlie Mellor

  The only downside I could see to having Pennie around was that it meant I spent less time with Stuart. The two of them had never clicked in Ilfracombe and now a decade later, very little had changed. To be polite he would acknowledge her presence and maybe get involved with us for a few minutes, but I always suspect it was because he felt obliged to do so. Stuart just didn’t have the patience for Pennie, even when his girlfriend Faye was on good terms with her.

  Faye was an inquisitive young woman who generally kept herself to herself. For a couple of years following the move to Scunthorpe she was very homesick and often returned to her Devon roots for a few weeks, prompting Annie and I to think that she might not settle long-term. Faye enjoyed the chance to talk about her old-life and Pennie made it easy for this to happen.

  “I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but whenever Pennie comes calling, I find the whole atmosphere begins to change.” said Faye.

  “In what way?” asked Annie, especially sensitive to atmosphere’s of any kind.

  “Not in a bad way, I just find we all open up more. Pennie seems to be really good at putting everyone at ease. Well… most people anyway. Last time she was round I remember Stuart wasn’t too happy with me for talking about my parents’ divorce, but I wasn’t bothered – I was pleased to get it out in the open.”

  “Oh Faye, I didn’t even know your parents were divorced – you never said – I must have been in the other room looking after Toby when this came up. I’m so sorry. How do you feel about it?” Annie asked.

  “Don’t worry, it was years ago thanks Annie, when I was very, very young. I just thought it was strange that I hadn’t told anyone before until Pennie prompted the discussion.”

  “I find she’s great at putting you right at the centre of things,” I said, eager to join in with this topic.

  “Yes, it’s like she hones in on everything you’re saying,” added Faye.

  “Is it the same as when I’m reading The Monster Cave book to the kids at bedtime?” asked Annie, aware that she’d missed out on a couple of recent social events.

  “That’s exactly what it’s like,” said Faye enthusiastically, “It’s as if Pennie can identify the issues you want to raise and then somehow makes it easy for you to talk about them.”

  She was absolutely right. Pennie did always know which buttons to push. She would often sit alongside Annie and myself and prod us into talking about our college days. With Kirsty and Allan she’d encourage discussions about athletics and competitive sports; with Allan and me, the conversations centred on our work or live music. She had quickly cottoned-on to the fact that the Bunnymen provided a pivotal link between the two of us and so mined this rich seam whenever we were together. In response to such positive attention Allan and I ended up playing all their albums to Pennie on a recurring basis, until we actually began to associate their sweeping heroic melodies with her.

  Good in a group situation, great with two people, Pennie was at her most impressive on a one to one basis. She immersed herself in every aspect of the conversation so that you instantly felt understood. She never once disagreed with your opinions or challenged your views. A large part of her charm was that she almost always supported your take on things. Whatever you thought, whatever you said, Pennie was likely to agree, she would be the one who wanted to hear more. How could anyone resist such unconditional interest?

  I wasn’t surprised therefore that Pennie had been enamoured with my Max Zelman stories. She regularly made me re-live the evening and would challenge me to provide rational explanations for what had taken place. While I’d been fascinated with the early part of the show (which I am sure involved good old fashioned sleight of hand and showmanship), Pennie was far more enthralled with what it felt like to be hypnotised, what it was like to be completely powerless. Just as she would talk a lot to Allan about his parents’ health, to my sister Kirsty about her latest ‘crusade’ and to Faye about her childhood; it was already clear - the subject of the paranormal would be ‘our topic’, a recurring theme which she’d frequently return to whenever we were alone together.

  Indicative of this being ‘our 1-1 topic’, were the many discussions we had about the nature of ‘coincidence’. Pennie was quite sensitive about the use of this word and insisted we refer to any possible examples as, “The frequent occurrence of certain events, which by rights should remain incredibly infrequent.”

  Drawing on her preference, I gingerly proposed that the frequency with which she’d appeared and re-appeared throughout my life, could be used by some people to illustrate how the two of us may be destined to be close. Much to my relief, Pennie wholeheartedly agreed, claiming the inexplicable number of encounters through our common acquaintances, “Stretched the idea of coincidence to the limits of credulity.”

  She believed it proved beyond question that some form of cosmic intervention must be drawing us together. It was even possible that, “Divine powers may actually be at work, pulling us both closer until we understood a secret lesson which we were required to learn.”

  Such drivel was totally at odds with everything I’d ever believed in, yet when Pennie said these things I did find myself wanting to agree.

  Pennie was captivated by the idea of the inexorable nature of fate and even used a different word for it, Kismet. She hunted out inexplicable co-incidences, collecting them, like most people collect postage stamps. Once she’d gathered a few of them up, she knitted them together in order to reveal grotesque patterns which no one else was capable of noticing. Pennie tapped into my disregard for organised religion and begged me to keep an open mind about paranormal explanations for life’s many detours. She was obsessed with the notion of destiny deciding all our futures, and worked hard to persuade all my friends to share her belief in the importance of mystical forces. Like an obedient puppy, I soon found myself rolling over, looking for unexpected happenings which she would later account for in terms of some greater design.

  It was Pennie who convinced me every job I’d ever been offered was the one I was meant to secure, every person I’d made friends with had happened for a reason. She reminded me how Billy Farrell had prophetically bought me a Joy Division record just before love really did tear us apart. This was my Kismet.

  At such moments according to Pen, you were, “Swimming with the tide of life’s intentions.” She excelled at applying deeper meanings to everyday life and, after a while, it was difficult not to believe her compelling explanations.

  11. Buried Treasures

  Pennie continued to be a welcome, but relatively infrequent visitor to the house. In reality we must only have seen her for a few hours on four or five occasions between 1996 and 1997. Life at this point was far more dominated by our families, our careers and our everyday concerns than it ever was by Ms Fenton. However each of her visits did create a lasting impression. By cleverly facilitating discussions where we’d talk about ourselves on a deeper level than we normally would, she managed to turn the dullest encounter into something noteworthy. Personally, I adored the way she accepted, even celebrated our minor defects, helping us to appreciate there were occasions when we all experienced a slight sense of alienation. Unfortunately, none of us had any idea that before long she would use each and every one of those unguarded conversations against us.

  Scunthorpe could be a tough place for an outsider, so a flourishing friendship with someone who offered reassurance, comfort and companionship proved irresistible. By complimenting me, I mistakenly believed she complemented me. This was a big mistake. Just like my juvenile crush on Lucy Drew, my interest in Pennie Fenton was inevitably an unhealthy one. I was infatuated with them both – but for very different reasons. As a teenage boy - hormonally charged, the powerful attraction to Lucy was of course mainly physiological. Years later, the pull towards Pennie, was primarily psychological. Playful Pen enjoyed mind games and boy was she good at them. She was the ultimate contradiction, making you feel great about yourself while at the same time eroding what
was left of your self-esteem. She promised you companionship and support, but as soon as she’d gone you were always left feeling rather lonely.

  All the gang enjoyed the way Pennie was able to circulate around the group and uncover aspects of our personalities we’d never previously been aware of. I suspect I may even have unconsciously adjusted my own sense of humour in her company. Keen to secure her approval, I was inclined to be far more self-effacing whenever she was around. I started to emphasise embarrassing incidents where I’d not quite lived up to my own intentions and focused on these as my principal source of banter. This form of gentle self-mockery became a trademark and was spurred on by positive feedback from Annie and anyone else who found the approach funny. I concluded that in order to make people laugh, I had to put myself down. Pennie would gently tease me about my growing list of inadequacies and the pay-off for me was the obvious amusement these brought to her. For a short while it almost seemed like my fragile esteem was finally working to my advantage.

  Any situation which had previously been regarded as a little shameful was now capable of providing comedy gold. No more expensive trips to watch Max Zelman perform his amazing illusions, I thought. Instead all I needed to do in the intervening weeks between Pennie’s visits was to ponder on the many times I’d made a fool of myself and then be prepared to retell every embarrassing episode.

  In Allan’s absence, Pennie would quietly applaud my lack of interest in organised sports. In particular, she found it hilarious I’d never been able to escape from the spectre of football, the one game I detested. Recognising this as an opportunity to introduce another pithy anecdote, I repositioned my inability to distance myself from the nation’s favourite game by explaining how it often felt as if was being plagued by a neighbours’ pet; one which I was intensely allergic to, but could never get rid of. I added that I understood the point of football, but just wasn’t able to get excited about it in the way I was supposed to. Here in front of Pennie, sat the only boy raised in the seventies who explicitly wrote down on his letter to Santa NOT to bring him a Subbuteo set.

  Thrilled by her reaction to me being haunted by the shadow of the inflated sphere; I quickly moved onto stories about my erratic driving. These were some of Pennie’s favourites and she pleaded with me to repeat these tales of motoring embarrassments, more frequently than It’s a Wonderful Life is shown at Christmas. Never the most confident person in a car, I had gradually accepted the requirement to drive as a necessary part of life. The activity remained a functional one as opposed to pleasurable, but after years of reluctant practice I’d reconciled myself to the fact it provided freedom and choice. Sitting behind the wheel enabled me to earn a living and travel further afield. However this new found pragmatic slant wasn’t what Pennie wanted to hear and so she encouraged me to emphasise all the problems I’d ever experienced whilst in charge of a car. In doing so, night after night, Ms Fenton seared into the front of my brain, every humiliating driving test... every crash of the college minibus... every trip inside Miss Lincolnshire Echo’s car... every complaint from children of good friends who still to this day refuse to travel in a car with me because they’ve thrown up too many times … every single isolated incident behind the wheel I’d tried so hard to forget. The more I recalled, the more I was forced to agree with her damning assessment that she really was in the company of a truly lousy driver who should never be allowed behind the wheel by himself.

  Pennie had an uncanny ability to catch you off guard. She appeared to ask nothing of you and reassuringly celebrated your insecurities and failings. This tolerance for imperfection was especially seductive for someone with so many idiosyncrasies. Before you knew it, you found yourself revealing the most intimate details of your life experiences. I told her secrets I’d never told anyone before. Ones I didn’t even know I’d been holding back. As we grew closer, her potential to extract ever more of what she called ‘buried treasures’ increased. I’d known her for almost twenty years, yet nothing had really changed between us since that legendary game of strip poker in Ripon. Clothes now covered my adult frame, but too many nights revealing my most hidden secrets made me feel equally exposed.

  My wife enjoyed having Pennie around, although probably had less direct contact with her at this time than the rest of us. This may have been down to the fact that she was occupied elsewhere in the house, chasing around after the kids; but also because she found it very easy to talk about most things anyway. She was and remains, an incredibly straightforward person. What you see is what you get with Annie. This meant that for her, sitting with Pennie was never as much fun, because our occasional guest was never likely to reveal anything which Annie hadn’t already shared. From Annie’s perspective Pennie was just part of the gang – she hung around with my sister and also knew Allan. It was a convenient coincidence which bolstered the numbers during social events. My trusting partner always believed me when I told her that I didn’t fancy Pennie and that my interest in her was never amorous. Unfortunately, while she was correct in assuming the relationship with Pennie was unlikely to progress into being a sexual one; it was also true that there were occasions when I felt compelled to press my lips against her in order to demonstrate my commitment. Pennie demanded such gestures. It would take me a long time to fully understand her true nature and appreciate just how demanding, duplicitous and manipulative she could actually be.

  Scanning for stories, Pennie trawled methodically through each of our histories and was especially interested in our childhoods. In the space of one night she had Faye talking about how devastated she’d been when her parents divorced; convinced Kirsty to reveal that she’d been bullied for showing an interest in girls and astonishingly even managed to get Allan to talk about his anger problems. Finally, she insisted the whole group listen as she persuaded me into divulging how distressed I became when reading aloud at school. Although reluctant to participate with her request, I was surprised to find that it was a release to share how my voice waivered and heart trembled whenever my turn to stand up and read to the class was approaching. Coming clean about a fear of being ridiculed by my classmates, actually felt invigorating. Previously, I’d always felt miserable about my early school days, but somehow sharing these thoughts with everyone was liberating.

  It was because of Pennie, I opened up about many other events. I spoke for the first time without any embarrassment about my admiration for David Rappaport and Jimmy Clitheroe. While I’d always rationalised my interest in the two as being based on an attraction for the theatre, or at very least a curiosity relating to their brief time in the spotlight; Pennie mockingly suggested my interest was much less complicated.

  “More like both of them were a bit of a short-arse – like you.”

  I always enjoyed the banter, even when she took the mickey out of me for not standing up for myself when confronted by aggressive losers. Pennie especially liked the tales about my cowardly behaviour during those early drinking sessions with lads in The Ashby Star. In response to all the attention I was receiving, I proudly reminded her that in the event of a good fight I continued to adopt the role of a conscientious sprinter.

  Sometimes I’d sense she was pushing me too far and would endeavour to regain some dignity by ‘bigging myself up’ about some minor achievement or other; but Pennie always found a way to playfully belittle these attempts.

  “Pennie, did I tell you about the time I had an important part in the local production of Romeo and Juliet?” I once said.

  “No, but I’d love to hear more – who did you play?” she’d replied.

  “Err, I think he was called Peter.”

  “Ah yes, I know the role. Peter, the Capulet servant, an illiterate messenger who didn’t give Juliet’s letter to Romeo explaining she had only faked her death. Romeo killed himself as a result of you not delivering the message and then in turn Juliet did the same. Ultimately the whole Shakespearean tragedy was down to you!“

  The effervescent Pennie was often intrusive, but
never appeared to be malicious. One of her favourite questions was, “What is your deepest, darkest secret?”

  Inexplicably, most of us responded without resistance, sharing a host of hidden gems– usually in complete and graphic detail. Inevitably, she was intrigued by my earliest sexual encounter with Lucy Drew - fascinated to know how it felt to be ridiculed by my first real crush. Whenever I attempted to prise her away from such invasive discussions, Pennie pushed even harder until she uncovered far darker tales, like the one where Joe Morrit and I experimented with the dangerous ‘fainting game’. Up until Pennie, I’d never shared this with anyone.

  During winter months we tended to see less of everyone. This year was no different. After Allan’s Christmas visit there were a couple of other low key gatherings, but increasingly I noticed that Stuart, Faye, Stacey and a few others regulars were sending spurious last minute excuses as to why they couldn’t attend. It wasn’t long before I began to suspect the real reason was to avoid Pennie. I could see that while one or two of us had been entertained by these ‘deep dark secrets’; others had grown intolerant of her questions.

  In particular, Pennie had irritated people by asking for honest and uncensored opinions about specific members of the gang once they’d left the room. Without thinking, a few of us had freely expressed our thoughts on an endearing minor defect of an absent friend; only to hear parts of these observations being paraphrased back to everyone shortly afterwards. Pennie loved to skilfully weave small fragments of remarks made about friends into conversations with them on their return - just to see how far she could tease us. Such bedevilment was made even more fun for her if she included one or two of the actual words we’d used. Almost… but not quite, telling the other person what you had said. It was a speciality, a twisted version of Chinese water torture. She always pulled back from revealing the full comment to the whole room, but invariably skirted so close to revealing all that you remained in a state of panic for the rest of the evening – never knowing if your friends had rumbled the source of the betrayal from her many insinuations.