The Love Square

by Laura Jane Williams

  Uncle David nodded. ‘I’m good,’ he said. ‘So much better. It’s the sea air. And Eric – he’s so much happier down there. He was done with the pub for a long time before I was ready to admit it.’

  ‘I know how that feels,’ Penny said, instantly wishing she hadn’t. There was no need.

  ‘I thought you’d be happier,’ Uncle David remarked. ‘I thought you’d thrive.’

  ‘I’ve done my best,’ she said, in a small voice.

  Uncle David sighed. ‘So I’m the only one who wants to be here,’ he intoned. ‘And everybody else is just my prisoner.’

  Penny didn’t know what to say. That wasn’t too far from the truth, really, was it? He’d imposed his will on Eric, and then Penny.

  ‘You don’t ever want to sell it?’ Penny said, gently.

  ‘I suppose I had better start thinking about it,’ he said, and Penny could barely let herself breathe in case she interrupted this train of thought. Had he really just said he would think about selling? Penny sat very still. She waited.

  Finally he continued, ‘It breaks my heart, but … I think it’s time, isn’t it?’

  Penny shook her head. ‘I can’t make that choice for you,’ she settled on.

  ‘It’s fine,’ David said. ‘I’ve expected too much from you. Every week I’ve got better is a week you’ve sounded less like yourself. I really thought I was doing the right thing. I really thought you’d love it here. I really thought you’d get the Bib Gourmand and it would make you hungry for more.’

  ‘You can’t come back?’

  ‘I need to think about the best thing to do. We’re so happy down in Cornwall – Eric is so happy in Cornwall. I’m finally treating him like the priority he should be, instead of making the pub the top of my list. Clementine said I’ve been unfair on you. Do you think I have?’

  ‘I don’t think anything, Davvy. I’d go to the moon and back for you.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I should ask you to,’ he smiled. ‘I’m so impressed by what you’ve done here, you know,’ he continued. ‘Can you tell me that you understand how impressive what you’ve done is?’

  Penny shrugged. ‘We all worked hard,’ she said. ‘And we all feel proud, I think.’

  Eric appeared at the door of the lounge.

  ‘What are you two whispering about?’ he said, playfully. He added, ‘Oooh, coffee – great. I need a warmer.’

  Uncle David shot Penny a look.

  ‘Never you mind,’ he said, before adding, ‘Did you catch anyone? Who can come for a drink later?’

  Penny felt about eighty different emotions. She felt excitement about what David had said. She felt regret that she hadn’t ever felt different about being there. She felt relief that David had made the decision for her. And she felt blind panic, too, because without the excuse of the pub to hold her back, what was stopping her from starting her family now? Everyone knew the old adage that there is never a great time to do it, but it seemed to Penny that this was about as good as it was going to get for her. She could go back to Bridges, back to her flat, keep the cover chef on part time for when the baby came and then … well. And then she didn’t know what. She’d work part time? She’d get childcare? She’d live frugally and have the café look after itself for a while? Whatever the decision, she had options. And for the first time in ages Penny understood what that meant. Choices. Decisions. She was, finally, back in the driving seat of her own destiny and so the time was, terrifyingly, exhilaratingly, perfectly, now.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ Penny said to Clementine. ‘I’m having some thoughts and feelings.’

  ‘Shocker,’ said Clementine, smiling.

  ‘Uncle David just told me he’s selling.’

  ‘What?’ said Clementine. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I can go back to Bridges. I’m free!’

  Clementine hugged her sister. Still keeping her voice low she said, ‘When?’

  Penny shrugged. ‘Probably not for a while, but he’s going to put the wheels in motion.’

  ‘I see,’ said Clementine. ‘Well. God. That’s so good for you! I mean, don’t take this the wrong way but obviously I’m sad this place won’t be in our family anymore. It’s the right thing and everything but like, it’s where we grew up, isn’t it?’

  Penny understood what she meant. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘But.’

  ‘But,’ Clementine said, nodding.

  ‘It’s not my job to protect that.’

  ‘It really isn’t,’ said Clementine.

  They both sat with that realization.

  ‘Will you still be my surrogate?’ Penny said, eventually.

  Clementine turned to her. ‘You’re sure you’re ready?’

  Penny let out a little whoop of glee, careful not to let their uncles hear. ‘So ready!’ she said. ‘Now that I am free!’

  ‘And how does it feel,’ Christina said, ‘now that you have been truthful with the men you have been seeing?’

  ‘Lighter,’ Penny said, sat again in the IKEA-furnished room of her therapist, a tissue in her hands. ‘I was crying a lot before. Like, I would cry if I burnt my hand in the kitchen, which, well, I’m a chef, so that happens all the time and we’re literally trained to withstand it. Or I’d cry at what was on TV, not just the movie or whatever, but the adverts too. Since everything happened I haven’t cried once. I think it’s just …’

  ‘Go on,’ said Christina.

  ‘Life can be overwhelming, can’t it?’

  ‘It can.’

  ‘And I think I have been really, really overwhelmed. And not very good at asking for help. And feeling bad for needing help, which is a real head-spin. I felt better after talking to you, even that first time.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear that,’ Christina said, writing something down on her clipboard.

  ‘And I did what you asked. I thought about what I want and I’m scared of the answer but more than anything it’s a baby. So.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve been talking to my sister.’

  ‘And how does that make you feel?’

  Penny smiled. In theory she could have these conversations with a friend or her uncle, but in reality it was the very fact that Christina had never met any of the people Penny talked about that made it so easy to be honest.

  ‘It makes me really excited,’ Penny said. ‘Like I am actually taking charge of my future, and that I deserve to.’

  ‘You do deserve to.’

  ‘I don’t think I have believed that. I think literally ever since the cancer I’ve let things happen to me. Maybe even before then. Even becoming a chef happened to me. I stumbled into it.’

  ‘I don’t think that is unusual. Many people prefer to be passive in their happiness because it feels safer.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ said Penny. ‘I don’t want to be like that.’

  ‘Well the good news is,’ said Christina, ‘I don’t think you are. Not anymore.’

  25

  ‘I lost my head,’ Penny told Sharon, who’d finally come up overnight to visit. ‘I lost my head because I was bored, and needed a distraction, and now all of my distractions have gone and I’m back. I’m focused.’

  ‘Focused for what, exactly?’ Sharon said. They were taking a short walk around the village so Sharon could see the area Penny had been living in for the past year. They passed dog-walkers Penny knew and waved through shop windows at the grocers and people in the Post Office. It made Penny proud. She’d made a home out of a place she hadn’t – as everyone in her life knew – been totally sure of.

  ‘You can level with me, you know. I won’t hold it against you. If you are still not okay, we can talk about it.’

  They circled back around the lane where the pub sat in the distance, and Penny kept her gaze on it as she talked.

  ‘A baby. I’m going to do it. Clementine is having the tests this week to see if she’s okay to be surrogate and presuming she is … well. We’re going to go for it. Everything is lined up.’
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br />   ‘Oh, babe,’ Sharon smiled. ‘Come here!’ She stopped walking and pulled Penny in for a hug. ‘This is amazing news. Oh, I am so, so happy for you. Over the moon! After everything you’ve been through – this year, your whole life – I think this is brilliant. You’ve talked about it for so long.’

  Penny grinned. ‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘Even Uncle David has accepted it, you know. I think he feels a bit guilty that he pulled me away from what I really wanted because he was worried for me. But he gets it, now – I don’t want to take over the food world. I just want to be a mum.’

  ‘And dare I ask about Francesco?’

  ‘Still nothing. I WhatsApped him a few times, but got no response. I didn’t know I’d hurt him that much, you know. I guess I thought he was having a tantrum that wouldn’t last.’

  ‘And he’s in Italy?’

  ‘Last I heard, yes. So, I guess that’s what they call closure.’

  The pair used the front entrance to get into the pub, even though, when closed, Penny normally consigned herself to the back entrance. As she pushed through the old front door, Charlie flung open the second door that led through to the top bar.

  ‘O-M-G,’ they said. ‘Bib Gourmand.’

  ‘What about it?’ said Penny, before adding, ‘Sharon, Charlie. Charlie, Sharon.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Sharon said. ‘Penny says you’ve been a lifesaver here.’

  Charlie thrust an envelope into Penny’s face. ‘A lifesaver,’ they said, ‘and deliverer of good news. Look! Look at the envelope.’

  They all stepped through into the bar proper, and Penny saw the Michelin guide logo stamped onto the envelope, next to a postmark.

  ‘Shit,’ she said.

  ‘Good shit, or bad shit?’ Sharon said.

  ‘Amazing shit,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s about the award we’ve been chasing.’

  Penny held the envelope in front of her, staring at the logo.

  ‘It’s not going to be bad news, is it?’ Charlie said, reading her mind. ‘They aren’t going to write if they’ve been and hated it.’

  Penny nodded. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Sure. Of course.’ She turned the envelope over and started to tear it open. She was shaking slightly, and it made Sharon reach out and put a hand on her shoulder.

  Penny slid the single piece of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. Sharon hung on her left shoulder, Charlie on her right. The three of them read it together.

  ‘YES!’ screamed Charlie. ‘YES, YES, YES!’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Penny, looking up. ‘We did it. WE DID IT!’

  Sharon looked from Charlie to her friend. ‘You did it?’

  Penny nodded and leapt up to her feet. ‘WE. DID. IT!’ she screamed, lurching to Charlie for a hug, and then to Sharon, and then the three of them were hugging all together and jumping up and down and screaming over and over, ‘We did it!’

  Penny pulled away. ‘I can’t believe it! I really can’t believe it.’

  ‘Can’t you?’ said Charlie. ‘Because I can. Look what you did to this place, babe. You really made something of it. You made it next level. I knew we’d get the award. Honestly. I really had a feeling.’

  ‘Have you got any idea who? When?’ Penny turned to Sharon to explain, ‘Nobody ever knows who the inspectors are, what they look like, nothing. You can’t prepare for it. You only find out afterwards if they liked it.’

  ‘I have no idea who it could’ve been. There was a woman in maybe two months ago who asked a lot of questions about the specials, like really specific questions, but I just thought she was one of those people who’d once read a Nigella cookbook and so wanted to show off what she knew. But maybe it was her?’

  ‘Well god bless her,’ Penny said. ‘Praise be!’

  ‘Are you going to tell him, then?’ Charlie said. ‘Go call him!’

  Penny wished Francesco was here to see the letter himself. She’d have to photograph it and send it to him. Maybe that would be enough to make him reply.

  ‘I hope it doesn’t give him another heart attack, though,’ Charlie continued, and Penny realized they were talking about her uncle.

  ‘I’ll call him now,’ Penny said, suddenly deflated. She thought this was her excuse to finally get through to Francesco, but she’d have to call her uncle first. ‘He’ll be over the moon.’

  He was.

  In Bologna, Francesco was taking an afternoon passeggiata with a friend through the arches of the town centre when his phoned beeped. The terracotta-coloured buildings hummed golden in the afternoon sun, holding in the heat of the day to make it feel warmer than it was. Lucia had welcomed him back to the city he had been born in with open arms, but she knew her oldest childhood friend was deeply sad.

  ‘What’s her name?’ she’d said when they met for apperitivo in her favourite piazza. It was the same piazza Francesco had had his first and only cigarette in – on a visit back when his family had lived in Germany – the same piazza he’d kissed Guilia Fernando in when he’d visited in between Germany and the UAE, and the same piazza he’d come with Lucia to play chess with the old men from their town, silently plotting manoeuvres around a black and white board and listening to the stories the men told of lives well-lived.

  He finished the last mouthful of his pistaccio gelato, savouring the smooth, nutty taste as it went down. Lucia had seen somebody she knew and had veered off to give kisses and grand hellos, and Francesco wiped his hands and deposited the copetta in the bin. He pulled out his phone and saw her name on his screen. Penny.

  He took a breath.

  There was no message, only a photo of a piece of paper.

  At the top of the screen it said the word ‘online’ under Penny’s name.

  At The Red Panda, Penny sat at the bottom of the stairs clutching her phone, watching as the message got delivered to Francesco, one tick for sent, a second tick for received, turning blue as he came online and read it.

  In Bologna, Francesco zoomed in on the letter. The Bib Gourmand. The Red Panda had been awarded the Bib Gourmand with a whole sentence about the dessert menu. A concise and complete exploration of taste, texture and imaginative flavour on offer to end the meal, crafted with knowledge and love.

  Crafted with knowledge and love, he marvelled.

  Penny watched as the word under Francesco’s name changed from ‘online’ to ‘typing’. For an agonizing minute she waited for his message to come through. Maybe he’d say congratulations. Maybe he’d ask her not to text again. Maybe he’d offer to come back, if this was the sort of thing they could achieve together.

  ‘Francesco, vieni qui,’ Lucia requested of him, from where she stood with her friends. They were two women, one of whom was blushing profusely. Francesco locked his phone and put it back in his pocket as he wandered over.

  At the bottom of the stairs Penny saw ‘typing’ change to nothing. No message. No longer on his phone. No longer connected to her from wherever he was.

  * * *

  The pub went on sale almost immediately, valued higher now that they had the Bib Gourmand. Uncle David had said any pound over what they thought they’d get could go to Penny, for everything she had done – but she said she wouldn’t hold him to that. Uncle David and Eric temporarily moved up to The Red Panda to get affairs in order, with Penny splitting shifts with David so that he didn’t work full time. They closed Sunday night through to Wednesday morning, and then he took daytimes, and she took evening dinners. After Sunday service she’d headed down to London to check on the café and start to organize herself for what came next, scheduling in appointments at the clinic for then, too.

  Clementine came with her and had check after check to ensure her womb would be a hospitable home for Penny’s embryos, and it was startling, really, how in sync her life felt. Clementine was allowed to take a six-month-long paid sabbatical from her job after Stella heard what she was doing and supported the idea completely. Clementine would act as a consultant and take maternity leave at full pay for t
wo months and half pay after that if she needed it. Penny had spent so long fighting against herself, and her circumstance, that the simple-ness of the next few months could almost have been a trap – except she didn’t stop long enough to think about it. Her mantra was: I accept all the good that comes to me in life. It was woo-woo, but she was determined that every choice she made and every step in the direction of her new life she took, she would embody this.

  What if it is supposed to be easy? she dared ask herself.

  Clementine had to call the clinic on the first day of her period so that she could go in for a scan to check her womb lining. Then she got checked every few days, and on the twelfth day the doctor said it was time.

  On the day of the first embryo transfer, Penny had resigned herself to it not working first try. She didn’t want to get her hopes up, or stake everything all at once. If life was going to be easy, that meant understanding that the plan would unfold as it needed to, and gripping on any harder wasn’t going to alter its course.

  ‘Well, this is all quite no-nonsense,’ the doctor had explained. ‘Because your eggs have already been fertilized it’s a case of simple transference. It’s a bit like a smear test, really: no anaesthetic, you’ll be awake, and after five minutes you can get up.’

  ‘And what about after?’ Clementine had asked. ‘If I stand or go for a wee …?’

  The doctor smiled. ‘You mean, will the embryo fall out if you do those things?’

  Penny burst out laughing.

  ‘What!’ said Clementine. ‘Don’t laugh! If you haven’t noticed this is quite an important job I’ve been tasked with here! I don’t want to screw it up!’

  ‘You’ll be fine afterwards,’ said the doctor. ‘Just go about your day.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Clementine. ‘I’m ready. Let’s do this.’

  ‘I’ll give you your privacy to get changed. Take off your bottom half, swing into the stirrups and try to put your bum as close to the edge as possible, like you did in your MOT. Put this piece of paper towel over you and I’ll be back in two, okay?’