Where would I be without Penny? Dead probably.
Boxing Day 2012. This time it was a broken oven, a raw turkey crown and six cans of Stella. Sean landed a few punches before the alcohol sloshing around inside him toppled him and that’s when Megan and I made a run for it.
We found a bench in a corner of Bidecombe Rec, hidden from the main road and sheltered from the vicious wind blasting off the black wintry seas: me with a busted lip, Megan still in her My Little Pony PJs. I tried Bernadette first, but she had friends round for canasta and told me to make it up with Sean. ‘Anyway, Aloysia, I’m sure it’s not as bad as you say. Aren’t you being a little dramatic about it all?’ Years of bruised kidneys and expertly applied make-up said she didn’t know what she was talking about, but there was no one else. Sean had made sure of that.
Next, I tried the women’s refuges, but Christmas is their peak time and they were already full. The last refuge rang off and I knew we’d have to go back to Sean, but I couldn’t move. Frozen with fear as much as the cold, one arm wrapped around Megan, I’ve no idea how much time passed, but a red woollen mitten closed over my hand and gently lowered my phone I’d been holding to my head like a loaded gun.
‘You’re coming home with me,’ said a Scouse accent. It belonged to a woman in a purple-and-white, tie-dyed skirt and long grey hair punctuated with coloured beads. Home was the Seven Hills Lodges just outside Bidecombe. I knew little about the place because, like so many places in Bidecombe, it was for the tourists, not the locals. Nestled below the brow of a grassy hill that afforded the best views of Morte Sands, the Bristol Channel and beyond, it was home to thirty cabins sprinkled in among the pine trees that managed to survive the salty winds gusting off the sea. We were only meant to stay there a few days. Seven years later we’re still in Cabin 27, but I’ve never forgotten that first Christmas. Penny took a photo of me and Megan clinking our glasses, filled with orange juice, over a huge turkey. Megan’s smile is real – children have a way of living in the moment – but mine was purely for her and for the camera. You can still see the swelling around my left eye from one of Sean’s more accurate punches.
Penny slides a cold bottle of locally made cider across the kitchen table and I take a grateful slug of the honey-coloured liquid. It’s called Sam’s Cider. I don’t know Sam, but I do know that he knows how to make a good cider.
‘Megan bunked off school again. I got a text from the school in the middle of a postmortem.’
Penny frowns.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. She won’t tell me, but I know it’s got something to do with that piece of shit, Jay Cox. I saw the two of them outside Kebabs by the Coast on the high street a few weeks back.’
‘Sharon Cox’s son?’ Penny knows everyone, although only I know her real name which is Sadie Macdonald. She hasn’t used it in twenty years, not since she left Liverpool and her stalker ex. She shakes her head sadly. ‘He’s a soft lad, that one. Involved in all sorts. If Sharon was still alive, she’d be so sad to see what he’s become.’
‘Well, I’ve banned Megan from having anything to do with him, but she doesn’t listen to me.’
‘Megan’s got too much sense to get mixed up with the Cox’s.’
‘I hope so, because I’m not sure how I can stop her. I’ve grounded her for a week, but I can’t lock her up when I’m on nights and weekends.’
‘I can keep an eye on her for you.’
‘Thanks, Pen, but you already do so much. I mean, who else could have taught my daughter the Beatles’ entire back catalogue?’
Pen is a huge fan. Her name, the first that came to mind when the previous Lodges’ owner offered her a cleaning job, is a blend of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields.
She laughs.
‘Don’t knock it. There’s a lorra wisdom in those words.’
Twenty years in North Devon hasn’t dulled her accent.
‘Er… she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah?’
She grins at me.
‘OK, maybe not the early stuff.’
‘Seriously, this isn’t about someone else looking after Megan. This is about me being around more for her. You know, when she got fed up doing whatever she was doing this afternoon with Jay, she didn’t come home. She went to Bernadette’s.’
Penny’s raised eyebrows signal her confusion and not a little hurt.
‘Why? She knows I’m here for her. And you, for that matter.’
I smile gratefully. At times, Penny has been more of a mum to me than Bernadette ever was – although Bernadette would rather be horsewhipped naked down the high street by the Pope than wear a knitted rainbow poncho and neon feathers in her hair. It occurs to me that Penny’s stalker ex, Ian, probably wouldn’t recognize her now in all her bright finery, but she still moors an ‘escape boat’ in the harbour ‘just in case’.
‘Because she knew how much it would piss me off. She phoned to tell me she had Megan. I could hear the gloating in her voice. Then Megan pipes up that a friend of hers saw me kissing this guy in the pub the other night. Bernadette loved that, of course. More proof that I’m a fallen woman.’
Penny takes the top off another bottle of cider for herself.
‘So you’re not allowed boyfriends now?’
‘I’d hardly call him a boyfriend. More an internet user error.’
‘I don’t know why you don’t give that beach barista guy a go. It’s so obvious he fancies you. He’s always asking about you.’
‘What, Liam? He’s just being friendly. He’s like that with everyone.’
Penny rolls her eyes in mock despair.
‘No, he isn’t and just because you’ve had a rough time in the past, it doesn’t mean the future will be the same.’
‘Save me the psychobabble, Pen. Adopted by an emotionally distant woman, impregnated by a man who scarpered five minutes after the first scan and beaten by my alcoholic husband, I think I’m entitled to have the commitment level of a rabbit in springtime. Anyway, you can’t talk. When are you and Ringo ever going to meet?’
Ringo isn’t his real name either. He’s a guy Penny met in a Beatles forum a few months back. They’ve been exchanging messages ever since, mostly about their mutual love of the Fab Four. Recently, she found out he lives in South Devon. News of his close proximity unsettled her and she ignored him for a while. They’re talking again, but so far she’s knocked back his invitations to meet.
Penny shrugs.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s better that we don’t.’
I place my hand on hers. I know what’s on her mind because it’s always there.
‘It’s been twenty years, Pen. You’ve changed your name. You’re not on social media. Ian couldn’t find you even if he wanted to. Ringo isn’t Ian. You should give him a chance.’
She says nothing. I’ve already strayed too deep into her past and when she speaks it’s to steer me away with a joke. ‘Look at us. We’re a right pair of commitment phobes, aren’t we?’
She gets up and drops the empty cider bottles into the recycling bin by the back door. They smash against the others.
Maybe there are some things we can’t escape.