Chapter 17.

“Thank you,” Penny sighed as Anna placed a steaming cup in front of her on the kitchen island. “I’m starting to feel human again after a nap.” Penny paused. “Jesus. How ancient do I sound, having a nap?”

“Bibs is having a nap, so that makes you on a par with a two-year-old,” Anna replied.

Penny shrugged and seemed satisfied with the analogy. “Oh god,” she moaned. “I wish you’d been at that bloody wedding yesterday. Instead of me would have been good.”

“That bad?”

“Wall-to-wall toffs and suits. You would have been fine. You always knew how to charm in any circle. Benefits of an uptight upbringing,” Penny raised her mug, “ability to politely charm in that strata of society. Can’t stand doing it. The number of scathing looks Lana sent my way for swearing.”

Anna smiled indulgently at her friend. “It’s what I’ve always loved about you. You wear everything on the outside.”

“Well apparently Lana doesn’t appreciate that.”

Anna was diplomatic and held her tongue. She couldn’t reassure Penny. Since Bibs had been born, cracks had appeared in the MacFarlane family, circumstances, personalities and pressures no doubt all contributing, and Anna did all she could to support Penny and Bibs and help take the strain.

“And the couple we were sitting next to,” Penny carried on, “honestly, when Bibs filled her nappy, you know with that little grunt and straining red face, because when she’s in a high chair it needs that extra push because she’s basically sitting on it, but if you take her out she’ll stop and be constipated for days, well you would have thought she’d got up and shat in their soup.”

“Fuck ‘em.” Anna grinned.

“I love it when you swear.” Penny’s face was full beaming satisfaction. “It’s so much dirtier with your sophisticated accent. Do it more often please.”

“I’ll indulge you once in a while.”

“Hey,” Penny leant forward and grabbed Anna’s hand. “You’ve got to come to the cinema with me.”

Anna tried not to groan, but apparently failed.

“I know you avoid it, but Lana’s always tapping at her phone answering emails if she goes and is wretched company. Pleeeeeeease.” Penny drew out the entreaty for several seconds.

“I’ve never liked superhero films.”

“This one’s not a superhero film.”

“OK, fantasy action film.”

“I have broader taste than that. But, yes, it is fantasy and there’s so much more to it than another fictional world. It’s an epic saga with drama, family tension, politics. It’s gripping and this one’s really captured everyone’s imagination. And, most importantly,” Penny inhaled dramatically and put her hand over her heart, “it has a super-hot sexy heroine.”

Anna groaned.

“No, honestly. That woman.” Pen gurgled and drooled over the word “woman” and her open-mouthed poleaxed expression was indecent. “She is sensational. She has the most fit body ever and you can see every inch of it when she wears that suit. Frankly, her tits are magnificent.”

Anna must have tutted because Pen followed up quickly with, “Yeah, yeah, I know, you never understood people falling for someone’s body. But her eyes, imagine deepest dark pools of hazel deliciousness. And lips, they look like they could kiss you into oblivion in the filthiest way possible. She’d have your knickers wet in seconds.”

“Pen!” Anna swallowed away a hint of nausea and wrinkled her nose.

“You have to watch the new one with me so I can lust after Jessica Lambert without Lana sending me disapproving looks.”

Anna laughed. “How about I babysit Bibs and you go by yourself?”

“Naww. If I was sitting by myself, I’d feel like a perv.”

“Well…?” Anna raised her eyebrows, accusingly.

“Oh, you’re no fun.”

“I can’t,” Anna said sadly.

“But the voice!” Pen said, suddenly animated again. “Her voice. That’ll seduce you all on its own.”

“What’s the film then?”

“Atlassia, Part 3”

“Never heard of it or parts 1 and 2.”

“Well that’s disgraceful, mainly because I’ve told you about it tons of times before and you clearly weren’t listening.”

Anna sighed with guilt. Her loss of enjoyment of cinema trips which were beyond her regimented world grieved her from several perspectives and she suspected she’d switched off as a defence mechanism.

“I’ll owe you,” Penny sang, with all the guile and subtlety of a four-year-old needling for sweets. “I’ll do anything.”

Anna took Penny’s face in her hands and leant forward. “You,” she tutted. “Look at your mischievous twinkling eyes.”

“Don’t look too close, otherwise you’ll see all these bloody wrinkles too. ‘Pregnancy makes you bloom,’ everyone tells you. Yeah well, they don’t mention how shit tired you’ll be afterwards and how your face will age like an elephant’s arse.”

Anna laughed out loud and kissed Penny on the forehead. “I love you.”

Penny squeezed her hands. “I love you too.”

Bibs snored sweetly from the bed and they both gazed in her direction, Anna noticing Penny had the same besotted smile she wore herself.

“Hey,” Pen said, turning back and squeezing her hand. “How was your day yesterday? Did you chill out?”

“Actually.” Anna found herself treading carefully. Pen was a terrier when it came to sniffing out gossip. “I spent it with a friend.”

“Did Marcus get his arse in gear and call round?”

“No, not Marcus.”

“One of your cousins? Oh, Dominique said she was going to call you.”

“That’s good.”

“So not your cousins either?”

Oh god. She’d already piqued her friend’s interest. Pen sat up alert on the bar stool.

“A new friend,” Anna said, trying to keep it light.

“Someone new?” Pen said, tight faced, with a high-pitched nonchalance that was anything but.

“Yes, I…” Shit. “She was lost, on Friday.”

“Oh yes?”

“On the Tube.”

“Uhuh?” Pen was leaning forward, elbows on the top and head perched on hands. Anna was beginning to sweat.

“And we got talking and…”

“And?”

“Hung out.”

“Oh,” Penny deflated. “I’m just playing. You know I always hope that…well, you know….And I know you worry and don’t want to….well, you know. I know.”

Good. There. She’d confessed to Penny who was too good a friend not to tell.

“So, a woman?”

Dammit. Penny was fake-nonchalantly sipping her coffee again, eyes hawk-like on Anna.

“Yes, a woman.”

“Good.”

“What?” Anna laughed. “Why?”

“I will never understand your attraction to men. All that…hair.” Penny wrinkled her nose.

“Not all of them are hairy.”

“And they smell funny.”

“Everyone smells different.”

“No breasts.”

“Not always true.”

“And great hairy bollocks and dicks. I really don’t like those.”

Anna snorted. “You don’t have to sleep with them. And you adored Marcus.”

“Well, he was like a lesbian.”

At least they’d moved on from the topic of Anna’s latest friend.

“So are we talking hot new friend? Young, hot, new friend? Rich older friend?”

Bugger.

“Does any of that matter?” Anna said, with amused despair.

“To me it does.” Penny leaned forward, insatiable and enjoying her tease.

“OK,” Anna relented. “She was twenty-four. Does that count as young?”

“Like, yeah,” Penny tutted. “Pretty? Attractive?”

“I suppose, yes.”

“I know you don’t like reducing people to their looks, but come on, was she…?” and Penny carved out the shape of a curvy woman in the air with her hands.

“She was attractive.” Anna had a sudden flash of caressing Jess's face and then appreciating those luscious lips with her own. Oh my god she was attractive.

“You’re not having a fling with some young thing are you?” Pen nudged her.

Anna really was sweating. “Going to open a window,” she said, and got up.

“Anna?” Pen was calling after her, more earnest now. “Anna? Seriously? Did you meet someone?”

Anna fiddled with the window and tried to keep talking as if none of it was as earth moving as it felt. “She was someone who needed a place to stay and we chatted and–”

“She stayed the night?!”

Damn.

“Yes. On Friday.” Anna held her breath. “And Saturday.”

Silence. Anna didn’t dare turn around.

“So you met her on Friday?”

“Yes.”

“And she’s stayed here ever since?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Because moving in on the first date would be some kind of record even in lesbian circles.”

Anna laughed at last and turned round. “It wasn’t like that at all. I offered help and she was wonderful company.” And now that Jess was no longer there, Anna began to doubt herself. “She was funny, and charming, and young and attractive. And also not available. She works abroad, so nothing can happen even if she was interested in middle-aged women who barely leave their homes.”

Penny got up and came towards her.

“I’m certain she would have been interested.” Penny held her hands, gentle sympathy suffused on her face.

“You couldn’t know that. You haven’t met her.”

“Anna Mayhew, you are one of the most beautiful women in England. She would fancy the pants off you.”

Anna squeezed Penny’s hands, grateful for her friend’s biased compliment.

“Anyway,” Anna sighed. “She works all over Europe apparently, so nothing can happen even if we both wanted it.”

“OK.” Pen, at last, seemed satisfied.

Anna’s phone buzzed beside them on the kitchen top. Message from Jess. Oh god, no.

The message notification was lit up on her phone.

“Jess? Who’s Jess?” Pen asked. “Is she the new friend?”

Please leave it there. Please don’t read the message. Don’t say anything else. Anna prayed that the phone would fade to a black screen again. Anna peeped to the side to read the message that was very clear, very obvious, and that said, “That wasn’t just a kiss.”

Crap.

Anna and Penny stood clutching each other’s hands, as still as statues, apart from the ever widening hole that was Penny’s mouth. Any moment now, a great noise and consternation was going to come out of that gaping cavern.

“Anna Mayhew!”

Anna smiled sweetly and gripped Pen’s hands.

“You!” Penny gasped. “You lied!”

“No. No. No. It’s not like that.”

“Kissing!”

“Really I didn’t.”

“There was kissing. And it sounds like serious kissing.” Penny growled to make sure that it sounded salacious.

“It was when we said good bye. Only then.”

“Really?” Pen eyes narrowed to slits.

“Honestly. Nothing happened.”

“A kiss happened.”

“Nothing apart from the kiss. I swear to you.”

“But.” Penny’s body went slack and her face softened. She drew Anna’s hands into her chest. “That’s amazing.”

Anna swallowed. Yes. It had been amazing.

“I mean it.” Penny was almost tearful. “That’s brilliant. Was it ok?”

“The kiss?” It was fucking phenomenal.

“I mean. Were you OK with being close to someone?”

“Yes.” Anna nodded. “Actually, yes.”

Pen reached up and bear hugged her, rocking from side to side. “It’s been too bloody long,” Pen said, muffled into Anna’s shoulder. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Nothing will come of it,” Anna said, trying not to sniff over Penny’s shoulder.

“But that doesn’t matter. This is a huge step for you.” And Penny squeezed her again.

At last she let Anna go and stood before her, holding her hands with a big grin on her face. Then the grin disappeared.

“Did she know who you are?” Penny asked, cautiously.

A sadness settled in Anna’s belly. “Sorry, what was that?” She knew what Penny had said and what she alluded to.

“Did she recognise you?”

Anna shook her head. “Of course she didn’t, Pen. No-one does anymore.”