Page 52 of New Beginnings At Pencarrow Bay
‘You’re being a bit overdramatic, aren’t you, my lovely?’ Quentin said gently.
‘But you’ve told me about Teresa, how she hardly goes out now and had people calling her names in the street.’ Peggy blinked away the tears. ‘I don’t want to live like that.’
Quentin looked a bit baffled as she let out a frustrated growl. ‘God, this is all so unfair.’ She knew she soundedchildish and didn’t care. She’d been grown-up and responsible all her life, and look where that had got her: libellous emails trashing her character and her professional standing. ‘So, how did you cope with retirement, Quentin?’ she asked, trying once more to move away from her own miserable thoughts.
He raised an eyebrow. When he spoke, it was slowly and distinctly. ‘The truth? Not well.’
He sounded so grim, so genuine, Peggy found a potential laugh stuck in her throat.
‘So you hated it.’
‘At first, yes. I was depressed, lost, bored, loathing all of mobile humanity with a passion.’ He sighed. ‘I was at the top of my game, a Queen’s Counsel. I loved my work. It was devastating to have to quit. I wasn’t even sixty. It waswho I was.’
Peggy recognized his emphasis immediately. ‘So what changed? You seem all right now.’
He fell silent, seemed lost in thought. ‘I suppose I gradually began to make friends with the other facets of my character. I discovered I’m also a reasonably okay husband, a friend to many, an idle fellow who just loves to read all day, to potter about… Having a community helped.’
‘I’m pleased for you.’ Peggy spoke with feeling and respect.That can’t have been easy, she thought. Were there other facets of her own character she hadn’t developed over the years of head-down teaching? She’d have to give it some thought.
Quentin eyed her sympathetically. ‘Look, not wishing to be competitive in the trauma stakes, my dear, but at least your situation is not written in stone, as mine was. I couldhardly continue to be a barrister as an old crock with a buggered spine, but surely when this nasty business is sorted out, you’ll be free to work where you like, have as many friends as you wish.’
She sighed. ‘You don’t know what it’s like, Quentin, feeling that people might be gossiping behind your back. Wondering if what they’d heard is true. Assessing your character, your integrity.’
He looked concerned. ‘I really think you’re making too much of this, Peggy. Lindy’s your friend, she’ll keep schtum, and Sienna… well, Sienna only speaks when spoken to.’ He grinned. ‘My nanny always instructed me to do the same, which turned out to be rather a pointless exercise in my case.’
‘Ted says I’m exaggerating the problem, too.’
‘So could we both be right?’ Quentin asked, with an affectionate smile.
She shook her head. She was too tired to argue, but in her mind they were wrong.
‘You’d never think of leaving the bay, would you?’
Peggy could hear the anxiety in Quentin’s voice and wanted to reassure him. But the notion had begun to take root in her mind over the last few days.What’s here for me?she’d found herself wondering, bleakly, a number of times. But the answer was immediate and always the same:Ted. ‘Ted would never leave,’ she replied dully.
‘And you’d never leave Ted,’ he stated firmly.
She didn’t reply immediately.
‘You and Ted are in good shape, aren’t you?’ Quentin asked, maybe intuiting something from her silence. His eyes were wide with worry.
‘Oh, God, yes. Of course we are.’ She spoke firmly, and mostly believed in what she was saying.Would Ted come with me, though, if I needed to leave Pencarrow?It upset her that she couldn’t be sure of the answer.
‘Don’t leave, my lovely,’ Quentin said softly. ‘I couldn’t bear that.’
23
Peggy dropped into the post office after she and Quentin had said goodbye. Talking openly with her friend had accentuated too many questions, too many uncomfortable thoughts, and she was shaken.
There was no queue, Gary greeting her with his usual gusto.
‘I’d like to remove my ad, please, Gary,’ she told him. Maybe if she did that, she reasoned, the emails would stop– although she had no evidence that the advertisement had been the catalyst for the trolling.
The personal notices were locked in a glass display case on the wall outside. Gary was very particular about what he would allow. ‘I don’t want just any folk promoting themselves or their wares if they aren’t kosher, if you know what I mean,’ he’d told her, when she’d first brought her card in.
‘Okey-dokes,’ he said now. ‘I’ll get that sorted, Peggy, take it down this afternoon.’ He gave her a questioning look. ‘You’ve found a job, then? Because someone was in enquiring about tutors earlier and I pointed them to your card.’
‘Really? Who was it?’ Her worry was such right now that even a probably quite innocent enquiry about her teaching skills felt sinister.
