Page 70 of New Beginnings At Pencarrow Bay
Peggy woke to a painfully bright morning. Her mouth was so dry it was as if her tongue was six times its normal size and riveted to the roof of her mouth, her brain full of lagging.
Gradually, as she lay there, the sunlight streaming through the open window, the pieces of the previous night began to fall into place. Paul, a spliff, a song, the piskies, the night stars… She smiled to herself. Then the rest came back to her. Ted shouting. Well, not shouting, perhaps, but definitely cross. She looked at the clock on the bedside table: 10.45 a.m.What?She shook it. But it still stubbornly said the same time.Oh, shit, she thought. Ted would have been at the van for hours, probably fuming about her behaviour.
Gingerly, she raised herself to a sitting position. Then, when that didn’t kill her, she eased back the duvet and swung her legs over the side of the bed– which also turned out to be a successful manoeuvre, apart from her pounding head. Standing felt literally like a step too far. But she gave it a go, fell back. Tried again. Stood for a second. Sat down again. It was a good ten minutes before she was once more in the bathroom, splashing cold water on her face and gulping handfuls of it, in an attempt properly to wake up.
Downstairs, all was quiet. She’d dressed in jeans, thrown a warm cardigan over her T-shirt because she felt shivery.Is Liam here?she wondered, going over to the sink to fill the kettle for a cup of tea– she needed fuel before she went to check.A pair of dirty stop-outs, she thought wryly.No wonder Ted despairs of us.
Having organized hot tea and a slice of buttered toast, she wandered out onto the terrace to sit in the sunshine and warm up. Taking her mobile with her, she checked her messages. Six increasingly agitated ones from Ted last night, asking where she was. She groaned guiltily. None, worryingly, from him this morning.He’s really pissed off with me,she told herself gloomily.And rightly so.However upset she’d been with him, it wasn’t fair to stay out half the night without at least telling him where she was. She knew he would have been worried. But she hadn’t intended to stay out, of course. Hadn’t realized she was doing so, either, once the dope flowed into her system.
As she sat there in a daze, she heard a voice behind her.
‘Hi, Mum.’ Liam, in shorts and a scruffy T-shirt, strolled across the flagstones from his room.
‘Oh, you’re home,’ she said.
Looking down at her, his blond hair still tousled from sleep, he raised his eyebrows in question.
‘Ted said you hadn’t come in last night,’ she said.
‘Yeah, he was spark out on the sofa. I crept past.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Anything you want to share with me, Mum?’
Peggy had no desire to ‘share’ the details of last night’s high jinks with her son. It didn’t seem too dignified in the cold light of morning. Although she couldn’t help smiling when she thought of them lying on the cool grass at the castle, singing into the starry night. It had been fun.
Trying to appear nonchalant and not meeting Liam’s gaze, she said merely, ‘Nope.’ Ignoring his sceptical smile, she hurried on, ‘Did you see Gen?’
‘No, she was with Jake. Probably just as well. Got chatting with Gina, who works in the Co-op, and her boyfriend.’
‘Yes, I know her to say hello to. She won the swimming race.’
Liam nodded. ‘She was a bit tiddly.’ He sat down, stretched his bare legs towards the sun. ‘Apparently Lindy is sponsoring her daughter to go to ballet school. She made Gina swear on her life that she would never tell a living soul.’ He grinned. ‘But no such thing as a secret, eh?’
Peggy wasn’t surprised. When Annie had told her about the anonymous benefactor, she’d thought it might be Lindy. She was touched, though. It was such a generous thing to do. And admirable that she didn’t want her generosity bruited around the village. Did this kindness square with the cruelty of those emails? It seemed not, and it made her already-compromised head hurt when she tried to make sense of it.
‘So she’s clearly not all bad,’ Liam commented, closing his eyes against the sun and leaning back in his chair.
Peggy sighed and gave a half-hearted nod. She didn’t want to talk about Lindy right now.
‘That was a weary sigh, Mum.’
‘Yes, well…’ She didn’t continue, her mind elsewhere. She was fretting about the best way to contact Ted and apologize for last night. Better in person, at the stall? Or a grovelling text? Wait for him to come home? Her brain wasn’t firing on even half its potential cylinders this morning and she couldn’t decide on the best plan.
‘You look a bit rough,’ her son commented.
Peggy summoned a grin. ‘That’s my line, isn’t it?’ she said, making him chuckle.
‘Everyone in the pub seemed excited about movie night,’ he added.
Peggy groaned. ‘I’d forgotten it was tonight.’ She was dreading it. Dreading seeing the look in people’s eyes as they pretended they hadn’t heard the gossip about her.
‘You don’t have to organize anything for it, do you? I can help.’
‘Thanks, but no. Ted’s just doing popcorn and Coke from the van. We can help if he needs us. Paul said he’d hired a hot-dog stand too, which will be very popular. It’s more the social side that worries me. Not really in the mood to face the village right now.’
‘So you’ve heard? That word about the emails got out?’ He winced as he spoke.
She nodded. ‘I’m beyond caring, to be honest.’ That wasn’t true, of course, but she was so worn down by it all. Bored with it constantly nagging at her thoughts, too– which was why last night had been so blissful.
‘I think I’ll nip down and see Ted,’ she said, rising cautiously from her chair, pleased to find that her head was no longer spinning.
