Page 12 of Coming Home to Inishbeg Cove

Chapter 9

Penny

Someone was pulling at my eyelids. I opened my eyes and looked around the room. Bright sunlight crept around the edges of the blind. For a moment I was confused about where I was but then it hit me afresh, like it did every morning when I woke.

‘Wake up, Mama,’ Lucy demanded.

I pulled myself upright and leant back against the pillows. ‘Hello, baby girl.’

‘Get up, Mama, me wanna go to the beach!’

‘I’ll take you, Lucy,’ Mam said, gently opening the bedroom door. ‘We’ll let your mammy sleep on, okay, love?’

Lucy bounced out of bed and ran into her grandmother’s arms. I turned over and realised that the pillow was wet beneath my face. I had obviously been crying in my sleep again.

Over the last few days I had fallen into a fog of depression. Mam and Dad had stepped in to take care of Lucy, as I could barely climb out of bed. Joe hadn’t called me, and I was starting to realise that things were really over between us. I felt bruised and embarrassed. I regretted the conversation we had had so much. Why hadn’t I just taken Lucy back to Dublin and let Joe sleep in the studio if that was what he wanted? Surely that would have been better than the awful pain that seared my heart now. But then I thought of Lucy. I owed it to her not to live a life dictated by her father’s whims.

I had given so much of my life to Joe, and now I was left with nothing. He had infiltrated my thoughts and opinions until I really didn’t know myself any more. Then I thought of Lucy’s pure smile and I knew that I had the best gift of all, but I was worried about the future.

One morning several days later, Lucy came bounding into the bedroom and jumped on top of me. Mam followed her, pulled back the curtains then opened the window, letting cool morning air rush into the room.

‘It’s a beautiful day out there,’ she began. ‘It’s almost a sin to be in bed in this weather. Come on, up you get. I promised Lucy we’d bring her to Greg’s for an ice cream.’

I groaned. I knew she meant well, but I didn’t want to face anyone. I didn’t want to have to make inane chit-chat with all the villagers we would inevitably meet on the short walk down the main street. They would ask about Joe and I didn’t trust myself to be able to hold it together.

‘You take her, Mam,’ I pleaded, turning over in bed. ‘I’m too tired.’

‘Penny, you need to get up out of that bed this minute!’ she said in a voice that reminded me of when she’d told me to get up for school as a teenager. ‘I know you’re going through a hard time,’ she went on, ‘but you’re a mother – you have someone else to think of besides yourself, and Lucy needs her mammy right now. Come on, you can’t disappoint her. I promised her an ice cream for being so good.’

I knew Mam was emotionally blackmailing me.

‘Up, Mama, me wanna ice cream,’ Lucy demanded, tugging my hand underneath the blankets.

I looked at her sweet round face and knew I couldn’t disappoint her.

‘All right then,’ I said, pulling back the rose-printed duvet cover and putting my feet on the floor. ‘Let’s get ice cream.’

After I had showered and dressed, I made my way down to the kitchen.

‘What will you have for breakfast?’ Mam asked.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You’re fading away, Penny, and God knows, you didn’t have much weight on you to begin with. You need to look after yourself, or how will you ever mind Lucy?’

Once again, she had played the guilt card. Grudgingly I took a buttered slice of toast and forced myself to eat it, even though it tasted like cardboard in my mouth.

‘Me going to get the biggest ice cream,’ Lucy said, bouncing around on the chair beside me. She was grinning in pure excitement. I reached out and pulled her into a hug.

After I had eaten, we set off for the ice-cream parlour.

‘How long has it been open?’ I asked Mam as we arrived at the door. I noticed the wall outside was decorated with plaques from various awards Greg's ice-cream had won.

‘Greg opened it shortly after he moved into the village. He was an attorney over in America, would you believe?’ She emphasised the word ‘attorney’. ‘He had a big job, but he gave it all up when he met Sarah.’

Lucky Sarah, I thought, feeling a pang of heartache.

‘He was fed up of the rat-race and he had always dreamed about opening his own business and that’s when he realised with tourist numbers growing in the village every year, there would be a market for an ice-cream parlour, and he wasn’t wrong. He opened it late last year and it’s been doing a bomb ever since,’ Mam went on.