The Penn Friends Series Books 5-8: Penn Friends Boxset Page 11

  Penny didn’t know how to answer that, as it was so connected to who she was. Because of me and my secret. She couldn’t go there, not yet. Probably not ever, even though halfway through that first session, Penny already realised that this woman knew her stuff.

  “I don’t think I can answer that.” Isabella noted Penny’s response down. She knew it was always a case of not being ready to answer as opposed to not having an answer. She would let it drop for now.

  In the remaining time on that first session, Penny would mention school life––her broken friendship with Abbey would come up as well as her strained relationship with Jack. Isabella continued to take notes. She asked Penny about interests outside of school, and the dance studio got an airing. Isabella even remembered the news about Jenkins and his crimes. More frantic note taking.

  Penny glanced over a little later to the desk. The sand had all long since dropped to the bottom of the timer and Isabella’s secretary had already told the next client that she was running a little behind schedule. That would prove to be a regular occurrence. However, as Penny took this in, Isabella looked up from her notes and drew that first session to a close.

  “I think we’ve made a tremendous start,” she said, standing up and helping Penny rise from the couch. Penny felt good, tired as if put through her paces by a top athlete, but good. Isabella walked Penny to the door, opening it and ushering Penny out. There were already two others waiting in the reception area, though Penny had no idea how many other therapists were working that day.

  Penny got into her car, sitting behind the wheel in silence for a moment.

  “I talked a bit about you, mum,” Penny said. “She asked me if I blamed myself for your absence. Do you know what I now realise? I don’t.” She switched on the engine, the radio coming on, and turning up the volume, Penny sped away, a lightness in her spirit that she hadn’t had forty minutes early. Maybe there was something in speaking to a professional?

  See, didn’t I say it would do you some good?

  Penny was back with Joy, the day after her appointment with the therapist. Just like old times. Penny sat there speaking, Joy the one laying down. Penny was the only one to hear Joy’s words, that steady voice in her head. Penny searched into Joy over the last few days. Everything she’d discovered about the Nigerian checked out in real life. Not that she doubted herself. Penny hadn’t told Joy this, hadn’t mentioned in fact her desire to double check. To have checked at all was the same as admitting to herself, to Joy, that Penny gave some credibility to the thought that she was making this all up, that she was putting the voice of a Nigerian in her own head and pretending it was, in fact, Joy speaking to her. Only crazy people acted like that. To confirm she had checked, instead of trusting her own gift, was to suggest she wasn’t sure. Which she hadn’t been. That much was troubling Penny.

  “Thanks for all your help,” Penny said after the hour was up that she had spare to fit in a visit before work. They’d talked about some things, Penny as grateful as ever for the sounding board Joy was, the patient for her part happy to be of use. Penny couldn’t help feel another tinge of guilt that she hadn’t alerted others to the actual state of consciousness of Joy. Having researched a little online, Penny saw all results leaning to the same suggestion––coma victims, especially when through strokes and serious accidents, are brain dead. There is no way of waking them up.

  You’re a good kid; you know that.

  “I’ll see you soon, Joy.”

  I’m not going anywhere. Penny laughed, leaving moments later.

  Penny walked back out to her car, having a few brief words with the nurses on the way, who had come to see Penny as part of the furniture now. The question on her mind was whether she could ever really talk to the therapist with the openness and freedom Penny shared with Joy? It felt like comparing two worlds––an online gaming world to real life. The therapy sessions were real life. What she had with Joy just existing within her mind. In much the same way a book lives in the spirit of a reader, or a role-playing game in the mind of a gamer. It wasn’t real life.

  Could she ever trust an actual human with her secret? Could she trust Isabella?

  6

  As pity parties were to go, I was heading into quite a season of them that month. Work was going well––I was in a pattern of taking shifts on Thursday and Friday nights plus most of Saturday and Sunday. School work got done at the beginning of the week; it just took planning and focus.

  At work, I kept hearing how pretty I was, how cute I was. How innocent I was. Clive Banks, the man I had slept with, was most vocal in that, though we hadn’t talked once about that night.

  However, I felt far from innocent.

  I was working with a therapist who was brilliant––the second session, while brutal at times, really surprised me how much I could share. I was still holding back, and I think she knew this, but I aired so much crap that had been weighing me down for too long.

  I had Joy, all to myself, too. That was downright greedy. I was selfish; far more than that even. I was keeping her a prisoner as much as she was a prisoner in her own body. I could easily have let someone know.

  The truth was, I knew Joy didn’t deserve the way I was treating her, and with all the compliments coming my way at whatever corner I seemed to turn, I knew I didn’t deserve anything good, either.

  Penny would drive straight from school to visit Joy most days now, especially at the beginning of the week when it was only an empty house and a few hours of homework otherwise awaiting Penny.

  Joy would safely navigate Penny through her life situations, Penny continuously thankful for the lady’s incredible wisdom, coupled with her gentle nature in how she spoke those truths to Penny. Whenever Penny had an issue at the pub––her place of employment, and most often her social circle as well, came up more than most topics––Joy would work through each situation. She could always tell Penny the best way out of specific conversations, the most natural workarounds when Penny felt awkward as well as a hundred different things.

  Joy was a friend, a mother, a grandmother and a guru all rolled into one. Penny knew she didn’t deserve any of it.

  You need to be careful with Clive, dear. Joy had said that more than once.

  “I know, Joy, I’ve got my eye on him.”

  Are you sure there isn’t better paying work out there? I’m just worried about what being around such a crowd might do to you over the long term. Though it was only a voice in her head, Penny could feel the love in every word, could imagine the look of motherly concern Joy would have in her eyes, her tender mannerisms as she instructed her young student with her wisdom.

  “There is nothing that works for my schooling. It has to be evening work and weekends. The pay is good, plus once tips get thrown in, I don’t think I could do better anywhere.” She’d told Joy that before, but the repeated questioning required the same answer. “Besides, I have you to navigate me through the difficult moments.” Penny was smiling. She wished Joy could see her.

  Indeed you do.

  The third session of Penny’s therapy took place on the last Saturday of February, at nine in the morning. Penny had been up late the night before––she hadn’t finished her shift until gone ten and then had spent the rest of the evening until closing with the crowd at the pub. Penny hoped she wouldn’t fall asleep on the couch.

  “You mentioned an incident between your former friend Abbey and a classmate named Jack?” Penny became instantly alert. She had indeed commented along those lines as they’d finished their previous session, Isabella’s note-taking clearly missing nothing based on that opening remark.

  “It happened during year nine,” Penny started, going on to recall the incident over the next five minutes, her eyes closed, her mind back in that place, standing in amongst the trees, watching in silence.

  “You decided at the time not to tell anybody. Why do you think you did that? Were you angry at Abbey?”

  Penny took a few moments to compose hersel
f.

  “I was mad at her, yes, though not to such a degree. I didn’t want her to get raped.”

  “You had no control over that, Ms Black. It wasn’t your fault. Why do you think you remained silent, however, both during and after?”

  Fear, terror, the sickening reality she’d specifically caused it to happen. A dozen answers were racing through Penny’s mind right then.

  “I was scared. Scared that I’d been following them, scared that I’d witnessed it. Scared about what Jack would do to me.”

  Isabella scanned back through her notes thoroughly, clearly searching out something Penny must have said previously, or a thought she’d had and written down. If she hadn’t been such a good therapist, Penny was sure that Isabella would have made an excellent police officer. Penny was glad this session was happening in the comforts of Isabella’s office and not in a police station.

  “Sometime later, you dated Jack, though. What changed?”

  Penny felt caught out in her plotting.

  “It was nothing.”

  “I think you were trying to make him pay, no? For what he had done to Abbey. For what you’d seen him do.”

  It was as if Isabella was reading Penny’s thoughts. Penny glanced at the sand timer. Barely five minutes must have passed since the start of the session.

  “Maybe, in a way, I was.” It slipped out more relaxed than she had feared it would. Isabella sat back as if knowing the truth when she heard it. Penny understood she must listen to a lot of people talking much rubbish before they got to the real stuff. She’d probably done the same.

  “Where is Jack now, Penny?” The question caught Penny off guard more than the earlier one had. Penny opened her eyes and turned her head towards her therapist.

  “I don’t know,” she said, scared.

  “This is the same boy who has run away, correct?” She’d been doing some homework on Penny, looking into things Penny had been saying. Suddenly Penny felt nervous about it all.

  “That had nothing to do with me,” Penny said, though even she couldn’t make her lie sound convincing.

  “I’m not here to judge you, Penny, I’m here to help. I don’t think you had any criminal intentions with regards to Jack, nor were you involved in his disappearance,” she said, though it was shaky ground. Penny wanted to run out of the door and never have to go through this again. “But you were the last person known to have seen him, right?”

  “How would I know?”

  There was an unsteady silence––both knew the other knew more than had been said, neither wanting to be the one to say it.

  “Let’s come back to Abbey, for a moment,” the therapist said, cutting through the tension somewhat with a brief change of focus. Penny was sure that the topic about Jack and his disappearance was far from off the agenda for good, however. “Why is it you both stopped being friends.”

  “I told you, she moved away.”

  “That’s why you weren’t neighbours anymore, and why you spent less time hanging out. It doesn’t explain why you stopped viewing each other as friends, however.”

  Penny bit her lip a little while she thought through her response, Isabella taking notes as always, the pen dancing across the pad like an Olympic figure skater across the ice.

  “Abbey was different after she started running.”

  “She was talented, you mean?” Isabella was well aware of the Abbey Lawrence to whom Penny was referring. “You became jealous of her?”

  “No!” Penny shot back, all too aggressively and more than the situation warranted. “Her running showed me who she was. Once she had that, she didn’t need me. I was too ordinary for her.”

  “She said that?”

  “No,” Penny replied, eyes closed again. She felt she had a headache coming on. Maybe she should finish the session early and have done with it for good?

  “Does Abbey have both her parents at home?” Again, a change of focus.

  “Erm, yes, she does. Why?”

  “Are they supportive of Abbey and her running?”

  “They moved house so that she could train, so I think so.”

  “Ms Black, did you resent your friend because she had a dad and you didn’t?” Something hit hard inside, like an unexpected punch, to which Penny was utterly unprepared.

  “What?”

  “It’s okay. And I know you heard me,” Isabella said, allowing silence to fill the room again for a while. Half the patients who laid on that couch had issues of fatherlessness.

  “I don’t see what relevance he has in any of this,” Penny said, though regretted the comment immediately. More copious notes were scribbled down.

  Once again the session had gone way beyond the allotted half an hour, though Isabella had always made a point of never cutting something off mid-flow. People needed time to talk, space to think.

  “As you’ll be aware I’m sure, we’ve come to the end of the three-week trial,” Isabella said while at the door, and hadn’t yet opened it to usher Penny out. “You’ve made excellent progress, and I do think we can continue to make more progress if we were to arrange more sessions shortly. I understand you might need time to think, but I hope you’ve found what we have done so far helpful?” Penny had, there was no mistaking that, but it was also painful. At times Penny felt like she was on trial, which in many ways, she was, though she knew Ms Boothroyd-Turner was only trying to help. That’s what Penny was paying for, after all.

  “I have found them helpful, yes,” Penny said, a little reluctantly, as if to admit to it would give the therapist permission to go harder in the future, if there was to be another time. That would depend on what Penny could afford.

  “You will be in touch then, with my secretary in due course?”

  “Sure,” Penny said, neither woman convinced on the sincerity of Penny’s comment, but the door opened anyway, and Penny said goodbye.

  Penny sat in the car for ten minutes without driving away, lost in her own thoughts. Part of her wanted to work through all that she needed to; the other part feared she wasn’t strong enough. It would be harder to afford, anyway, unless she found out a way to earn more money. That opportunity would present itself within the year and with it the need for more therapy.

  7

  That question about Abbey and her dad had caught me out. I realised I had no way of dealing with the idea of a dad.

  During many moments of bliss with Joy in that stuffy care home room where we shared such beautiful memories, she would often tell me I just needed to know Father God. That seemed her answer to most of my issues. Now I understood why that idea was so horrendous. I hated the idea of fatherhood. More specifically, I based my expectations of such a role on my own experience––a father was absent, unloving, cruel and untrustworthy. It had always bothered me when people used the term dad.

  I had no dad. And I certainly didn’t like the idea of a father, either.

  The therapist was probably right, therefore. Maybe I had thrown away that friendship because of my hurts, my anger? Was it the doting parents bending over backwards to help Abbey that had angered me? The father who would always be seen trackside at Abbey’s races?

  I started to ask myself some profound questions that summer. It would also be a time of utter heartbreak.

  Millie Turner was the first friend from outside the bubble of the pub that Penny allowed into her world, taking her along one night after Penny started her shift. Millie was a few months younger and far more naive, but because of that, the other women looked out for her while Penny worked. They kept the men at bay, whose banter grew all the rowdier, the further into the night they got.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were working there?” Millie asked as it was just the two of them, Penny driving her home having finished at ten.

  “I don’t know.” There were quite a few things Penny hadn’t told Millie over recent months, and with all the work, school and visits to Joy, the two former dance studio classmates had seen far less of each other than might have be
en the case.

  “Clive invited us clubbing tomorrow night,” Millie said, a sparkle in her eye.

  “We’re underage!”

  “He said it doesn’t matter. He knows the bouncers or something.” That didn’t surprise Penny one bit, the more she heard about the man, the more she knew he seemed to have connections everywhere.

  “I think you had better be careful around him, okay.”

  “He talked about you a lot tonight.”

  “Did he?” Penny glanced over at Millie, scared that Clive might have said something to her friend about the night they’d spent together.

  “I think he likes you.” Millie was smiling at her.

  “He’s too old for me.”

  “I know,” and Millie laughed as if that was what made it fun.

  Now at Millie’s home, the two girls not having said much more after the conversation about Clive, Penny pulled up onto the curb so that her friend could jump out.

  “See you around. Let me know if you want to go clubbing!” Millie shouted through the window, as Penny just shook her head in amusement and pulled away.

  Penny pulled into the drive, a few of the neighbours were outside and putting out their bins on the street for the following morning. A couple from across the street walked over in the darkness towards Penny as she locked the car door.

  “Penny, isn’t it?” the lady said. Penny turned around.

  “Hello, Mr and Mrs Lewis.” They’d been neighbours for as long as Penny could remember.

  “We haven’t seen Barbara for a while. Everything okay?” They knew Tom, Penny’s father, had left some years before; they’d seen that one coming for a long time.

  “She’s away,” Penny said, reaching for her door key.