‘I want to talk to you about budget—’
‘You bring me old Mave and then we’ll talk money.’
‘Deal. I’ll let you know as soon as I get hold of her.’
‘Phone me asap.’ He hung up before she said goodbye.
Old Mave was Mavis Crewe, an eighty-something powerhouse who had created her most famous character, Mr Tibbs, back in the late 1950s. Penny had snapped up the screen rights to the books for peanuts and the stories of the crime-solving bank manager and his sidekick secretary, Nancy Trumpet, had become the most watched period drama serial of the past three years.
Penny’s problem was that she had now filmed all the books and needed Mavis to write some more. But Mavis, a law unto herself, was enjoying spending her unexpected new income by constantly circumnavigating the globe.
Penny rubbed a hand over her chin and found two or three fresh spiky hairs. She’d had no time to get them waxed and, right now, had no energy to go upstairs and locate her long-missing tweezers.
She pushed her laptop away and laid her head on the leather-topped desk. ‘I’m so tired …’ she said to no one, and jumped when her computer replied with a trill. An email.
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Mr Tibbs
Dear Penny,
How simply thrilling that Mr Tibbs is wanted so badly by Channel 7 and the charming Jack Bradbury. It really is such a joy to know that one’s lifework has a fresh impact on the next generation of viewing public.
Another six stories, and a Christmas special? But my dear, that is simply not possible.
I wrote those stories years ago as a young widow in order to feed my family. Mr Tibbs has done his job, I’d say and I don’t have the patience to think up more adventures for him.
Can you not simply repeat the old ones?
Yesterday we went through the Panama Canal. Absolutely extraordinary. Very wide in parts and very narrow in others. We are now sailing in the Pacific and stopping off at Costa Rica tomorrow. Why don’t you drop everything and join me for a few weeks? Enjoy our spoils from dear Mr Tibbs.
With great affection,
Mavis Crewe CBE
Penny couldn’t move. She read the email again and broke into a cold sweat. No more Mr Tibbs? Put out repeats? Go and join her on a cruise? Did the woman have no idea that so many people’s careers were hanging in the balance because she couldn’t be arsed to write a half-baked whimsy about a fictional bloke who solved the mystery of a missing back-door key? Anger and frustration coursed through her. She pressed reply and started to type.
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Mr Tibbs
Dear Mavis,
If we have no more bloody scripts there is no more Mr Tibbs. Do you want to throw away all that you’ve achieved? I certainly am not going to let you. The end of Mr Tibbs would mean the end of your cruising and the end of me. PLEASE write SOMETHING! And if you won’t do that, I shall have to find someone else to write Mr Tibbs for me, with or without your help.
Penny
She hovered over the send icon. No, she needed time to think. She couldn’t afford to fall out with Mavis. She must sweet-talk her round. She pressed delete and began again.
Dear Mavis,
How lovely to hear from you and what a fabulous time you must be having!
I respect your wishes to put Mr Tibbs ‘to bed’ as it were. He has indeed served you well and given much pleasure to our viewers.
Which brings me to a difficult question. If you won’t write the next six episodes and a Christmas special, someone else will have to. Before I find that special someone, do you have anyone you would prefer to pick up your nib? Someone whose writing you admire and that you feel could imitate your style?
No one could be as good as you, of course, but this could be an exciting new future for the Mr Tibbs’ franchise as I’m certain you agree.
With all my very best wishes – and have a tequila for me!
Penny xxx
She read it through once and pressed send.
‘Right,’ she said to the empty room. ‘The office is now shut for the day’. She switched off the computer and threw her iPhone into the desk drawer. ‘I am going to eat cake.’
*
Jenna always woke from her morning nap at about twelve thirty, so Penny had some fruit cake with a milky cup of coffee and flicked through a magazine, all the while feeling a creeping anxiety about how Mavis would react to the email. Mavis was no pushover and would recognize Penny’s bluffing for what it was. She was beginning to regret sending it. But what was the worst that could happen? Mavis refusing point-blank to write anything? So what. Penny would do as she threatened, find a new writer, pay them a quarter of Mavis’s fee, and stuff her.
She heard Jenna’s little voice calling from her cot upstairs.
‘Coming, darling!’ responded Penny, and she put all thought of Mavis out of her head.
Penny loved Jenna with a fierceness that was almost as big as the fear she had that she was not good enough to be her mother. She would gladly die for her, but the endless hours of playing peekaboo and looking repetitively at the same old picture books, pointing out the spider or the mouse or the fairy, was killing her. There were days when she couldn’t wait to put Jenna to bed and then, while she was sleeping, would be riven with the horror of not being good enough.
Repetitive.
Exhausting.
Mind-numbing.
Frightening.
Nerve-shredding.
She watched in envy as the young mums in Pendruggan appeared to revel in picnics on the village green, swimming lessons, tumble tots, musical games and the endless coffee mornings with other women trading their inane chatter.
Penny had been invited to one once. As vicar’s wife she tried to do the right thing, but the amount of snot and sick and stinking nappies – not to mention stories of leaking breastpads and painful episiotomies – really wasn’t her thing.
The truth was she missed work when she was with Jenna, and she missed Jenna when she was at work. Her love for Jenna was overwhelming, so big that it was impossible to connect with it, but …
She missed an organized diary, a clear office with regular coffee, and power lunches.
She missed flying to LA. She missed being in control of her life.
And she missed her London flat.
She had kept it on when she married Simon, telling him that it would always be useful, a bolthole for both of them, although neither of them had been there since Jenna was born.
But Jenna was here now. Here to stay. How could Penny be lonely with this beautiful, perfect, loving little girl who depended on her for everything? Penny looked at her daughter, sitting in her pram, ready for a trip to Queenie’s village shop, just for something to do. She bent down and tucked the chubby little legs under the blanket. ‘It’s cold outside.’ Jenna lay back and smiled. ‘I love you, Jenna,’ said Penny. Tears pricked her eyes. She angrily wiped one away as it escaped down her cheek.
‘Mumma,’ said Jenna. She held her hands out to Penny. ‘Mumma?’
‘I’m fine. I’m fine, darling,’ Penny said with a tight throat. She found a tissue in her coat pocket and wiped her face. ‘Now then!’