Finding Love at Mermaid Terrace by Kate Forster

Author:Kate Forster [Forster, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788544375
Publisher: Head of Zeus

22

Penny closed her eyes tightly while a woman brushed makeup on to her face. The process was taking longer than she would have imagined, even if she was meeting the queen. The television crew had booked out the Black Swan. Penny had given them a village tour while Rosemary March looked after the post office and had listened as the crew exclaimed about the quaintness, the atmosphere, the cute pier, and the charming beach. She wasn’t sure a beach could be charming but she took their word for it, since they seemed to know more than her about what made for a good location.

Penny wanted to wear a new top that Tegan had bought her but the camera man said it didn’t look good on television because of the stripes. Now she had on something else, a blouse that was too tight around her arms and shoulders and made her feel more self-conscious than she already was.

‘It will be okay, Mum,’ Tegan said, but Penny wasn’t sure it was going to be okay. She shouldn’t have said yes: everyone would be laughing at her. She would be old Penny Stamp again, stupid silly Miss Crab who got knocked up and had nothing to offer besides postcards of Port Lowdy and some locally made banana chutney.

A dousing of hairspray finished her off and she was taken into the post office, where they made her pretend to sell stamps to a crew member and then tidy up the shop, which was already tidy, while they filmed her.

Then finally they were sitting in Penny’s living room, which had been taken over with lights and cables and cameras. They had moved all her furniture around and had taken a mirror off the wall and closed the curtains on one of the windows.

‘It’s just for setting up, Mum,’ Tegan told her, standing watching with Primrose in her arms.

‘I wish I had said no,’ she whispered to Tegan, or perhaps to the whole room. Was she wearing a mic? She wanted to sit down and have a cup of tea and read Primrose a story and hear about Tegan’s new job at the council in Truro.

Before either could say any more, the director drew her into the centre of the room and sat her on one of the large armchairs that Dan usually sat in at night.

People fussed about her with lights and holding things up to her face and then finally, the host came into the room and sat on one of the kitchen chairs they had put in front of her.

‘Penny, Mike Sutherland, pleased to meet you,’ he said in his trademark deep voice and he put out his hand for her to shake. It was one thing to hear his voice and see him from her television but to have him in her home was paralysing.

She tried to speak. Her mouth was opening and shutting like a fish out of water.

‘Lost your nerve, Penny?’ He was jovial. ‘You’d better find it soon. We’re about to shoot.

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