Bad Penny by Penny Birch Page A

was an extraordinary experience; I recognised every field and building, yet felt strangely detached, as if I were walking though a scene from a film. I booked into a tiny hotel-cum-pub just off the square and went into the bar for a badly needed glass of orange juice.
    That was the moment that I really felt as if I’d stepped back in time. It was a bar that my parents had favoured for pre-lunch drinks, and six years might as well not have happened. The bar was the same; several of the customers were the same; even the barmaid was the same. She was Linda, a pretty local girl who I mainly remembered for always being jealous of Kate.
    â€˜Hi, Penny, you’ve cut your hair!’ were her first words.
    I hadn’t seen her in six years and the first thing she did was comment on my haircut. It had been long then, but I’d had it cut into a short bob when I’d first started with Alex, some five years before.
    â€˜Hi, Linda,’ I answered. ‘An orange juice please, pure.’
    She poured my drink and we began to chat, pretty inconsequentially, but more and more about the island and old friends. Some things had changed, but not much, and to all intents and purposes life was much as I remembered it. I didn’t let it show, but her reminiscences did nothing for my self-confidence. It had nose-dived, the moment I’d smelt the air of the island, and had been in free fall ever since. University, my PhD work, Alex – even events in France the previous night suddenly seemed like things that had happened to someone else. Little, shy Penny who never went out with anybody couldn’t possibly have done anything as outrageous as have sex with a French couple and get thrown out of the house by an enraged husband.
    If there’s one thing I pride myself on, it’s knowing when my emotions are leading me and remaining aware of reality. Even when drunk or in the throes of orgasm, there’s always a little piece of my mind that stays detached and observant. Now it was telling me that I had a stark choice: either leave or do something that would lay the ghost of my teenage years completely.
    It was Linda who decided my choice.
    â€˜Are you coming to the Barn tonight?’ she asked cheerfully.
    The Barn was the scene of Kate’s greatest triumphs and my greatest failures. It had always been very much the place to be for the more trendy teenagers, and many, many times Kate had been chased by all the best men in the place while I’d had to put up with the attentions of every sort of man except what I wanted. If I could go there and have a good time of it, then I knew it would all be OK.
    â€˜Sure,’ I answered.
    Logically, I knew that I would be able to hold my own. I’d developed a lot in six years and was also no longer in Kate’s shadow. Emotionally, it was a very different matter, and there was a horrible queasy feeling in my stomach as I walked into the Barn that night. Like everything else, it had hardly changed; indeed, the only obvious difference was that many of the people who’d been too young to go when I’d last been there now made up a fair proportion of the crowd.
    Still feeling rather delicate after the previous night’s excesses, I ordered orange juice and propped myself up at the end of the bar, waiting to be recognised. There were a fair number of familiar faces there but, unlike Linda, none of them had immediately recognised me. Even when Carl appeared and I smiled right at him, I only got a smile back: just that, not a flicker of recognition.
    I was surprised, and not a little put out, as Linda’s reaction had shown that my appearance couldn’t have changed all that dramatically. Surely they couldn’t have been so unaware of me that when I reappeared I was effectively a stranger?
    I began to feel really sorry for myself and was wishing I had stayed in France, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find Carl looking at