When we trudged through customs this time, Penny was the one who started singing to the officer. He joined in and sang all about the barber taking photographs and the pouring rain.
I stepped up to the window next, and the officer asked if I was traveling with Ms. Penny Lane.
“Yes, I’m with her.”
“Will you be paying a visit then to Tony Slavin’s?”
“Pardon me?”
“The barbershop. On Penny Lane. It’s still there, you know. Will you be paying a visit? Take a photo?”
“I don’t know. We might.”
He stamped my passport and handed it back. “Make sure you stop by the pub at the bottom of Church Street and have a pint. Tell ol’ Reggie that Jon hasn’t forgotten about ’im.”
“Reggie?”
“Yeah, Reggie’s the bartender. You tell that Scouser that Jon hasn’t forgotten about that fiver he owes me. You remember now, right, miss?”
I nodded, but I knew I wasn’t likely to remember his message and even less likely to go to Reggie’s pub.
Penny and I made our way through the long corridors that led to the ground transportation. Marketta’s daughter, Elina, had given Penny all the information over the phone that morning, so I didn’t know where we were going.
An idea took shape in the back of my mind as we walked. We should go to Penny Lane. Penny needs a picture of herself standing on Penny Lane.
I decided there, in that crowded terminal, teeming with travelers from every corner of the world, that I would surprise Penny. There’s a first time for everything, and this would be the first time I could surprise her with an early birthday present. She had bought me the gorgeous blue sweater set I was wearing. I could figure out a way to get her to Penny Lane.
All I needed was a tour book.
The disadvantage of not growing up in tune with the popular culture of my generation was that I had no clue where Penny Lane was located. I knew very little about the Beatles. Penny would know, but then, where would the surprise be?
We exchanged some money and took a train to Paddington Station where we were to change to another train. I convinced Penny to make a quick stop at a newspaper stand inside the charming Victorian train station so I could buy a tour book.
Penny said, “Let’s hope we get more use out of this one than we got out of the one on Finland.”
I was sure that we would.
Settled on the train for our second ride, I thumbed through the tour book. The index section in the back listed Penny Lane, and that led me right to Liverpool. It was all there. A map, train lines, bus tours. The journey would take us a few hours out of London, but we could do it. Keeping it a surprise would be the tricky part.
“Where are we going?” I asked. Outside the train window I saw we were still in London’s suburbs. Billboards along the side of the road that paralleled the train tracks advertised shampoo and designer label clothing. Low clouds hung over the chimney tops from which an occasional spiral of smoke snaked a white rope up to the cushioned heavens.
“We’re getting off at some place called Twickenham,” Penny said. “Elina said to watch for the station because it sneaks up quickly.”
I found Twickenham in the tour book and shared the info. “It says here that Twickenham is by Richmond and Richmond is an ‘affluent riverside town along the Thames with alleys full of antique stores and boutiques.’ Good. Because if we have time, I need to do some souvenir shopping. I didn’t buy much in Finland for anyone else. Kaylee gave me a list, and I definitely want to find something for Joanie.”
“Joanie?”
“You remember Joanie from the Clip ’n’ Curl.”
“Oh yeah, Joanie. Okay. Let’s add shopping to the schedule.”
I was intrigued with Penny’s use of the word schedule, so I had to tease her. “And just what else would we have on our schedule?”
“Anything and everything we can fit in. That, and bonding with my cousin. That’s at the top of my list.”
“Marketta said Elina is our age, right?”
“Right. Hey, this is our stop. Grab your stuff.”
All day I’d been carrying my light luggage as well as one of Penny’s three bags so she would only have to wrestle with her wheeled suitcase and the oversized gym bag.
“You brought too much stuff, Penny.”
“Tell me about it! I’m getting rid of some of this junk tonight. What was I thinking when I packed all this?”
“You probably were thinking you didn’t know what to expect.”
“Exactly.” She looked at me wistfully as the train came to a lurching halt. “I almost wish my luggage had been lost, too, so I could reinvent my wardrobe the way you did.”
“Wardrobe? Five or so new items don’t exactly constitute a wardrobe.”
“But it all works,” Penny said. “You look great, and you’re traveling light. Look at me. I’m encumbered.”
As we stepped off the train, I laughed at Penny’s word choice. A woman in a red coat caught our attention and waved to us. I wondered if we obviously looked like tourists to Elina.
Elina wore her straight blond hair short the way her mother, Marketta, did. Her lips were deep red, like her coat. She greeted us with awkward hugs and offered to carry some of the luggage for us. With a bag strapped over each shoulder, Elina led the way through the small train station to where her older model green car was parked in a crowded lot.
It began to rain as we drove away from the station. Elina pulled onto the left side of the road, and Penny pressed her hand against the dashboard and said, “Is this a one-way road?”
“No.” Elina put on her blinker and turned again into what would have been oncoming traffic on American roads.
“This is so bizarre!” Penny laughed. “I don’t think I can watch.”
“Oh yes. It must seem to you that I’m driving on the wrong side of the road,” Elina said. “The traffic laws took me a while to grow accustomed to, as well. You’ll find this feels normal in a day or two.”
Elina’s English vocabulary was broader than her mother’s. I could see why Marketta had said she would not be good at translating Elsa’s letters, but that her smart daughter, Elina, could translate them easily.
Penny asked all the usual questions like, “How long have you lived here?” and “How old are your children?”
Elina responded with short answers and returned the same questions to Penny. I couldn’t tell if Elina was uncomfortable with us in general or if she was simply an abrupt person.
If I were Elina, I think I would have been guardedly gracious as well. It’s one thing to surprise an older couple like Marketta and Juhani, who have the time to sip coffee at the kitchen table and recount the past for hours on end. It’s completely different to show up in the middle of the life of someone our age who is juggling three children, ages eight, eleven, and sixteen, and a husband who works swing shift. Considering, too, that all this had been thrust upon Elina with such short notice, I thought she was being very kind.
“I’m afraid our home is rather small,” Elina said.
“Like I told you on the phone, we’re happy to stay at a hotel,” Penny said.
“It is a little late now to make such arrangements. You might as well stay with us at least this one night. The girls don’t mind sleeping in my room. I hope you will be comfortable in their room.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” I said. “Thanks for opening up your home to us.”
Elina nodded but didn’t say anything. She turned down a straight street with old, two-story homes lined up like matching birthday candles on a cake of someone well over fifty. The houses were different colors, but they were all the same style.
A tiny patch of grass separated the sidewalk from the rounded front window of the house we stopped in front of. Three steps guarded by an iron handrail led to the front door.
Parallel parking appeared to be an impossibility, but Elina expertly maneuvered her car into a space with mere inches between
the bumpers. I noticed that all the car bumpers were well dented, as if drivers here actually made use of them for something other than a place to post their children’s academic standing or to announce they had a baby on board.
The rain fell at a maddening pace as we pulled our luggage from the trunk and dashed to the house. Elina opened the front door and called out, “William! Cammy! Tara!”
Eight-year-old William was the only child to respond. He bounded down the hardwood stairs in stocking feet. “Mummy, have you brought the imposing cousins with you?”
I watched Elina’s face turn as red as her lips and coat.
“William,” she said sternly. “This is Mrs. Lane and Mrs. Andrews. Mrs. Lane is my cousin. Say hello to the kind ladies, will you, son?”
“Hallo!” William held out his hand and shook with both of us. He was the picture of politeness. A sharp pinch twisted my mothering heart as I looked at bright-eyed William. I missed my Joshie. I missed all my kids. I missed Jeff terribly. I was ready to go home. I wanted to close my eyes, and when I opened them again, I wanted to be standing in the entryway of my home with the mud stains that wouldn’t come out of the carpet on the second stair and the small chip in the wall where Ben had rammed his remote control Jeep on Christmas morning five years ago.
I blinked, but I was still in England. My brain seemed to be driving on the wrong side of the road. Yesterday at this time, I was bounding along a gravel road in a car that reeked of halibut and listening to Juhani and Marketta argue in Finnish. I wasn’t ready for such a quick change in place and culture and sights.
But there I was, standing in the middle of a production of Peter Pan, complete with shadows on the wall and a grandfather clock at the end of the hall that was chiming the hour for us. Five-thirty.
I needed to sit down.
Elina rolled on as if none of us had heard William’s comment about the “imposing cousins.” I knew Penny would only want to stay for a short visit and then call a cab to take us to the nearest hotel.
“Where are your sisters?” Elina asked.
“Upstairs.” Turning to Penny, William added, “Would you like to see Miss Molly?”
“Sure.” Penny looked over her shoulder at me, as if I knew who Miss Molly was.
“Do wipe your feet when you come back inside, William. It’s raining.” Elina reached for Penny’s largest suitcase. “We can take the luggage upstairs, if you like.”
“All right.” I followed Elina up the steep, narrow stairway. The door was open to the first room on the right. Bunk beds filled one side of the room. A dozen mismatched posters of kittens and rock bands covered the other side. Obviously the two sisters who shared this room had different tastes.
“Cammy,” Elina called out, “please come get your satchel and your shoes.”
Eleven-year-old Cammy stepped out from the closet that was hidden by the door. “I’m right here, Mum.” She resembled Elina but had long dark hair pulled up in a ponytail. “I’m just collecting my dirty clothes.”
“Good. Where’s your sister?”
“She’s watching the telly in your room.”
“Cammy, this is Mrs. Andrews.”
Cammy smiled. I tried to make conversation about my children, but Cammy didn’t appear interested, so I dropped it and just told her thanks for letting us stay in her room.
“I’m going down to start dinner,” Elina said. “Cammy, did you put out clean towels in the loo?”
“Not yet.”
“Will you do that, please, and show Mrs. Andrews where everything is located.”
I followed Cammy to the loo, where she gave me instructions on how the toilet had to be flushed by pulling on a chain and holding it down until I could hear the sound of the water filling the tank. She introduced me to sixteen-year-old Tara, who had appeared suddenly. Tara had dark hair also. I guessed their father would be the one with the dominant dark genes.
“Sharon!” Penny called from the bottom of the stairs. “Sharon, you have to come down. You won’t believe this!”
The two girls got a head start on me and trotted down the stairs. I had to stoop so I wouldn’t hit my head on my way down. I followed the girls into the kitchen and there, in the middle of the linoleum floor, stood Penny with a big, fat chicken in her arms. A live chicken. A deep maroon, fluffed-out feathers chicken with dangling feet and a jutted-out neck, nervously looking about.
“Why do you have Miss Molly inside?” Cammy asked.
“It was too wet outside. Mrs. Lane wanted to hold her.”
I found it hard to believe that Penny “wanted” to hold any animal at any time. Especially something as jittery as a chicken. My guess was that Penny was doing her usual public relations routine to win over skeptical Elina and the rest of her brood.
“Well, look at you,” I said.
“Yes.” Penny bit her lower lip. “Look at me!”
I slowly approached Penny and the chicken. “How are you, Miss Molly?”
“She’s my favorite,” William said.
“Oh, really. How many chickens do you have?”
“Four. Miss Molly is the friendliest.”
“Is that right?” I watched as Miss Molly took friendly little pecks at the skin on Penny’s hand.
“I think Miss Molly wants to go back to her coop,” Penny said with a tight smile. “Here you go, William.”
With a flutter of feathers, Miss Molly made the transfer to William’s arms. “Would you like to hold her, Mrs. Andrews?”
“No, that’s okay. If Miss Molly is ready to go back to her coop, I don’t need to hold her.”
A wicked grin appeared on Penny’s face. “I think Miss Molly wants you to hold her, Sharon. Go ahead, William. Let Mrs. Andrews hold your favorite chicken. She’s so friendly.”
I shot Penny a glance that said, “I’m going to get you back for this one.” If chickens can sense nervousness in humans, then I’m sure Miss Molly read my thoughts. She wasn’t about to roost in my arms. As soon as William tried to hand her to me, Miss Molly clawed my hand and tried to take off flying around the kitchen with a wild flutter of feathers.
“William, get that ridiculous chicken out of here!” Elina called from the sink. “Tara, please set the table, will you? Cammy, see if we have enough milk in the icebox and pour three glasses for the table.”
William tackled Miss Molly and took her out the back door. My hand started to bleed. Quietly I excused myself and went upstairs to wash out my wound. Penny followed me.
“I’m sorry, Sharon,” she said. “I didn’t think Miss Molly would attack you.”
“It’s not deep,” I said, running my hand under the water. “See? The bleeding stopped already.”
“I have a first-aid kit in my suitcase,” Penny said. “Dave made me pack it. He thought we would need it for blisters. Ha! Won’t he be surprised to hear what we needed it for! I’ll be right back.”
As I cleaned and dressed my wound, Penny said, “Do you think we should make other arrangements for tonight? Obviously we’re a big inconvenience to Elina.”
“I think it would be awkward if we picked up and left now. What if we stay for dinner, and then if it’s still uncomfortable, we can come up with some reason to leave.”
“Okay. No matter what, we’ll call a taxi in the morning and go somewhere else,” Penny said. “Where do you want to go?”
“Where do I want to go? Right now, I want to go home.”
“Home?”
In one long, run-on sentence I reminded Penny that we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast except for a few pretzels on the plane, and I was furious at the chicken for opening my skin, and since we obviously weren’t welcome here, I thought it was absurd for Penny to turn to me at a moment like this and ask where we should go because if it had been up to me, we would still be in Finland, enjoying the soothing tempo of Marketta’s life and eating chocolates at her sturdy kitchen table with the green-and-white tablecloth.
“What are you saying, Sharon? Are you saying
you want to go back to Finland?”
“No, of course not. I mean, yes, I would. Someday. I’d love to go back to Finland. But not today. It would make no sense to go back there. All I’m trying to say is that I don’t know what we should do next.”
As an afterthought I added, “Maybe we should pray about these decisions before making them.”
Penny leaned against the edge of the sink. “I have been praying. I thought we were supposed to come here, but maybe I misunderstood. Maybe we were supposed to come to England for something other than my cousin.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I still want to ask Elina to translate my mom’s letters. Perhaps I can leave them with her, and she can mail them to me.”
“You might find someone in San Francisco who could translate them for you.”
I don’t know if Penny heard me. She was staring at the shower curtain and seemed to be deep in thought. Or maybe she was deep in prayer. I cleaned up my first-aid clutter and headed for the bedroom. Penny followed me.
“I have an idea,” she said.
I almost said, “Of course you do.” But my lips were as weary as the rest of me, and they sat this one out.
“What if we visit Monique?”
“Monique who?”
“Don’t you remember? Monique. On the plane ride over here. She invited us to come see her if we were ever in England. And look! Here we are in England.”
“Where does she live?”
“I don’t remember. I have her address and phone number somewhere. Remember? She wrote it on a napkin.”
“Do you think she really was inviting us to visit her, or was she just being polite?”
“I think she sincerely wanted us to come visit.”
I wasn’t convinced. But the thought of seeing Monique again intrigued me. I’m not sure why. Monique was more of a stranger than Elina. It seemed that it had been weeks since we had met her on the plane.
“Here it is.” Penny produced a crumpled beverage napkin from her purse. “She lives in some place called Warrington. Is it very far away?”
I pulled out my tour book and found Warrington on the map. With a sly grin I noticed that Warrington was less than a quarter of an inch east of Liverpool.