Penny's Heaven (VILLAGE TALES EP. 58 )

Taking up an interest can not only be a way of filling one’s spare time and be a change from our daily routine, but sometimes a way of finding ourselves and even a liberation.

In the same way as we only have one life, or at least can only experience one life at a time, though even that’s debatable, we can only be in one place at a time, so you might think. Yoga and meditation are commonplace, but the closely related transcendental meditation, and astral projection are yet to appear regularly at our village hall. Astral travellers claim to be able to lift themselves out of their physical body and go for a wander, so I suppose they can be in more than one place at a time. I used to think that OBE used to stand for Order of the British Empire, but now I discover it also stands for Out of Body Experience. This phenomena is not recognised by the medical fraternity and it’s difficult to prove it exists but that won’t stop some in our village from having a go. The British eccentric is alive and well, thank goodness, and I sometimes think that most of them live in our village.

Penny Marshal, you may remember, hosted the bridge club that ended in tears, and then started her singles dining club. Much missed Jean was one of the original members who had a fling with the ‘dodgy rep from Reading’. As news circulated that the rep had a wife and family living somewhere along the M4 corridor, Penny Marshal was blamed for corrupting naive Jean and establishing a house of ill-repute amidst the rolling green hills of Dorset and bringing shame upon the village. This was a gross exaggeration but Penny was persuaded to put her energy, like a royal transgressor, into ‘good works’ until re-habilitated she was no longer persona non grata, or referred to as our village’s ‘Miss Whiplash!’. Which of course she never was.

Penny is a ‘joiner’, by which I mean a joiner of groups, and not an upwardly mobile chippy. She’s not alone, Pearl Cummings, one of the bell-ringers, is one as is June Spears. June’s estrangement with her husband, Donald has ceased since he was diagnosed with something nasty. Rachael who knows them well, told me that over the summer when Donald thought it may have been his last, he did everything to accommodate a reconciliation so he and June might spend what time he had left in peace and tranquility. Rachael says that Donald is now in recovery and although the threat of an imminent demise has retreated, at least from the illness, the two of them seemed to have found themselves and all is once again ‘honky-dory’ at ‘The Cedars’.

Penny and her chums ‘joining’ was more a social thing than a search for new interests. The three flitted between walking groups, arts and craft classes, ukulele classes and local history, to name but a few and their attendance lasted as long as the three of them found it entertaining. If one tired of the effort that any success needed, particularly when learning a musical instrument, if that’s what a ukulele is, it wasn’t long before the others found it waring too. 

It was June that noticed the yoga classes advertised whilst Donald was having his check up and she mentioned it to the other two. The three have differing body shapes and states of fitness but the advertising assured them that all shapes were welcome, and fitness was not required only flexibility and that too should not be a concern as it would develop in time, along with an enhanced vitality, libido, body image and mental health. The main attraction seemed to be that the classes were to be held in the village hall, opposite the The Old Drum and Monkey. A few glasses of SB being an essential part of the apre-class un-winding.

Much like previous ventures the three’s enthusiasm was demonstrated by their preparation. So on the night they appeared before the class ‘facilitator’ their mats, headbands, matching yoga pants and tops, sweat bags and water bottles were all in the latest materials and colour ways. 

Betony Campion-Baverstock, was not like anyone June, Pearl or Penny had ever met, or even seen. They guessed she was in her fifties, but her appearance was confusing making her anything between her late twenties and her early eighties depending on the light and what part of her it illuminated. She was neither slim, nor heavy, though her flexibility gave the impression she consisted of nothing more than bones, and the elasticated sinews that held them together. Relaxing, her loose clothing, of iridescent purples and blues or it might have been greens, or reds, again depending on how the light caught it, filled out to at least adequate if not generous proportions, where it was most attractive to do so. 

To the three she was an enigma. Confusion to some people is a threat, to others a fascination. June and Pearl not being able to ‘compute' this person made them both feel uneasy. The prospect of them getting ‘personal’ with ‘Bee’ as Ms. Campion-Baverstock, preferred to be called was not going to happen. Bee tried to put them at their ease pointing out they could call her Betony if that felt more appropriate but June and Pearl decided independently they would avoid calling her anything during the brief time they were going to be in her presence. Penny said nothing but wore a fixed smile, which the other two decided demonstrated unison. 

June and Pearl tutted, huffed, and puffed their way through the two hours of purgatory they were having to endure at the same time bemused as to why Penny was oblivious to their trials and worse, appeared to be collaborating with the enemy. The two couldn’t get out of the hall quick enough, but when outside they found one of their number was missing. Peeking through the hall window before heading across the road for a drink, they were shocked to see Penny deep in conversation with ‘her’ on almost friendly terms. After a few more minutes June and Pearl felt the draw of the Drum, and even more so, the vision of misty glasses filled with a chilled dry white wine. 

Sat where they were, they could see the hall entrance and then Penny leaving with ‘her’. The thought of a cosy chat when they had so much to say about that evening that could not and would not be shared with ‘her’, made a move essential. Secreted inside the restaurant area they could judge whether they were going to drink up and leave, or they would stay if Penny was on her own, which she was. The two beckoned her to join them and were about to launch into a kind of ‘What the hell was that all about?’ when ‘she’ appeared. Much to their disbelief, Penny seemed actually pleased to see ‘her’. Was very pleased to accept a booklet that ‘she’ gave her and was disappointed that ‘she’ could not join them’. 

A mixture of disbelief and confusion greeted Penny when she returned with her soft drink, in itself a symbol of disloyalty. Despondency and betrayal hung around the table like rancid cigar smoke before the ban, and it was not dispersed before the three went their separate ways.

Rachael tells me the classes at the hall were only a temporary measure. A more appropriate space was being prepared at what used to be Humbert’s Dairy Farm which is now just called ‘The Farm’ a collection of artisan units some dedicated to alternative medicines and therapies as well as crafts. 

June and Pearl were in the Drum one evening after their Salsa class and I had the temerity to ask after Penny. A lead ballon comes to mind before I was informed that Penny had become one of ‘her’ disciples and had been lost to the ‘dark side. They both expressed how much they had enjoyed their evening’s dancing, and Jerome the teacher was amazing, but they were already thinking of trying pottery. 

A few weeks past and I expected the three to be reunited, but I only saw June and Pearl and they hadn’t changed, other than the odd spot of clay here and there.

Exiting the shop one morning I bumped into Penny who told me she was just off to meditation at 'The Farm’. She was wearing a particularly vivid shawl and I commented on how when it caught the light, it changed colour. She did a quick twirl which enhanced the effect, then twirled in the opposite direction. I’d never noticed before how attractive Penny was. She had caught the light too, and it had changed her.

She concluded with a sort of curtsey and left with a big smile, and me with a bigger one. 

I can’t say it was an ‘out of body experience’ but she certainly gave me a lift, and that’s probably about as close as ever I’ll get to astral flying.

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.