town know that.’
Henry stared at her and she winced.
‘I hate that I’m so brutally honest with you. There’s something about you that brings all my secrets to the fore. I wish I could blame the mulled wine, but I can’t even do that today.’
‘What were you doing with your hands in there?’ blurted out Bea from the safety of Henry’s arms. Henry stared at Bea in confusion.
‘The little girl in the bakery, Tilly, she’s hearing impaired, which means she can’t hear anything…’
‘She can’t hear anything?’ Bea’s eyes were wide with surprise.
‘No, so when people talk to her she can’t hear what they say. So she communicates with her hands. It’s called sign language and she makes different movements with her hands to say different words.’
Bea nodded solemnly, with all the seriousness of a four year old taking the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders.
‘Shall I teach you how to sign your name and the next time you see Tilly you could introduce yourself?’
Bea nodded keenly and Penny showed her the three simple gestures for the letters B, E and A, acutely aware that Henry was staring at her the whole time. What was it about this man? He wasn’t watching her hands and what she was doing, he was just staring at her. She glanced up briefly from Bea into his eyes and was thrown by the sheer hunger there. He looked away first, clearly embarrassed by being caught staring.
He cleared his throat. ‘So you learned sign language so you can communicate with Tilly?’
Penny smiled. ‘The whole town did. When Tilly’s mum, Polly, found out she was hearing impaired she came to the town meeting and said she was going to arrange sign language lessons at her house and asked if anyone wanted to attend so they could communicate with her daughter when she was older. Almost everybody in the town turned up. They had to move the lessons from her house to the town hall to accommodate everybody. Some only learned the basics, but most people can converse quite fluently now. Tilly is such a confident little girl because of it, she can talk to anyone in the town now and not feel excluded. People care here, and I know they don’t always go about it in the right way – and they gossip and stick their noses in where they’re not wanted – but they genuinely do care.’
Henry nodded, thoughtfully. ‘I can see that it has—’
Just then Beth, second in command of the Blonde Bimbo Brigade, came striding over. She sidestepped Penny and managed to slide in between her and Henry with the practised art of someone who had done it a thousand times before. Beth was beautiful and had a much softer way about her than her friend, Jade; most men were putty in her hands.
‘Henry, I’m Beth…’
Henry stopped dead in the street. Penny wasn’t surprised, Beth seemed to have that effect on all men.
Penny paused awkwardly for a moment, before realising that her and Henry’s conversation was now over – he only had eyes for Beth.
She had turned away, when she heard Henry speak.
‘Do you have any idea how rude it is to come over and interrupt me when I’m talking to someone?’
Penny turned back in shock.
Beth looked around and saw Penny as if for the first time and giggled. ‘Oh, it’s only Penny. You don’t mind, do you, Penny?’
Penny shook her head; there was no point in kicking up a fuss over it.
‘Well I do,’ Henry said, storming past Beth so he was at Penny’s side again. He put his hand on the small of her back encouraging her up the hill. ‘I’m sorry, was she a friend of yours?’
‘No, she was in my class at school but we’re definitely not friends.’
‘I can’t abide rude people. Look, I better go, I have to pick Daisy up.’
‘I love Daisy,’ Bea said, cuddling into Henry’s chest. ‘Do you love Daisy, Uncle Henry?’
‘Very much.’
‘And do you love me?’
‘Of course.’
Bea seemed satisfied by this answer. He had a lovely way with his niece. He would have made a great dad to his child and it broke Penny’s heart that he had never been given that chance. But at the age of sixteen, when he was still a child himself, he probably would have struggled. There weren’t many children who had the maturity to raise a child at that age, so maybe his kid being put up for adoption had been for the best.
‘We’ll pop by later so