“I don’t believe it! I just don’t believe it!” shrieked Penelope, flailing her arms wildly. “How could you do this to me, Mum?”
“Penny, darling, please calm down,” Margaret tried to take her daughter’s hand, but Penelope snatched it away. “Let’s talk about this properly.”
“Properly?” Penelope’s voice pitched into a shrill cry. “After what you’ve done? Do you have any idea how humiliated I am? The whole village will be laughing at me!”
“Don’t be dramatic. What village? We don’t even live in town.”
“Mum!” Penelope clutched her head as if it might burst. “Are you deliberately playing daft, or do you really not get it?”
Margaret sank onto the sofa with a heavy sigh. At sixty-two, she still considered herself sprightly enough to meddle in her grown daughter’s affairs. But for the first time in years, she felt old—exhausted.
“I only wanted to help,” she murmured. “You never go anywhere, love. You’ve been so closed off since the divorce.”
“That’s my business!” Penelope exploded. “Mine! I’m a grown woman—forty-one years old!”
“Exactly why I worry. Time’s slipping by, and you—”
“And I what? Unlovable? Some sort of hag?”
Margaret shook her head.
“You’re a stunner, my clever girl. Just too proud these days. Men are afraid to approach you.”
Penelope paced the room, fiddling with the belt of her dressing gown. Golden morning light spilled into the cramped sitting room, but the air was thick with tension.
“Mum, how could you put an advert in the paper?” Penelope groaned. “And such an advert!”
“What’s wrong with what I wrote?” Margaret huffed. “Perfectly decent words.”
“Decent?” Penelope yanked a folded newspaper from her pocket and snapped it open. “Listen carefully: ‘Seeking respectable gentleman for beautiful, domesticated daughter, aged 40. Works as an accountant, doesn’t drink or smoke, excellent cook. Enquiries to mother.’ To mother, for heaven’s sake!”
“What’s the matter with that?” Margaret blinked.
“What’s the matter? I’m not a cut of meat at the butcher’s! And why to you, not me?”
“Because you’d find fault with every one. You’d invent reasons they weren’t good enough.”
Penelope slumped into the armchair opposite and buried her face in her hands.
“Mum, they’ve been ringing nonstop. Can you imagine? Yesterday some seventy-year-old codger asked if I knew how to make shepherd’s pie and whether I’d move to his farm to tend his three sheep.”
“Well, he’s clearly not the one,” Margaret conceded. “What about the others?”
“What others?” Penelope bristled. “Mum, it’s degrading! As if I can’t find a man myself.”
“Can you?”
The question was soft, but it struck like a needle. Penelope fell silent, knowing her mother was right. Four years had passed since her split from Oliver, and not once had she met anyone who stirred her interest.
“That doesn’t mean resorting to newspaper ads like it’s the ruddy Dark Ages,” she grumbled.
“How else, then? Online? You barely know how to turn the computer on.”
“I could learn.”
“Oh, like you’ve learned in four years?”
Margaret heaved herself up and shuffled to the kitchen.
“Tea? Or shall I fetch the valerian drops?”
“Don’t mock me,” Penelope muttered, trailing after her.
The kitchen smelled of fresh baking. Margaret always baked when flustered. Today, the table bore a spread of cheese scones, apple crumpets, and shortbread.
“Up all night again?” Penelope asked, smiling despite herself.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Margaret admitted. “Kept thinking how to talk sense into you.”
“Should’ve thought of that before placing the advert.”
Margaret filled the kettle and fetched two teacups.
“Penny, love, be reasonable. You work in an office full of women, never meet any men. You mope about in joggers, hair in a bun—”
“I look fine!”
“For lounging, maybe. But for courting? When did you last wear a proper dress?”
Penelope paused. Since the divorce, she’d shed her femininity like an old coat. Jeans, jumpers, trainers—her uniform of solitude.
“Still no excuse for adverts,” she muttered.
“What is, then? Waiting for Prince Charming to knock with a bleeding glass slipper?”
The kettle whistled. Margaret poured the tea and slid a plate of shortbread across the table.
“Mum… how many calls were there?” Penelope asked cautiously.
“Dozens. Wrote ’em all down in my notebook. Fancy a look?”
From the drawer, Margaret produced a primary-school exercise book. On the cover, in wobbly script, read: “Husbands for Penelope.”
“Seriously?” Penelope snorted. “Like I’m twelve.”
“Organised, though. Look—this Michael seemed nice. Forty-five, civil engineer, divorced, no kids. Polite on the phone.”
Penelope flipped through the pages. Margaret had meticulously logged each caller’s name, age, job, and flaws.
“Mum, did you interrogate every single one?”
“Course. Think I’d hand you over to just anybody? Asked about work, wages, whether they owned their home.”
“Like a bloody job interview,” Penelope smirked.
“Had to. Need to know who we’re dealing with.”
Reading the notes, Penelope stifled a laugh. Margaret had scribbled verdicts: “drinks,” “lives with mum,” “wants a maid,” “liar—still married.”
“Why’s this Anthony crossed out?”
“Started going on about… you know. Told him my girl’s respectable, and he got fresh.”
“Right. And this Simon?”
“Lovely, I reckon. Forty-three, site foreman, owns a flat. Widower—grown daughter, married off.”
Penelope set the notebook aside and studied her mother.
“Mum, do you honestly believe you can find someone decent this way?”
“Why not? We had matchmakers back in the day. Parents arranged things, and folks got on just fine.”
“That was then. Times have changed.”
“Times change. People don’t. Everyone wants love, a family, companionship.”
The phone rang. Margaret pounced on it.
“Hullo? Yes, about the advert… How old are you? Thirty-eight? Where d’you work? Right… Married before? Divorced… Any kids? None… Why’s that, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Penelope rolled her eyes and retreated to her room. Margaret could grill a caller for an hour, excavating their entire life story.
At her desk, Penelope checked her email. Amid work correspondence lurked messages from strangers. Apparently, Margaret hadn’t stopped at newspapers—she’d plastered the internet too.
“Mum!” Penelope yelled. “Get in here!”
Margaret appeared, phone still clutched.
“What?”
“You put ads online too?”
“Course. Linda next door showed me. More choice, she said.”
“Which sites?”
“All the free ones. Every one I found.”
Penelope googled her own name. The results horrified her. Her face smiled back from a dozen dating profiles, all bearing the same script.
“Mum, where’d you get these photos?”
“Your computer. Linda taught me how.”
“Which photos?”
“Your best ones! That seaside one’s gorgeous, and you in the red dress at Nigel’s retirement do.”
Penelope scrutinised the screen. Margaret had chosen well—images where she looked vibrant, happy.
“So… many replies?”
“Hundreds. Look at your inbox.”
Margaret pointed to the “Unread” folder, swollen with messages.
“Mum, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
“Laugh! See how popular you are?”
The phone shrilled again. Margaret dashed off.
“Hullo? Yes… Your name? Trevor… Age? Forty-six… Occupation? Lorry driver… What sort of lorry? Ah… Temper? Easygoing? Good…”
Listening to the inquisition, Penelope marvelled at life’s odd turns. Yesterday, she’d been a divorced woman quietly ticking along. Today, she was a matrimonial commodity, besieged by strangers.
Margaret prattled on:
“Any vices? Smoking? No… Drink? Special occasions only? Fair enough… How d’you manage financially? Wages? That’s not much, lad. My girl’s used to nicer things—”
“Mum!” Penelope cut in. “Stop scaring him off!”
Margaret muffled the receiver.
“What? Need to know if he can provide.”
“Not in the first bloody chat!”
“When, then? Too late after.”
The interrogation dragged on another ten minutes. By the end, Margaret knew the man’s blood type and shoeThey married a year later in a sunlit garden, surrounded by laughter, and even Margaret—who had, of course, organised the entire affair—couldn’t argue with the way things had turned out.
