Page 16 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
‘I’m sorry Nancy wasn’t helpful,’ Cara said as they finished their sandwich lunch. Stef had broken the news that Nancy wouldn’t be interviewed for her book. ‘Perhaps we could do something fun to cheer you up. How about a trip to the coast?’
‘Mum, I must write my article this afternoon.’ Stef saw her mother’s face fall and hated herself.
‘Of course you must, darling. I expect I can find something to do.’
‘Perhaps later on,’ Stef added hastily. ‘If the weather holds.’
Her mother brightened again.
Upstairs, Stef made a simple desk for herself by pushing a picnic table under her bedroom window. She opened her laptop and called up a blank document. Then, with her ring-bound notebook beside her, she started to construct a plan for the article, flipping back through the notes and checking information online as she went. The subject interested her, being about the progress of Kew Gardens’Millennium Seed Bank in Sussex, and she wished she had been allowed more space to write about it. It wouldn’t be easy to compress all she’d learned from her recent visit there into the required 1,200 words, but it must be done.
From time to time, she looked up from her work and her eye would rest on the view of the quiet lane and the pretty cottage opposite. A white van drew up below her window. Someone knocked on the door and she heard her mother answer.
Mid-afternoon brought the bright sound of children’s voices and Stef smiled to see a small girl and her older brother with their mother, who was pushing a pram, turn up the path opposite. The girl was chattering, while the boy ran ahead to the door, shouting about chocolate biscuits. The scene conveyed a particular idyll of country life – children, a lovely home in a picturesque village. She felt a tender pang of longing.
Her moment of self-pity was swept away by the ping of an email arriving and she returned her attention to her screen. Opening the message, she was rewarded by a rush of pleasure. It was a commission from a prestigious current affairs magazine that paid well. They’d loved her proposal to write about urban rewilding projects and wanted 2,000 words in three weeks’ time. She stretched luxuriantly. After writing an enthusiastic reply, she went downstairs, humming to herself. She would celebrate with a cup of tea.
She took two brimming mugs outside to look for Cara in the field, ready to propose an early evening visit to the beach. Her mother had company. Cara was seated at her easel inthe sun, laughing and talking. Her companion lay sprawled on the grass, stroking Baxter, who was stretched out asleep beside him. Stef recognized him at once as the man in the portrait she’d seen in her mother’s studio.
‘Oh, thank you, Stef,’ Cara cried on seeing her. ‘Stef, this is Ted.’
Ted climbed to his feet, brushing grass stalks from his clothes. ‘Hello, Stef, I’ve heard all about you,’ he said in a soft London accent. He was of average height and build, in his late fifties perhaps, with cropped greying sandy hair, a lean, weatherbeaten face and a friendly expression. His checked shirt and faded jeans were spattered with white paint. He regarded her shrewdly with deep-set blue eyes and she couldn’t help wondering whether he wasn’t a bit of a rogue. Nevertheless she must be polite.
‘Pleased to meet you, Ted. Here, have this one. I’ll make myself another.’ She handed over the mugs of tea.
‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘That’s kind. I’ve just fixed the doorbell. Your ma said you’d complained about it.’
‘That’s great. Isn’t it you who put up Mum’s studio shed? You did a super job.’
‘With the help of my mate Liam, yeah. We do a lot of work round here. Painted your ma’s kitchen, too, didn’t we, Cara?’ He gave her a lazy grin. ‘And put up those bunks.’
Cara’s responding smile made her eyes light up and roused in Stef a sense of unease. She hung about and chatted to Ted politely for a few minutes, trying to puzzle him out. Her mother seemed charmed by him, that was clear, making him recount stories about the ridiculous demands of his clients,mainly second-homers from London. He was, however, suitably discreet about their identities. Listening to him speak knowledgeably about the locality and his craft as a carpenter and builder, Stef revised her initial prejudices. Ted was an intelligent man, well-informed and interested in many subjects.
She collected the empty mugs and said, ‘It’s nice to meet you, Ted. Mum, are you okay to go out about five?’
‘That would be lovely.’
As Ted said goodbye, his eyes twinkled with good humour and she couldn’t help smiling back. A nice man, she thought, as she returned to her work, but her mother did seem very friendly with him and Stef would do well to keep a daughterly eye.
They were lucky with the weather again that evening. On the beach, they kicked off their shoes to walk by the sea. The evening sun was warm on their faces and they smiled at Baxter’s fat little figure waddling ahead over the shingle, swerving occasionally in a comic fashion to avoid the reach of a wave. As a youngster, he would dash in and out of the water and race over the sand, but those days were long gone.
‘You are so lucky to have this,’ Stef told her mother. ‘I’m beginning to understand why you moved here.’
‘Ah, you admit it now. No one trusted my judgement at the time.’
‘It wasn’t that…’
‘Yes, it was. Silly Mother, doesn’t know what’s best for her. That’s what you both thought.’
‘It was winter when you showed us the cottage. It was dark and poky. The garden was a bog. Everything looked grim.’
‘But I had a good feeling about it, didn’t I? All the possibilities. And it’s great for my painting. I love Hickston and the people I’m meeting.’
‘Ted?’ Stef said, with a smile.
‘Yes, Ted. You may well laugh, but friends come from surprising places. In a small community, you have to get on with your neighbours even if you don’t have anything much in common with them. You rely on one another. I expect it’s different in London, you can be choosy.’
Stef thought her mother was probably right. Her friends were a rarified group, mostly university friends or professional contacts who lived across the city. She hardly knew the other people in her block of flats. The only reason she spoke to Gary downstairs was to ask him to turn down his music.
