Page 34 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
As she was visiting some websites in preparation for her commission about urban gardens, the reply came in.
Hi Stef, good to hear about Nancy Foster. I had breakfast with Catherine this morning and she is very excited about the idea for the new book. How soon can you finish your outline? I’d like to send it to her before I go on holiday at the end of next week.
Stef was thrilled to hear her editor’s response. She thought for a bit, then wrote back,‘Another few days, I think.’Surely by then she’d have the bones of Nancy’s story and could see where to include it. She pressed send and looked up to see that the sky had turned grey. After a moment, rain began to patter against the window.
Just then she heard a vehicle in the lane and shortly after that the sound of her mother’s return. ‘Stef? Are you there, darling?’ her mum called up the stairs. ‘We were lucky to miss the rain.’
‘Coming!’ Stef called back.
In the kitchen, Baxter lay panting on his bed. Cara was making tea.
‘Where did you go?’ Stef lolled against a worktop, fingertips resting in her jeans back pockets, watching her mother arrange Viennese Whirls on a plate. They had always been her favourite. Stef gave in and took one, its artificial cream and jam sweetness reminding her of her childhood.
‘Just for a walk.’ Something about her tone made Stef look at her twice.
‘Where?’ She tried to keep it light.
‘The usual. Fields, up to the mill. Here’s your tea. Now, I’ve had a phone call from Pip. She’s bringing the kids after school on Friday. You’ll still be here, won’t you? They’re going to stay. The kids have been begging to try the bunks. Pip can sleep in the boxroom.’
‘I can’t promise. I may have gone back to London by then.’
Her mother’s demeanour changed. ‘Oh no, please stay. I wanted the two of you together. I hardly see you.’
‘All right.’ Stef sighed. Fridays were bad for traffic so it was probably better not to drive back then, and it would be good to spend more time trying to be a caring aunt. The boat trips, she remembered. Perhaps she could treat them to a boat trip.Do you suppose you have to book ahead?And then a further idea struck her. If Livy came down with Aaron at the weekend, maybe she’d like to come, too? It would be a way of getting Aaron on side, and goodness knew that was needed.
She watched her mother feeding bits of Viennese Whirl to Baxter as the rain came down outside.
‘No wonder that dog’s so fat,’ Stef remarked and her mother threw her a stony look.
Where had her mother been just now? she wondered, then remembered the sound of the vehicle in the lane. ‘Was that Ted’s van I heard?’
‘What is this?’ her mother said with a smile. ‘The Spanish Inquisition?’
‘No. I was only asking.’
‘I don’t have to tell you everything,’ her mother said smugly. ‘Like you don’t have to tell me about that gorgeous young man yesterday.’
‘Aaron?’ Stef frowned. ‘I shouldn’t waste time having hopes of him. He’s very bad-tempered.’
‘He’s the one you were rude to back in March, did you say?’
Stef, having already confessed to this, nodded.
‘Well, I thought he was rather nice.’
Stef rolled her eyes. ‘How little you know,’ she sighed. She hoped she didn’t bump into Aaron when she next visited Nancy. Her nerves wouldn’t stand it.
Nineteen
April 1949
‘For the love of Mike, stand still, Nancy, or I’ll never get this hem straight.’ Her mother’s voice was as sharp as the pins she’d removed from her lips to upbraid her daughter.
‘I can’t, it’s torture, I’m prickling all over!’ Nancy wailed. She had been standing on newspaper on the dining room table for what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes, encased in a dress with a horrid blue and pink floral pattern that was held together by tacking. She lifted first one foot, then the other and flexed her shoulders, trying to get comfortable.
‘Nancy!’ She froze and her mother continued to inch the wooden hem marker around the bottom of the dress, folding and pinning the stiff fabric as she went.
Helen was to marry Bobby Norris, the department manager from Peter Jones, in two months’ time. It was to bea June wedding in the parish church with Nancy as the only bridesmaid. ‘We can’t afford to make any more dresses so that’s that,’ Mrs Foster said firmly, after Helen begged to have her best friend Audrey as well.
