Page 4 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
‘I take it the sheets are in the airing cupboard.’
‘Where else would they be?’
‘Could be anywhere with you.’ They smiled at one another.
On the way back towards the kitchen, Stef checked her phone and remembered with annoyance that there was no signal around the cottage.
She stopped to look into the studio. It was filled with light and smelled of fresh wood and paint. Stacks of paintings leaned against the walls and a roll of new canvas lay on a table next to a jam jar containing brushes and paint tubes jumbled in a box. A small canvas stood on an easel, shrouded by a dust cloth. Stef stepped closer, lifted the cloth and tucked it aside. The picture underneath was unusual, she thought with surprise, a portrait. Her mother didn’t often paint people. She stepped back to see it in focus. It was a man’s head and shoulders at a three-quarters angle, the background detail as yet unfinished. The way the light fell on his broad, open face and the intent nature of his twinkling gaze suggested that he was looking out through a window. Who he was she had no idea. She replaced the cloth thoughtfully.
In the kitchen, she was relieved to find the fridge full of food. Some interesting paper packages smelled faintly of fresh fish and thankfully there was milk. She glanced round the cheerful, blue-painted room, finding it strange to see Mum’s familiar possessions in their new places. She had to open several wall cupboards before she found the old tea caddy, and then there was another hunt for mugs.
The move from the rambling family home just outside Cambridge had been an upheaval for the whole family. Stef’s parents had been divorced for many years, her father moving to a tiny flat in the city near his college. Theoretically, Stef and Pippa could see him often, but in actuality they didn’t, for he’d long grown away from the family.
Last year he’d announced his retirement and finally insisted on the sale of the marital home. That was his due. The surprise was that he intended to use his half of the proceeds to pay for his wedding to a Spanish woman he’d recently met who was only a few years older than Stef; and to buy a villa in northern Spain, while keeping on the Cambridge flat.
Stef’s mum took the news of the marriage and the loss of the house badly. It was traumatic for her to uproot and sad for her daughters to help empty their childhood home. Stef went to the wedding out of a vague sense of duty, but Pippa refused to point blank.
Initially the idea had been cooked up that their mum would move close to Pippa in Norwich to help with Pippa’s four-year-old twins, but once she had seen this pretty eighteenth-century cottage down a back lane in Hickston village, she’d brushed aside her daughters’ objections andinsisted that she’d live nowhere else. It was near one of the Broads – the network of man-made medieval lakes in North Norfolk – which had been turned into a nature reserve run by a wildlife charity.
‘It’s such a long way from Norwich,’ Pippa had sighed. She’d clearly been hoping Mum would be just round the corner and available at all hours for babysitting.
‘Only a dozen miles, dear, and I do have a car.’
‘And replacing the broken roof tiles might be expensive.’
‘Nevertheless, I like it and I’m the one who’ll live in it.’
The sisters had exchanged meaningful looks. They were used to their mother’s stubborn moods. There was nothing for it but to shrug and give in. After all, she should have enough money for repairs and to build the studio. Her paintings still had a market, so she’d have an income stream. Pippa had told Stef she thought their mother was settling in well, though she still had her concerns. She’d hinted darkly about some man their mum kept mentioning. His name was Ted.
Stef poured two cups of tea, then, wanting her jumper, for it was cool in the house, went out to fetch her case from the car. As she dragged it up the steep, narrow staircase to her bedroom, she struggled to keep her balance. This was another worry. If the stairs were challenging for her, they could be dangerous for Mum in her sixties. Perhaps someone could come and put up a handrail.
Upstairs had a comfortable feel: rush matting underfoot, more of Mum’s paintings on show around the landing, a scent of lavender polish. Stef liked the uneven doorways of the four bedrooms and the single bathroom, though the doorto her own room, she remembered as she pushed it wide, would never quite shut. She eyed the bedroom with pleasure, noting the changes since her last visit. The double bed might not be made up, but a colourful painting of the River Cam at Grantchester adorned the wall above it and a pair of flowery blue curtains from the guest bedroom of the old house hung at the mullioned window that looked out onto the lane. She regarded the white stuccoed cottage opposite. An empty pram had been left in its front garden and there were toys strewn over the grass. Of the inhabitants there was no sign, but it must be nice for Mum, who loved children, to have a family nearby.
‘Stef, are you there?’ her mother called up the stairs. ‘The tea’s getting cold.’
‘Just coming.’ She pulled on her jumper and hurried out, glancing into the other bedrooms on her way to the stairs. A set of bunks had been installed in one for Pippa’s twins. Her mother had mentioned them on the phone. The mysterious Ted had put them up for her.
‘Nice bunks,’ she told her mum in the kitchen.
‘The kids will love them, though there’ll be arguments.’
‘About who’s on top?’
‘Little tykes,’ said her mother fondly. ‘They’ll have to take turns.’
Lunch was dressed crab from one of the fishy parcels. ‘We have this marvellous fish man who comes on Saturdays.’ Cara heaped green salad on Stef’s plate, her fingers still flecked with paint. As usual she hardly ate anything herself, playing with her food as she chattered away about an excellent farmshop she’d found a few miles away, the kindness of the family across the lane who’d invited her to a barbecue the following Saturday if the weather held. She was sure she could wangle an invitation for Stef. ‘You are staying for a while, aren’t you?’ she said, anxiety crossing her face. Stef sighed and said she thought she might only manage a couple of nights.
‘I told you. I do have work to do, Mum.’
Her mother looked forlorn. ‘Of course, but now you’re freelance you can organize your own time, can’t you?’ She rose, asking, ‘Would you like sorbet? There was an offer at the supermarket.’ She rummaged about in a freezer drawer and brought out two plastic tubs. ‘There’s strawberry, but this mango one’s delicious.’ She peeled off the lid. ‘I mean, you can settle yourself at the desk upstairs and get on with things. The internet’s a bit slow, but it does work. No one will disturb you. Can you reach me two bowls from that cupboard?’
Stef obliged. ‘I can’t do all my research online, Mum. I have to speak to people and visit places.’ In fact, she was at the writing-up stage for the most urgent feature on her list and she could easily do that here. ‘And the phone signal’s not great. I can hardly conduct a sensitive conversation in the middle of the village.’
‘Use my landline, I don’t mind.’ Her mum spooned sorbet into the dishes. ‘Oh,’ she said, pausing, ‘Pippa rang earlier. She’s popping by with the kids tomorrow morning. I’d told her you were coming. I expect we’ll have to feed them. Oh dear, that’ll mean another shopping trip.’
‘I’ll help, don’t worry,’ Stef said. ‘It’ll be great to see them.’ She hadn’t seen Pippa or the twins for ages. She tooka spoonful of sorbet. The cold, sweet taste of the mango soothed her annoyance at her mother’s assumptions, the way she was being swept up into her life here. ‘Rob’s not about, then?’ she added lightly. Pippa’s husband worked as an accountant in London, staying up there during the week, but around for his family at weekends – at least, that had been the original plan.
‘I think he’ll be playing golf.’
