Page 56 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
The barbecue turned out to be an interesting affair attended by a couple of dozen local people, two of whom Stef recognized – Serena Clay, the vicar, and Geoffrey Stuart, the boat owner. Suzannah and Martin Baker, their hosts, turned out to be a friendly couple of incomers who ran a business selling trampolines from a nearby light industrial estate. With their kids at the local school and growing their own vegetables to sell at the shop, they appeared fully invested in village life.
Stef and her mother were seized upon by the chatty Suzannah and introduced to various locals as ‘the talented author and journalist’ and ‘her mum Cara, our wonderful resident artist’. While Cara swelled happily with pride at this attention, Stef wanted to go and hide, but instead sipped her lager and smiled politely.
The twins, on the other hand, were having fun with the Baker children on a giant-sized trampoline, which, with its high safety net, took up much of the back lawn. The food was good, too – Stef enjoyed a hot dog and salad. She also had two notable conversations, one with the Reverend Serena, whoexpressed concern for Nancy and offered the possibility of lifts to doctor’s appointments through a parish good neighbour scheme. The other was with Geoffrey Stuart. He, too, asked after Nancy.
‘Everyone seems to know I’ve been visiting her,’ Stef replied, smiling.
‘Ay, well, it’s a village, news gets round. She’s one of our local characters and people don’t like to think of her marooned out there on her own on the marsh. That’s her grandson you were with yesterday, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. We both had children to amuse.’
‘The twins are your sister’s?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said. Everyone indeed knew everything. She remembered what he’d told her about the ownership of the Lodge at church the previous Sunday, so, referring to her conversation with Josh that afternoon, she asked him if he knew who the landlord was. He didn’t appear to know and shortly afterwards their conversation was interrupted. It really was mysterious, Stef thought.
Momentarily on her own, she looked for her mother and saw that Ted had arrived. They were standing near the trampoline together, drinks in hand, keeping an eye on the twins. It was time, Stef thought, to make her excuses and see if Pippa was okay.
She found her sister huddled in a chair under a thick throw in the garden of Springfield Cottage. A bottle of wine, half-empty, stood next to her phone on the table. She was sipping from a glass while staring out at the evening sky.
‘Oh, hi,’ Pippa murmured on seeing her, her voice dull.
‘The kids are having a great time so I left them with Mum.’
‘Okay.’
‘Ted turned up.’
Pippa merely shrugged. Stef fetched a bottle of lager from the fridge and joined her at the table, wondering where to start.
‘Have you heard from Rob at all?’ she ventured.
‘Endlessly.’
‘And?’ Stef prompted.
‘Haven’t answered.’
Stef felt bewildered.
‘How do you feel, Pip? Do you… still love him?’
Pippa turned sad eyes towards her. ‘Huh? I don’t know. What the hell is love?’
‘Pip, what is the matter? The real matter, I mean. What’s going on underneath?’
Pippa sighed and a long moment passed. Then she shook her head. ‘It’s this feeling of, I don’t know, is this all there is? Stopping the twins killing each other and keeping the house nice for Rob, who’s never there. It’s awfully lonely, Stef.’
Stef felt a stab of annoyance. How could her sister be lonely with her husband and children, and her mum nearby? It was she who was lonely, she who wanted what her sister had. She’d never understood Pippa’s choices, her apparent lack of effort, and was envious of the amount of attention Pippa had managed to draw from their parents. Pip sounded so low, though, and she pushed down her own feelings to try to help her sister.
‘Isn’t it funny,’ she said wonderingly, ‘how when we weregrowing up we never used to talk about anything important? I mean, about how we felt about things.’
Pippa’s eyes were on her, wary. ‘Kids don’t, do they?’ she said in clipped tones.
‘Well, we didn’t, anyway.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘When you went out with whatshisname and it all went wrong, we didn’t even talk about that.’
