Page 8 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
On Sunday, Stef accompanied her mother to morning church. She’d been reluctant, expecting to stick out among a handful of elderly people, but instead was pleasantly surprised. The vicar, a cheerful, motherly woman named Daphne, led the worship for several dozen people of all ages, including young children who sat at a low table in a patch of sunshine at the back, crayoning template drawings or doing jigsaws, the birdlike sounds of their voices a musical accompaniment to the poetry of the traditional liturgy. Afterwards, there was good coffee and fresh croissants – no doubt a part of the draw.
Nancy was there in front, Stef saw. Livy, next to her in the pew, spent the service dressing and undressing a doll. They didn’t stay afterwards, Nancy staring straight ahead as she led Livy up the aisle to the door. Stef wondered if Nancy had spotted her and that was the reason for her quick exit, but there was no way to tell. Instead, she nibbled her croissant, trying not to drop crumbs on the flagstones, andallowed her mother to introduce her to various people she’d got to know in her six weeks in the village, amused that she had no reason, after all, to worry about her mother making friends. The soldierly man with wispy silver hair who kept bees was Geoffrey Stuart. He ran boat trips on the Broad and proved very knowledgeable about the area. He knew Nancy, of course. She’d lived in her cottage on the reserve for two decades, he told her, but last year the new landlord had tried to get her out. He’d failed so far.
‘Isn’t the cottage owned by the trust who run the wildlife reserve?’
‘Oh no, they only have part of the area. The rest is a permissive access arrangement. It’s very complicated.’
‘Why does he want her to leave?’
‘Accounts vary,’ said Geoffrey. ‘It’s mad of him, really. The place is run-down and damp. I can’t imagine he’d find another tenant who’d put up with that.’
‘Perhaps he wants to renovate.’
‘Possibly, though it would cost him.’
As the numbers thinned out and she waited for her mother, Stef wandered round the building, examining memorials to the long-dead and the biblical scenes in the stained-glass windows. A noticeboard at the back of the church advertised the activities of local societies and businesses. Reading the flyers, she realized that her mother had chosen to move into a thriving village and was reassured once again. She glanced at her watch. Pippa and the twins would arrive soon. She hurried over to remind her mother.
They’d only been home a few minutes when Pippa’sbright blue SUV pulled up outside, blocking the light to the little sitting room where Stef was reading the Sunday paper. Their mother hurried down the front path to greet her younger daughter, but Stef hung back at the door, arms folded, watchful.
‘It’s good to see you, Pip,’ her mum said, opening the driver’s door. ‘Hello, darlings!’ She waved to the kids in the back.
‘They’ve been awful,’ Pippa sighed, clambering out and hugging her mother. ‘Fighting all the way over a silly computer game.’ She looked as lovely as ever, her slim, languorous figure set off by faded jeans, a navy T-shirt and white sandals. Her tanned, heart-shaped face was partly hidden by huge sunglasses and by the brim of a blue and red baseball cap, from which a short, dark ponytail poked out at the back.
Stef banished the usual stab of envy at her sister’s effortless attractiveness and stepped forward with an affectionate grin. ‘Hi, Pip!’
‘Hi.’ A half-hearted hug and Stef, sensing Pip looking her up and down, tensed her tummy muscles, aware of the excess half-stone she had always carried. ‘You’re fat’ had been Pippa’s favourite insult when they were children and Stef had taken it to heart.
The twins were struggling to escape their child seats.
‘Leave your Gameboys in the car!’ Pippa cried. ‘Or I’ll take them away altogether.’
The twins tumbled out, a matching pair of sturdy four-year-olds with smooth, butter-coloured hair, creamy skin and brown eyes like Rob’s. Jack was in jeans and a Spiderman T-shirt. Jess wore trackpants, her hair was longand her T-shirt featured a Disney mermaid. They grinned briefly at their aunt, muttered, ‘Hi, Gran-gran,’ to their grandmother and raced past into the house, shouting for Baxter in high voices. Stef guessed that Baxter, if he had any sense, had retreated to his favourite hiding place behind the heavy Knole sofa. Her mother rolled her eyes and followed them inside, leaving her daughters alone together.
Stef picked up a tiny computer game that one of the twins had dropped on the road, then helped Pippa with the bags of toys and spare clothes she was hauling out of the boot.
‘At least they no longer need buggies and high chairs and travel cots,’ she said, remembering. ‘It used to be like a military campaign.’
Pippa lifted her sunglasses onto her head. ‘Thank God that stage is over,’ she sighed. ‘Never again!’
She was chewing gum like a teenager, Stef noticed, and her oval nails were beautifully painted. Stef glanced down at her own stubby ones.
‘How are things going, Stef?’ Pippa said casually as she lowered the boot lid. ‘Haven’t seen you in ages.’
‘Not bad. The work’s coming in okay. You?’
‘All right. Those two are running rings round me.’ Pippa locked the car. ‘They don’t sleep and nor do I.’ Between them, they carried the bags inside.
Stef felt on edge. There was always this stiffness between them. It wasn’t that affection was lacking, it was simply that the sisters had little in common apart from family ties. They hadn’t properly quarrelled since their teens, just gone their own ways. Sometimes Stef wished that they did fight. At leastit would be communication of a sort. Instead, they danced round subjects of dissent without actually saying anything that might cause the other deep offence.
Their mother had gone to put the kettle on and, in the sitting room, the children had burrowed behind the sofa – Stef smiled to see the soles of Jack’s trainers waving about – and were chatting to Baxter as though he was human. ‘How are you today, Baxter? Have you been good? If you have, I’ll give you a sweet.’ Poor dog. He wouldn’t hurt a fly and the twins knew it. It was rather touching, really, how they brought him into their games like an honorary triplet. They weren’t unkind. The worst he’d had to endure was hair-ribbons tied round his floppy ears, though he regularly did duty as a pudgy pillow. Then he’d assume a droopy-eyed expression of endurance – even a dog had his dignity.
‘Stop torturing the poor animal!’ Pippa sighed. She and Stef laid out puzzles and toys on the carpet. Then they followed a smell of frying onions to the kitchen. The kettle had boiled, Stef saw, but their mother had forgotten to make the coffee and instead started on the spaghetti bolognaise – the twins’ favourite – for lunch. Pippa binned the chewing gum, made coffee and settled herself with hers at the kitchen table, where she sat in doleful silence. Stef located a tin of tomatoes and fetched a garlic baguette out of the freezer.
‘Is Rob really playing golf?’ she asked her sister conversationally. She sat down opposite Pippa with the fruit bowl and a knife, intending to make fruit salad for dessert.
‘He really is. It’s so annoying, but what can I do?’ Pippa took a sip of her coffee, examined her pearly nails and lookedglum. ‘It’s a way of letting off steam after a hard week, I get that, but it’s hard on the kids – they never see him. And I’d really love some time off myself. Just to flop, you know?’ She looked appealingly at her sister.
‘Your father was much the same,’ their mother told her daughters as she stirred bubbling mince in the pan, ‘but it was antique book fairs in his case, not golf. I wasn’t able to do any painting when you two were young. You’re very fortunate, Pip, that Rob earns such a good salary and you don’t need to go out to work.’
