Page 15 of Wild Swimming at Croftwood Lake
‘I must go. Penny will be here any minute.’ She kissed his cheek on her way past and left him to finish his dinner.
8
NORA WAS SURPRISED how much she was looking forward to the date-with-a-book club meeting. She’d finished reading The Housemaid and was excited about discussing it with whoever she was partnered with.
Hilary had suggested that since it was Nora’s first time at book club, they should go together. She said she remembered being intimidated by the sheer number of people the first time she went and had almost bottled out before Lois had spotted her loitering outside Oliver’s and encouraged her inside.
So, even though it wasn’t far from her house, Nora was using her map app to navigate to Hilary’s house in a part of town she hadn’t discovered yet. The street was a leafy — well, it would be except that it was barely spring — tree-lined avenue with Victorian houses of various sizes on either side of the road. Hilary lived in a substantial semi-detached house which, even from the outside, oozed taste. The pathway to the door was paved with blue bricks and the smart front door was painted navy-blue and had two panes of leaded glass in the top half and a knocker in the shape of a giant pinecone. A pair of standard bay trees stood sentry in pots on either side of the door.
Nora rapped the knocker and waited, desperate to see whether Hilary had the original encaustic tiled floor in her hallway.
‘Come in!’ Hilary said, opening the door and then hurrying back into the kitchen. ‘I am ready. I just need to finish sending an email.’
Nora closed the door and took a moment to look at the floor, which sadly, was a reproduction, but looked the part nevertheless.
‘Oh, I know. Some idiot had ripped the original floor up,’ Hilary said, coming back into the hallway and taking her coat from a cupboard underneath the stairs. ‘You’ll have to come to Toby’s sometime. He’s got an original Minton floor in his hallway. His house is much fancier than mine. Ready?’
‘Your floor still looks amazing. I love your lounge as well. The wallpaper’s beautiful,’ Nora said, glimpsing it through the door to the right as she went out.
‘This house is the first place I’ve ever lived that is just mine. So I did it exactly how I wanted. All the things I’d seen in my years of working with interiors and loved, all of that went into this house. And I loved every minute of it.’
‘My house is a bit of a blank canvas,’ Nora said. ‘I really like it, it’s very cosy but the decor is so bland compared to yours. I think I need some wallpaper.’
‘If you need any advice, I’d love to help,’ Hilary said. ‘As an arty person, you can’t live in a house with white walls.’
‘No, but I think I’ve only just realised that I can have it exactly how I want.’
Hilary laughed. ‘Welcome to the best thing about being single.’
‘You’re not single.’
‘True. Welcome to the best thing about living alone. As much as I love Toby, I don’t ever want to see the end of us having our own places.’
Nora enjoyed the walk to the coffee house, along streets she’d never been down before. This side of town was very different to where she lived, but although it was more built-up, it felt spread out and roomy. They walked around the edge of the park, past Croftwood Cinema, where there were quite a few people queuing.
‘They let you know who your partner is when you get to the door,’ Hilary explained.
‘Do you ever end up with Toby?’
‘We hardly ever read the same book,’ Hilary said. ‘This time, he chose that massive book about the kings and queens. I don’t know how he found the time to finish it.’
As they approached Oliver’s, they could see a couple of people queuing outside, but they’d gone in by the time they’d reached the door.
An older woman with her hair drawn back into a tight bun peered at Nora over her glasses. ‘Name?’
‘Nora Hartford.’
The woman ran her pencil down the list. ‘You’re meeting Constance. She’s the lady over there.’
‘This is Rosemary. She works at the library. Rosemary, Nora has just moved to Elderbrook Lane,’ Hilary said.
‘Welcome to Croftwood,’ Rosemary said. ‘Enjoy your evening. Hilary you’re with Sam.’
Nora headed over to where Rosemary had pointed, where an elegant lady with her hair in a Princess Anne style up do was sitting at a table for two. It seemed they were lucky to have a table to themselves. The place was thronging with people, and chairs were crammed into whatever space was available.
‘Hello there, are you Constance?’
‘I am. You must be…’
