Vee sighed. She’d known at the time that this wasn’t true. Her aunt, although comfortably curvy and never built for speed, was still quite sprightly and wouldn’t usually miss a funeral, with all the opportunities to gossip and gloat because she was the one still alive and kicking. Something had happened to cause a rift between Tallulah and her sister. They’d been close once, but Vee had never managed to get to the bottom of what had caused the split.
Sitting down on the grass, Vee began to make a list, if only in her head for now. Step one had to be to get someone to clear the place of all the debris, and then, only then could she begin the mammoth job of cleaning it. She leaned back against the tree trunk again and felt a little of her tension trickle away. She was fit, strong and only fifty-five when all was said and done. If this was going to be her new home, she must make the best of it. Sharing a home with Nigel had felt like a living death for a long time. An ageing rockstar who’d made his fortune in the eighties and lived on his considerable royalties ever since, Nigel’s previous animal magnetism had long disappeared, along with his waistline and snake-hips. His blocked sinuses and clammy armpits had worsened as the years had gone by, especially when he’d decided that showering or bathing damaged the skin. The smell of unwashed male had permeated the flat almost as much as the various odours of despair in this cottage.
Vee watched as two dragonflies flitted by, circling each other in their age-old dance. Her mother had loved this time of year, when the warmth of the sun could usually still be felt on her bare arms and upturned face. The delicate insects with their translucent, rainbow-coloured wings often made a visit to the garden. Tallulah had watched them as the sun rose and when it began to go down. She’d bought the plaque and the wooden dragonfly, now much in need of repair, for the front door. It was a tiny home compared to Nigel’s spacious flat on the outskirts of London but this place was Vee’s, however unloved it was at the moment.
‘I’m going to make you all better,’ Vee said to the garden and the house, feeling faintly foolish when she spotted a figure in the next garden, peering over the fence.
‘Oh, so you’re back,’ said the woman, when she noticed Vee staring. ‘I wondered when you’d show up. Well, you’ve got your work cut out here, haven’t you?’
Vee stood up and moved closer to the boundary, better to see the person spouting such obvious remarks. The gardens were separated by an overgrown hedge and a rickety fence which was almost as high as the neighbour, so she must be standing on something, unless she was enormously tall, thought Vee, with a smile. The woman was grey-haired with shrewd blue eyes that still sparked with curiosity and mischief, even though she must be almost as old as Tallulah had been. She clung on to the top of the fence with both hands. Vee noticed that her nails were painted pillar-box red, and she was wearing a rather startling turquoise tracksuit. Clearly someone who didn’t mind being noticed.
‘Do I know you?’ Vee asked, as politely as she could, given the tone of the other’s comment.
The woman sniffed. ‘You can’t have forgotten me, surely? We lived next door to each other for years. I’m Beryl. And you’re young Venetia, back from goodness knows where. I can’t say I’m sorry to see the back of the shower that lived here last, although I know the reason you’re here is that your dear mama has passed away.’
The memories came flooding back. Beryl Summerfield. Of course. She’d been out at work for a lot of the time when Vee had lived in the cottage.
‘Yes, I’ve got you now. Didn’t you work in Meadowthorpe at a…’
‘…doctors’ surgery. Yes, that’s right. I ran the place, truth be told. And you were only a girl when you left, so we didn’t know each other well. Why would we?’
The silence that followed felt somehow ominous. Vee rubbed her eyes. ‘I can’t remember much about that time. It was so long ago.’ Her head was beginning to ache.
‘Really?’
The word hung in the air as the two women eyed each other over the fence. Vee had the strangest feeling that Beryl was looking right into her soul.
‘Anyway, I’m going to make this house as lovely as it used to be when we lived here before. I just need a bit of time,’ said Vee, with a lot more confidence than she was feeling.
‘That’s good news. And the garden too? Will you be getting a few chickens again? I do love a fresh boiled egg with soldiers for my breakfast. Tallulah used to keep me going with them.’
Vee stared at her neighbour. How could she have forgotten such an important feature of the garden at Dragonfly Cottage? Mum had adored the hens. Each one had her own character, and Tallulah had greeted them all by name every morning. In the colder weather, she’d donned wellies and an old wax jacket over her pyjamas before she went outside to release them from the confines of the henhouse, but when it was warmer she’d be barefoot, drifting around in a flowing nightdress like a Victorian heroine and scattering their home-made feed around and chatting to them as if they were old friends, which of course they were.
‘I always used to chuckle to myself when I heard your ma having her conversations with those chickens,’ said Beryl. ‘Do you remember how she called them after her favourite actresses from theCarry Onfilms? There was Barbara Windsor, Hattie Jacques, Joan Sims, Fenella Fielding… and another one, I can’t remember her name…’
‘June Whitfield,’ said Vee. ‘Yes, I remember.’ She peered down the garden. Behind an overgrown patch of shrubbery, she could just see the top of the old henhouse.
‘It’s falling to bits now,’ said Beryl, following Vee’s gaze. ‘But you could do it up, no problem.’
Privately, Vee thought Beryl’s confidence in her DIY abilities was misplaced but she wasn’t going to admit that, and after all, why shouldn’t she keep a few hens? Her new life was going to be very different from the London one. She imagined herself working from home but taking time out to talk to her chickens as she collected eggs in a basket, just like Mum used to do. It was an encouraging image, and went a little way towards blotting out the horrors of the cottage interior.
‘And what is it that you do, Venetia?’ Beryl asked. ‘I don’t suppose you have a job at the moment, what with moving house and everything. This village is very different from the big city, you know.’
Vee wanted to say, ‘No kidding? I assumed it would be pretty much the same, apart from there being no Tube station at the end of the road and easy access to the Houses of Parliament and Harrods and so on,’ but she bit her tongue and tried to smile. Her career as an actress was largely a thing of the past apart from the occasional small part in a radio play that her agent managed to secure, but she’d developed a lucrative sideline in voiceovers for adverts and narrating audiobooks. Now, however, she was miles and miles away from the recording studios where she’d done most of her work, with no transport and the nearest railway station a long bus journey away. There was no saying what would happen next.
‘I’m between posts at the moment,’ Vee said loftily, when Beryl was clearly still waiting for a reply. ‘But even if I wasn’t, there’s no time for going out to work just now. I’ll need every available hour in the day to make Dragonfly Cottage into a decent place to live.’ She turned abruptly, and went back into the house, mumbling about being busy. The dragonflies had flown away now, and the afternoon had grown even chillier. There was much to do, but for the moment, Vee had absolutely no idea where to begin.
3
Rick Reynolds, local handyman and jack-of-all-trades, had been propping up the counter at the corner shop for the last ten minutes, telling himself that he wasn’t killing time but was doing essential PR work for his one-man business. He’d been fighting a sense of doom for the last few weeks. Normally able to pick and choose when and where he worked, an unexpected lean patch had hit him hard. Any building and general repair work in the village had dried up lately. The younger families were only just getting back on track after the long school holidays and he supposed the older residents hadn’t yet begun to discover the leaks and draughts that the colder autumn weather might soon bring.
Looking down at the pile of flyers he’d had printed in town, Rick tried hard to fight off the feeling of panic that came over him whenever his work diary was empty. He’d given quite a lot of the glossy leaflets out today and had a handful of tentative enquiries, but nothing was booked yet. The monthly maintenance that he paid to his ex-wife for their boys ever since she’d decamped with her new man to Munich was due soon and once that money was transferred, there would only be just enough left to pay his mortgage.
‘Don’t look so anxious,’ said Maryam, handing him a mug of tea and beginning to tidy the counter. ‘You were talking about renting out a room in your house the other day when you were in here, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, a long-term lodger would solve some of the problems, but it’d have to be the right person. Imagine if I got it wrong and landed myself with a fitness-freak who’d make me feel guilty for eating the odd pie and chips. I mean, I like to keep in shape myself, but some people take it to the extreme.’
Maryam laughed. ‘I’m sure you’d choose wisely, and in the meantime we can find you a bit more of something to do in the shop. You’ve been brilliant since Rashid and I moved here. This place is looking much better already. And what about getting in touch with Nell and Barney to see if there’s any more work going at Hollyhocks Cottage?’
