Dear Doctor Lily by Monica Dickens Page B

thought she lived at a farm. I’ll wear my flats. She won’t mind.’
    â€˜She’s supposed to mind.’ Verna made her frog face. ‘She’s jealous of Buddy, see. Thinks she’s something now because her husband went to college before he dropped out to farm a few ratty sheep. I want her to see my Buddy’s done it again.’
    â€˜Done what?’ Had he been married before? One more surprise along with all the rest.
    â€˜Gone one better than her.’ Verna pulled out her gum, squinted at it, passed it as fit and sucked it back inside.
    â€˜Can I have some gum?’
    â€˜Help yourself.’ Mrs Legge waved at the jar full of gum packets on the windowsill among the dirty mugs and dust-snagged cactus plants. ‘English people are so polite. It gets me down how they talk so polite.’ She was getting sick of having Ida there.
    The hat was a white felt with a wavy brim turned down all round. It rode rather high because of Ida’s stiff hair, but Mrs Legge paid for it while Ida was still trying to come to terms withit, and carried it out in a bag. Ida took it out in the car and turned it round on her fist; wondering about a bit of ribbon to hide the join where crown met brim.
    â€˜Leave the price tag on.’ Verna smiled, driving with straight arms to give herself room behind the wheel. ‘I want Sis to see it.’
    Sis lived over another hill in a small farmhouse that sat comfortably by a stream in a valley, with a sheep pasture sloping up to a dark magnificent wood. In front of the house was a garden with flower-beds and a low uneven wall, and across the unpaved road, a big barn and some smaller sheds, old and weathered. There was a fenced yard with two cows in it and some speckled chickens. Ducks sat in wet grass at the edge of a muddy pond. Ida’s heart rose.
    A collie ran out barking, and a healthy-looking girl in a long skirt and boots came out of the house. The afternoon sun, shining low along the road, put coppery lights into the thick bush of hair that stood out round her head.
    â€˜There she is,’ Mrs Legge said gloomily.
    A wiry little girl with a streamer of long fair hair ran out behind her mother and charged into her grandmother, who bent to pick her up with some fond pride, although she told Sis, ‘Looks as if she didn’t have a square meal in weeks.’
    Ida and Sis took to each other, which annoyed Mrs Legge. She had talked about Sis and Jeff as if they were on their beam ends, but they seemed to be living a fine life among animals and growing things in an airy, uncluttered house, warmed by a huge ornate wood stove.
    Sis took Ida out to see the farm. You could hear the movement of the water in the stream behind the house. The wind came down the valley from the hill and rushed about in the trees. The smell of cow manure was sharp and oddly clean.
    Behind the barn Ida met Jeff in a fringed leather waistcoat and corduroys, filling a small truck with logs he sold to help support them in the winter. He was shy and so was Sis, but Ida felt less shy with them than she had with anyone, including Lily, who wasn’t exactly critical, but who knew how she wanted you to be. This slow, hard-working, outdoor life was different from anything she had ever known, but it called to her.
    â€˜Do you think Buddy would leave the Air Force and become a farmer?’ she asked.
    Sis and Jeff laughed heartily. No comment, so Ida laughed too.
    At the car Verna Legge showed the wedding hat.
    â€˜I was going to find some sort of flower to wear,’ Ida said, disclaiming the hat.
    â€˜Put it on, Hilda.’
    â€˜No.’
    Sis was laughing inside herself. Ida was not going to be made a fool of.
    â€˜Don’t make her, mother. She – well look, it might be bad luck for me to see it before the wedding.’
    â€˜Oh, you are coming, then?’
    â€˜Sure.’ Sis began to laugh inside herself again. ‘Wasn’t I