The Lotus House by Katharine Moore Page A

her letters with all the others at the main door. Not that she had much in the way of post, but when she had, it meant that she either had to fetch it or be beholden to Mrs Sanderson or one of the other lodgers for bringing it round and Miss Cook did not care for this. One Tuesday it was Dian who came to her door with a sales catalogue and a picture postcard of Hastings from her sister-in-law Doris, where she and Henry were having a little break. Miss Cook could not refrain from complaint.
    “It’s too bad, causing all this trouble, what’s he paid for, I’d like to know?”
    “Well, it’s only natural really,” said Dian, “it’s the same name, ‘The Lotus House’. Pretty, I call it.”
    “But it’s got ‘The Basement Flat’ written perfectly clearly,” said Miss Cook, “and I’ve told him again and again.”
    “Not to worry,” said Dian, “I’ll get my Luke to have a word with him — my Luke, he’s known all round here. Mind if I have a look at your catalogue? What they get up to these days!” she added, “You’re in luck, luv, see what it says here,” and she started to read out very slowly: “‘You have been chosen to take part in our very special draw, limited to only a few customers, and I have some more exciting news for you, Miss Cook. You have been selected to receive one of the superb gifts pictured on page 5 of our catalogue. All you have to do is to return your lucky number with your order.’ Oo, let’s look at page 5.”
    “It’s all nonsense,” said Miss Cook, “it’s just to make you buy their stuff which I never have. I don’t know how they got hold of my name.”
    “But they aren’t all cons,” said Dian, “my Luke he knows a fellow, met him standing drinks all round at theGreen Man one night, he’d won a Metro with his lucky number, red it was Luke said, he saw it there outside in the car park, brand-new all right, ’s truth. Mind you, it’s your stars as does it and they don’t oblige often, but you never know do you — that’s what I like about life really, you never know. Which one of them superb gifts will you choose, then?”
    “I don’t want any of them,” said Miss Cook, sniffing contemptuously, “thank you for bringing round my post,” and she moved purposefully towards the door.
    “Goldfish,” sighed Dian to herself and retreated. But Janet Cook had no more trouble about her letters.
    “Postman behaving himself?” enquired Dian, “I says as my Luke’d fix him,” and it wasn’t long after this that Janet had a further greater reason to be grateful to Dian’s Luke.
    All the estate children were a source of irritation to Janet. Their shouting and screaming and shrill laughter (of all noises except perhaps the barking of dogs, the ugliest and most disturbing), this she was prepared to put up with as the unenviable snag which she had expected to discover when first moving into this otherwise pleasant new home. But the behaviour of “the Terribles” went beyond this (that of course was only Harriet’s private name for them, but it was one of which Janet would have approved). On one occasion it even menaced her personal safety, or so she was convinced.
    As winter had given place to spring, Janet Cook had begun to cultivate her strip of garden. Obsessively conscientious by upbringing, she took her responsibility for this seriously but also, unsuspected by herself, she happened to have inherited from her country clergyman grandfather something of more value than his armchair or the tradition of gentility so treasured by her mother. He had loved growing things and had possessed green fingers. Janet had always had a weakness for flowers and had notinfrequently incurred her mother’s rebukes for squandering her money on them. Now she purchased a paperback on gardening, several packets of seeds from Woolworth’s, a trowel, a fork and a pair of gardening gloves. She had set herself to clear the ground so that she could sow her seeds, and they had