Chapter 2
The end of Zoe’s workday had been delayed.
There had been notes to complete more fully from her busy day, including those around Ezra’s birth, and then a letter from the local hospital to let her know about an urgent admission for one of her expectant mums, Sam, who’d been struggling with excessive morning sickness.
She’d been driven to the emergency department by her mother-in-law, where she was deemed so dehydrated they’d had to put her on a drip.
Thankfully, it seemed to be under control now, but Zoe had wanted to speak to the ward where Sam was being kept to get more details.
Eventually, after half an hour of back and forth, she’d even been able to speak to Sam herself, and ended the call happy that she was content where she was and in good hands.
All this meant that by the time she’d turned off her computer, she was the last person to leave the surgery, finding reception already in gloom as she walked through, Lavender having gone home an hour earlier.
She was fishing for her own set of keys to the main doors when a voice from behind made her jump.
‘Simon!’ She laughed. ‘I thought you’d gone!’
‘No such luck…’ He switched on the light so that Zoe could see him properly.
Lately, they’d both been so busy that, despite them working in the same building, they barely saw one another.
Zoe had always felt she didn’t know him much beyond a working relationship anyway, and the fact their days didn’t allow for much interaction on a more personal level hadn’t helped.
Her friend Ottilie, who was the local community nurse, had a real friendship with their senior GP, and at times Zoe envied that.
She liked Simon a lot, but he was very private, and almost all Zoe knew about him had come from Ottilie and his girlfriend Stacey, during girly nights in where they’d talked about their lives.
For instance, she knew that Simon had lost his wife and child in an earthquake in Japan, and though he’d never spoken of it to Zoe, she wondered if she would have sensed that loss in his past even if nobody had told her.
Now that she knew, she could see it clearly; despite him often being relaxed and amiable, he was also serious and intense in a way that spoke of a tragedy that he would never be able to move on from.
‘A lot to do?’
‘Isn’t there always? Are you staying here for a while?’
‘Yes, I’ve got a few more things to do. Go ahead and lock the door anyway – I doubt I’m in any immediate danger from the mean streets of Thimblebury, but it’s probably wise.’
‘I will. See you tomorrow.’
‘By the way,’ Simon called as she turned to go, ‘I hear congratulations are in order.’
Zoe frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Alex’s camping field… he has a booking, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes, but how…’ Zoe grinned and shook her head. ‘Never mind. I forgot where I was living for a second. Of course Alex has told someone, and someone has told someone else, and in about five minutes everyone knows.’
‘I think I might have had it from quite high up the chain. Corrine told me, so the news might not have spread too far yet.’
‘Well, I’m sure it won’t be long before it does, and I’m sure people will have an opinion of one sort or another.’
‘I’m sure they will.’ Simon’s smile grew. ‘Well, goodnight. Enjoy your evening.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Zoe said with an airy wave as she left.
She stepped out into a twilight of peach and lilac, her breath curling into the air as she locked the door of the surgery behind her.
Her footsteps echoing on the pavement, she walked around the corner to the small space where she kept her car.
There, she stopped and frowned. It wasn’t yet dark enough to obscure what looked like a carrier bag placed on the bonnet.
Wondering what on earth could be in there, how it came to be there and whether she ought to be alarmed, she approached it, the crease in her brow growing deeper.
At the car, she paused to give her surroundings a quick once-over, but the lane was silent and empty.
It was past teatime in Thimblebury, and though there was no such thing as a rush hour here, there was always a quick half-hour flurry of people leaving whatever work they did to go home, but that was over by now.
Inwardly chiding herself and feeling faintly ridiculous, she reached forward and opened the bag.
Inside was a box of biscuits. Zoe pulled it out and noted the Christmas motifs of mistletoe, holly and snow.
Christmas had been four months ago, so either someone had been waiting a long time to give her this or there was another reason for it appearing on her car at this moment.
She dug inside the bag to see if there was anything else there and found a note, marked with a large, heavy script.
Just to say we appreciate what you done for our Maisie.
That was it. Nothing else, no signature.
Zoe had to assume it had been left by Bridget.
It seemed like a spontaneous lapse of her usual dislike for the midwife that had caused her so much strife in the past. Perhaps it had been brought on by her new status as a grandmother.
Perhaps she’d had the biscuits left over from Christmas and had decided they’d be a decent thank-you gift.
Either way, Zoe was sure normal service would be resumed soon enough, and the next time she called on them, Maisie’s mum would be her curt self.
She’d had many tokens of appreciation during her career, and some of them had been odder than others, but this had to go on the list of the top five most unexpected.
Zoe had never felt confident driving the exposed, narrow-track road that led up to Hilltop Farm, but there was no mistaking that the vista from the top was majestic.
Below in the village, warm lights were filling the windows of stone cottages, and on the hills that surrounded it, like protective arms holding it in a loving embrace, there were yet more, tinier and sparser, shining from the odd farm or hotel.
The sun hadn’t quite set, but there was only a halo visible as it sank behind the highest of the distant peaks.
All along the hedgerows, spring flowers bloomed, and the branches of the shrubs themselves were peppered with buds and new leaves.
Zoe rolled down a window and smiled as she took a breath, air so clear and sweet it was enough to cleanse the most melancholic of souls.
Below, as she took a sharp bend in the road, the dark cauldron of Windermere sat, deep and mysterious and jewelled with pinpricks of gold in the twilight as it came into view before being obscured by a row of trees.
A few minutes later, Hilltop Farm, the place Zoe now called home, was in view, welcoming lights in those windows too.
The garden was bursting into life, with pink and white paper blossoms on the trees and a rolling lawn covered in daisies, coltsfoot and dandelion.
Billie had asked her dad not to mow it so the new bees would have food, and Zoe smiled at the memory of the conversation Alex had had with her afterwards.
He’d been so proud of Billie’s thoughtfulness, though dressed it up with a joke that he needed no encouragement to let the lawnmower gather dust in the shed for a few more weeks.
‘What happened? Was it OK? She called him Ezra, right? When can I go over?’
Billie was upon Zoe almost as soon as she walked into the kitchen of Hilltop Farm, full of questions about the girl who had become the most unlikely of best friends to her during the previous few months.
She had Louisa propped up against her shoulder, looking content as she nuzzled into her mother’s chest. Zoe reached to stroke a gentle hand over her head.
‘Hey, you… are you being a good girl for your mummy?’
‘Oh my God!’ Billie rolled her eyes. ‘She’s filled so many nappies today I could build a new hill out of them!’
‘Something she ate?’ Zoe said, vague concern crossing her features. ‘Does she seem OK other than that?’
‘She’s happy enough, just shitting for England.’
Zoe couldn’t help but laugh at the succinct appraisal of the situation. ‘As long as you’re not worried, then I suppose I shouldn’t be either. Like they say, mother knows best.’
‘Only when she knows what she’s talking about. What time did Maisie have him?’
Zoe paused, trying to recall what she’d written down. She was certain it had been shortly after lunch, but she’d put in another few hours of work after that and it had blurred the details in her mind. ‘About one thirty, I think.’
‘One thirty exactly?’
‘Thereabouts…’
Billie let out an impatient sigh. ‘I’ll ask her myself.’
‘Sorry,’ Zoe said with a sheepish smile. ‘Busy day. I can’t be expected to remember what time all my babies are born.’
‘But it’s Maisie!’
Billie and Maisie had been pregnant together, though Billie’s daughter Louisa was now two months old, and they’d been a support for one another through those months.
In many ways, though Billie had lost her mum some years before and Maisie had hers, their situations were similar.
Both lacked the sort of maternal guidance that a young woman might be in desperate need of, and both had turned to Zoe for the closest thing they could get to that.
Zoe had seen the similarities straight away, recognising a common thread that might bond them despite their very different personalities, and she’d been right.
‘She’s fine – it went really well. Ezra is gorgeous and healthy. I’m going over tomorrow to make more checks and to do his jabs.’
‘Ugh…’ Billie screwed up her nose. ‘Those. I hated when Louisa had to have those – she proper screamed.’
‘But it didn’t last, and they have to have them.’
‘Yeah, I know. Doesn’t mean I had to like it. So can I come with you?’