Chapter 5
The week had felt like a long one, and though Zoe was tempted to rot in bed for the whole of her day off, she dragged herself up, ate breakfast, and planned to suggest to Alex that they might go and get some air.
In the end, they’d been so busy over the few days before that they’d barely had time to talk to one another about boring household things, let alone anything more meaningful.
She didn’t know if Alex still wanted to, but she’d make herself available for it, and being out of the house by themselves would mean they could discuss Billie if they needed to.
She’d been sometimes distant since her return from Spain.
It wasn’t so different from how she normally was, except for the fact that Zoe could see that it wasn’t just Billie being moody from time to time, but that she was working something out.
Zoe could see the cogs turning whenever she sat and stared into space, or she snapped at someone, and she was more secretive about her phone than she’d ever been before.
Alex had noticed too, perhaps not to the same degree as Zoe, but he’d made an ill-advised joke about the possibility of her having a boyfriend and Billie had exploded.
The incident had been enough to shut him up, and Zoe didn’t blame him for being reluctant to ask if there was anything bothering her after that.
‘I always seem to get it wrong,’ he’d lamented to Zoe in passing as Billie went to put Louisa to bed and they cleared the kitchen together.
‘It must feel that way. I know you were only being playful, but maybe that wasn’t the joke she wanted to hear, considering she’s not long back from visiting Luis’s grave?’
He flushed, and Zoe felt desperately sorry for him.
Nobody but Billie could understand what she’d been through – certainly neither of them because even though they’d both suffered losses too, it wasn’t the same.
He was trying so hard – as he had been ever since the accident that had killed Louisa’s dad – but Zoe could see why he felt he never found the right things to say.
This morning, she hoped they would all have some space to take a breath and ponder the things that felt so difficult to say to one another.
Zoe had been grappling with problems of her own, as well as those that Billie and Alex’s difficult relationship presented.
She’d come to a decision finally – one that she’d tentatively aired, one that Alex had asked her to reconsider.
She had, but her feelings remained unchanged.
She just had to find the right moment to tell him.
That moment presented itself as he went to get Grizzle’s lead.
‘I’m going to take him out for a run before lunch.’
Grizzle leaped up at him as soon as he worked out what was going on, claws clacking on the stone floor as he raced around.
‘I’ll come too if you can hang on and wait ten minutes for me to get my boots on.’
‘Right…’ Alex clipped Grizzle’s lead onto his collar. ‘There’s no rush. I’ll wait at the gate for you so he’s not leaping around all over the place in here. Do you think Billie will want to come?’
Zoe turned to the living room, where Billie was watching TV as Louisa took a nap.
She lowered her voice. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said carefully, trying, without saying it, to make him understand that she didn’t want Billie to come because there were things she wanted to say that couldn’t be said with Billie there.
Alex took a moment and then nodded as if he’d got it. ‘I’ll see you by the gate then.’
When Zoe joined him, he was looking up at the sky.
‘I reckon that’s a kestrel or something,’ he said. ‘Up there, look. I don’t know; I’m not very good at recognising them. Victor said someone was trying to reintroduce eagles here.’
‘In the Lakes?’ Zoe looked doubtful. ‘I didn’t think they’d ever been native here.’
‘I suppose they must have been at one time. It’s all part of this rewilding idea that other people are already on board with, that the land ought to go back to the way it was before farming changed it so much.’
‘Yes, well, there are still a lot of farmers here who wouldn’t agree that it ought to. And before you start, that’s not me saying you’re wrong, or any of the people who want to do this stuff are wrong. I’m just saying there has to be room for everyone.’
He smiled at her. ‘I think you should have been a diplomat.’
‘Oh, right because I never put my foot in it.’ Zoe let out a light laugh.
‘If you do, you’re charming enough to get away with it, and isn’t that the way most diplomats work?’
Zoe blinked and then laughed again. ‘OK, I suppose I’ll take that. Where do you want to walk? Which way? I think the lower fields might be boggy, given how much it’s rained.’
‘It’s a world away from last year…’ Alex opened the gate for her. ‘All that snow – remember? I doubt we’ll get any at all this year. I really hope we do. Let’s go up towards the paddock – should be dry enough up there.’
‘Not too close to Victor’s herd.’
‘No, of course not. Though Grizzle doesn’t bother with them now like he used to.’
‘No, but the pregnant one…’
‘Yeah, I get it. Don’t want to spook mum. I forgot about that…’
They began to trudge up the hill, where streams of rainwater trickled down the path from the higher ground ahead.
The bird Alex had been watching at the gate was circling overhead, buoyed by thermals high above them.
And then, in a startling instant, it fell into a screeching dive, swooped down on something they couldn’t see and then shot back into the sky, a dark shape dangling from its beak.
Zoe watched the drama unfold, Alex silent by her side.
She liked this new phase of the relationship.
They’d wandered into it with barely a fanfare, the point at which they didn’t have to fill every moment with something meaningful, where simply being in the same space was enough.
It felt like progress, and whenever she felt less certain of where they were as a couple, it was comforting that they could do this.
‘I was thinking I might climb Scafell Pike.’
Zoe whipped round to stare at him. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘Why not? We’ve got into walking lately, and it’s close by. Why wouldn’t I climb it?’
‘I don’t know. You just never mentioned you had a pressing urge to climb any mountain before. I mean, yes, we like walking, but there’s a slight difference between blowing the cobwebs out on the road between our place and Daffodil Farm and scaling an actual mountain.’
‘It’s not that high. It’s just like a big hill, really.’
‘I’ll remind you of that when you’re stuck up there waiting for mountain rescue to bring you down.’
‘I’d be careful, and I’d get some practice walks in. It’d be fine. I might even ask Billie if she wants to do it with me… I’m assuming from your comments that you don’t want to have a go.’
‘I can’t say the prospect excites me, but if you want to do it, don’t let me stand in your way. I have to be honest, I can’t see Billie being keen either.’
‘But she might. She likes a challenge, and she likes the outdoors.’
‘To a point. How long would it take to do, though? I don’t think she’d want to leave Louisa for hours on end, even if she got to walk up a mountain with you.’
‘Not just any mountain, though – England’s highest.’
‘Even so. I have to ask again, what on earth has made you suddenly want to climb it?’
He gave a vague shrug. ‘It just came to me one day. We don’t see much of the Lake District, do we? I’ve been here more than a year, and I’ve barely seen anything beyond Thimblebury. Are you sure you wouldn’t want to come with me? It could be a challenge, something we can train for together.’
‘I’d have to think about it. I don’t have as much free time as you do right now, with the camping site hibernating until next spring. If you want to see more of the area in general, though, we could try to make time for that. I’ve never said I was against a few trips out.’
‘I know. And I know we haven’t got out much because we’ve been busy and there’s been a lot going on, but now things have calmed down, I think it’s time we did discover more of the area.’
‘Hmmm. Is this the same as you wanting to contribute to the area? Like the rewilding thing?’
‘I suppose it must be. I just want to feel like I belong. That we all belong… me and Billie and Louisa… and you… And to a certain extent, that the area belongs to us too.’ He turned to hold her in a searching gaze that she felt before she realised it.
‘Don’t you sometimes feel like you’re only a visitor?
Like you don’t really belong, no matter what you do or how long you’ve lived here?
I sometimes feel like I’m on a massive holiday and at some point I’ll have to go home. ’
‘So if this doesn’t feel like home, where does? Where do you think you’ll have to go back to? Essex?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Perhaps. Spain. We were happiest there, if I’m honest. Certainly, Billie was.
Happier than when we first came back to the UK, I mean.
Of course, I’m happy now, here with you.
But even Spain wouldn’t feel like home any more.
Not to me anyway. There’s nothing in Spain for me.
I wish I could tell you, but I don’t know that I feel strongly I belong anywhere these days.
I suppose Hilltop is the closest I’ve felt to settled in a long time, but I’m still not quite there. ’
‘What do you think it is that’s stopping you feeling settled?’
He shook his head slowly, and there was no answer for at least a minute.
Overhead, another bird of prey circled… the same one they’d seen earlier?
Something different? Zoe couldn’t tell. Grizzle sniffed at the ground ahead, pausing to take in the shape too, before turning back to his snuffling in the long grass.
‘It’s nothing to do with us?’ Zoe asked, unnerved by the gap. ‘You and me. We’re OK, aren’t we? Because I thought—’