Chapter 8 #3
And then the boots and coats that had been shed were back on again, and a few minutes later the three of them were marching up the hill to the paddock where Victor kept his alpaca.
Corrine chattered away, and she seemed more excited than either of them to go and visit the new addition, even though she must have seen her plenty since the birth.
Victor had a heater fixed to the wall and a bed of straw for mum and baby separate from the others.
‘I didn’t have to,’ he said. ‘They’d have been all right, but I worry that she was born at the wrong time of year.
They’re meant to be mated so they unpack in the spring or summer…
someone really didn’t know what they were doing. ’
‘Unpack?’ Billie frowned as she peered into the pen.
‘It’s what we call it when they give birth,’ Corrine said.
‘Oh. Sounds harsh. They’re not shopping.’
‘Aye,’ Victor said, ‘you have a point, but that’s just the way it’s done.’ He stood back and smiled. ‘Well, what do you reckon? She’s a beaut, isn’t she?’
‘She’s really cute,’ Billie agreed. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Don’t have one yet.’
‘I thought you might have called her Zoe,’ Billie said with a quick grin. ‘Seeing as she was here helping you, and seeing as you already have an Ottilie.’
‘We did think of that,’ Corrine said. ‘But we weren’t sure Zoe would like it.’
Zoe gave a bemused smile as she reached to pet Dandelion. ‘Why wouldn’t I like it? But Zoe doesn’t really match the other names, does it? If her mum’s called Dandelion, maybe you should give her a flower name too? Like Buttercup or Clover or something.’
‘I like Clover,’ Billie said. It was good to see a spark of enthusiasm as she turned back to the baby and rubbed her head. ‘Clover…’
‘It’s got a ring to it,’ Victor agreed.
‘I like it too,’ Corrine said.
‘But,’ Zoe added, ‘she was born close to Christmas, so perhaps you ought to give her a Christmas name like Holly or Ivy?’
‘She looks like a Clover though,’ Billie insisted, and then Victor clapped his hands together.
‘Clover it is then!’
Alex was brushing his teeth as Zoe leaned on the frame of the bathroom door, waiting for him to finish so she could brush hers.
She could see his face in the mirror – him, recognisably him but somehow all wrong as a reflection.
He looked thoughtful, in a way that was a little too manic, and Zoe wondered if what she’d told him as idle gossip had been a mistake.
She was beginning to learn that Alex liked grand ideas.
He liked to do grand things for people even when they didn’t want them, and the notion of them not wanting them never seemed to quite land with him.
It wasn’t a fault, exactly, because it was in his nature to want to make those dear to him happy no matter what it took, but she wondered if sometimes it could be misguided.
She hoped what she’d told him about Kestrel Cottage wasn’t about to come back to bite them all.
‘The new alpaca’s doing well,’ she said into the gap.
He looked at her from his reflection and nodded.
‘Victor was really worried about her being born too late in the year, but he’s doing a brilliant job of keeping her warm, and she seems to be thriving…
Dandelion too. He loves those animals as much as anyone in his family, I think.
He’d have been gutted if he’d lost the little one. ’
Alex spat out the toothpaste and wiped his mouth. ‘I bet. You can’t help but wonder if he’s thought about what happens when he’s too old to look after them, though. He’s definitely slowing up – he even said so himself, but I’ve noticed it more since that incident with Lennon and his rotten dog.’
‘Me too,’ Zoe said, her mind going back to a time when things weren’t quite so calm, when her dad and his new wife and her brother were all renting Kestrel Cottage.
‘Is it wrong to be glad your dad couldn’t make it for Christmas lunch?’ he added with a guilty frown.
‘Honestly, I’m quite glad too. It would have been good to see him and Chantal, of course, and it would have been lovely to see little Beau, but it would have been awkward, given all the stuff that happened just after the wedding.
Is it wrong that I’m also quite relieved my mum is going on a cruise with that new fella of hers and she won’t be here either? ’
‘Not a bit,’ he said, crossing the bathroom to kiss her on the forehead. ‘I’m sorry it might not be just us, considering we could have had it that way if I hadn’t panicked and invited Luis’s parents.’
‘They’ve confirmed then?’
‘Not yet, but they said they’d see if they can find someone to look after their animals and let me know. It’s my invitation, but I’ll be happy if they say no, to be honest.’
‘It’ll be fine either way. You did it for Billie, and I’m sure she’d appreciate that.’
‘I still don’t know what to get her for Christmas, though.’
‘She said she wasn’t bothered about anything big.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘That doesn’t mean I’m not going to get anything, does it? You said you didn’t want anything in particular either—’
‘And I don’t.’
‘But I’m still going to buy something. In fact, I may have already bought something.’
‘You didn’t go crazy, did you? Because we agreed—’
‘I know, and I didn’t go crazy.’
‘Good because I didn’t go crazy with yours because we’d said not to. I’d rather we save that money for a holiday next year. Now you’ve dangled the carrot of some sea and sun, I really want it.’
‘Right, miss. Consider me well and truly told!’
‘Oi!’ Zoe fired him a grin. ‘We’ll have less of that lip as well!’
His voice dropped as he came closer and pulled her in. ‘Oh, I like it when you’re all school mistress with me…’
Zoe hadn’t finished – after her visit to Daffodil Farm and her subsequent report back to Alex, she still had a lot to talk about. But with his breath on her neck, the smell of him in her head and the rest of the house asleep, she decided that talking could wait.