Chapter 11
Though she’d given Fern her phone number in the hope the young mum-to-be from the commune would change her mind about managing without a qualified midwife, Zoe was still surprised to get a call from her the following Monday morning.
She’d just seen one appointment off and was getting ready to call in the next when the mobile sitting on her desk started to ring.
It was switched to silent so she could concentrate on her mums, but she could see it flashing from the corner of her eye as she updated some medical notes.
‘Hello… Yes, of course you can phone! I did say call any time. What can I do for you?’
She listened for a moment and then nodded. ‘I can make some time for you today. If you can come at one, I’ll be free. Don’t worry if the surgery looks locked – just phone me or knock when you’re here, and I’ll come to let you in.’
After confirming the arrangements, Zoe went through to reception to call her next mum and to let Lavender know the plan.
Lavender, predictably, rolled her eyes, but she also looked too weary to complain.
She’d been protesting about people using their daily lunchtime get-together to do actual work instead of coming to the kitchen to eat for some time, but it seemed as if she’d finally given in.
‘As long as you can let her in and see her out again, do what you like. I’ll be having my steak pie, and I’ve no intention of working through it.’
Two hours later, Zoe closed her laptop and checked the time.
Ten minutes had passed since the appointment time she’d given to Fern, and there was no sign of her.
With her stomach rumbling, Zoe wondered whether to dash into the kitchen to see if she could get a quick bite after all.
She might be able to, if she kept an eye on her phone and everyone listened for a knock on the surgery door.
And so she went through, Lavender the first person to notice her.
‘Changed your mind?’ she asked.
Zoe gave a sheepish smile. ‘No, but I am hungry, and I was hoping to grab something before Fern comes.’
‘If she comes,’ Lavender said. ‘I wouldn’t put money on anyone from that bunch of stoners keeping an appointment.’
‘Fern’s not like that.’
‘How do you know? Have you even been over to that place? Everyone there is at it.’
Zoe went to the fridge and ran her gaze over the shelves, hoping to find something she could put on a quick sandwich.
‘Have some of the pie,’ Lavender said. ‘There’s plenty…’ She glanced at Shabana, who was reading a magazine at the table, an open lunch box of roasted vegetables and couscous in front of her. ‘Because I made a load and hardly anybody is eating it today.’
‘Where’s Simon?’ Zoe asked vaguely, knowing that Emilia never joined them for lunch anyway.
‘Running late from a home visit. He says he’ll take his home. There’ll be enough for Stacey to have some too at this rate.’
‘If that’s an option, I’ll take mine home too – I really don’t think I’ll have time to eat it now.’
‘I still say she won’t come. You might as well sit down and I’ll put some out for you.’
Zoe shook her head before shutting the fridge and going to the cupboard for a packet of crisps. ‘Thanks for the offer, but she’s phoned me, so she clearly wants some input. If she doesn’t come in the next ten minutes or so, I’ll whizz over there and see if I can get hold of her.’
‘What am I supposed to do with your afternoon appointments while you’re up there?’
‘I’ll be back in time, don’t worry.’
‘Famous last words…’
Zoe took the crisps with her as she headed for the door. ‘Cross my heart, I’ll be back. If I’m not, you can shout at me as much as you like.’
As she’d promised, ten minutes later, with no sign of Fern, Zoe decided to try to find Heavenly Heights, the commune where Fern lived.
She wondered if they had a shared phone because when Zoe tried to reach her on the number she’d used to call earlier that day, a man had answered and simply said he didn’t know where Fern was before passing it to someone else, who didn’t know either.
Then three more people took turns on the line to try and work out where she might be before admitting that they couldn’t help.
After wasting valuable time on this exercise, Zoe decided it was quicker to give in and drive up there.
What she hadn’t banked on was how difficult it would be to find.
The place didn’t show up on her satnav, and the postcode kept taking her to an empty field.
In the end, smarting a bit from Lavender’s I told you so tone on answering the phone, Zoe had been forced to beg her to message the afternoon appointments to warn them she might be back a little late and to see if she could get some clues from their receptionist as to the actual location of Heavenly Heights because she’d seemed to know a lot about it.
Eventually, she pulled up at the gates of a run-down, rambling old farmhouse, almost entirely obscured by towering hedges.
The gate was fastened shut by a fraying rope that looked as if it was rarely undone, rusted at the hinges, various hand-painted signs attached by wire to warn people of free-roaming dogs, chickens, goats, sheep, ducks, cows…
and just about any other farm animal anyone could think of.
Zoe drove a little further down the lane so she didn’t block the entrance before getting out of the car and walking to the gate. She looked over the rope. It had clearly been tied to stay tied – at least, that was how it seemed. After giving it a vague tug, she decided to call for someone.
The yard was empty, which was strange because she’d had all sorts of visions on the drive over of some idyllic hippy paradise, populated by women in floaty dresses and floral crowns and men in stripey cheesecloth trousers wandering about in a veritable garden of Eden.
The reality was nothing like that. Beyond the muddy, deserted yard stood the farmhouse, where most of the windows were so dirty they were barely transparent, wood and bits of old furniture sitting in piles against the walls every few feet or so, weeds reaching from every crack.
She could hear dogs barking from somewhere, but she couldn’t see them.
‘Hello!’ she shouted. ‘Anyone home?’
There was no reply, but the dogs seemed to get louder. A solo chicken strutted past, and that was the first sight of actual life she’d seen since she’d got there.
With a sigh of frustration, she decided to dial the phone number she had once more. A man answered.
‘Hi, I don’t know if it was you I spoke to earlier, but I was hoping to get hold of Fern.’
‘I don’t think it was me. What do you want her for?’
‘I’m… I’m Zoe Padbury. A friend of hers.’
‘She’s never mentioned a friend called Zoe.’
‘But could you find her? I spoke to her earlier today, and she was meant to meet me.’
‘Meet you?’ He sounded doubtful. ‘She never said anything about wanting to go outside.’
Outside? Zoe resisted the urge to draw attention to the strange phrasing. She hadn’t really come across a community quite like this before, however, not in her professional capacity, and so perhaps it wasn’t so strange to them.
‘I really only need a quick word. I wouldn’t keep her for long.’
The line went dead. Did that mean he was going to get her?
Zoe leaned over the gate and tried to get a good look over it.
Now she could hear more activity coming from the back of the house so had to assume that was where most of day-to-day life happened.
There were fields beyond – she could see the open ground at either side of the farmhouse, and the eaves of some outbuildings further away.
Perhaps there was a lot more land behind it than was immediately apparent.
Just as she was thinking of phoning the number again, a woman emerged from the house and strode towards the gate. Not Fern – an older woman with long, grey hair, her muddy jeans tucked into a pair of wellies and an oversize parka slung around her shoulders.
‘You’re the… midwife.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
Zoe nodded. Was this Arwen, the commune mum Fern had talked about, the woman who’d wanted to take on the care of Fern and her baby?
‘She’s got everyone she needs here. I’m sorry you’ve made a wasted journey.’
She didn’t sound very sorry, and Zoe wasn’t about to walk away from this without some proof that Fern wasn’t being coerced into decisions about her care that she wasn’t happy with. After all, she’d phoned Zoe earlier for a reason.
‘Not wasted,’ she said as pleasantly as she could. ‘Not at all. I’m glad I’ve been over to see where she’s living.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It doesn’t mean anything. I would like to talk to her, if I could. Just to see for myself she’s all right.’
‘We’re not a cult, you know,’ the woman said sharply.
‘I never said you were. I only want to speak to her. If she’s here, then I don’t see what the problem is.’
‘She’s not.’
‘That’s not what the man I just spoke to on the phone said. He said she hadn’t gone outside today.’
‘I’ll get her.’
‘I’d rather come in to see her.’
‘It upsets the kids when strangers come in.’
‘But it must have to happen sometimes. Like when the utilities need seeing to, that sort of thing. Better to get them used to the idea that sometimes strangers do have to visit, isn’t it? Anyway, I’m hardly a threatening presence.’
The woman walked away without a reply, and Zoe was left once again to lean on the gate and wonder if she would get what she came for.