Chapter 12 #2
‘I expect your hormones are messing up your appetite,’ Zoe said.
‘Probably. You’d know more than me about that.’
‘No amount of training can replace lived experience, though,’ Zoe replied, pushing a smile across her face she hoped would hide the pain that always lingered in the background, no matter how she tried to convince herself she’d moved on from her miscarriage.
‘I only know that every pregnancy is different. Some women eat a lot more, some a lot less, some new or weird things and some are exactly the same as they always were.’
‘My aunt says I’ll want to eat lumps of coal,’ Chantal said. ‘I think she’s been watching too much Call the Midwife.’
‘I’ve heard of it,’ Zoe said. ‘But there aren’t as many houses with coal fires as there used to be. I don’t know what you’d eat instead if you did fancy some.’
Nigel flicked open the menu. ‘It all looks very good; I’m impressed by the choice.’
Alex nodded as he perused his own. ‘I know what you mean – there’s almost too much to choose from.’
‘I’m leaning towards the salmon,’ Nigel added.
Zoe’s forehead creased slightly as she looked across at him. ‘You eat salmon? Since when? You always hated fish.’
He glanced up with a vague shake of his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘I know so! Remember when we went on that boat trip in Majorca when I was about twelve and they ran out of chicken for the complimentary meal and they only had sardines? And you said to Mum you’d rather starve than—’ Zoe flushed, her sentence ending with a snap.
She’d been about to point out that he’d always refused point-blank to eat fish while he’d been married to her mum, the boat trip being a memorable example of this, but realised, too late, that it might not be the best time for such an anecdote.
‘I love fish!’ Chantal enthused. ‘I never liked it when I was young, but then I went on holiday to Madeira with my best friend and her parents and tried all sorts. After that, I couldn’t get enough. It’s funny how your tastes can change, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose it is,’ Zoe said. ‘Perhaps it had something to do with being away with someone else’s parents too that made you want to try, I mean. You make more of an effort, don’t you?’
Nigel looked up at Alex. ‘How about you? Let me see… I think you’re a steak man. I bet that ribeye is calling to you.’
Alex gave a bemused smile. ‘Not really. Do I give that impression?’
‘Well, you live on a farm and work outdoors, so it seemed likely a big, rugged fellow like you enjoys hearty meals like a good steak.’
Alex laughed. ‘I’m hardly rugged! Though I’ll take it as a compliment.
As for living on a farm, Hilltop is really a farm in name only.
It hasn’t been a working farm for some time now, not since the lady I bought it from lost her husband.
I’m not entirely sure, but I think that was quite a few years back. ’
‘Zoe mentioned you’re building on the land.’
‘Well, yes. I work outdoors from time to time because I’m getting my campsite ready for my first visitors, but a lot of what I do is on my laptop.’
‘Camping field, eh?’ Nigel glanced at Chantal with a chuckle before turning back to Alex. ‘Sounds like money for old rope, but I bet it will be a little goldmine in the summer. We’ll know where to come if we need a loan, eh, Chantal?’
‘It’s not quite like that,’ Zoe said, prickled on Alex’s behalf. ‘You can’t just dump people in a field and collect their cash.’
Nigel’s face fell, and perhaps Zoe’s rebuke had been too quick and too sharp. It seemed Alex thought so, though he was diplomatic as he waved away any awkwardness.
‘I might have been tempted to think so myself at the start,’ he began, ‘but since I’ve been here trying to get things off the ground, I’ve realised there’s a lot more to it than I ever imagined.
But’ – he smiled at Zoe, a hidden message in it that everything was under control – ‘we’re all going to pitch in – if you’ll excuse the pun.
It’s going to be a proper family affair. ’
Nigel turned to Zoe. ‘You’re leaving your job?’
She couldn’t help but smile at the obvious confusion with which he asked the question.
‘God, no! In my spare time, I’m going to help as much as I can is what Alex means.’
‘Not that you get much spare time,’ Alex said.
‘None of us do at the moment,’ Zoe agreed.
She was about to elaborate when the restaurant doors opened and caught her eye.
A second later, a couple entered, and the sight of them was enough to prompt a faint groan.
She lowered her voice. ‘Don’t look,’ she told Alex, ‘but Magnus and Geoff have just walked in.’
Ordinarily, she’d love the opportunity to chat to the gregarious owners of Thimblebury’s village shop, but the timing of their arrival on this particular day couldn’t be worse.
‘Who’s come in?’ Chantal asked in a voice far louder than Zoe would have liked. To make things more obvious, she rose slightly from her chair to get a better look. ‘Do you know them?’
As Zoe had feared, the fuss was enough to draw Magnus’s keen eye. He broke into a grin and then waved at the table.
‘Hello!’ he greeted, bounding over with Geoff in pursuit. ‘Fancy seeing you in this place!’
Zoe straightened her expression into a neutral smile. ‘It’s a small world, isn’t it?’
‘Not so small when you consider where we live,’ Geoff put in. ‘Especially when you also consider there are only a handful of eateries in the whole of Cumbria that live up to Magnus’s very exacting standards.’
‘If we’re going to spend a lot of money eating out, I don’t think it’s a crime to expect it to be good,’ Magnus fired back.
At any other time, his haughty, slightly offended tone would have made Zoe want to laugh.
Despite Geoff’s thinly veiled criticism, he didn’t stay riled for long. A second later, his curious gaze slid over to Nigel and Chantal. It clearly took a lot for him to tear it away and turn back to Zoe. ‘What brings you here? Are you celebrating something? It’s not your birthday, is it?’
‘No, nothing like that. We’re just catching up.’
Nigel got up from his seat and offered a hand to both Magnus and Geoff in turn. ‘I’m Nigel – Zoe’s dad. This is my fiancée, Chantal.’
‘Ah!’ Magnus had been curious before, but the searching gaze he fixed on Chantal now bordered on fascination. ‘Your fiancée? How lovely to meet you both!’
Geoff’s response was still interested but far better managed than Magnus’s. ‘So you’ve come to see Zoe?’
‘Yes, and we’re going to look at the church too,’ Chantal said.
‘St Cuthbert’s?’ Geoff asked.
Chantal nodded. ‘We’re going to get married there.’
Magnus almost squealed as he clapped his hands together loud enough to make a good half of the restaurant turn to look. ‘I love a good wedding! You’ve set a date?’
‘Valentine’s Day.’
‘So soon?’ Magnus asked. ‘How long have you been planning it?’
At this, Chantal seemed suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Oh, you know, not long.’
‘You were lucky to get St Cuthbert’s then,’ Geoff said.
‘The vicar told us that too, but it helped that we wanted it on a weekday instead of a Saturday,’ Nigel said. He glanced fondly at Chantal. ‘My little woman has a way of persuading people to help her out, and it worked a treat on him.’
As far as Zoe could tell, her dad was more accurate than he could ever know.
Chantal’s charms had certainly always worked on him.
And yet, she couldn’t help but like her future stepmum, and in many ways she had to admire the way Chantal went about getting what she wanted.
She also suspected that Chantal had been secretly planning a lot of this longer than Nigel knew.
Perhaps the idea of marriage had occurred to her when she’d first discovered her pregnancy and, if that was the case, then their big day was at least four months in the making – if not longer.
‘I wanted to get married before I started to show,’ Chantal said. She stuck out her belly. ‘I’m pregnant, you see.’
‘Oh! How lovely!’ Geoff said, and it seemed he was trying to play along with the notion that nobody could tell, when it was obvious to anyone who looked that she was expecting. ‘Have you got long?’
‘Another five months yet,’ Chantal said. ‘I can still fit into my dress, so hopefully I won’t grow too much before the big day. I don’t want to look like a whale in my photos.’
‘My love, you’ll look ravishing!’ Geoff said gallantly, making Chantal blush with pleasure.
‘Aww, thank you! You should come!’ She turned to Nigel. ‘They should, shouldn’t they? They should come to the wedding!’
Magnus looked as if he’d won the lottery, and Geoff’s expression wore a distinct sprinkle of mischief.
Zoe wished she could sprinkle some fairy dust of her own to make them and this whole exchange disappear.
She was very fond of Magnus and Geoff – they were fun and full of humour, and they’d been kind to her since her arrival in Thimblebury, but she didn’t want them at this wedding.
Selfishly, she wanted the event to come and go with as little fuss as possible because anything else would make it the talk of the village.
Alex would tell her, if he could read her thoughts, that she was only fooling herself to imagine it would go unnoticed, and that she oughtn’t to care because gossip was just gossip, and he’d be right.
But knowing all that didn’t change Zoe’s feelings, though they were, even to her, seeming less and less charitable by the second.
‘How kind of you to ask!’ Magnus exclaimed.
‘But are you sure you wouldn’t rather keep it to close friends and family?’ Geoff asked, and Zoe could have leaped up and kissed him. She didn’t believe in superhuman skills like telepathy, but at that moment she could have been persuaded that Geoff had read her mind.
‘Why don’t you sit with us?’ Chantal asked. ‘By the time we’ve had lunch, we’ll all be friends I’m sure.’