Chapter 18
Zoe had hoped for a grace period, but her dad had other plans.
The following week, as she returned to work, he was moving his belongings into Kestrel Cottage.
He’d rented his own house to a friend at the golf club and so was perfectly free to settle into his new home as quickly as he liked.
Which, apparently, was very quickly indeed.
But Zoe, noting a strange kind of gratitude in the fact, had no time to worry about it because she was beginning to see she had far bigger concerns.
After greeting Lavender, Shabana and Simon briefly, Zoe went to see Emilia, whom she knew would be at her desk well before the start of morning clinic.
She looked up from some patient results at the sound of her door opening. ‘Zoe! Morning! Good week? How’s Billie and the baby?’
‘They’re good,’ Zoe said carefully. ‘It’s been a nice week – and needed. Thanks again for letting me have it at such short notice.’
‘It’s the least I could do,’ she replied vaguely as she rifled through the slips of paper, a crease appearing on her brow. ‘Was there something you needed, or were you just reporting for duty?’
‘I… it’s a bit delicate, actually.’
‘Oh?’ Emilia gave Zoe her full attention now.
‘It’s Billie. I’m almost certain she’s showing signs of postnatal depression.’
‘That’s sad, but why do you need to tell me?’
Zoe didn’t baulk at the question. She was used to Emilia’s direct, sometimes even brusque manner. It didn’t mean she didn’t care or didn’t want to help, only that etiquette and subtleties were concepts she’d never met.
‘I’m sure you have the experience to diagnose it,’ Emilia continued.
‘Not formally,’ Zoe said. ‘But yes, I recognise the red flags.’
‘Such as…’
‘Like she’s struggling to engage. She’s attentive enough to Louisa – there’s no worry on that score.
But she doesn’t want to go out, and she’s not looking after herself and…
I’m well aware that sometimes new mums feel too overwhelmed to do the basics they normally would, showering and getting dressed and so on, but…
I don’t know, call it intuition.’ Zoe took a breath.
Now that she was saying it all out loud, she wondered if she was seeing problems that weren’t there.
Billie was Alex’s world, and perhaps Zoe was too aware of that to keep her professional head on straight. ‘The thing is, it’s Billie. And I’m—’
‘Too close?’ Emilia put the sheet she was holding down. ‘I see what you mean now. You’re asking me to get involved?’
‘I was hoping to get your take on what I should do.’
‘I’d refer her to the appropriate service. There’s nothing else to do – not at this end anyway. I assume you have contacts for them.’
‘But how do I approach it?’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘How do I get the ball rolling? With Billie, I mean.’
‘You’ve talked to her?’
‘That’s just it – she doesn’t seem to think there’s a problem. At least, not one she’ll admit to.’
‘Perhaps there isn’t one then.’
Zoe tried not to frown. Emilia, more than anyone, given her profession and the fact she’d had to deal with her brother-in-law Brett’s slide into alcoholism not so long ago, ought to know it wasn’t always as simple as that.
‘You seem convinced there is,’ Emilia added, perhaps reading correctly into Zoe’s pause.
‘As convinced as I can be. It’s not always easy to be sure, and I’m not trained in mental health. Not fully anyway. I only have my experience with previous mums to go on. And like you said, Billie’s too close, and I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to be dealing with it.’
‘You’re still her midwife.’
‘I do wonder whether that was altogether appropriate, given my relationship with Alex. In reality, I’m only her midwife because we didn’t have anyone else.
I’m not saying I want to shirk my responsibility, though.
I am her midwife, and I want to help. But if she needs to speak to someone, I’m just not sure it can be me. ’
‘I see. You’ve mentioned your concerns to Alex?’
‘Not yet. I’d rather not worry him until I’m sure there’s something to worry him about.’
‘Don’t you think it would be helpful to get his take? He knows Billie better than anyone, so surely he can see if there’s something off?’
‘I suppose so, but his head is full of practical things, like the house has to be perfectly ready. And there’s the camping field – he’s still trying to get that off the ground, and really he’s just so besotted with the idea of being a new grandad, I don’t think he wants to see problems…’
Emilia studied Zoe with a shrewd look. ‘I’m assuming you’d like me to see her?’
‘Yes, but not here. Could you come to the house? We’d have to think of some reason you needed to visit, and perhaps you could do some subtle digging. Have a chat with her about Louisa and try to figure out what’s going on?’
‘I’m sure she won’t see through our cunning ruse,’ Emilia said wryly. ‘But if you think it will help, then I can arrange to visit.’
‘Thanks – I’d really appreciate it.’
‘Perhaps I can get Georgia to come with William.’
‘Ah, like a baby mixer? Good idea!’
‘Come to think of it, might even be a good idea for Georgia to have the chat. Billie might open up more to someone who’s recently been through the same experience as her, and they did seem to bond at Christmas.’
‘But Georgia won’t know what to ask. She isn’t trained, and she might not know—’
‘I’ll brief her on what to look out for. I’m sure I’d be able to pick up some clues when she reports back to me afterwards.’
Emilia made it sound like some kind of spy operation.
Zoe supposed that in a strange way, it was a bit like that.
She was surprised to hear her involve her sister so openly too, knowing what a breach of patient confidentiality it was.
If the plan came to light, she and Zoe would both be in hot water.
It seemed, however, that Emilia was fairly confident it wouldn’t.
‘If it’s not too much of a problem,’ she said, ‘I’d prefer for you to be there too.’
Emilia was silent for a moment. But then she gave a slight shrug. ‘Fine. How’s Wednesday evening?’
‘Amazing!’ Zoe said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me yet,’ Emilia said. ‘There are no guarantees we’ll get what we need like this.’
‘I know, but I feel better knowing we’re going to try.’
Zoe sat at her desk and started to work through her messages, feeling lighter now that she’d had Emilia’s promise to help.
She’d told her mums it was OK to contact her with urgent concerns, even though she was on official annual leave, but none of them had.
However, there were plenty of less urgent queries to go through by the looks of the emails and voicemails she had waiting.
More or less everything was straightforward, until she came to an email from Lavender.
Fern, the mum-to-be from the commune, had been into the reception in person asking to see Zoe.
She’d apparently left without saying what she’d wanted.
Why walk all the way here for nothing? Why not phone?
As unreliable as it seemed to be, Zoe knew Fern had access to one.
Unless something had changed and she now didn’t?
The more she reflected on the situation, the more Zoe worried about it. She only wished she could work out why. There was… it was really nothing more than a general feeling of unease, that things weren’t as they ought to be. She’d seen no concrete proof, but…
She wondered how to get in touch with Fern. Did her in-person visit mean she’d rather the commune not know she’d been trying to speak to a midwife other than Arwen?
With a few minutes to spare before her first appointment of the day was due to arrive, she went through to see Lavender. Perhaps their perceptive and experienced receptionist could shed some light on it.
‘I was a bit busy.’ Lavender fixed a stamp to an envelope and tossed it onto a pile of letters. ‘She came in like a startled deer, asked for you, and then went. I did try to find out what she was after.’
‘Did you get the feeling…?’ Zoe lowered her voice and leaned in.
Only old Mrs Icke was in the waiting room and she was infamously deaf, but it seemed to be a selective deafness that nobody was quite convinced existed.
It would be just Zoe’s luck for her to hear this and repeat it to someone else.
‘Well, did she say I couldn’t contact her? ’
‘She didn’t ask if you would, but she didn’t say not to either. Can’t you just phone? We’ve still got a number on file.’
‘I know we have, but she doesn’t always get to answer it. I’m not sure if it’s her personal phone or some sort of communal number. Last time I called it, she wasn’t allowed to come and speak to me.’
Lavender raised her eyebrows, her face lighting with curiosity.
‘That’s the impression I got anyway,’ Zoe added quickly to shut down any salacious speculation. ‘I’m not saying that’s what’s happening. I could be very wrong.’
Lavender looked faintly disappointed, but she didn’t seem keen to let go of the gossip yet. She tossed another letter onto the pile. ‘I always thought they were a weird lot. I shudder to think what goes on in that place.’
‘I’m sure it’s only weird to us because we don’t understand it. It’s just another way to live, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, a weird one.’
‘I’m sure if anything bad was happening, we’d have heard about it before now.
They’ve been there for a few years, haven’t they?
And nobody has ever come from there and said anything…
’ Zoe didn’t know how to finish the sentence because that hadn’t been what her gut had been telling her only minutes earlier.
But she preferred to avoid fanning the flames of rumours that might not be remotely true.
‘All I’m saying,’ Lavender began with the conviction of someone who’d had a glimpse of a certainty nobody could dispute, ‘is that if they lock themselves in one day and set fire to—’
‘Lavender!’ Zoe hissed, glancing at Mrs Icke. ‘Don’t say things like that!’