Chapter 22 #3
‘Are you…?’ Zoe shared an uncertain glance with Billie. ‘Virginia, have you got that huge drive home tonight?’
‘It’s far too late for that. Alex has offered me a bed here. He did play a terrible prank on me and told me he’d put me on the camping field. I wasn’t falling for that – he knows me better than to ask me to sleep anywhere that doesn’t have a floor and running water.’
‘The pods do have floors,’ Billie said, but Virginia only laughed again.
‘You know what I mean.’ She looked at Zoe. ‘I don’t suppose you have some make-up remover and a tub of moisturiser I could steal? I couldn’t possibly go to bed with a full face – the breakout a couple of days from now would be hideous.’
‘It’s only cheap stuff.’
‘It’ll be better than nothing.’
For a moment, Zoe considered the possibility of replacing the face cream in her jar with something else. Wallpaper paste? She was sure there was a tub of it in the stables where Alex kept his equipment. She’d show Virginia a breakout.
‘I’ll leave it in the bathroom for you,’ she said, trying to shake the thought; even she recognised how mean it was. ‘Don’t worry about getting it back to me. I’ve got a spare in the bedroom – I’ll use that.’
‘Thanks, Zo,’ Alex said, and she couldn’t decide if she wanted to acknowledge his gratitude or punch him in the face because it wasn’t on her behalf.
‘That’s all right. Is the bed made up?’
‘Yes. I did it before we’d had a few drinks… decided it was better not to leave it until I was too drunk, and I didn’t think it was fair to wait for you to come home and do it.’
‘That’s big of you,’ Billie said from the sink where she was getting a glass of water, Louisa cradled in one arm. ‘Because it’s totally Zoe’s job to do all the chores usually, isn’t it?’
Alex frowned, and perhaps to break the sudden tension, Virginia laughed again.
‘Well said. It’s good to see a strong feminist stance. We have to stick together, don’t we?’
Billie shot Virginia such a withering look that Zoe was shocked their guest didn’t turn to dust under its ferocity. ‘I’m going to put Louisa down, and then I’m going to bed.’
‘She likes you really,’ Alex said awkwardly once she was out of earshot.
Virginia raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
‘She does… at least, she will. She was like that with you at first, wasn’t she, Zoe?’
‘It was slightly more complicated than that,’ Zoe reminded him.
‘Yes, I suppose it was, but still…’
‘It sounds like a very sad situation,’ Virginia said. ‘You are talking about her pregnancy, I presume?’
Zoe stared at him. He’d told Virginia about Billie’s problems?
She wondered how Billie might feel about that if she found out.
He might have known Virginia a long time, and she might have been going out of her way to help them, but to Zoe, it seemed like he was willing to share far too much personal information with her. What might he have told her about Zoe?
He went to the fridge and took out two more beers, handing one to Virginia, and she wondered whether she ought to join them, if only to moderate the topics of conversation. But she didn’t want to look like the mad, jealous partner, even if that was exactly how she felt.
‘How has the legal research gone?’ she asked. ‘Have you come any closer to a solution?’
‘Not really,’ Alex said, ‘but V is going to do some ringing around for us. You have some good ideas about how we can fight back, don’t you, V?’
‘I hope they prove to be as inspired as you think they are.’ She cracked open the beer and drank from the can, filling Zoe with despair at the sight, because she even looked gorgeous and graceful doing that. ‘But I am hopeful they’re a good start.’
‘That’s good,’ Zoe said.
‘I bet you’re tired, aren’t you?’ Alex said.
‘It’s been a long day.’
Virginia gave her a gracious smile as she raked a perfectly manicured hand through her long hair. ‘Don’t let us keep you up. I promise to be as quiet as a little country mouse when I come to bed so I don’t wake anyone.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about that. Zoe will be dead to the world when her head hits the pillow, won’t you, Zo?’
‘Probably,’ Zoe said, certain that tonight the last thing she’d be doing was sleeping soundly. ‘But don’t forget Louisa is likely to wake everyone when she wants her early-morning feed.’
‘What time is that?’ Virginia asked.
‘About five.’
‘Perfect,’ Virginia said. ‘I’ll take that as my alarm call. I’ll need to be on the road early anyway.’
Zoe lay awake for another two hours. She could hear the faint hum of conversation drifting up from the kitchen, sometimes punctuated by laughter or the sound of another can being opened.
Half of her felt like going down and slapping them both, and the other half of her wanted to turn over and ignore it and go to sleep.
Virginia would be gone by the time she got up for work and everything would be normal again.
Just as she began to doze off, the door to the bedroom opened and Alex crept in.
She heard him stumble about as he tried to get undressed, and then with equal clumsiness he crawled into bed beside her, his feet cold and his breath pungent.
She tried to get back to where she’d been before he’d come in, but then she could hear Virginia moving around in the bathroom, opening and closing cabinets, gargling, blasting taps, flushing the toilet, the bin lid slamming down, and she let out a loud sigh.
‘You’re still awake?’ Alex asked. ‘We weren’t too loud, were we?’
‘No,’ Zoe lied.
‘Sorry. We tried to be quiet.’
After a few minutes, his breathing began to deepen, and Zoe settled again too.
But she was disturbed once more by the sound of the guest bedroom door opening and closing, and then footsteps up and down the room, as if someone was investigating every corner of it.
There was the sound of springs, creaking and pinging for a few seconds as someone tried to get comfortable in bed, and then all was quiet again.
It took longer this time for Zoe’s eyes to close, but they did, and she was almost there when a piercing cry came from along the corridor to announce that Louisa had woken up.
Zoe looked at the clock. It was earlier than her usual night feed, and it was probably the noise of people coming to bed later that had disrupted her routine.
Feeling savage as she flipped over, trying to block out the sound, Zoe wanted nothing more than to wake Alex and tell him exactly what his entertaining had done.
Instead, she screwed up her eyes and lay in the gloom, waiting for everything to calm down again.
It would be nice to get at least an hour before she had to get up for work.