Chapter 9
Zoe ended up taking her moussaka home with her.
By the time she’d seen Billie off, tidied her room and got the afternoon’s clinic prepped, it was too late to join the others and she’d gone past being hungry anyway.
Lavender had popped her head around the door to say they’d put a doggy bag in the fridge for her and then plied her with extra cake during afternoon coffee break, and by the time Zoe walked into the door at Kestrel Cottage, her mouth was watering at the thought of the meal that everyone had raved about earlier.
The fact that she didn’t have to cook it herself was a very welcome bonus.
She’d no sooner put the oven on to warm it when there was a knock at the front door.
For the briefest moment, she considered ignoring it.
The working day had felt like a long one, and all she wanted was a few moments to herself.
But she decided it might be something important – perhaps Victor or Corrine, who, she’d discovered, never seemed to phone anyone when they could call to see them instead.
In fact, Victor didn’t even possess a mobile phone – he’d lost too many around the place, he said, and didn’t see the point in continuing to add to the cache already languishing in the fields around Daffodil Farm.
Ottilie confirmed that both Corrine and Victor were stubbornly old-fashioned about communication but that everyone knew they were never going to change at this point in their lives.
Zoe had set up a standing order to pay the rent, and there was some due out that week.
She hadn’t yet seen it leave her account and perhaps there was a problem.
Whatever it might be and no matter how she might want to ignore it, Zoe decided she’d better go and see.
‘Oh…!’
‘Sorry…’ Alex was on the doorstep. He was out of his scruffs today, but still casual in a denim shirt and black jeans, and there were traces of paint in his dark hair, only visible up close. And Zoe found herself looking and wishing she was even closer…
He glanced at her work uniform. ‘Is this a bad time?’
‘Um, no…I mean, I didn’t mean to make it sound as if it was. I wasn’t expecting it to be you.’
‘Ah. I just wanted to check…Billie says she came to see you today. I mean, she did, right?’
‘She did.’ Zoe relaxed into a smile.
‘And did she tell you…? I mean, what did you talk about? If I’m allowed to ask.’
‘Mostly about her pregnancy,’ Zoe lied. It was only a little one, and in the name of patient confidentiality, so it was for a good cause. Those sorts of lies didn’t bother her one bit.
He held up a carrier bag. ‘They said at the shop that you liked these chocolates.’
Zoe frowned. He was bringing her chocolate?
He’d asked Magnus and Geoff what she liked?
Even more surprising, as she took the bag and peered in, was that Magnus and Geoff had even noticed what brand of chocolate she favoured.
The bag was full of it. She’d been given chocolates before, but never like this, and she had no clue what they were for.
‘Are they wrong?’ Alex asked.
‘No, these are my favourites,’ Zoe said, smoothing her frown as she looked up. ‘And so much of it…I won’t have to buy any for the next year. Thank you.’
There was a gap – not long, but long enough to start feeling awkward. With a sudden desperation to fill the silence, Zoe said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Would you like to come in?’
‘If you’re busy, then?—’
‘I’m not especially. I’ve got time for a tea or coffee if you’d like one.’
He seemed torn before nodding. ‘That sounds good. You were right – if we’re neighbours, then we ought to get to know one another a bit better.’
Zoe wondered whether she might get more information about his and Billie’s circumstances.
Perhaps, once they’d relaxed and started to chat properly over a hot drink, he might open up.
She’d felt a strange pull to Billie ever since the appointment over lunch, and her thoughts had turned to the young woman often during the afternoon.
Her other expectant mums had been fairly happy, straightforward cases, and so it had left plenty of space for Zoe to mull over her more complicated ones.
It was hard to tell whether Alex was happy to be in Zoe’s house or not.
He seemed ill at ease as he stepped in, and yet she’d put no pressure on him to accept her offer.
She turned off the oven she’d switched on before he’d knocked on her door and then put the bag of chocolate on the kitchen table as he took a seat there.
‘Would you like tea or coffee?’ she asked. ‘I can only do instant coffee, though. I’ve got chai, or green or chamomile if you’d prefer tea.’
‘Am I interrupting your evening meal?’ he asked, his gaze going to the oven she’d just switched off.
‘Not at all. It only needs reheating, so it won’t take long. I’ll have it later. What’ll it be to drink?’
‘Instant coffee is fine, thank you.’ He turned his attention to his surroundings. ‘You say you haven’t been here long?’
‘A few weeks now.’
‘You seem to have settled quickly. Quicker than we have. You’ve got it nice…homely.’
‘I can’t take any of the credit for that – it was furnished when I got here.’
‘It’s rented?’
‘Yes, from Victor and Corrine…Daffodil Farm,’ she added in response to his puzzled look.
‘So you’re not planning a long-term stay?’
‘Quite honestly, I don’t know yet. I’m on a six-month trial at the surgery.
Ottilie – that’s my friend who’s a nurse there – is fairly certain I’ll be kept on.
She says the trial’s just a formality, but…
’ Zoe shrugged as she opened a cupboard and got out two mugs.
‘Who knows? I’m old enough not to take anything for granted. ’
‘How are you finding it?’
‘The job or the village?’
‘Both, I suppose.’
‘The job’s straightforward enough – I’ve adapted to new workplaces before, and there’s no reason why I won’t do it this time. The village…well…’ She gave a small smile. ‘It’s a bit of a culture shock. A nice one, but very different to what I’ve been used to.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Manchester. That’s where I know Ottilie from.
She got me the job here – at least, she nudged it forcefully in my direction.
I never would have considered a move like this if not for her doing it first. And it seems to have worked out really well for her, so…
’ She poured hot water into the mugs. ‘Do you take milk and sugar?’
‘Both, please. One sugar.’
‘What about you?’ she asked as she poured milk into his mug.
‘Me? There’s nothing interesting to tell.’
‘Have you moved far from where you were?’
‘We’ve lived here and there. We got back from Spain a few weeks ago.’
‘You were living there?’
He nodded.
‘Wow, that’s a move and a half! Don’t you miss the sun?’
‘Sometimes,’ he said, and while his face was smiling, his eyes were not. ‘But circumstances changed, and we couldn’t stay.’
‘ We ? Billie lived out there with you?’
‘She did.’
‘Just you and her? Like it is now?’
‘This coffee’s not bad, for instant,’ he said with a brisk nod, and Zoe recognised a segue when she heard one.
What he really meant was: don’t ask any more about Spain.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t desperate with curiosity, though.
She’d wanted to get him to open up about Billie, but right now she was getting very little about either of them.
If she opened up herself, would that encourage him?
‘I’m going through a divorce,’ she said. ‘It’s all perfectly civil, and we’re still friends. I mean, I’d prefer if it hadn’t come to this, but it did and we’re dealing with it. That’s part of the reason I chose to take this job. It seemed like a clean break, a fresh start, you know?’
Opening up about the divorce was one thing, but the baby she’d lost…Zoe decided there was no need to relive that particular pain, and so she kept that factor in the end of her marriage to herself for now.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, but if it’s amicable and it’s what you both want then…
I don’t know. Am I supposed to say I’m pleased for you?
Or is it still a bad thing? I’ve never been through one, so I don’t know.
Do you have children?’ He looked around the kitchen, as if he expected to find a clue to the answer there.
‘No children,’ Zoe said with all the strength she could muster to keep her tone even. ‘It’s all nice and clean…if there can ever be such a thing where divorce is concerned.’
‘I see.’
‘You’ve just got Billie?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re close? I mean, it seems so. To me.’
The look in his eyes softened. Zoe couldn’t help but dwell on them for a moment – they really were the warmest, gentlest shade of brown, and when he allowed himself to relax, they became deep wells of open generosity. ‘I suppose we are. How was she? When you saw her today?’
‘You haven’t seen her yourself today?’
‘I meant her pregnancy. It’s all as it ought to be?’
‘Oh.’ Zoe smiled as she sat down. ‘I see. I’m sure she won’t mind me telling you everything is as it ought to be. I can’t say anything more than that, of course.’
‘Of course. Thanks for telling me what you could.’
She could see how much her brief reassurance had meant to him by the way the tension visibly drained from his expression.
‘Are you planning to farm?’ she asked. ‘I mean, that’s what Ann and her husband did with the land at Hilltop. I don’t think she did so much after he died; I understand she struggled to run it on her own.’
‘Actually, no,’ he said, taking a sip of his coffee. ‘I’m planning to build pods.’
‘Pods?’
‘You know, camping pods. Glamping, really.’
‘Holiday lets? I didn’t realise. Are you building them yourself? Are they difficult to put up? I have no clue how these things work, but I’m sure you’ll have no trouble renting them out when they’re ready.’