Chapter 10 #2
‘Oh no, Ottilie and Stacey were here, but they’ve gone across with Victor. Ottilie’s in love with those animals almost as much as he is – any excuse to go and see them.’
‘She must be – she’ll get soaked out there.’
‘Don’t worry, we fixed her and Stacey up with some of our old raincoats – they’ll be all right in those. I shouldn’t imagine they’ll be long.’
‘I’m a bit jealous. If I’d known there would be an alpaca visit, I’d have got here earlier myself. Is Victor joining us for our first girly night? He could be an honorary girl, couldn’t he?’
‘Lord no!’ Corrine laughed as she went to the fridge and got out a pot of double cream.
‘He wouldn’t be able to keep up! He’s got a programme to watch, so he’ll be as good as gold in the living room.
We can gossip about him as much as we like – he’d never know.
Now where did I put my…?’ Corrine searched the table and then let out a little huff of satisfaction.
‘There you are!’ she said, picking up an emerald ring.
She seemed almost relieved when it was on her finger.
‘That’s a gorgeous ring,’ Zoe said.
‘Yes, isn’t it? Victor got it for me a couple of years ago. I was poorly, you know. He bought this to celebrate when I got the all-clear from the hospital.’
Zoe nodded. She recalled Ottilie telling her about noticing the worrying signs of skin cancer shortly after she’d first met Corrine, and how she’d acted quickly to help Corrine get it diagnosed.
‘I feel so bare these days without it. But, daft old thing that I am, I lost it in some pastry last year, so I take it off now when I’m kneading.’ Corrine went to the stove and put on the kettle. ‘Tea while we’re waiting for the others? Unless you want to go over to the paddock, of course…’
‘I think I’ll stay here. I’ll go over another time. Tea would be lovely.’
‘Ottilie tells me you’ve met your new neighbours at Hilltop,’ Corrine said as she lit the stove.
‘I did. Alex bought me some chocolate. Which I thought was a nice little present just for me, until Magnus burst my bubble by telling me he’d been buying things for other people too…’
Corrine grinned. ‘He did indeed – came over with some wine for us. Even though we don’t really drink it, I thanked him for it and fed him. Seems a nice chap. Had a big conflab with us about his posh camping ideas.’
‘Oh, his glamping. I imagine that’s why he’s buying us presents,’ Zoe said, still wondering why she’d been disappointed to learn that she hadn’t been the only recipient of Alex’s gifts. ‘He’s trying to sweeten up his neighbours.’
‘Without a doubt. If you know you might be causing a ruckus, you do what you can to get into people’s good graces first. Although, I did say to him if he runs it right, he shouldn’t have too much trouble. Not that it would trouble us in any case.’
‘Will it trouble anyone? How much disruption can one camping field cause?’
‘Around here, people will complain for the sake of hearing their own voices. You’ll learn that soon enough.’
‘I’m not sure I want to,’ Zoe said, and Corrine started to laugh.
‘I’m sure they won’t be complaining about you. Who could do that?’
‘You’d be surprised. Catch me on the right day, I can be annoying enough – ask my ex.’
Corrine shook her head. ‘It’s such a shame – lovely, pretty girl like you on your own.’
‘Hardly a girl, and there are days when I wake up and look in the mirror and I’m anything but pretty.
It doesn’t bother me. Being on my own isn’t where I saw myself at this point in my life, but it’s where I am, and there’s nothing I can do but get on with it.
I intend to. It’s good to have a man, and you and Ottilie and Stacey all seem to have struck gold, but I can do all right without one. ’
‘I’m sure you can,’ Corrine said. ‘As for gold…’ She glanced out of the window and smiled. ‘Here they all are now, like a bunch of drowned rats.’
A moment later, the back door of the farmhouse flew open, and with a flurry of limbs and wet coats and laughter, Victor, Ottilie and Stacey stepped inside.
‘I hope you’re going to mop that puddle up,’ Corrine said. Ottilie went towards a door in the corner of the room, and Corrine stopped her. ‘I don’t mean you – you’re a guest. I mean that oaf of a husband of mine.’
‘If it’s all right, I’ll go and wash my hands,’ Ottilie said.
‘Me too.’ Stacey followed her. They both went through a door that led to a set of dark stairs.
Victor appeared from the broom cupboard a second later with the mop and began to clear up what was really hardly a puddle at all.
Zoe thought, as she watched, that if they’d left it for a few minutes, it would have dried up all by itself, as they’d shaken most of the rain from their outdoor clothes into the porch.
‘You can go now,’ Corrine told Victor once Ottilie and Stacey returned.
‘Give me a minute,’ Victor said. ‘What’s the rush? You desperate to talk about me?’
‘Pah,’ Corrine said. ‘We’ll find more interesting subjects than that to talk about, no fear.’
‘Well,’ he replied, trying to hold back a grin. ‘Do you want this water mopped up or not?’
Ottilie and Stacey shared a grin of their own as they sat down at the table with Zoe. Victor finished his chore and, with a wink at Corrine, left them to it.
‘How were the girls?’ Zoe asked.
‘Cute as ever,’ Ottilie said. ‘I wasn’t sure how long you’d be, otherwise we’d have waited for you.’
‘Don’t worry, I was a bit late coming out of clinic. My last appointment took longer than I’d planned, and I had some ringing round to do.’
‘Lavender said you needed a last-minute sick note.’
Zoe nodded. ‘It’s all sorted now.’
‘Was that Tegan Forester?’ Stacey asked.
Zoe opened her mouth to reply without being quite sure what she was going to say.
‘It’s all right,’ Stacey added. ‘I saw her at the shop. She asked how Chloe was getting on and she told me about it.’
‘Ah,’ Zoe said. ‘I’m still not used to how news travels around here and how everyone knows everyone.’
‘Pretty much. I also know that your new neighbour is causing a bit of a stir.’
‘Which one?’
‘Hilltop.’
‘No, I mean Alex or Billie?’
‘Oh, Alex. I don’t think anyone’s clapped eyes on Billie since she first arrived, but he’s been in and out of places chatting to everyone.’
‘Has he?’
Zoe tried not to frown, but the description didn’t fit the Alex she’d met.
Not the one who’d been so obviously worried about his daughter, at any rate.
Perhaps the Alex she’d met in the field on the day she’d moved into Kestrel Cottage was an image he projected to hide what was really going on in his life.
Not that she knew a lot about that, only what she’d gleaned from Billie’s visit to clinic and what he’d told her when he’d come bearing chocolate.
‘I think,’ Stacey continued, ‘that he’s on some sort of charm offensive, and I’m sure he thinks it’s how we do things around here, but all he’s doing is making people suspicious of what he’s up to.’
Ottilie laughed. ‘I can imagine. Which one of us is going to give him the bad news?’
‘He wants to build…pods,’ Corrine said from the stove. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Zoe? Pods – that’s what they’re called?’
‘Camping pods,’ Zoe clarified to Ottilie and Stacey. ‘He wants to build them on the land around Hilltop, and he seems to be under the impression the villagers might not like the idea.’
‘He might be right,’ Stacey said. ‘I remember when the council wanted to change the road sign outside the village – it was carnage.’
Ottilie burst out laughing. ‘I can imagine!’
‘They won’t like cars up and down that hill and holidaymakers in the village all summer,’ Stacey said.
‘But they’re all right with Victor’s alpaca treks, aren’t they?’ Zoe asked.
‘People tend to come and do their treks and then leave again.’ Corrine brought the teapot to the table.
‘They hardly bother the village at all, apart from once in a while someone will pop into the shop for some cartons of juice and sandwiches for their journey home. If people are staying here for a week or two at a time, they’ll probably be in the village a lot. ’
‘Surely it won’t make that much of a difference?’ Zoe took a cup from Corrine with a nod of thanks.
‘Depends how many pods he’s building. A dozen or so, I daresay we could cope and there wouldn’t be too much bother, but if it’s more than that…
’ Corrine poured hot water into the teapot.
‘I expect we’ll find out soon enough. If he wants to put pods on his land, it’s a free country, and nobody here can stop him.
Doesn’t mean they have to like it, though. ’
‘Doesn’t he have to get planning permission?’ Ottilie asked.
‘I would have expected him to have done that before he started announcing his plans to everyone,’ Corrine said. ‘It’s a bit daft if he didn’t.’
‘He doesn’t strike me as someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing,’ Zoe said. ‘He ran a holiday villa in Spain until a few months ago.’
Stacey sat to attention. ‘Did he? How do you know that?’
‘He told me.’
‘So he knows a thing or two about tourism. That’s interesting.’
‘Is it?’ Ottilie asked.
Stacey turned to her. ‘Don’t you think so?’
‘I don’t know what it means. Does it mean he knows how to do this without annoying everyone in the village, or does it mean he knows how to do it sustainably, or does it mean he’s out to make a fast buck and will fill Thimblebury full of holidaymakers every summer?
We don’t know any more than we did a minute ago, other than he’s done this sort of thing before. ’
Stacey folded her arms. ‘You really know how to kill a vibe, don’t you?’
‘Oh,’ Zoe cut in, grinning, ‘she’s always been like that. Want to indulge a wild theory? Don’t worry, Ottilie will shoot it down for you.’
‘I don’t do that!’ Ottilie huffed. ‘You make me sound so boring!’
‘You’re the sensible one – that’s all I meant. Even you have to admit you’re the first person to inject some sanity into the daftest speculation – always have been. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing.’