Chapter 24
She was leaving for work the following morning when she heard barking. As she fastened the gate, she looked up to see Grizzle bounding towards her, Alex running after and calling him back.
‘Griz! Here, boy!’
The dog’s tail was wagging madly. Zoe was pleased to see him, but she hoped he wasn’t going to jump up at her while she was wearing her uniform. Quickly, she went back behind the gate and fastened it again, but this time to keep her in and Grizzle out.
‘Hey…’ Alex smiled at her as he grabbed his dog and put the lead on. ‘You’re off to work?’
‘Yeah. But I’m not running late or anything. In fact, I’m probably early. How are you? I see you’re getting your exercise.’
‘Can’t do anything else with this one.’ He ruffled Grizzle’s head, and the dog sat to enjoy it. ‘I’m sorry we’re busy tonight.’
‘I know. It’s not a problem; it was a last-minute thing anyway. I suppose Billie and your farm plans are taking up a lot of time.’
‘The digging too. I might be meeting the expert tonight as well now. I mean, you could come, if you’re not too tired – of course you’re welcome to sit in – but Victor will be there, and it might be kind of boring. That’s not to say I don’t want you there.’
‘I wouldn’t want to get in the way. I doubt I’d get a word in anyway with Victor being there, even if I had something to say. Those finds are yours and Victor’s, nothing to do with me.’
‘But you helped to look.’
Zoe smiled. ‘Fat lot of good I was.’
‘Your hair looks nice this morning,’ he said and then seemed immediately mortified by his compliment. ‘I mean…shiny. Like you just washed it…’
Zoe grinned. ‘Thanks. I mean, yesterday was the first anniversary of my last hair wash so I thought I’d make the effort.’
‘Oh God…I’ve come to realise that I don’t know how to do this.
’ He took a breath. ‘It’d be stupid to pretend I’m not over here with Grizzle for any reason other than I really wanted to see you.
I’ve been thinking about it all night. And then I got up this morning and thought, What am I waiting for?
Why am I putting it off ? And so I’ve come to ask –and you can say no; I won’t be offended – but I wondered if you wanted to go for a drink.
Not in my kitchen or talking about the baby or anything. Like a proper drink. You and me.’
It seemed he’d run out of air long before he’d finished his sentence because as he waited for her answer, he seemed to suck in his next breath with enough force to fetch tiles from her roof.
‘Yes,’ she said without hesitation, and the doubt in those huge brown eyes of his cleared.
‘Yeah? Really?’
‘Of course. I thought you’d never ask.’
‘Wow…I mean, that’s great! When are you free? Next week?’
‘Why don’t I meet you at the celebrations tomorrow? We’re both going to be there anyway…we could do something afterwards?’
‘Sounds good! Perfect! Thank you.’
‘For what?’ Zoe asked, her smile growing.
‘I don’t know…for saying yes.’
‘You’re daft,’ she said, and then he laughed.
‘Probably. In that case, thanks for saying yes even though you think I’m daft. God, I’m supposed to play it cool now, aren’t I?’
‘I like that you’re not.’
She wanted to kiss him, but it would have to wait. They hadn’t even had their first official date yet and she needed to get to work. Not to mention that she didn’t trust Grizzle to behave because Alex’s excitable dog was already getting restless.
‘Actually,’ she said, something occurring to her.
‘Wait there.’ She dashed back to the house, opened up, ran to get the gift bag from her kitchen table and went back out to him.
‘This is for Billie. For the baby, actually. It’s not much, but I thought…
well, you’ve been lovely neighbours, and I saw it in the shop the other day, and… ’ She shrugged. ‘I hope she likes it.’
She suddenly wondered if it was entirely professional of her to be buying gifts for one of the mums-to-be in her care, but it was done now. He beamed at her as he took the bag. ‘I’m sure she will. Thank you. So… I’d better let you get to work.’
‘I probably should. So I’ll see you tomorrow at the quincentenary?’
‘Tomorrow. Looking forward to it.’
He shot her a warm, lingering smile before he led Grizzle away. She watched him walk. He turned back once, smiled again and then she finally allowed herself to stop looking so she could head off to the surgery. But not before taking a moment to address herself in stern tones.
‘Yes, it’s exciting, and yes, you can’t wait, but you’ve got work to do, Zoe Padbury, so get your head screwed back on!’
She was aware she was going to be out in the cold all day and that the quincentenary event – for her at least – was going to be as much work as it was fun.
With that in mind, her clothes had to be practical, but she also wanted to look nice.
More than nice, she wanted to look irresistible.
So she’d set her alarm to go off an hour earlier than she needed, taking extra care showering and styling her hair, and then went to study what was in her wardrobe.
The outfit she’d settled on the night before was laid out on the bed, but somehow it didn’t seem right when she looked at it now.
It looked too try-hard. She wanted to look as if she’d made an effort but not like she’d made an effort at all.
She wanted to be able to say, This old thing?
I threw it on , which was code for I always look this good .
It wasn’t a problem she often had to grapple with these days, and it was proving to be trickier than she’d imagined.
Casual and cute or straight-up sexy? How sexy could someone be at what was essentially a glorified village fete selling raffle tickets for the village surgery?
She tried to reason that Alex would like her anyway – after all, he’d seen her in her uniform and still wanted to take her out.
She knew it didn’t matter, but that didn’t stop her from fretting over the decision far longer than necessary.
Finally, and not entirely happy with her choice, she looked at herself in the mirror and didn’t want to immediately take off what she was wearing, and so reached the conclusion that it must be the one.
It was a calf-length, needlecord dress, fitted around her neat torso and flaring out over a pair of boots.
Then she turned her attention to her hair, which was normally no bother at all but today would not do what she wanted, and then smudged her eyeliner three times trying to apply it, and finally threw her hands into the air and declared to an empty room that it would have to do.
As she approached the village, she realised that for this one day, the population of Thimblebury had grown so big that the streets could barely contain it.
Cars and vans lined the grass verges for a good mile on the road into the village, and streams of people were already making their way in, even though the official opening of the quincentenary event wasn’t for another hour.
Zoe couldn’t understand why so many would travel to such an insignificant place, and when she said so to anyone who’d listen, most of them were forced to admit that they didn’t understand it either.
The displays she’d seen the workers putting up when she’d walked through the village with Ottilie were now in their full glory.
Some were lit signs proudly declaring 500 Years of Thimblebury , some were banners depicting all sorts of hand-painted (mostly by children, from what Zoe could tell) scenes from the past and village locations, and some were floral displays.
She noticed people walking around in costumes from various historical periods who were presumably meant to represent previous residents of the area, though some of them were so laughably fancy dress that Zoe wondered if they’d simply had them left over from Halloween.
‘It’s hardly the centre of the universe,’ Geoff said as he set up their coffee and light refreshments outside the shop.
Later, they planned to open their little home cinema (and Zoe had discovered, despite never getting round to film club, it was an actual cinema and they hadn’t just been saying that) to show the film Magnus had made documenting his arrival in Thimblebury from Iceland during the nineties.
They hoped for a good attendance, and Zoe had promised to be there.
‘It goes to show, people will turn up for anything if it’s free. ’
‘I’m sure it can’t be that,’ Zoe said. She hugged a bucket to her chest as she watched Magnus and Geoff race about their stall putting out stacks of disposable cups, stirrers, sugar packs and anything else needed to serve hot drinks.
‘What’s the bucket for?’ Magnus asked as he tore open a trade box of biscotti.
‘I couldn’t find anything else to put the raffle tickets in. I wasn’t sure how big it would have to be, so…’
Magnus grinned. ‘I see you’ve been…what is the word?’ he called to Geoff.
‘Press-ganged,’ Geoff called back.
‘That’s it.’ Magnus turned back to Zoe. ‘Couldn’t you think of an excuse to get out of it?’
‘I don’t mind one bit. I’ve only got to sell a few strips this morning – they’re calling the numbers at lunch.’
‘Who gets the money? That’s what I want to know,’ Geoff said, pulling a large silver urn from a box.
‘The neonatal unit,’ Zoe said. ‘They let me choose.’
‘Ah well…’ Geoff huffed. ‘That’s all right then.’