Chapter 7 #3
Before too long, Hilltop appeared, lamps in the windows, just as Billie always left them whenever it was dark outside and she was expecting Alex or Zoe to return home.
It was late – certainly later than Louisa’s bedtime, and Zoe wondered if Billie might have gone up too.
She often did, at hours that Zoe would have considered far too early, and sometimes Zoe had wondered if that had been down to boredom rather than simple tiredness, despite the energy it took to care for Louisa every day.
But Billie was sitting curled up on the sofa when they got back.
They gave Grizzle’s paws a quick wash and dry before letting him go and find her in the sitting room. He licked her face as she fussed him, and then turned the sound down on the TV as Alex and Zoe followed him in.
‘Louisa’s in bed?’ Alex asked.
Billie nodded. ‘I’ll be going up shortly,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d wait for you to get back first.’
Alex took a seat. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’
‘But I had to leave the lights on, and there would have been no one watching.’
Zoe settled next to Alex and watched Billie carefully; she seemed to be weighing them both up in the same way, trying to work something out.
It didn’t take a genius to figure that she’d know she’d been part of their conversations as they’d walked home.
Zoe wondered whether she should come clean, rather than pretend anything else, but she also wondered if that ought to be up to Alex to do rather than her.
‘Dandelion had her baby!’ she said instead, feeling this would be a much nicer ice-breaker. ‘A girl.’
‘Oh,’ Billie said, though she didn’t look nearly as excited as Zoe might have imagined. ‘Cool. What did they call her?’
‘I don’t know,’ Zoe said. ‘I don’t think they’ve come up with anything yet. I’ll phone tomorrow to see how things are, and I’ll ask then. Or we could all go over and visit. I’m sure Victor wouldn’t mind us going up to have a nosy. She’s so cute!’
‘Maybe,’ Billie said, her tone still flatter than Zoe would have expected. ‘If it’s not raining, we could.’
‘I’d like to,’ Alex said. ‘Zoe saw the baby because she helped to deliver it, but it was all over by the time I got there.’
Billie perked up at this revelation. ‘You did?’ she asked Zoe, who wafted her hand.
‘That’s giving me too much importance. I didn’t do much apart from clean the baby up. Dandelion did all the delivering, all by herself. Even Victor just stood with me and watched, and when the vet turned up, he just had to check them both over.’
Billie picked up her phone, glanced at it and then set it down again.
‘Anything happened here?’ Alex asked, his gaze going to the phone Billie had just checked.
Billie looked up at him. ‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know… just asking if everything has been all right while we were out.’
‘Fine.’ Billie let out a yawn. ‘I might go up if you two don’t need me.’
Zoe watched Alex as he watched his daughter. Would he bring up his plan to have Luis’s family over for Christmas? But as Billie got up and clicked her fingers for Grizzle to follow her, he said nothing about it; he simply bid her goodnight and then watched as she left the room.
‘Are you worried it wasn’t such a good idea?’ Zoe asked him once Billie had gone.
‘What?’
‘Inviting the in-laws over? I thought you might have said something to her before she went to bed.’
‘It didn’t seem like the right time. I didn’t want to keep her up. I’ll mention it in the morning.’
‘So you’re not having second thoughts?’
He turned to her with a rueful smile now. ‘How do you always know what I’m thinking?’
‘Trust me, I wish that was the case! But I can imagine you might be. I would be the same if I was already worried that she might prefer living with them than me.’
‘It’s that obvious?’
‘Only to me, I’m sure. And for the record, I’m sure that’s not the case. I don’t think she’d rather live with them than with you.’
‘But she’d rather live where they live than live here?’
Zoe couldn’t argue with that, and it would be an insult to his intelligence to try. ‘You can hardly blame her for that. She wouldn’t be the first to swap our rainy skies for sunnier ones, would she?’
‘And it probably feels a lot more like home than here,’ Alex agreed. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘Talk to her properly. I understand she’s not good at opening up, but you’re going to have to.’
‘It’ll blow over. I’ll give it another week.’
‘If Luis’s parents say they can come for Christmas that will cheer her up, I’m sure.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m starting to wonder if it was a good idea. If things are a bit tense already and then we go and add two more people into the mix… Me and my big gob.’
Zoe gave a small smile. ‘I’m glad you said that because I wasn’t going to.’
‘You were thinking it.’
‘Naturally…’ She prodded him on the arm. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it – I’d have probably done the same. If they come, we’ll cope. And it might make Billie’s Christmas a whole lot better, which is what you wanted, right? So it’s a win in the end.’
‘You’re right – that’s the only thing that matters.
And it’s got to be a good thing if she thinks she can have anyone she likes to come and stay whenever she likes – makes Hilltop feel properly like her home as well as ours, doesn’t it?
So if we welcome them in and let her know they’re welcome whenever, and her old mates too… ’
Zoe kissed him. ‘You’re a great dad, you know, even if you doubt it yourself. You love her, and you want the best for her, and nobody can argue with that.’