Page 16 of The Village Midwife
‘All we know is he’s a family man,’ Corrine chipped in. ‘At least one adult daughter because Ann said she came with him one of the times he came to look around.’ Corrine took in the kitchen, as if she approved of the idea, and then continued. ‘This house needs a big, happy family in it. Ann and Darryl have had some terrible luck, and you can feel it in the walls. The old place deserves a new start as much as they do. A lick of paint and some new blood – it’s exactly what Hilltop needs.’
‘Ah, a bit of work on the land wouldn’t go amiss either,’ Victor agreed.
‘Yes, but…’ Corrine began, but then stopped whatever she’d been about to say as Ann came back in.
‘I’ll get the kettle on,’ she said, visibly cheerier than when Zoe had first arrived. ‘We all want tea, I’m sure?’
‘That sounds lovely,’ Corrine said.
‘Is there something I can be doing to help in the meantime?’ Zoe cast her gaze over a wall of boxes stacked in one corner of the room. ‘Perhaps I can take some of those to the van?’
‘They’ll be too heavy for you,’ Victor said. ‘Five foot and a feather there – most of those boxes are bigger than you are.’
‘You’d be surprised at what I can do,’ Zoe said. She wasn’t offended by his remark – she was used to people making fun ofher stature, and even she had to admit she was a little challenged in the height department.
She took off her coat and hung it on a peg before going over and testing the weight of the nearest box. ‘Piece of cake,’ she said with a grin, taking it out. Before she’d gone halfway across the yard, she was shaking with exertion, but there was no way she was going to put it down now, not when she absolutely knew that Victor was watching her from the window.
6
Zoe wasn’t used to having so much freedom. Freedom to start and finish work according to whatever schedule she set herself, to use the tiny treatment room set up for her at the surgery or to make home visits if she preferred. Freedom to roam the hills, valleys and lakesides of her new home whenever she felt like it, and freedom to clean her house or not. To eat when and what she wanted and to go to bed whenever it suited her, with cold feet or without.
Nobody seemed to mind what she did as long as her days ticked along. There were parts she liked – the trust the partners at the surgery placed in her to get her job done with minimal interference from them was flattering and welcome. The time she spent at home doing as she pleased elicited more mixed feelings.
While she took advantage of the spontaneous urge to go walking to discover more of her new home, the moments after she’d locked the doors of an evening and settled down in her cottage alone sometimes stretched out in a more unwelcome way. She missed Ritchie. Or perhaps she missed simply knowing someone else was there. Whichever it was, she thought oftenof the times during her marriage when she’d been content, the small moments, like washing the dishes together as they shared anecdotes from their work days, bickering over what TV show they were going to watch first, Ritchie warming her feet whenever she got into bed after him. Zoe was no wearer of rose-coloured spectacles – she knew life hadn’t been perfect with Ritchie, and it had been downright difficult towards the end, but it felt like she’d had an ally, someone who had her back. Now she was on her own, and whenever the notion would strike her, she’d feel its full force.
Two weeks had passed like this. They’d flown by, despite Zoe’s more melancholy moments. During that time, she’d introduced herself to all the expectant mums on her list, and everyone was taken by surprise at the surgery by how fast it was growing. Fliss wondered aloud one lunchtime – nodding pointedly at Ottilie’s growing bump – about what might be in the water locally because she’d never known Thimblebury to be in the grip of such a baby boom.
‘You won’t hear any complaints from me,’ Zoe said in between mouthfuls of the cottage pie brought in by Lavender for her colleagues to share. ‘The residents of Thimblebury can rut morning, noon and night and make as many babies as they like – keeps me in a job.’
‘So you’ve already decided you’re going to stay for good?’ Fliss replied, raising a knowing eyebrow, and Zoe nodded, not realising until that moment that at some point during the previous fortnight she had, indeed, unconsciously decided she was beginning to like life in the Lake District. For good was perhaps a stretch, but for now, she was perfectly content, absorbed by work and gradually getting to know the villagers.
‘Good,’ Fliss said. ‘You’ll be here for the quincentenary then?’
‘The what?’
We’re celebrating five hundred years of Thimblebury. At least, we’re celebrating five hundred years since it first appeared in the records as an actual village.’
‘Oh…What does that entail?’ Zoe had no clue about that sort of thing, but she was impressed that the village was so old. ‘I mean, if there’s a celebration, it’s going to be a big deal.’
‘I’ll say. There’s going to be all sorts happening in the village. You know – food, music, silly little plays and readings, local dignitaries plying their trade, historical re-enactments and that sort of thing.’
‘And when’s this?’
‘In a month or so. I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned it to you.’
‘No, it hasn’t come up.’
‘And that’s the biggest shocker,’ Lavender put in from across the table. ‘You’d think they were helping to organise the London Olympics the way Magnus and Geoff are going on about it.’
And then she launched into a list of all the other annoying things Magnus and Geoff did, and then the annoying things other villagers did, and the conversation moved along at such a pace that the quincentenary was soon forgotten.
‘So…’ Fliss said into a gap, ‘Zoe, have you manged to see much of the area since you arrived?’
‘Not as much as I’d like to, but I’ve been busy getting the cottage how I like it and sorting out broadband connections and all that sort of thing. You know, all the boring stuff. I keep thinking I’ll make time to go and see some of the surrounding towns, but it hasn’t happened yet. I suppose a lot of the tourist stuff will be finishing for the season soon?’
‘A lot of the tourist stuff barely closes at all these days,’ Lavender said. ‘My brother-in-law works on the steamers on Ullswater and they’ve hardly closed at all over the winter the last couple of years. People come for Christmas and New Yearbreaks, and if they’re willing to pay for a boat trip, then why not take their money?’
‘It’d be freezing out on the lake at Christmas!’ Fliss said. ‘No thank you!’
