Page 68 of The Village Midwife
‘You didn’t move here because you were drawn by some mystical force?’ she asked wryly.
‘Were you?’
‘Oh yes, it was called a job offer.’
He grinned. ‘Money then. I think mine might have been a very similar motivation.’
‘Disappointingly cynical, eh?’
‘I prefer not to think of it as cynical, but I’ll admit there was more logic than emotion involved. I thought it was the sort of place people would want to come on holiday, so of course it’s a lovely part of the world. But there are lots of lovely parts of the world and…I don’t know, but I can’t imagine them feeling so…’ He shrugged as he bit into his cake. ‘Healing, I think that’s it. Standing here, looking at all this’ – he nodded at a majestic panorama of rolling fields, valleys and hilltops crowned by cloud – ‘it’s so peaceful, so much bigger than us, it sort of puts your life in perspective, doesn’t it? And I think that’s good, knowing that your problems can be shrunk down like that. Because our place in the bigger picture is tiny.’
‘I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or not. I do think you’re right, though. Feeling small…makes me feel lost.’
‘It makes me feel free. Any mistakes I make are a blip – they don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.’
‘That sounds a bit like shrugging off responsibility to me.’
‘I don’t mean it like that. Obviously I’m still going to take seriously what I have to do for Billie. I want to provide for her, and I want to make her life good, but in the end, how much of what I do really matters? I’ll be here for a moment, and then poof, I’m gone. Just like the people who left those arrowheads I found.’
‘I get it, but I prefer to think what I do matters a lot.’
‘Ah, well, that’s probably true. It probably matters more. After all, you’re bringing the next generation into the world, and without them, there is no future me trying to make one of your descendants understand what they’re saying…very badly, I might add.’
It had been a wholly unexpected foray into philosophy that Zoe didn’t fully comprehend and hadn’t seen coming, but she appreciated the sentiment behind it. As she turned back to the hills and valleys laid out before them, she agreed on one point – being here was sort of healing. In the peace of this landscape, it was hard to believe there were struggles going on beyond it. It was also easy to imagine a simpler life, one where eating and sleeping and working hard and loving the people around you were all that mattered, the sort of life the people who’d left the arrowheads behind must have had.
‘More cake?’ Victor asked as he scrunched up a bit of greaseproof paper and dropped it into his bag.
‘I’m full up for now,’ Zoe said.
‘I’ll take some more.’ Alex wandered over to Victor’s seat.
‘Have my cup now too,’ Victor added. ‘I’m done. I’ve got some water here to give it a rinse…’
As they worked out how best to clean the cup and then filled it for Alex, Zoe watched. The day she’d first met Alex she’d been struck by his looks. Now that she knew him better, his looks seemed to matter less. She still liked them, but it wasn’t his warm smile that made her think of him when he wasn’t there. It wasn’t his patient and soulful dark eyes that made her want to watch him when he wasn’t aware of her gaze. There was an aura, an indefinable something that she simply found magnetic, a feeling that grew stronger every time their paths crossed. She hadn’t yet worked out what it meant, but she couldn’t deny that it was becoming worryingly addictive. He was complicated, butshe wanted to figure him out. He came with problems that she wanted to solve.
As these thoughts ran through her head, he turned and caught her eye, and she blushed, tearing her gaze away and taking a gulp of her tea. ‘This is a perfect cuppa. Is Corrine good at everything?’
‘I’ll have you know I made the tea,’ Victor said. ‘But yes, she is good at everything. Why do you think I snapped her up all those years ago?’
‘Because you thought she was beautiful and funny and intelligent.’
‘Oh, that too, but mostly I tasted one of her dinners and then never looked at another woman again.’
Alex and Zoe both laughed.
Victor poured a tea for Alex, offered Zoe a top-up, which she took, and then screwed the lid back onto the flask. They chatted about what they might find that day, what they hoped to find and revisited their earlier conversation about what they’d do with the money if they struck gold. Alex was adamant that Zoe would have a cut of the spoils, leading to Victor weaving a pretend scenario of treachery which involved him taking Zoe’s cut and denying she was ever there, and by the end of it they were all laughing so hard, she could barely sip her tea without snorting it back down her nose. Then they picked up their tools and began work in earnest, buoyed by a warm drink and a sugary snack and a sense of camaraderie Zoe had never expected to find with her two neighbours.
19
Victor had invited Zoe and Alex back to Daffodil Farm to eat with him and Corrine. He’d promised that there would be enough food, and a surprise doubling of their number wouldn’t put her out one bit. Zoe wasn’t sure Corrine would agree, and Alex wanted to get back to Billie, and so they left Victor to make his way back to Daffodil Farm alone. Zoe decided to detour to Hilltop to see if Billie was up so she could have a brief word. She wanted to see for herself that things were improving. She and Alex had mostly chatted about the day; they’d found disappointingly little, apart from some old bottle tops and a bit of what looked like it might be pottery, though nobody knew what period it might have come from. They also spoke of Billie and her pregnancy, about their lives before Thimblebury, and Alex was noticeably more open about that than he had been before.
Back at Kestrel Cottage, Zoe’s muddy wellington boots were standing on a sheet of newspaper by the back door while she ran a bath, her mind very much on that conversation as she watched the bubbles swirl and bloom as the tub filled. He hadn’t said much about Jennifer, the wife he’d lost, but Zoe sensed hewanted to. Perhaps he didn’t think it was the right time or the right company to talk more honestly about her and how her loss had affected him. It needed time, she decided, just like it had needed time for Billie to open up to her. As far as both were concerned, it was a work in progress and would be for a while yet, but if Zoe had one thing to offer them, it was time. She could wait, and when they were ready, she could give them all the time they needed to talk their feelings through. In fact, in a strange way, she looked forward to that day. She’d never admit it to herself, but fixing other people was a welcome distraction from trying to fix her own problems. She didn’t always succeed, but she liked to try.
She’d left her phone on the bed, and as she went to fetch her towelling robe, she noticed a text had come through. Ritchie. Her day had been so enjoyable that she couldn’t even bring herself to be annoyed about it. In fact, she was looking forward to seeing him the following day for lunch too, despite knowing she oughtn’t. He was more than her ex, after all; he was an old friend too, someone who knew her as well as anyone. Everyone in Thimblebury had been lovely since her arrival, but only Ottilie really knew her, and she missed having people she could truly be herself with.
Looking forward to tomorrow. What time should I be there? x
Zoe tapped out a brief reply and then left the phone on the bed as she went to have her bath.
