Page 74 of The Village Midwife
Zoe showed her to the door, and as she left noticed that Ottilie had returned from a home visit of her own.
‘All good?’ she asked.
‘I was about to ask you the same thing. I didn’t have a chance this morning to ask you how it went with Ritchie.’
Zoe’s face must have given away more than she’d intended because Ottilie gave a sympathetic grimace. ‘Oh dear. Want to talk about it over lunch?’
‘I don’t think it’s that deep. Anyway, there’ll be too much else going on at lunch – at least, there usually is.’
‘I’m going over to Stacey’s later if you want to come. We can talk about it on the way. And Stacey’s a good listener if you want to share with her.’
She didn’t have much else going on and decided it would be nice to have some female company, and so she nodded. ‘Thanks, that sounds lovely. Let me know what time you’re going, and if you’re sure you don’t mind me tagging along, I’ll come.’
‘Of course we don’t. I’ll warn you that Chloe might be in, but you can cope with her, can’t you?’
‘I doubt she’ll have much interest in talking to me anyway,’ Zoe said wryly. ‘She doesn’t have the time of day for me as her midwife, so I’m sure she won’t want to socialise with me. At appointments she’ll ask for my opinion or advice on something and when I’m giving the answer, she looks as if she’s not listening at all.’
‘She doesn’t have the time of day for anyone,’ Ottilie replied. ‘And she does exactly the same with me. I think she is listening, really; it’s only the way her face looks. I wouldn’t take it personally – it’s just her way.’
‘I don’t,’ Zoe said. ‘So I suppose that’s lucky for me, isn’t it?’
Zoe dropped her phone into her bag before heading out to meet Ottilie. There was a text message from Ritchie on there, thanking her again for lunch, telling her how much he enjoyed seeing her and then something about some job interview he had the following day. She hadn’t yet replied because she was thinking carefully about what to say and how to say it. Every interaction with him these days seemed to cause her more confusion than it ought to. To a point, she’d enjoyed his company at lunch too, but it had also been fraught with mixed signals and possible misunderstandings, none of which she wanted to repeat if they did it again.
She’d also thought about visiting Hilltop. In the end, her afternoon clinic had run over, and the decision had been taken out of her hands. If she’d gone up to Hilltop, she’d have been late for Ottilie. That didn’t mean that it wasn’t still on her mind. She would have made it about Billie, but in reality it was about Alex too. She couldn’t stop thinking about how awkward the meeting in the shop that morning had been. Alex had been courteous, but the warmth she’d felt from him when they’d been detecting on the fields of Hilltop had gone. Ottilie had promised to be a friendly ear, but was that what Zoe needed? Thinking about how complicated the situation seemed anyway, perhaps neighbourly courtesy was the best way to deal with Alex, especially when she added in her professional obligations to Billie, which she knew she ought to keep very separate from anything else. The way things stood, her friendship with Alex and Billie and herprofessional relationship with the latter were getting horribly muddled, and that wasn’t how she did things.
She was still turning it all over in her mind when she arrived at Ottilie’s house. Her friend was waiting outside on the path. She waved at the window, where Heath stood, waving back, and then she fell into step beside Zoe.
In anticipation of the quincentenary celebrations, there was a team in hard hats on a cherry picker putting up support structures for what Zoe guessed might be some kind of light display. Someone shouted for them to give the workers a wide berth, and Ottilie rolled her eyes at Zoe.
‘As if we couldn’t figure that out for ourselves.’
‘Let them feel important,’ Zoe said with a light laugh. ‘I’m surprised they’re out in this weather doing anything at all.’
‘And it’s dark,’ Ottilie said. ‘Someone said it was all being rushed along, and it looks as if that’s true. Either way it should be fun. Fliss mentioned us having a fundraiser on the day – raffle tickets and that sort of thing. You’ll be able to lend a hand, won’t you?’
‘Corrine’s doing something similar and donating the money to the neonatal unit. Do you think Fliss might want to add to that?’
‘I doubt she’ll mind. She’ll have had some ideas of her own, I imagine, but you could have a word with her tomorrow.’
Zoe pulled her coat tighter. It wasn’t cold, but the air was damp, making the temperature seem lower than it was.
‘So, Ritchie…’ Ottilie began. ‘Is he still the prize whinger I remember?’
Zoe’s mouth fell open as she turned to her friend.
Ottilie laughed. ‘Oh, come on! Don’t look so shocked. You have to admit he thinks the world revolves around him. He definitely thinks it owes him a living. Unless he’s had a miraculous personality transplant.’
‘Have you always thought this?’
‘Yes, but you were married to him, so it wasn’t my place to say. But now you’re almost divorced. I didn’t say anything even then because there’s always that chance that you’d get back together after I slated him, and then it would be really weird. But since he came over for lunch and you haven’t told me you’ve called the divorce off, I’m assuming this is the point where I can finally tell you what I think.’
‘We had a nice lunch, to be honest. We’re not getting back together…’
‘I sense a but. Please tell me there’s no but coming.’
‘I think he wants to.’
‘What makes you say that? Was it something he said to you?’
