Page 97 of Christmas for the Village Midwife
The gaze that met his was challenging. ‘Would you want that for Billie? If Billie was in labour and there was no midwife, would you be like, that’s fine, as long as someone who knows a bit about medicine is there…?’
‘It’s not Billie.’
‘And that’s abugger you, I’m all right, Jack, attitude to have. I’m shocked at you for having it. It’s not who I thought you were.’
‘Maybe it is, but I’m not going to apologise for it. I want you safe. To me, you’re more important than Georgia. I don’t care if you don’t like me saying it, but it’s the truth.’
Zoe folded her arms and stared straight ahead. ‘Idon’tlike you saying it.’
‘Then I’m sorry for that but not for the sentiment. They’ve called for an ambulance, and they’ve got Emilia. Leave it – accept that you can’t get there, that just this once someone is going to have to manage without you.’
‘Do you really think I can sit here and drink wine and not give it another thought? I can’t. If anything went wrong and they couldn’t deal with it, I’d never forgive myself. I’m going to have one more try. I’ll go on foot. You don’t have to come with me; you can stay and keep an eye on Billie.’
He paused, holding her in a frank gaze. And then he let out a sigh. ‘You’re determined to make my life as difficult as possible, aren’t you? I can’t let you go on your own, and Billie should be safe enough here for a few hours. If we’re going, then we’d better go now before it becomes impossible.’
The most difficult thing about going on foot wasn’t the snow itself, but the fact that the true path down the hill had all but disappeared beneath it. They made their way as best they could, in visibility that was not only poor from the absent moon and driving snow, but from the glare of the lamps Victor had installed, which now bounced from the frozen ground and threw confusing shadows onto it. Where there was a path looked like a dip, and where there was a fissure looked like it was safe. They’d picked their way down the first slope that led up to Hilltop with relative success – certainly more than they’d had in a car. The ground plateaued for a time, and that seemed straightforward enough, but they’d both been watching their feet and not their surroundings, and as there was little else to orient them, neither Alex nor Zoe had any clue just how badly they’d veered off course until they got into trouble.
As the ground began to tilt again, the incline felt wrong. Zoe had walked this path many times since she’d moved toThimblebury and even more since she’d started to visit Alex and Billie, and she could tell her feet weren’t feeling the undulations they normally did. She wondered if she was simply on a different section of the correct path than she’d thought she was, and perhaps that was why it felt off. But they’d gone off course, close to where the crest of the hill dropped away to one side, into a gulley that wasn’t necessarily steep but in the current circumstances was enough to cause a problem if someone found themselves at the bottom of it. If she could have seen what was coming, of course, Zoe would have called a halt to their walk and taken time to reorient. But she didn’t see until it was too late. One wrong step, a bank of snow that gave way beneath her and a moment later she let out a squeal as she slid away from Alex, down the ridge and into the shadows below.
29
‘Zoe?’
Alex’s voice came from the gloom above her as she finally came to a halt. Every rock and stone had knocked the breath from her on the way down, but at least the fall had been cushioned by the snow. Now she was simply wet and bruised, rather than something much worse.
‘I’m all right…’ she said. ‘I can’t…bugger…I let go of my bag and I can’t see it.’ She squinted in the beam of Alex’s torch as he shone it down on her. ‘Shine it around to see if you can find it, please.’
She watched the light cover the ground, but although it had been bright enough trained directly onto her, it was next to useless trying to cover the terrain that was further away. Her bag might have been there, but there was no sign of it. Though she couldn’t see him either now, she looked up at where she thought Alex was with a vague sense of panic welling inside her. Without her bag, how was she going to give Georgia the care she needed? It was about more than the sanitiser and protective sheets and gloves. To do her job safely, she needed other things that were in there, like items for pain relief, a resuscitation kitfor emergencies, as well as the usual things like clamps and forceps and postpartum supplies. At an extreme pinch, she could head over without them and make do until somebody could get replacements to her, but she really didn’t want to have to do that.
Even then, perhaps a more pressing issue was how she was going to get back up this slope. She took a deep breath to steady herself and then decided that the first thing she had to do was to try to find her equipment. Then she’d worry about getting back to the path.
But when she tried to stand up, there was a pain in her ankle that the shock of the fall had masked, and she realised she’d injured herself after all. It wasn’t at the sort of intensity that might have suggested a broken bone, but it was enough to hamper her efforts. And she was cold, so there was no telling if that was helping to numb the pain so that she couldn’t correctly identify the severity of her injury. It might be worse than it seemed.
No matter, she told herself, whether it was serious or superficial, she had to get up. She had to find her bag, and she had to find a way to get back to the path.
‘Zoe…’ Alex’s voice was full of concern. ‘You’ve gone quiet… Talk to me.’
‘Yeah, sorry. I was trying to work things out. I’ve…don’t freak out, but I’ve hurt my ankle.’
‘I’m coming down?—’
‘No point. You’ll come down and we’ll both be stuck.’
‘I won’t get stuck; I’ll take it slowly.’
‘Alex…don’t. I’ll find a way to get back up. Have another look with your torch to see if you can find my bag first. If I know where it is, I can go straight to it and then bring it with me.’
‘Can’t you leave it and come back for it when the snow’s stopped?’
‘It’s really important. I need it for Georgia, but I don’t want all the equipment in it getting soaked – that won’t do any of it any good.’
‘Right,’ Alex said, sweeping the terrain once more with the beam of his torch.
Frustratingly, there was still no sign of the bag. Zoe had to assume it had rolled or slid much further on, or that she simply couldn’t see it in the gloom. She wondered whether to take a few minutes to feel around for it. Her ankle protested as she got on her feet, but no sooner had she started to hobble than her feet began to slide away from her again, threatening to take her even further down the slope.
‘Alex…’ she said slowly.
The beam came back to settle on her. ‘Why does your tone worry me?’
