Page 30 of Christmas for the Village Midwife
‘Don’t get up – I can see to myself,’ Emilia said. ‘I think I’ll open that bottle?—’
‘It’s not there,’ Georgia said quickly, flushing. ‘Sorry. I’ll get another one tomorrow.’
Emilia let out an impatient hiss and then seemed to check herself. ‘Tea it is then. At least there’s no danger of me developing a drink problem…’ she continued as she left the room.
‘Is she all right?’ Zoe asked.
‘Yes, I think so. It’s all been a bit sudden, the move here and all the new patients. She thrives on order and routine, and so I think it will take some time for her to feel settled. But she said it herself – she knows she’ll get there.’
Then the front door slammed again, and this time Zoe could hear a man’s voice in the hallway. Then Emilia’s, and then both of them faded as they went to the kitchen.
‘I should…’ Georgia began, but then the front door slammed once more. One of them had gone out again. As Zoe wondered which of them it was, Emilia came back into the living room.
‘I hope you don’t think I’m being rude,’ she said to Zoe, ‘but I’m going to have a shower and then catch up on some reading upstairs. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.’
‘Not rude at all; I’m sure it’s been a long day,’ Zoe said.
Emilia gave a short nod and then was gone. When Zoe turned back to Georgia, she could see her friend looked worried. Given what she’d witnessed tonight, and what she’d gathered from it, Zoe was hardly surprised by that. This didn’t seem like a very happy household at all.
11
From a small speaker on the reception desk, traditional carols were playing. It was possibly at a volume too loud for the space, and they’d undoubtedly get complaints from patients once the doors had opened, but one look at the surprisingly dark scowl on Lavender’s face, despite the festive jollity of the music, persuaded Zoe that she shouldn’t mention it. Besides, she was balanced on a stepladder tacking bright streamers to the wall, and so Zoe decided it was better not to distract her, not even with a good morning. But Lavender called down as Zoe walked past.
‘You have no objections to me putting up Christmas decs in your room?’
‘I don’t see why I would. Good morning, by the way.’
‘Only some people seem to think they’re unhygienic. Honestly! It’s not like she’s performing open heart surgery in there.’ Lavender came down the ladder and dug into a cardboard box on the floor, pulling out another garland. ‘I mean, it’s Christmas, isn’t it? I’ve been patient enough – left up to me I’d have put them up weeks ago, but Simon told me to hang on. But people want to be cheered up, don’t they? If you’re ill atChristmas, you at least want something to take your mind off it. It’s nice to see the place looking bright, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course!’ Lavender held up some tinsel. ‘This is not tacky! It’s nice tinsel. It wasn’t cheap – I ordered it online from John Lewis!’
‘It’s lovely tinsel…’
‘And there’s nothing migraine-inducing about a splash of colour, is there? And trees don’t take up that much space, do they? Not a tiny three-footer! Zoe, you were over there last night, weren’t you? I bet they don’t have a scrap of tinsel up in that house, do they?’
‘You mean Emilia’s house?’
‘Yes! Is the sister as miserable as her?’
‘You mean Georgia?’
At this point, Zoe was reeling from the speed of Lavender’s interrogation. She also hoped that Emilia wouldn’t walk through at that moment and overhear any of the conversation she seemed to have been kidnapped by.
‘I don’t know what her name is. I’ll leave, you know. I’ve had just about enough! Fliss didn’t care for Christmas, but at least she let the rest of us enjoy it! At least she didn’t suck the joy out of everything!’
‘Well, I wasn’t here last Christmas, so…’
Yanking the tinsel behind her, Lavender stomped back up the ladders. ‘I don’t have time to talk right now. I’ve got a load of tacky decorations to get up!’
Zoe paused, floored by the aftermath of Lavender’s ire, and wondered what she could say to make it better. But as she watched Lavender tug the tinsel into place, she decided it was probably best to say nothing. Leaving her to it, she met Ottilie in the corridor.
‘I see you’re still in one piece,’ she said with a wry smile.
‘Lavender? Yes, apparently Emilia has issues with Christmas decorations. She flat-out refused to have any in her room and told Lavender in no uncertain terms what she thought of it all. But she hasn’t banned them from everywhere, has she? Lavender was putting them up in reception.’
‘I think she would if she could, but I wonder if Simon has had a word. Lavender’s threatened to hand in her notice at least three times this morning that I know of. He doesn’t have a long history of working with her like Fliss did, but even he can see how good she is for the running of the surgery. It’d be chaos if we lost her – at least until we could get someone trained up, and to be trained to her standard would take months. Maybe even years.’
