Page 65 of Christmas for the Village Midwife
At that moment, her phone began to ring. She put a hand to it, wondering whether it would be Georgia, but it was Magnus. Zoe frowned slightly as she took the call. She’d only recently given Magnus her number so he could alert her to new ginger stocks in the run-up to the competition and the resulting, as Magnus had nicknamed it, Great Ginger Shortage of Thimblebury.
‘Hey, Magnus…how are you feeling this morning? A bit delicate?’
‘A bit,’ he admitted. ‘How are you?’
‘Not too bad, all things considered. I think the walk up the hill might have sobered me up.’
‘You made it home safely? I did worry about you when you’d gone.’
‘We were fine – no need to worry. I had Alex with me to fight off the wolves and bears.’
‘Ha ha, yes. Or perhaps an angry alpaca. We found a bracelet when we were cleaning up this morning and Geoff thought it might be yours. It has charms on it, and one of them is the letter Z.’
Instinctively, though she knew it wasn’t there, Zoe felt at her wrist and then realised it must have fallen off at some point and she hadn’t even noticed.
‘I think it might be. Is there a silver bee on it too?’
‘There is.’
‘That’s lucky then. At least it came off at your place and not in the snow because I’d never have seen it again. Thank you somuch for letting me know. Are you opening the shop today? I could call in and pick it up.’
‘Not today – we’re both tired, and we don’t think we’ll have a lot of customers. People won’t want to come out in this weather. But you’re welcome to call at the house to collect it.’
‘Thanks. I might do that in a couple of hours, but I’ll text you first to make sure it’s still OK.’
‘You could stay for lunch.’
Zoe smiled. ‘Thanks, but I think I’ve worn out your hospitality for one week. Besides, I’ve got things I need to do at home. But the walk to the village will do me good, and I’d happily stay for a quick cup of tea, if that’s all right.’
‘We’ll look forward to it,’ Magnus said.
Zoe bid him goodbye and then ended the call.
‘What was that about?’ Alex asked.
‘It was Magnus – he found my bracelet at the house. It must have come off at some point yesterday, or I took it off – who knows? I’m just glad it’s there and it didn’t drop off on the way home. I’ll go down later and collect it.’
Alex frowned at the windows. ‘In this weather?’
‘It’s not snowing now. It should be fine.’
‘It was still a bit rough underfoot when I took Grizzle out. Let me go and get it.’
‘Honestly, there’s no need to?—’
‘It’s no bother. I’ll go down for it and bring it to Kestrel Cottage later.’
‘You really want to go? Didn’t you just say you were going to paint one of the bedrooms?’
‘I was, but it can wait. I might be painting it for nothing anyway…’
‘Well,’ Zoe said, choosing not to address his statement, even though it seemed to confirm her worries that he had been thinking about turning his small bedroom into a nursery. ‘I fancythe walk, so if you want to come, we could walk down together, stay for a cup of tea and then I’ll go home, and you can come back here and do your bits.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
20
As Magnus had said, the shop was locked up and the lights were off. Magnus and Geoff, Zoe had come to learn, were relaxed about their opening hours at the best of times. They sometimes opened late and closed late, and sometimes they opened early and closed early. Sometimes they opened late and closed early and sometimes they opened early and closed late. Sometimes they opened on Sundays and sometimes they didn’t, and it was anyone’s guess if they did how long it might last. It had been a source of frustration when Zoe had first moved to the village, but she was used to it now.
