Page 82 of Christmas for the Village Midwife
Emilia looked sharply at her.
‘I stayed in touch with my ex at first. I wanted to stay friends for the right reasons, but he didn’t. We ended up in a much worse place than if I’d cut ties and called it a day.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Emilia said, watching the road again.
‘Sorry,’ Zoe said awkwardly.
‘What for?’
‘I shouldn’t have compared my situation to yours. I wasn’t trying to make it about me.’
‘I didn’t think you were.’
Why did Emilia have to be so contradictory all the time? From one minute to the next, Zoe couldn’t work her out. She’d be open, and then she’d clam up. She’d be warm and then ice cold, grateful for help and then resistant to it. Zoe found it maddening and unsettling. As a young girl, she’d always been awed by her friend’s older sister, feeling there was some enigmatic mystique about the quiet, hugely intelligent girl who was aloof and unknowable and yet fascinating. But now, she only found Emilia’s changeability frustrating and, frankly, rude at times. And she couldn’t help but feel that Emilia knew it, and that it somehow amused her to know it.
Zoe turned her gaze to the window, where the beams of the headlights illuminated the falling snow and obscured everything beyond their range, and decided to stop talking because it really was getting her nowhere.
25
Later that day, with half an hour to spare before the Christmas Eve carol service, there was a knock at the door of Kestrel Cottage. Zoe had just fixed her earrings in place and hurried down the stairs to get it. Alex was on the doorstep, snow in his hair and on the shoulders of his coat.
‘The Lapland Express awaits you.’
Zoe laughed as she pulled him over the step and into a kiss. ‘You look good,’ she said. ‘You smell even better. Cold and clean and musky. Maybe we won’t go to the carols; maybe we’ll stay here instead.’
‘We could do that,’ he said with a warm smile. ‘Won’t you be annoyed later? You said you were looking forward to it.’
‘I did, didn’t I? I was silly back then.’
He laughed. ‘Come on. I must be mad to say it, but we’re not staying in; we’re going. You’ll regret missing it, and everyone is expecting us.’
‘Who cares?’
‘Since you, very wisely, told me I ought to make more effort to charm the villagers so they’ll be a bit more forgiving when thecampsite opens, I think that’s rather a rash thing to say, Miss Padbury. Get your business head on.’
‘Business head, right…’ She pulled one of his coat buttons open. ‘Admit it – you want to go more than I do. You actually like everyone.’
‘I never said I didn’t. They don’t all like me – that’s the problem we’re trying to fix, remember? So…’ He fastened his button again, and she laughed. ‘Stop trying to tempt me, and let’s go before the snow gets too deep!’
‘Spoilsport,’ Zoe said, blowing him a saucy kiss and then leaving him to go and get her boots.
When she returned, he was typing on his phone. ‘Just checking on Billie,’ he said.
‘Is she all right? You’ve only just left her, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, but she frets a bit on nights like this. I told her we shouldn’t be late. The service is only a couple of hours, isn’t it? We ought to be back just after eight, I reckon.’
‘Don’t forget about the refreshments afterwards.’
‘Yeah, but even if we stay for an hour, that should be plenty of time to do our Christmas Eve presents.’
‘Christmas Eve presents?’
‘We’ve always done it. We have a special one for Christmas Eve – usually a book or something like that, something small but significant, or something we want the other to try.’
‘That sounds cute,’ Zoe said, now feeling guilty about the fact that not only had she rushed buying his actual Christmas gift, but she didn’t have anything to give him for a Christmas Eve gift.
‘I can see the cogs working,’ he said with a smile, ‘and it won’t matter one bit that you haven’t bought one for us – I’m pretty sure neither of us said, so how would you be expected to know? Billie heard about how they do it in some Nordic country in a lesson at school once, and then she wanted us to do it. We’ve done it ever since. It means a lot to her, you know – even moresince we lost Jennifer. I think it sort of keeps her connected to us, doing the thing we used to do when she was around.’
