Page 79 of A Christmas Wish for the Village Midwife

‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? You don’t even try.’

It was Zoe’s turn to leap to a defence. ‘That’s not fair. Your dad does try. Everything he does is about what you need.’

‘Oh, right. So what he thought I needed was to live in a village in the middle of nowhere where everyone is about a hundred years old, where there’s nothing to do, nobody my age, where it’s always cold and raining, where the only people I can find to make friends with are a girl who acts about twelve and an old woman who spends her life serving her sexist husband? Yeah, thanks, Dad. Don’t worry that you didn’t consult me before you moved me here – you didn’t need to because you totally nailed the brief!’

‘What…?’ Alex stared at her. ‘Is that how you feel?’

‘Yes!’ Billie cried. ‘It’s how I feel!’

‘Why didn’t you say at the time?’

‘How could I? You were so excited about this place, and then you met Zoe and she moved in, and I thought I could get used to it, and I could grow to like it eventually, and you all kept saying how nice it would be for Louisa to grow up here. How could I tell you how I felt? I tried, Dad, I really tried to like it because I knew how much you liked it. But I don’t. Every day I wake up and look out of the window and there’s just hills and fields, and everything is grey, and it makes me miserable.’

Zoe watched Billie’s outpouring with sympathy. Perhaps, at her age, she might have felt the same. It was easy to forget that this place was Alex’s dream, and since moving here it had become Zoe’s too, but it wasn’t everyone’s. It was easy to forget, in their day-to-day life of building businesses and careers and making a home, that all those things kept them occupied, gave them a reason to get up in the morning and to be thankful for the place that had given them so much, but when she really thought about it, what had Thimblebury given Billie? Perhaps what she’d needed for a short time, but not what a woman of her age might want.

But then, her heart went out to Alex too, watching his expression in the low light of the street lamps, the face of a man who was witnessing the rude awakening from a dream he’d thought was everyone’s and not just his. He’d been convinced he’d brought Billie to a life that would be good for her, and she’d been willing to play along to protect his feelings, and now they’d both got hurt.

There was a silence so heavy it felt as if it might pull down the hills that encircled the village, and it seemed to last for hours before Alex finally broke it.

‘Let’s get back to Hilltop.’

Neither Billie nor Zoe argued as he began to walk in the direction of Ottilie’s house, and they followed. But Zoe noted that Alex said Hilltop, and not home, as if all it had meant to him had ceased to be, and now it was just a house. She pushed the thought out, though it did nothing to improve her melancholy. They’d collect Louisa and head back, and they’d talk things through and they’d work it all out.

At least that’s what she hoped. At this exact moment, only one thing seemed certain: Christmas was going to be more difficult than any of them could have imagined.

16

Ottilie had known there was something wrong, but they’d mumbled excuses that hadn’t been agreed beforehand and so didn’t match up at all, and then hurried away with Louisa, woken and grumpy and bundled into the car.

‘I’ll put her to bed,’ Zoe said as they walked into a lamplit kitchen, greeted by an oblivious Grizzle who danced and panted around their legs begging for their attention. ‘You and your dad need to talk.’

She wondered, for a moment, if Billie might argue. But she didn’t. Instead, she settled at the table, patting Grizzle absently as he chose her lap to rest his head on. It was always Billie, Zoe reflected as she scooped Louisa out of the car seat. It was a strange thought, perhaps, but it came to her anyway. What would Grizzle do if she left? Nobody would be able to explain it to him, and he’d be so sad, the thought of it made Zoe sad now. Alex could reason it out, and for Zoe, in many ways it would make her life easier, but poor Griz…

Louisa took far too long to settle. It was hardly surprising as her routine had been interrupted enough as it was without them taking her from Ottilie’s almost as soon as she’d dropped off to sleep. Zoe tried to be patient, but she could hear the voices downstairs without being able to make out any of the words, and she desperately wanted to know what was going on. More than that, she desperately wanted to help. She wanted to arbitrate, to support where it was needed, to offer a different way if she thought it might do some good.

But as she rocked Louisa to sleep, Billie’s fiery words came back to her. She wasn’t family, even though she’d tried to be and sometimes they all said she was. She’d hoped to be something to Billie – not to replace her mum, never that, but to be someone Billie might trust and turn to for advice in the same way she might have turned to her mum if she’d still been alive. Those words had stung more than Zoe had wanted to let them, though she had to admit that Billie had a point. She didn’t understand their dynamic because she hadn’t been there to witness all the years that had formed it.

The sounds of conversation from the floor below rose and fell, and sometimes it was silent for minutes. Zoe could hear them moving around the kitchen, taps running and earthenware clinking. She supposed Alex was making them drinks.

Eventually, Louisa’s eyes drooped and she gave up the fight to stay awake. Zoe laid her gently in her cot and took a moment to admire how beautiful she’d become. Not her granddaughter – not anything to her at all, really – but there was a pang of regret for the notion that Billie might leave and take Louisa with her. Alex would miss her terribly, but so would Zoe. Hilltop Farm would feel empty for a long time, and Zoe wondered how on earth they’d bring it back to life. Should she back down on her resolution not to try for a baby? Would that make things better, or was it a hastily thought-out fix that might backfire on them?

She realised then that it had been quiet for a few minutes. Checking on Louisa one last time to make sure all was as it should be, she turned off the light and went downstairs.

‘I didn’t know if you wanted a cup of tea, but I made one anyway,’ Billie said. ‘It might be cold now, sorry.’

Zoe went to the table and put her hands around the mug. ‘It’s warm enough. Thanks, Billie.’ She sat down and looked at them both, waiting and wondering if someone would fill her in. When nobody volunteered, she came right out and asked the question. ‘Have you sorted it?’

‘Depends on what it is,’ Alex said. ‘I don’t think even we’ve worked that out yet.’

Zoe sipped at her tea. It was cold, but she wasn’t about to interrupt them by going to warm it. ‘Have you come to any kind of understanding about anything? You both had plenty to say outside the village hall.’

Alex’s mouth became a hard line. Perhaps Zoe sounded like a disapproving schoolmistress, and she might not have been family, but she lived with them, and she needed to know what the situation was. There was no way to do this than to be straight, and, after all, not being straight and honest had got them into this mess in the first place as far as she could see.

Zoe got up with a deep exhale. ‘Do you want me to leave you to it? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do – someone please tell me. Is it better, more helpful if I’m here or if I let you speak without me?’

‘Of course it’s better if you’re here,’ Alex said. ‘We’ve never wanted to leave you out of anything – you live here with us; you’re part of the family now. I don’t know where you’re getting the idea we’re trying to cut you out.’

‘Because,’ Zoe began carefully, ‘as Billie rightly pointed out, technically I’m not family.’