Page 20 of Christmas for the Village Midwife (The Village Midwife #2)

Someone had whacked the heating in the village hall up so high Zoe was currently stripped down to a T-shirt and was still sweating. What was it with this village and heating?

Ottilie had laughed when they’d been in the shop together and she’d asked the question, having endured yet another overheated day at the surgery, courtesy of Lavender, who’d insisted they had to keep the patients warm.

And what with the mood Lavender had been in since her showdown with Emilia over the Christmas decorations, even Zoe realised it was wiser to suffer in silence than challenge her on it.

There had been a freezing fog hanging over the hills for days, sure, but, as Magnus had pointed out, anyone would think the world had been plunged into a new ice age the way everyone had gone rushing to their thermostats.

Zoe wasn’t often one to agree on things like that, but even she was beginning to think people needed to calm down.

As people filed in for the gingerbread house competition, shedding coats and hats and scarves and instantly red-faced as the heat hit them, if Lucifer himself had wandered in wearing a pair of Speedos and asking for a bag of ice to cool down, she wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.

There were Christmas decorations that had clearly seen a fair few winters pinned to the walls and ceilings, while a lopsided plastic tree, propped up by planks of wood to stop it toppling over, was taking up an entire corner of the room.

Lavender had complained about that too, the previous day, having been in to help put the decorations up in readiness for the event.

‘There’s money for a real one,’ she’d grumbled.

‘There’s money every year, and yet they get that motheaten thing out.

I’m surprised it hasn’t had an asbestos warning slapped on it by the council, it’s so old.

I told them I’d go and find one and chop it down myself if it meant I could bin that thing.

I have nightmares about it every year until about February. ’

Zoe was beginning to think Lavender might take Christmas just a bit too seriously.

This had been confirmed earlier that week by Emilia – walking through reception to see a patient out – earning a glare from Lavender, who hadn’t forgiven her for not allowing her consultation room to be decorated.

Either to her credit, or to her detriment, whichever way you wanted to look at it, Emilia hadn’t backed down, not even under the pressure of Lavender’s most burning glowers.

And when Lavender had snuck in one night after surgery was done and plonked a mini tree on her desk, Emilia had come in the next morning, silently put it on the reception desk in front of Lavender and had then gone back to her office without another word.

That had led to Lavender turning up the volume of the Christmas carols playing in reception that week so loud that in the end Mrs Icke had marched to the desk and complained that it was interfering with her hearing aids.

So much for the time of peace and love and goodwill to all men.

Zoe turned her attention back to the hubbub in the hall.

There were long tables running the length of one of the walls, and on each had been draped a different, Christmas-themed tablecloth.

Not a one matched, and some didn’t fit the table they were supposed to be covering.

The tables weren’t exactly even either, and as she looked, Zoe could see Magnus and Geoff trying to stabilise a corner of the one they’d been allocated by shoving an empty folded crisp packet underneath the rogue leg.

As they arrived, other residents found their spot and began to set up. Or not, depending on how secretive and protective they were feeling about their creation.

Stacey, however, had no qualms whacking her gingerbread castle out and pointed to it with a grin. ‘Brilliant, eh? Like someone who’d never seen a house and someone who’d never made gingerbread wrote an instruction manual on how to make a gingerbread house and I accidentally used it.’

‘It’s not that bad,’ Geoff said.

Stacey laughed. ‘Oh, shut up, you moron! Of course it is – it’s horrible! I don’t know why I put myself through this every year.’

Still laughing to herself, she wandered off to the urn that was being manned by someone from the playgroup to get a cup of tea.

Magnus, on the other hand, once he and Geoff had secured their wonky table, kept his creation in a plastic storage box, and though he took the lid off and peered inside, he quickly put it back on and stood with his arms folded, scanning the competition as they unpacked around him.

Geoff went to take the lid off again, and Magnus slapped his hand away.

‘It’s not time yet!’ Zoe heard him say. ‘Someone might knock it!’

Geoff let out a sigh loud enough for her to hear at the other side of the room and then followed Stacey to get a cup of tea of his own.

Magnus wasn’t the only one acting like aliens had replaced them with a copy.

People who were usually calm – not that Zoe knew the wider village all that well – were nervy and short-tempered as they arrived and set up their space.

Zoe watched all the mini dramas unfold – neighbours going to greet one another, gushing praise for their entry followed by a sneaky look that wondered if theirs was better.

What was even more interesting was that all this competitiveness was for nothing.

The prize, such as it was, was hardly worth having at all.

Regardless, she couldn’t deny it was hard not to get caught up in the drama, and Zoe hadn’t yet put her own house on display, choosing to leave it in the box for a while, if only because she didn’t want people coming over to examine it and leaving with a smug, gloating look on their face when they saw she would be no threat at all.

‘You’d think the prize was a million pounds,’ Billie said coolly as she took the lid from a plastic box. She glanced over at Zoe’s, still sealed. ‘Aren’t you going to get yours out?’

‘I will…in a minute.’

‘It’s not that bad,’ Billie said. ‘You made a new one, right? It’s not the one you showed me the other day?’

‘Why?’ Zoe asked with a wry smile. ‘Was the one I showed you that bad?’

‘No, it was good.’

‘Liar.’

‘It was…I mean…so you brought that one?’

‘I didn’t have time to make another.’

‘Oh. Well, it’s fine.’

‘Hmm, I’m not sure the judges will agree, but thanks for trying to make me feel better.’

‘Anyway, I thought you said it was for charity and it didn’t matter.’

‘That was before I got here. Now everyone’s looks way better than mine and I don’t think I like it.’

‘There ought to be a prize for coming last. Or for being the best attempt or whatever.’

‘Like at school when you’d get a gold star for effort in woodwork, even though all the legs had fallen off the chair you’d made?’

‘I never did woodwork.’

‘I bet you were annoyingly good at pretty much everything else though.’

‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask Dad. Can I get a hand with this…? I’m scared I might drop it or knock a bit off.’

‘Yes, of course…’ Zoe helped Billie to lift her creation from the box, giving a low whistle as it emerged. She’d seen one of Billie’s practice runs, and she’d tasted some of her flavour experiments, but this was the first time she’d seen the end result.

‘It looks all right?’ Billie asked.

‘It looks great! You did all this by yourself?’

‘Dad held some bits for me while I stuck it together, but yeah, more or less.’

‘By the way, did Maisie call?’

‘She sent me a message.’

‘And?’

‘It was fine. We might meet up, but it’s all been messages so far.’

‘Right. Do you think you might get on?’

‘Who knows?’ Billie said carelessly. ‘We will or we won’t – no point in stressing about it.’

‘I suppose so. I’d feel better just knowing she had someone other than…well, someone to confide in.’

Zoe decided to close the subject for now.

It probably wasn’t the time or the place, though Maisie’s predicament was often on her mind and she’d hoped Billie would have arranged to meet her by now.

It was then she turned her attention back to the room and noticed one or two other competitors looking their way.

Some seemed surprised to see Billie’s entry, some less than pleased and some merely resigned.

Zoe turned her gaze back to it. In a sense, it was quite traditional and basic in construction.

Since she’d been here, Zoe had seen ambitious attempts at fairy-tale castles, Santa grottoes and hobbit holes.

Someone had built a church – though it was nowhere near as good as the one she’d seen in Corrine’s kitchen the time Victor had been eating the gravestones – and someone else had built a model of the village school, complete with marzipan choristers lined up in the grounds.

She had yet to see Magnus’s with her own eyes, but Ottilie had told her that Stacey had seen it and said it was a replica of the iconic cathedral in Reykjavik and the best she’d ever seen Magnus build.

Billie’s was a house like any other – four walls and a roof, a chimney and a garden.

But there was something so precise about it, so delicate and detailed that Zoe could see immediately the artistic flair that Corrine had spotted in her right at the beginning.

Not only that, but Zoe already knew it would taste amazing.

As Billie checked it over, Zoe noticed Corrine arrive, Victor trailing after her with a huge box in his arms. After greeting a few people, they both made their way over, Corrine’s allocated spot being next to Zoe’s.

A little unfair, Zoe had felt, but perhaps someone on the organising committee had a sense of humour.

Zoe smiled their way, but Corrine was peeling her coat off, tense and grumbling in a way Zoe wasn’t used to seeing. It was clear that, despite what she’d said in the lead-up, this contest meant more to her than she’d let on.