Page 38 of Christmas for the Village Midwife (The Village Midwife #2)

Suddenly aware of what she was doing, Zoe shook herself and hurried on, her mind full of what she’d seen.

Was this the reason Emilia had wanted to come to Windermere?

Had she planned to meet him, and Zoe wanting to go too was a fortuitous accident?

Or had she seen an opportunity to engineer a meeting out of town, away from gossiping villagers, and had taken it?

But there wasn’t time to dwell on it like she wanted to because she was already an hour into their allotted three, and though she’d managed to pick up a token gift for Lavender, she hadn’t managed to find anything for Alex, and that was the main reason she’d come.

Alex hadn’t mentioned much reading, but Zoe had finished her chestnuts and was throwing the bag away when she was drawn to the bookshop. It was worth a try, and if she didn’t find anything for him, perhaps she might pick up a cookbook for Corrine.

Inside, she was met by a colourful display of children’s books and hit by a tinge of sadness for her own lost child that kidnapped her attention for a moment.

Would she ever get another chance? It felt as if time was running out.

Ottilie was older than her, almost forty, but somehow she seemed in a far more stable place to bring a baby into the world.

Things were going well for Zoe and Alex, but they were a long way from the point at which they could even discuss settling down together, let alone having a child.

And his priority was Billie, the daughter he already had, and Zoe was fully respectful of that.

She wouldn’t want to change it, and if Billie did decide to keep her baby, Zoe would never want to take Alex away from his role as a grandad.

She picked up a hardback with a cartoon dinosaur on the front and stared at it with a vague smile.

This book was old – she recalled her mum reading it to her when she was little, the precursor to many bedtimes, and how much she’d loved those moments.

She was desperate to buy it for someone, but she couldn’t get it for Billie, and despite being incredibly busy in the run-up to Christmas, she had already managed to get a gift for Ottilie: a gift box filled with toiletries for new mothers that she’d seen online a few weeks prior and ordered on the spot.

As for Ottilie’s baby, she wasn’t due for another five weeks.

And now that she thought about it, Zoe wasn’t sure whether Ottilie was one of the superstitious types who didn’t like to have this sort of gift before the baby arrived.

Georgia, perhaps? Her baby hadn’t been born yet either, but she was a lot closer than Ottilie.

Putting it under her arm, Zoe decided it was too cute to leave behind and she’d find someone to gift it to.

Then she went to inspect the cookery section and found something for Corrine featuring baking from around the world, and then she tried to turn her thoughts to what Alex might possibly want to read – if anything at all.

She quickly decided against a novel. He wouldn’t have time to read it, and she didn’t know what he was into.

There were travel books that he might be interested in, but she didn’t see him having much time to go to any of the destinations featured in them for the next few years while he got his glamping business up and running.

Then her gaze settled on the local history section.

There was a book about Bronze Age settlements in Cumbria, as well as two others about uncovering the archaeology of the Lake District.

Would he like those? She picked one up and flicked through it.

She wasn’t sure, but she was running out of ideas and time.

Uncertain, and with a sigh of impatience, she took two of the three and went to the desk to pay for the lot.

‘Did you get what you needed?’ Zoe asked as Emilia got out of her car to open the boot. Zoe put her shopping in, noting with a vague frown that there wasn’t very much of anything else in there, and went round to the passenger side as Emilia shut it again.

‘Yes,’ she said as she got back in. ‘Did you?’

‘I got some things,’ Zoe said. ‘No clue if they’re the right things, and I don’t think I’m especially happy with a lot of what I’ve bought, but at this point they’ll have to do. I should have started earlier. I say it every year, and every year I’m doing this last minute.’

‘There really is too much pressure on people at this time of year. If there’s going to be a marriage break-up, a family estrangement, a nervous breakdown…

you can almost guarantee it’s going to happen around now.

In my opinion, this requirement to make everything perfect, regardless of how anyone might be feeling, is unhealthy.

People keep things bottled up for the sake of everyone else’s good time, and that’s when things come to a head in a far worse way than they otherwise would have done.

At the end of the day, it’s an arbitrary date.

It only has the significance we’ve attached to it, and why should illness and worry choose another day to manifest? ’

Zoe had no reply for Emilia’s sweeping statement, but the continued anti-Christmas sentiment was beginning to depress her. She’d already been frustrated at her own lack of preparation and at the need for the last-minute rush, and Emilia’s opinions were hardly helping.

‘Town was busy,’ she said instead. ‘Nice atmosphere, though. People can get impatient sometimes, but generally they seemed in a good mood today.’

‘I can’t say I noticed. I mean, it was busy, but I got round as quickly as I could.’

‘You didn’t see the brass band in the square?’

‘Yes, but I didn’t have time to watch.’

‘I had roasted chestnuts too,’ Zoe said. ‘Haven’t had them for years, and I’d forgotten how much I like them. In fact, I could eat them all over again now.’

Emilia started the engine. ‘We’d better get back before the weather gets even worse.’

Zoe took that as her cue to shut up about Christmas. Instead, her thoughts went back to the man she’d seen with Emilia in the coffee shop. She wanted to ask but was afraid she’d start a conversation Emilia didn’t want to have. But then Emilia started it for her.

‘I met up with Todd, actually,’ she said.

‘Did you?’ Zoe asked with as much innocence as she could fake. ‘Who’s Todd?

‘Hasn’t Georgia told you? I’d have thought she’d have filled you in on my ex and his…well, the trouble he’s caused.’

‘She mentioned your divorce, but she hasn’t told me anything much about it.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘I’d have no reason to keep it quiet if she did – after all, you’re telling me now anyway.’

‘True. He’s come into some money, and he wants to offer me a share.’

‘Well, that’s…’ Zoe began but then ran out of steam.

‘Decent of him?’ Emilia said, ‘I suppose it is, though I think it’s to alleviate his guilt.’

‘Why should he do that? You’re divorced now, so that’s it, isn’t it? No reason for either of you to worry about the other.’

‘Yes, but aside from the things he did to end our marriage, had we stayed together, the money would have been half mine anyway. That’s a long story.

The reason I’m telling you about it today is because I think you might have seen me.

In the coffee shop. And I wanted to explain why I didn’t say anything before. ’

Zoe flushed and wondered if she would have said anything at all had she not been rumbled, but there didn’t seem much point in asking. ‘I hadn’t realised you’d seen me. I didn’t mean to spy or anything – it was just that I happened to be passing.’

‘I should have realised the town was too small for you not to be somewhere close by. It’s not your fault, but I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell Georgia about it. She thinks I ought to stay well out of his way.’

‘Depending on what he wants from you, I’d be tempted to say the same,’ Zoe replied.

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.