Page 21 of A Christmas Wish for the Village Midwife

‘You’ll wish you hadn’t asked.’ She turned to Lavender. ‘I can’t see Ottilie being keen – she’s more allergic to attention than I am.’

‘That’s true.’ Lavender shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose it wouldn’t do for us all to be the same. I expect she’ll get involved behind the scenes too.’

‘Don’t forget she’s got a baby taking up most of her time. Anthony isn’t even one yet – he’s still a handful I would imagine.’

‘Flo will,’ Lavender said. ‘I’ll bet Flo will want to do something.’

While Lavender turned her attention to switching on her computer, Zoe smiled at Shabana. ‘Good weekend? Everything all right?’

‘Yes, everything has been great. In fact, I’m surprised how well I feel right now. Apart from being breathless every now and again, but it’s not like a bad breathless, just, you know…’ She put a hand to her swollen belly. ‘Junior is taking up quite a bit of space now.

‘I’m sure. And have you been shopping for any bits yet?’

‘No…’ She grimaced. ‘I know you think I’m being superstitious, but when you’ve waited as long as we have for this pregnancy to happen, you don’t want to do anything that might tempt fate. I don’t want to buy anything until the baby is here safe and sound.’

‘You’re going to need some equipment straight off the bat, though. Just the essentials.’

‘I get that, and I’ll have the essentials ready, but when we’re closer to my due date. I know that labour can come early, and I ought to be ready. I know all that stuff, but part of me still doesn’t believe this is going to happen. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up one morning and it was a dream and I wasn’t pregnant at all, and that we’ll have to start on that IVF merry-go-round all over again.’

The door to the surgery opened and an old, bowed lady marched in. Zoe couldn’t help but smirk at Shabana’s look of dismay.

‘There are some patients I’ll miss when I go on leave,’ she said under her breath. ‘And then there’s Mrs Icke.’

‘Careful,’ Zoe murmured back with a grin. ‘Deaf as a post but can hear a pin drop from three streets away when it suits her.’

‘When’s the other nurse coming back?’ Mrs Icke demanded as she approached the reception desk.

‘Ottilie?’ Lavender asked. ‘Not yet, but Shabana looks after you just as well, doesn’t she?’

‘No, not that one, the one we had before… Gwen.’

‘Gwen hasn’t been here for years now,’ Lavender said. ‘You can’t have forgotten that!’

‘I didn’t forget. I just hoped it wasn’t true that she’d left. These youngsters aren’t a patch on her. Gwen’s proper trained.’

‘That’s not what you used to say when she was here,’ Lavender said in a low voice.

‘What?’

‘I said she’s retired now!’ Lavender shouted back.

Zoe grinned at Shabana. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Good luck!’

In her office, Zoe took off her coat and readied the space for her first appointment of the day. As she slid her phone into the desk drawer, she noticed the text that had arrived as she’d been talking to Lavender and opened it.

I’m sorry for hassling you this morning when you were in a rush. Hope you got to work on time. x

Zoe paused as she reread the message. It was innocuous enough, but there was something in it. Or perhaps there was something in what was left out, but there was a general tone that told her Alex wasn’t feeling quite himself. She typed out a brief reply, wanting to say more but simply not having the time, and trusted it would be enough.

Honestly, don’t worry about it. We’ll talk when I get home. Hopefully the meeting won’t go on too long and I won’t be so late. x

What she needed now was a calm day that ran like clockwork and would let her leave the surgery before the night had got away from them.

Even as she thought this, her office door opened and Lavender looked around it.

‘Sorry, I forgot to mention… this meeting later. Technically, it’s about the medical staff’s competence training or something or other, but I’m going to sit in because I want Emilia to agree to a Christmas do. For us all… like we could go out somewhere. We have to get booked up – there’s only six weeks to go so we’re already running out of time.’

‘Do we need to bring that up at the meeting?’ Zoe asked. ‘Can’t we arrange that between ourselves at lunch or something? I don’t think Emilia would want to come; she’s not the biggest fan of Christmas…’