She sent a reply to ask if he was all right but got nothing back. Glancing at the clock on the dashboard and seeing that she was already running late for her next visit, she decided he would have to manage because she had a job to do.
14
Alex had texted Zoe again during the afternoon to let her know Billie was worse and that Louisa had such a runny nose, she could hardly breathe through it. Though he didn’t say so, Zoe was convinced he’d only told her all this so she might magically appear at Hilltop, having forsaken her workload, to prop him up. Perhaps, she reflected as she switched off her computer, having just sent off the referral for Ezra, that was unfair. It wasn’t like Alex hadn’t had a life before her, where he’d had to cope with whatever problems came his way, and it wasn’t like Billie had never been poorly before. It only felt that way, she persuaded herself, because she was a little unstable at the moment, and so everything seemed a bigger deal than it would normally.
Thinking this rationally didn’t mean she was fully convinced, and as she walked into the kitchen of Hilltop Farm to see Alex warming a bottle while Louisa yelled for it and Billie grunted instructions from the sofa in the living room, her instincts were to turn right round and leave.
‘Thank God you’re here!’ he cried. ‘Did you get the Calpol? And the paracetamol for Billie?’
‘Shit…’ She’d been so preoccupied with things at work, she had barely given his request a passing thought as she’d left. She’d meant to ask Shabana if there were any spare packs in the nurse’s office, and she’d clean forgotten. ‘I’ll go to the shop.’
‘You haven’t got them?’
‘I’ll go to the shop – it won’t take long.’
‘Zoe!’
‘I forgot! People forget things, you know!’
‘I know, but this was…You knew I was struggling up here! I’ve got all this to do and things for the campsite…and I told them I’d do?—’
‘I think you’ll have to cancel all these social activities you’d planned with them,’ Zoe said tersely.
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not? You don’t have time and, quite honestly, do you really want to mix with them, considering the house is full of flu? Actually, I’m worried about passing it on to my mums.’
‘Go and stay somewhere else if we’re unclean.’
Zoe planted her hands on her hips. ‘There’s no need for that. I only meant I should be careful not to get too close to Louisa or Billie until they’ve stopped being infectious.’
‘Convenient.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing.’
Zoe ground her teeth as she fought a reply that would almost certainly begin a row. ‘I have responsibilities beyond this house, you know.’
‘Nobody said you didn’t have. I’m snowed under here, and I’m sorry if I’m not at my happiest right now. It might have helped if you’d remembered the one thing I asked you to bring back with you.’
‘I’m sorry but I didn’t, and as I don’t have a time machine, I can’t change that. All I can do is what I offered, which is to goto the shop before it closes and get what you asked for. Although I’m sure you could have left Billie for ten minutes yourself and done that.’
‘She’s too ill to cope.’
‘So what have you done about work? You’ve been here all day and not done anything else?’
‘What’sthatsupposed to mean?’
‘It might have escaped your attention, but I’ve put a full day in today, and it hasn’t been an easy one. So I’m deeply sorry if I forgot your paracetamol because I had important things going on of my own. Some of us can’t just leave work whenever we want and go off to do other things; some of us have a schedule we need to stick to and people who expect us to be there.’
‘I work for myself, but that doesn’t mean I get to please myself!’
‘More than I do. If you’d gone off to get tablets, nobody would have noticed.’
‘I’m sure Billie would.’
‘Stop bringing me into this!’ Billie yelled from the other room before erupting into a violent coughing fit.
