The chicken was fine. Alarmingly, Nina wasn’t. Zoe jumped out of the van once she’d finally shut the damn thing down, and charged around to the other side of the vehicle. Nina was looking very pale.
‘Oh my God, are you all right? I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!’ said Zoe.
‘It’s . . .’
Nina screwed up her face a bit.
‘Sorry, I just . . . I just . . .’
Nina quickly threw up out of the side door of the van, narrowly avoiding Zoe’s shoes, which was a relief as they were the only smart ones she had.
Zoe held her hand.
‘You look . . . you really don’t look well,’ she said. Nina was utterly pale and sweaty-looking. Zoe felt for her pulse. It was racing.
‘Could you . . . ? Can I take you to the doctor’s?’
‘You’ve stalled the van.’
‘I’ve still got the car,’ said Zoe.
‘Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing. No. Don’t . . . don’t . . .’
Nina threw up again.
‘I just . . . I feel very, very unwell,’ she muttered as Zoe handed her a bottle of water. ‘I just need sleep, that’s all.’
‘Probably just a bug,’ said the practical Zoe. ‘But worth getting checked out.’
‘I’m really, really hot,’ said Nina. They both stopped for a second as the chicken started to peck at the spew, and Nina groaned deeply. ‘Don’t get the doctor.’
Zoe was already googling.
‘How long have you been feeling bad?’
Nina sighed.
‘A while,’ she said quietly.
‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’
‘Because . . .’
Nina didn’t like the answer. Because she wasn’t ready to give up the van. Because she couldn’t help resenting Zoe turning up with her cute little perfectly behaved child and taking over her job and her life and had no problem fetching and carrying and had obviously breezed through her own pregnancy while Nina felt she was so clearly and visibly failing at it.
Because she’d been jealous, and because everything she’d had with Lennox had been so perfect, and she couldn’t bear it not to be. Because of stupid reasons.
She didn’t say anything.
‘Well, I’m here now,’ said Zoe. ‘Do you want me to call your boyfriend?’
Nina shook her head. ‘I don’t . . . I don’t want to worry him.’
‘If you’re not well in your pregnancy, worry everyone!’ said Zoe, attempting a smile. ‘Seriously. Raise hell.’
Zoe helped her down and was surprised by how shaky and wobbly Nina was.
‘I’m sure it’s something I ate,’ said Nina, feeling sick and panicky and horrible and just desperately wanted to lie down. ‘Can I just go to bed? My own bed.’
‘Will the doctor come out?’ said Zoe, who thought this probably was the best plan of action.
‘She will,’ said Nina in a faint voice. Zoe led her into the farmhouse. Like everyone who went there, she was surprised by how modern and cleanly it was decorated. Nina never had much cause to think kindly about Kate, Lennox’s artistic ex, but she always appreciated her wonderful taste.
Feeling slightly odd – but then again, feeling odd and trespassing in other people’s houses did seem to be more or less everything Zoe did these days – she helped Nina into bed, found her a pot to throw up in, which Nina immediately obligingly did, made her some proper tea she couldn’t keep down and called the local GP’s office. She was put through to the doctor, then Nina was put on and after that things moved with fairly alarming speed.
The local doctor, Joan, was an extremely practical woman with short hair, clogs, a peremptory attitude towards humans and a dogged devotion to all animals. She turned up in her dirty hairy SUV with a dog in the back – surely against NHS guidelines – washed her hands, took one look at Nina and called 999.
Then both the girls got very frightened. Nina grabbed Zoe’s hand, forgetting entirely that they weren’t actually that close, and told her to go and find Lennox, he’d be in the upper field; there wouldn’t be a signal.
‘Of course,’ said Zoe, not even thinking about her shoes. She ran to the door then turned back.
‘What does he look like?’
‘He’s the really gorgeous one,’ said Nina her face pale and sweaty.
‘Um, okay,’ said Zoe.
‘Lanky lugs with sandy hair,’ said Dr Joan, who had picked up the chicken and was patting it gently and interrogating the girls as to precisely how much sick the poor creature had eaten.
Zoe dashed outside.
The wind was high, pushing the clouds against the sun so it felt like the world was moving beneath her feet – sun, shade, sun, shade – as she ran; it buffeted her, making her eyes sting. Her feet sank into the newly empty furrows of the autumn fields, and she remembered – from her devoted readings of Swallows and Amazons rather than any actual farm experience – to shut the gates behind her. She found herself running through fields of sheep which in any other set of circumstances she would have wanted to stop and look at.
Instead she just shouted ‘Lennox! Lennox!’ on the wind until a farmhand came out and stared at her curiously.
‘Lennox?’ she said. He shook his head and pointed to a barn so far away it was only a tiny shape on the horizon. Zoe had mud up to her ankles. She dimly remembered now a line of wellingtons at the door of The Beeches that vastly outnumbered the people who lived there, and now understood why. It was too late anyway: her shoes were ruined. She glanced at them. They belonged to a life from quite long ago.
She caught her breath and started running again, finally appearing at the door of the barn, realising she hadn’t run that far in years. If it hadn’t been so awful, there would have been something freeing about running up a sunny clear hill at full pelt; about being totally winded and spent. Something different.
‘Sorry, where the fuck did you spring from?’ came a not unpleasant voice.
‘Are you Lennox?’ she gasped, shocked at how raw her throat was.
‘Aye.’
He looked at her, in the middle of helping a sick ewe he did what he did every day; focused entirely on the job in hand to the exclusion of everything else, including whatever Nina might be up to. (This exceptional focus generally drove both Nina absolutely mad and turned her on something frightful.)
‘It’s Nina,’ she barked. ‘You have to come.’
His face changed immediately and he leapt up, forehead furrowed.
‘What . . . what is it?’ he said, charging out. He stuck her on the back of his quad bike – Zoe had never been that close to one in her life; neither of them wore a helmet – and tore down the hill at top speed, bouncing across the ruts, practically surfing the grassier patches. Zoe didn’t have a chance to catch her breath at all. Once again, if things hadn’t been so grave . . . she might have loved it.
Joan was waiting to meet them; the ambulance was still a way away.
‘What is it, Joan?’ he said, running indoors, leaving Zoe to get herself off the bike.
‘You know pregnancy toxaemia?’ said Joan.
Lennox stood stock-still in the doorway. His hand started to tremble. He took a step forward.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Jesus. That kills sheep! It poisons them and it kills them.’
‘No, no, it’s not so bad, honestly. Bad example,’ said Joan. ‘It’s not so bad in humans. They can fix it if they catch it in time, and we’ve caught it. We will catch it.’
She glanced at her watch.
‘How long have you been feeling bad?’ said Lennox as he went in to see Nina, pale as a wraith on the bed. How hadn’t he noticed? Bloody harvesting. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Nina’s face creased.
‘Because you were busy, and I was busy and . . . I thought it was . . . I thought it would be better than this . . .’
She really did start to cry now and he leapt to the bed beside her and gently stroked her hair.
‘Hush now by,’ he said soothingly. ‘Hush now bye’ exactly as if she was one of his sick ewes, and even realising this, she leant into his muscular side, and felt comforted.