Ch24: Stolen June 28th part 2

I’m looking forward to dinner. Ian is a good cook and I can’t wait to see what he’s concocting this time. He’s made something with chicken and lots of vegetables, put it in a casserole dish and left it to cook all afternoon. The aromas of cooking food fill the cottage and drive me mad with hunger.

Ian’s brought more toiletries, and I unpack them, putting them away in the bathroom. I place the laundry soap on the side, with the intention of taking it out to the back of the cottage when I’m finished. It’s when I’m organising the cabinet that I realise something.

“Ian, when did I first come here?”

I hear the clatter of pans as he fixes something for desert. I haven’t a clue what that will be yet, he’s keeping it as a surprise.

“Um, middle of May, why?”

I count out the weeks and realise I’ve been here for over six weeks, but that isn’t what’s shocked me. In all the weeks I’ve been here I haven’t come on.

“Shit.” I sit on the loo seat and stare at the window. Pregnant. I’m bloody pregnant. I decide not to tell Ian for now. It’ll give him and my parents more ammo for keeping me here, prove that I am a troublesome daughter. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Everything okay in there?”

“Yes, fine.” I stand and look at myself in the mirror. Far too pale to be okay. “I, um, stubbed my toe. I’ll be fine.”

Ian appears in the doorway, tutting. “Always injuring something, aren’t you.”

I finish up in the bathroom and retire to the sofa. Ian chats at me, but I don’t listen. I’m worrying about what’s going on inside me. What on earth would my parents think? They hardly accepted my pregnancy with Chris, supported me because they had to, and Dad was very vocal about how happy he was when I lost Gemma. Maybe Mum thought the same, just didn’t say anything. What would they think of me now? A year later and knocked up by some old man I hardly know within days of meeting him. Jesus.

Maybe hiding out here on the island was the best thing for me. Like in the olden days when unmarried mothers were packed off to some place faraway, and returned home alone once the baby had arrived.

“You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said, have you?”

I stare at him wide-eyed. “Sorry, miles away.”

“I was telling you about this farmer on one of my small holdings. There was this incident with the chickens…”

What will Ian think? As far as I know, he’s never married and has no children. He might be happy to have an air to his fortune. But he might be equally unhappy. I think of all the payments he’ll have to make to the child as he or she grows up. I decide for now to keep quiet. Something like three in four pregnancies supposedly end up in miscarriage. I can’t believe I’m thinking it, but I sit there, Ian’s conversation floating around me and wish that I’ll lose this baby.