Island Hideaway 26 - Ikea Roast

During the three days that followed the breathing incident I left her room as little as possible. I moved my desk and computer into the room so that I could watch while I wrote, for I had work to do, there was always work to do, an article on dealing with slugs for a gardening magazine and a piece about Beethoven's creative process for a Beethoven fanzine. I positioned the computer and desk so that she was always in my eyeline, looking through the screen at her as I touch-typed a thousand words here, 500 words there. "Sieves," one of my regular editors had said to me that morning, "Can you do me 2,000 words on sieves, it's pretty urgent I'm afraid."​​
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In publishing, you have to understand, it is always urgent. Even if the magazine won't hit the stands for another six months, sieves must be written about now, this instant, to an exact word count. "Jesus Terrence, I don't care what it says, it's the fucking word-count that matters," one of my first editors had once told me. It was a lesson I would never forget. ​​
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So I typed out 2,000 words about sieves, all the time watching Mo’s prostrate body. Every so often I would check on Mo’s breathing, but no change.​​
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For food I did an ikea roast, as I could throw it in the oven and return to Mo’s room. The ikea roast is my own name and my own unique combination - flat roast potatoes, flat roast aubergine, flat roast mushrooms and flat roast courgettes. The delight of flat, roasted vegetables has been criminally overlooked in my opinion, if I ever move back to the mainland I would open  a flat roast restaurant, called Flat. Not that that is ever likely to happen.​​
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I ate my ikea meal in Mo’s room, still watching her. ​​
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I finished my sieve piece and reached a quandary. I wanted to stay watching Mo, so that I'd be there when she woke, as I was convinced she would, soon.​​
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But I'd not left the house in three days and was still worried by the Boatman's sighting of a strange boat. I had webcams watching the coast, which I checked regularly, but I was worried at what they weren't picking up. ​​
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In the end my paranoia won out. I walked to the far side of the south shore and back again. It was a still, empty night, the sky was clear and the stars and three-quarter-moon gave a lot of light, but there was nothing to see. The dodos were in hiding and the sea was empty.​​
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When I got back home I made myself a hot chocolate and returned to Mo’s room. ​​
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She was sat up in bed staring at me. "You took your time," she said. "I've been shouting out for an hour. I'm dying for a piss. ​​