Ch28: Stolen Aug 2nd part two and Aug 6th

My hands are throbbing and blood is dripping onto the pier. I’ve torn my skin to shreds digging at the shingle on my ill-fated sign. Picking up bags hurts, but I have to do it. I work through the pain, but it still takes me ages to carry the shopping up to the cottage. I take a breather before going back down for the coal and that’s when I notice it. When he was in the cottage he put a radio back on the shelf. I pick it up, seems like the same one he took away. Did he not want me listening to the radio for some reason? I turn it on and tune in to Radio 4. I’ve never listened to this station intentionally, but Dad likes it and I know they do good news reports.

I picture Dad in the garage attached to our house, tinkering with the car, the radio on loudly. It has to be as he spends most of his time shouting at whoever is on. Dad always was opinionated. Thinking about Dad takes me by surprise and tears start falling again.

“What have I done, Dad?” I wipe at my face. “You’d have spotted Ian for what he was a mile off. How could I be so dumb?”

There’s a radio play on. It’s meant to be amusing, but I can’t find a smile right now. There’s only a few minutes until midday. I put the perishables away in the larder while waiting. Could my parents have reported me missing, made me out to be an older Madeline McCann?

Finally the news comes on and I perch on the edge of the sofa, listening. There’s a report on politicians. Then something about cancer and underfunding, and back to politicians, it’s all their fault. Another country in the Middle East is in turmoil. There’s going to be a strike at Heathrow. The murder of a young family by the once loving husband-gone-insane has apparently taken the country by surprise. Other lesser stories were talked about, but nothing about me. I’m more disappointed than I would have thought possible. Somehow it’s made me feel tiny, minuscule. I’m nothing, forgotten, alone on this small island, trapped by a bad man, and no one remembers me.  

There are rain clouds coming in, and I’ve left the coal on the pier. Drying my tears with my sleeve, I make my way down the dirt track to the harbour. I half hope that Ian has come back, to keep me company for just a little while. I need someone to talk to, even he will do right now. But I am still all alone. There are no boats in view, and he is long gone.

I grab the top corners of the sack of coal and start to drag it up to the cottage. It’s heavy, too heavy for me by myself, but rain is on the way and I need to get the aga going again. Last night the temperature outside dropped. The fire went out during the night and I woke to a freezing cold cottage. Luckily there were still some smouldering lumps of charcoal, and I used these to get a new fire going. I ran out of matches days ago and keeping a fire going has to become a priority.

The clouds darken on the horizon and I yank harder on the sack. I’m halfway to the cottage and I reckon the rain is ten to fifteen minutes away. It’s going to be close as to whether the coal and I will get wet.

As I pull harder a pain shoots through me. It knocks me hard and I lose my grip on the coal and stagger backwards, holding my belly. The baby, I’ve done something to the baby. The pain crests then eases off.

“Oh my God,” I whisper and link my fingers over the lowest part of my torso, over where I think the baby is nestled. All this time I’ve been pushing my body, tempting it to expel the baby, thinking of him as an unwanted passenger. Those feelings have gone, disappeared, taken away on a gust of wind. I want the baby, need him more than I could ever have imagined. More than Gemma, and the thought of losing him is terrifying.

I stare at the sack of coal and then at the approaching rain clouds. I can’t risk dragging it the rest of the way. I walk fast back to the cottage, not tempting things further by breaking into a run, and get the bucket and a pair of scissors. Before the rain starts, I open the sack and fill the bucket, taking it up to the cottage and dumping it in the coal store. I manage three more buckets before the rain starts. Using my coat I cover the remains of the coal and hide out in the cottage while I wait the rain out.

August 6th

Almost twelve weeks gone. At least, by my rough calculations. After a couple of rough days when I bled a little after trying to drag the coal up to the cottage, the pregnancy has settled. My morning sickness is even abating. So far today I have not been sick. What I needed was ginger nut biscuits. No chance of that when I’m a prisoner, stuck in enforced isolation.

I have debated making a new SOS sign in a different place, there’s a ferry that goes out the other way, between Vanir and Bressay Island. I could make a sign they could see, but I can’t risk Ian seeing it and deciding to leave me here to starve.

I made a friend in one of the rabbits. I’ve named him Humphrey and let him come in the cottage. His fur is so strokable and I can talk to him. Maybe I’m going slightly insane.

I put the diary away under the floorboard in the bedroom. My iPod is on the chest of drawers. With the turbine out I’ve missed being able to play my music. The radio helps to cancel out the silence, make me a little less lonely, but only marginally.

Humphrey has jumped up onto the sofa and made himself at home on one half. He’s a large buck and stretched out there’s barely room enough for me. I sit beside him, running my fingers over his soft fur, listening idly to the radio. I freeze as I hear the names of my parents being spoken.

“…Anne and Donald Jenkins have held a vigil in their daughter’s honour on the beach at West Kirby, on the Wirral. Three months have passed since she went missing from their Merseyside home…”

I jump up from the sofa as the radio volume drops then goes completely. The power’s gone out. I grab the radio and furiously turn the crank at the back. The report comes back on and I hear the voice of my mother. Her words are shaky, heavy with emotion as she says, “Please, Emily, if you can hear this and are able to, please come home. We’re waiting for you here with open arms. We’ll never give up looking for you…” The news reporter comes back on, finishing off with a quick summation of the weather.

I’m not forgotten, I’m loved, missed, and they want me home so badly, I could hear it in the way Mum’s voice cracked and trembled.

“I want to come home, Mum, I want to so badly.” I collapse on the sofa, surprising Humphrey into jumping off. I have the radio in my arms and I hold it to my chest tightly. It’s my only connection to them. I have nothing else.