At the beginning of the week she felt her larynx tightening, the familiar choking sensation, and her voice totally disappeared, as it regularly does.
She saw what her boss’s face did. One of the busiest times of year with the gig championships and so many extra visitors coming over, and yet again Mary-Jane is useless. Struck dumb.
Any words she might speak are reined in. And what might those words be? ‘Black or white coffee? Cash or card?’
Help! Make it stop!
The wind against the kitchen window whips up her fears until she can bear it no longer.
And those are the worst words, the ones she thinks but can never say to her ever-loving John; words which would be a dagger to his heart. I can’t bear it!
Her predicament is beyond words.
When her fears were confirmed, it hit her low, sweeping her 216feet from beneath her. She sat with her head between her knees until the faintness passed. She claimed it was a virus.
First thing tomorrow, she and John will travel to the mainland for his work trip to the Eden Project. He’s excited to see the Horticultural Therapy project in the Outer Estate. She will accompany him. But she is dreading spending so much time with him in case he guesses her secret. And of course he’ll guess.
Today she sits alone at the table in their lovely cottage while he is out at work. Their home is immaculate, just as he likes it. Polished, tidied, neat. It smells welcoming – notes of cinnamon and vanilla, lavender sachets amongst their clothes. There are posies in vases dotted around on the Welsh dresser, the windowsill, upstairs on the bedside tables.
The canker beneath is invisible.
Christie’s ginger tom has visited in the night, creeping in through an open window, leaving her a gift – a small headless squirrel on the kitchen floor. The cat sees Mary-Jane as a helpless kitten. He is attempting to teach her how to disembowel prey, otherwise she will not survive.
Then, as Mary-Jane tried to make herself a cup of coffee after John left for work, the cafetiere exploded, sending boiling water through the cracked glass, scalding her hand. Bad things come in threes, although John would say that was a heathen superstition.
Mary-Jane stares at the room with unseeing eyes – her beautiful island home. Then she stands, attempting to psych herself up. She has hidden the leaflet Nurse Kelly gave her yesterday, pushed it deep inside the pocket of her coat without reading it.
She reaches in, feeling guilty as she does so, but she must 217study it, it’s her only way out and— there is nothing in the pocket. She was sure … She searches the other side, panicked now, pulling zips, rummaging through old tissues and a throat-lozenge wrapper.
The leaflet has gone.
Nurse Kelly popped in to check on her yesterday. She wasn’t invited. Mary-Jane was both glad to see her because she cannot bear to be alone when John is out at work, and also afraid, because she had confided in the nurse about the pregnancy test. She had to tell someone, or it would drive her mad.
She is so foolish. After the scare a few months ago she should have taken steps to avoid this. But John is against any form of contraception, saying they should trust in the Lord, and fearful of him discovering her rebellion, she had failed to organise the pill or the coil for herself, so it is her fault.
She had gone to see Kelly in the drop-in clinic the nurse runs once a week at the community centre. She managed to tell her some of her worries, although she had disguised the exact nature of her concerns. She whispered, and the nurse told her not to strain her voice.
The risks were not so great, the nurse told her; it was not so uncommon within certain communities.
Mary-Jane shook her head.
All would be well, Kelly continued; Mary-Jane shouldn’t torment herself. She should get some throat spray from the shop …
But then came the terrible thing. Kelly handed her the leaflet and said here was the alternative. She had done it herself when she was nineteen. 218
‘It’s not an easy decision,’ said the nurse, ‘but it was the right one for me at the time.’
Mary-Jane was horrified. She croaked, ‘But it’s murder!’
‘It is not,’ said the nurse.
‘John would kill me if he knew we were even talking about this,’ she mumbled. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘It’s your decision, not his,’ said Kelly. ‘It’s your body. This has nothing to do with your partner, or religion, or …’
Mary-Jane realised then that the nurse was the serpent in the garden, hissing temptations.
The day after the clinic, Kelly stood in Mary-Jane’s kitchen and smiled as if they were friends and asked how she was doing. Mary-Jane nodded and mimed that she was okay. Her eyes said otherwise.
The nurse sat, although Mary-Jane had not indicated she should do so, and she talked about the options once more. If Mary-Jane was dead set against abortion, she should go ahead with the pregnancy, have tests, try to put aside her worries. Marriages between cousins had once been common in royal circles, were still common within certain religious groups; she shouldn’t worry so much. On and on the nurse talked until Mary-Jane could bear it no longer. She grabbed the piece of paper she’d used for her shopping list and scrawled down a single word.
The nurse stopped mid-sentence and the shock registered on her face even as she tried to appear professional.
Mary-Jane can’t bear to be in the house with these thoughts any longer. She pulls on her padded coat, draws the hood tight 219around her face, and hurries out, desperate to escape.
Her peripheral vision is restricted, and she jumps as she hears, ‘Aright, are ee?!’
Miss Elisabeth has come upon her from her own garden gate and Mary-Jane almost stumbled into her. She points apologetically towards her throat.
‘Again?’ says Elisabeth. ‘You get a hot toddy down you! Some of Farmer Michael’s honey will sort you right out. Scilly bees are the best.’
Mary-Jane tries to smile, nods, and hurries on. Her thoughts curdle like the threatening inky clouds above. There is danger in the air.
She hasn’t decided, not for sure, yet she knows where she’s heading, and she has a sense of what she intends when she gets there, if only she can find the courage.
Either way is a mortal sin. A murder. A suicide. She is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
She walks quickly, avoiding groups of tourists ambling towards the pub, perhaps seeking sanctuary from the rising winds currently doing violence to the treetops. She catches a whiff of ozone. Or is it sulphur?
She used to pray on her walks, but no prayers come to her now. There are no words of comfort when she most needs them.
For all things Mary-Jane usually turns to John. She has always done so; he has always been there for her. John is her guide, her protector; older and wiser and so sure of everything. But she cannot share these new torments, not with anyone, least of all him.
It is only a mile to the end of the island. It is not far enough.
Her legs strain as she tramps towards the cliff, damp under 220her arms and between her breasts. It is a challenging walk and the weather is gathering its might, the wind stealing her breath as she reaches the sharper slope. She has to lower her head to forge against the mustering gale. The sky darkens further.
This is the wild side of the island, more exposed to the elements. Jagged crags and unforgiving fissures thrust and plunge in contrast to the gentle topography of the Old Grimsby end.
Mary-Jane clutches clumps of grass as she pulls herself upwards towards the steepest incline. As she nears the summit, she hears shouts, words snatched away by the wind before she can make them out. She pauses. Someone high above, their back to her, wearing a pink coat. Surely she’s standing much too close to the edge—
A thought flings itself at her unbidden. She tries to force the image away, but it already has hold. Her secret might be safe, if only Nurse Kelly stood too near the edge of the cliff and took one step back. Or … one little push might do it.
Mary-Jane freezes, appalled by the evil in her mind, in her heart, in her belly.
She should fling herself into the psychotic waves far below her.