“I feel like I’m in trouble. Am I in trouble?”
He nodded. “Don’t try to protect me from the hard stuff because you feel grateful. I don’t need protecting, Iris. If you don’t want me with you for whatever part, I’ll respect that, but don’t hide shit from me. You knew when I agreed to this I didn’t just want to be a sperm donor.”
“I know.” He had made it very clear. The legal documents that had been drawn up between us made it very clear too.
“I can’t carry this baby. You’re the one growing them, keeping them safe. You’ll be the one who gives birth to our child. All I did was jerk off, so give me the dignity of looking after you while you look after our baby.” His eyes burned into me.
Heat was springing up everywhere.
Which was somewhat unexpected. Especially I wasn’t exactly fresh.
“I am capable of chucking my guts up on my own.”
He nodded, just once. “But do you want to be on your own?”
“No.” I didn’t. I felt vulnerable. I worried that I’d faint when I went lightheaded, and I really did like how he’d rubbed my back. I’d felt looked after.
“Then we have a standing date each morning.” He relaxed his arms. “What do you need now? Tea? I can go to Freya and Roe’s and get some ginger. She makes her own ginger teas.”
“Normal tea. I need a shower. I want to brush my teeth before you come any closer and I’d really like some thick bread toasted with butter. Maybe some jam or honey. Honey.” I was suddenly hungry, which was how it’d gone every day so far.
Gully closed the distance between us in two steps and pulled me into his arms. I pressed my head against his chest, feeling teary and warm and settled.
“You’re not an inconvenience and if you don’t think I’d drop everything in a millisecond to be there for you, you’re so far wrong.” His hand smoothed along my back.
“Thank you. You’re the best friend I could ask for.”
He stilled at my words, everything pausing, everything frozen.
“I’ll do your tea.” He moved away, leaving me wondering what the fuck had just happened.
Spring had started early this year. The storms that usually happened on the island, so I was told, seemed to have died out already, so on the anniversary of Ivy’s death, we had pretty pale sunshine and rows of dancing daffodils.
Whoever had lived in Gully’s house before had enjoyed gardening, something that was becoming more apparent every day, when yet another new shoot emerged from the ground. Crocuses, daffodils, snowdrops and bleeding-heart plants were coming through in the flower beds and even the lawn, thesunlight cool but strong enough to wake them from their winter slumber.
For the last few days, since Gully had discovered me vomiting, he’d kept more of a distance. In the evenings, he’d gotten me comfortable and then sat on the other sofa, typing away at his laptop, determined to get this book off to Clover so he could start the next. I was worried that speed would mean he lost out on quality, but he said he was just more focused and what he was writing was his usual ‘golden’ standard, so I left him to it, missing the physical closeness that’d been there over the last few weeks.
It had always been Gully who’d instigated it. Touch. It was so simple a sense, the feel of someone else pressing themselves onto you. Without being touched, I started to feel deprived, missing the comfort, the connection.
Like with any fixation, it translated into photographs, and so I began a study of skin, its texture and colour and the transposition of it in different settings. I took photos of myself my hands on different materials, different materials on me, especially over my bump. I took photos of Roe and Gully and Finn with the children, of Grayson carrying his daughter, Matilda, downstairs in their home with a towel draped over her because she’d almost flooded the bathroom. He was laughing; Matty had her hands on his face, laughing as well, and the photo was beautiful, but the close up of her hands on his face, his stubble evident, was what struck me.
So I had the perfect excuse of being outside in the garden with Gully and Finn when they decided to build the fence and gate to stop any chance of a baby or small children escaping down to the jetty and into the water.
I’d told Gully at least three times that it was premature; our baby would still be cooking for more than six months and itwould be another twelve at least after that when we’d need to worry about them escaping.
He’d paid absolutely no heed, corralling Finn into helping him build a fence and a gate, and as it turned out, an archway, on an unseasonably warm day when almost everything reminded me of Ivy.
There was the sound of chopping wood, or the occasional drill and a curse every so often. Spades were discarded on the lawn, along with the thick shirts both Gully and Finn had been wearing, thrown on the ground because they were too hot.
I was also too hot, but for a completely different reason.
“This is more entertaining than a day at the spa.” Ruby sipped a glass of prosecco, sat on a wooden chair next to me. “I am worried that I might get pregnant again though. This is the sort of spectacle that can cause such things.”
I knew what she meant.
Finn’s and Gully’s jeans were torn and low on their hips, the waistband of Gully’s underwear visible at the top. They were wearing vests, although there wasn’t really much point. The material was only serving to work as a cloth to wipe the sweat off their foreheads.
“Contraception?”
