Coincidence: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

perhaps he would have exercised it.
    But this, let us remember, was some years after the decade of free love, and now, even in Port St Menfre, a woman like Marion Yves could hold up a metaphorical finger to the world and do her own thing without fear of the ducking stool, even in the face of the disapprobation of the whole community. This, it seems, is exactly what she did.
    Gideon Robertson moved out of the cottage on Briny Hill Walk in December 1977, around the time when Marion’s periods stopped. He might well have been Azalea’s father. But then again, that honour might have belonged to the young English barman Peter, who walked Marion home from work on dark evenings when Gideon was at sea. And equally possibly, Azalea’s father might have been John Hall, a washed-up military man, retired from soldiering, now the landlord of the Bell Inn where Marion and Peter both worked; a man with a loud laugh, an overbearing manner and rather too much of a taste for his own ale.
    When Marion Yves discovered she was pregnant, she was immediately aware of the dilemma she would have to resolve with respect to the paternity of the child. She checked back through the calendar and tried to work out possible dates, the who and when and where, but no clear answer emerged. She had never written these things down, so might it have been four weeks ago . . . or five . . . when she and Peter, or when she and John, or when she and Gideon . . . ? Was that the Sunday when the tide was early, or the Sunday when the tide was late? There were no answers to these questions. She walked down to the bakery with her basket over her arm, and then she took the little cobbled street to the Parish Church of St Menfre and, alone at the back of the nave, she bowed her head and prayed to God for guidance.
    Despite what we may have learned about Marion from the story of the christening service, she was a pious soul, the product of a fiercely pious community. Those who didn’t visit the Anglican Parish Church of St Menfre could always attend the Hope and Faith Baptist Church in Port Erin, or the Elim Pentecostal Church, or the Isle of Man Methodist Church, or the Christadelphia Ecclesia in Dalby Patrick, or the Roman Catholic Church of St Columba in Port St Mary. The options for religious worship were wide and varied; it only really mattered that some level of observance should be seen to be made. The Anglican Communion was Marion’s destination of choice. She had visited this church twice every Sunday for most of her life, and it was natural that she would turn to God here for advice on her predicament. She asked Him, as plainly as she could, to help her out. Her options seemed reasonably clear. Should she take the bus into Douglas and buy a ticket for the Isle of Man Steam Packet ferry service? This would secure a four-hour crossing to Liverpool over the unpredictable waters of the Irish Sea. Once in England, she could consult with the British Pregnancy Advisory Service; an agency whose principal, and enlightened, purpose was to secure for young women the services now permitted by the 1967 Abortion Act. She would need to establish an English residential address to qualify for an English abortion, but this should present little difficulty. It could all be done without anyone from Port St Menfre learning that a baby had even been conceived, let alone aborted.
    Or should she, perhaps, confront Gideon when he next came ashore and tell him that the baby was his? It would probably lead to a resumption of their relationship, which was not something Marion particularly sought. But it was an outcome that might best suit the unborn child. It would at least provide him or her with a father and a household income somewhere above that of a barmaid.
    She could try the same approach with Peter, the barman but he was too young and too impecunious to be a sound candidate for long-term fatherhood. He was from England, and planned to return soon