The Ice Marathon Read Online Free PDF Page B

father. ‘Get rid!’ he’d probably say. It was because of comments
just like that, that I hadn’t spoken to him in four years. My mother had died
when I was three, so I didn’t have a clue what she would say, except perhaps
‘Get away from your father, he’s not a good man.’
    Tina had been a star. She may have been a client, but fate
dictated that it was Tina, recovered-drug-addict soon-to-be mother, tower of
strength, Tina, who was with me just after I heard the news. Unaware of my
personal circumstances, she had congratulated me (I doubted anybody else would)
and then lent me a book on pregnancy, which happened to be in the boot of her
new car.
    As I flicked through it now, I realised that I’d already
passed many of the milestones. A test from the chemist was no use to me, I
hadn’t had morning sickness, and I’d certainly missed the twelve-week scan.
    It was all too weird to get my head around, and was too soon
to know what I wanted to do. Yet I had to; at twenty-three weeks, I only had a
few days left to make a decision about whether I wanted to …
    I couldn’t even think the word. It was peculiar. All my life
I’d been pro-choice. Yet now, with a baby living inside me, I could barely even
bring myself to think the ‘A’ word. It just felt …
somehow … wrong.
    “What’s been going on in here? Has somebody slaughtered
Rainbow Bright?” resounded Nicky’s high-pitched fruity tones.
    I smiled, weakly.
    “Oh Emma, you’ve been crying!” she said, hurrying around to
the front of the settee.
    I decided to spit it out before I lost my nerve: “I’m
pregnant.”
    Nicky fell about laughing.
    I didn’t laugh.
    She continued to laugh.
    I didn’t.
    Eventually, she stopped laughing and studied me carefully.
“What?” she asked, softly.
    “Twenty-three weeks.”
    She laughed again, but this time in a nervous, jerky manner.
“How?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve been feeling a bit strange, I suppose,
but nothing that made me even imagine I could be pregnant.”
    “But you have to have sex to be pregnant.”
    Accidentally, a sly smile slipped out, and then I nodded,
earnestly.
    “But I’ve been trying to get you laid for months!” she
remarked, looking most indignant. “Hey, if you were seeing somebody, you only
had to say.” Then she looked genuinely hurt and added, “Why didn’t you tell me
about him?” Next, shock. “Is he married?”
    I shook my head.
    “Well then, who is he?”
    “I should tell him before I tell anybody else.”
    “So it’s somebody I know?” she inferred. I could hear the
cogs whirring in her brain as she went back through the social calendar in her
mind, month by month.
    Sooner or later, she’d twig. She opened her mouth; I braced
myself. “Wait! It’s dangerous for you to be pregnant isn’t it?”
    I tapped the packet of pills in my pocket, and nodded.
    “Holy crap, Emma.”
    “I know,” I said softly.
    She took a deep breath and stood up. She began pacing, which
did nothing to calm my nerves. “Does the father know about … those?”
    “No, not yet. He doesn’t know about any of it.”
    “Are you two still together?”
    “No.”
    “Oh shit, Emma!”
    I sighed, heavily. I didn’t like what she was saying, but
she was only vocalising my own thoughts.
    “How did you meet him?”
    I took a deep breath. Telling her who the father was seemed
harder than telling her that I was pregnant. I bit my lip, dropped my head and
peered up at her guiltily. I could see the more unruly members of my eyebrows.
    “Who?”
    I let out a deep sigh.
    “ Who? ”
    “Simon,” I muttered.
    “Sorry?”
    “Simon,” I shouted.
    She stared at me, the blank expression on her face mirrored
in her bewildered brown eyes. She started laughing again. “No really, who was
it?”
    I said nothing.
    “Oh my God! You’re serious?”
    I nodded.
    “But you two hated each other,” she exclaimed.
    “I thought you said I wasn’t that harsh?” I asked, suddenly
concerned. I