Read Online The Ice Marathon by Rosen Trevithick - Free Book Online

lady sniffed suddenly. “Mmm, I can see that.”
    “Why do you need so many cots?” asked the man, sounding
gruff.
    “For your grandson!” I cried. Then, I hurried over to the
one in fur and whispered in her ear, “He does know I’m up the duff, doesn’t
he?” then I chuckled again. ‘Duff’ was such a funny word. I repeated it in my
mind – duff, duff, DUFF!
    “I am well aware of your condition. I want to know why there
are so many cots,” he demanded.
    “One for every room!” I explained. “So that I can see my
little baby whether I’m on the loo, doing a poo, eating a poo …” I started
giggling again. “Excuse me, just my little joke!”
    “Are you quite all right?” asked the lady.
    “Yes! I’m perfect.”
    “Is she drunk?” the man asked the woman.
    “Drunk? I’m prrrr-eg-nant!”
    “High on something, I suppose,” he muttered.
    “High?” I laughed. “Do you know what? The doctor was worried
about me coming off my mood stabilisers, but I’m just FINE!”
    “Mood stabilisers?” repeated the woman, softly.
    “What do you mean mood stabilisers?” questioned the man.
“Are you ill?”
    “Not at ALL!” I shouted. “I’m just dandy. Don’t know why I
didn’t come off the medication years ago!”
    The man placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder, and said
quietly, “I’m going out to the car. I’ll see if I can reach Simon on his
mobile.”
    The lady looked uneasy.
    “Can I get you a tea?” I asked her. “Your son loves tea. He likes toast too – well toasters , actually, and …”
    She took my hand very gently and looked at me with lovely,
kind eyes. They were the same colour as Simon’s – very beautiful. “Perhaps I’ll
make the tea,” she said softly. “Maybe you’d like to sit down.”
    “SIT DOWN? I’ve got five cots to make!”
    She sighed, smiled and disappeared into the hall, presumably
in search of the infamous kitchen. I decided to use the opportunity to do a
little more work on cot number one. But, which bits were cot number one? WHAT
HAD POSSESSED ME TO GET TWO WHITE COTS? How could I possibly be expected to
tell the difference between cot number ONE and cot number FOUR? A little sob
squeaked out of my throat.
    A sob? What the fuck? This was my happy time – my super,
splendid, awesome, wholesome maternity leave. This was not a time to sob!
    I felt deeply disturbed by the sob. So much so that another
sob came out. TWO SOBS? This caused further upset and a third sob came out. No!
Not today. There are IN-LAWS here. You have to smile for the in-laws, otherwise
they might think that there is something the matter.
    By the time that the nice lady returned, I was sobbing
almost hysterically. Breathing had become difficult.
    She placed the tea somewhere and joined me on the floor. She
put an arm around me. It was very comforting. I found it odd that she didn’t
ask what was wrong, so I decided to volunteer the information.
    “Cot number one is the same colour as cot number four!” I
sobbed.
    “I know,” she said, rocking me backwards and forwards as she
held me tight.
    “I have to build five cots!”
    “I know,” she said, stroking my hair. “I know.”
    But how did she know?
    “Do you often feel like this?” she asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Let me put it another way, what usually helps when you feel
like this?”
    “I don’t know,” I sobbed.
    “Come on, you do know …”
    “Walk,” I muttered.
    “A walk?”
    I nodded.
    “Would you like us to go for a walk?”
    I didn’t, but I began to realise that it might help with the
sobbing, and I really didn’t want to be sobbing. I forced myself to nod again.
    “Well I know a lovely park not far from here. Let me tell
Gerald what’s happening, and we’ll go for a nice, gentle walk, just you, me and
that little boy in there.”
    This lady, Simon’s mum, was so utterly lovely. I was taken
aback and if truth be told, rather moved. Without family of my own, I wasn’t
used to this sort of