Friday August 15th 2025
The pig thing. If I could draw the facepalm emoji, I would.
Not ideal, was it? The committee sipping their drinks and watching me dash about. The shame of it all. How desperately I longed for them to like me, how incredibly vital that felt.
Ugh. Thought writing this down would help but it’s giving me flashbacks. I’m having…the nasty feeling. The stifling sickening get-me-out-of-this-body feeling. If I could peel myself away and escape from my own brain I’d do it. I want to disappear.
I hate this. And I hate it more because I was never like this before, was I? Definitely got panicky occasionally, but it used to make me better—it pushed me to work harder, take extra precautions. Anything to avoid feeling this way.
But now when the feeling comes, it takes over. I’m not me, I’m just this. A twitching, whining, frightened animal running scared.
How am I ever going to be a mother when I’m such a child?
Monday August 18th 2025
Been a few days. I’m doing better.
It always passes, that’s the thing to remember.
Hope Jones didn’t notice me falling apart.
Just reflecting back on The Night of the Pig.
Went straight from the shop to Marly and Rosie’s farmhouse to fill them in.
It’s one of those beautiful rambly houses, all nooks and extra bits, nothing quite matching.
The higgledy slate roof is dotted with dormers and Velux windows.
Rosie was just letting Ginger out of the ornate old wooden door as I reached the front garden.
“Hey, Charlie, are you OK?”
She stretched a concerned hand out to cup my cheek as Ginger greeted me, tail a blur. Rosie’s a toucher, and I love it—I miss being touched. She seems wise beyond her years, or at least considerably wiser than me.
Told her about the pig, and she listened patiently, nodding along.
“OK. We can sort the pig,” Rosie said calmly. “What else is wrong?”
“What? Oh, nothing else,” I said, as the panic beat through me. “I’m fine!”
She tilted her head. Ginger sat down firmly on my foot, as if to say, “You’re going nowhere.”
“Really, I’m fine!”
“OK.” She smiled. “Well, when you’re ready to talk about whatever it is—about anything—I’m here. Just in case you needed to hear that.”
Had to look down at Ginger because my eyes were suddenly full of tears. It’s hard, isn’t it, when someone is nice to you in a moment when it would be totally impossible to be nice to yourself?
“Why don’t you come in?” Rosie said after a moment. “Here, Ginger—come, give the woman some space. I was just about to head out to get movie-night snacks for Red and a couple of the other B&Bers, but they can wait, if you want a cup of tea.”
I hesitated as Ginger dashed back inside.
Would love to get to know Rosie a little better.
And the B&B looked so inviting behind her, with a cozy rug on the hall floor and a dark-blue Aga cast-iron stove just visible in the kitchen beyond.
But when I have this want-to-disappear feeling, doing something like sitting trapped in someone’s kitchen for the duration of a cup of tea, trying to act like I’m not absolutely steeped in fear and self-loathing, is kind of impossible.
Particularly if the person is perceptive.
I’m good at pretending to be fine, but Rosie has already proven herself to be dangerously skilled at reading me.
“I’d absolutely love to, but can we rain check?” I said. “I think I just need to get home and shower. I’m kind of…piggy.”
“Well, if you’re sure…Before you go, can I borrow your phone?” Rosie asked. “Marly’s out, but she’ll round up the pig if I can get hold of her. Mine’s inside somewhere.”
This was said with characteristically dreamy vagueness. Rosie does give the impression of being a person who misplaces things. Passed her mine, and she fumbled around with it for so long that I laughed.
“You want me to show you how to call someone? Wow, you’ve ended up in the real depths of my apps there, shall I…”
“Sorry! I’m useless.”
“You’re lovely,” I told her, and she smiled at me.
“Please do come around for that tea sometime, Charlie.”
Her expression was almost wistful. Assured her we’d have tea soon and headed back to the stables, trying to figure out whether that exchange had made me feel more or less miserable.
Rosie and Marly are so inquisitive. I want a friendly island community, but ideally the kind of friendly that isn’t especially interested in the life I had before I got here. Incurious friendly.
The sort of friendly that still allows me to keep my secrets.
Just came home after a slow shift at the farm shop and found Jones making coffee and a bacon sandwich.
He didn’t offer me one—not that I’d have said yes, but still.
Our wary truce felt more fragile than ever.
Since the pig event, I’ve been squirreling myself away in the small bedroom, barely meeting his eyes when we’ve crossed paths, and definitely haven’t done my fair share of the cleaning and cooking.
Have been telling myself I’m only doing what he wanted—he said keep to ourselves, didn’t he?
“Have you managed to explore the island much yet?” he asked as he rifled through the cupboards for the ketchup.
He looks good from behind. Something about the muscular shoulders and narrow waist combo.
From the front you notice the scowl and the biceps, and maybe overlook the fact that his build’s actually quite athletic.
“You’ve not been getting out and about much,” he continued.
I stopped checking him out.
“I went for a run this morning,” I said, irritated.
“That’s where you went first thing?”
“Oh, so you did know I’d gone out.”
“It’s hard not to notice you. Here, I mean—with the two of us practically on top of each other.”
My brain, immediately: remember what it felt like when Jones was looking down at you, arm braced above your head, hips against yours, pinning you to the wall?
…Because, yes, there may be a secondary reason I’ve been avoiding Jones.
It’s hard enough to act normal with another person when I’m having one of these phases, but add in the fact that said person has seen me swoon in their arms as they save me from a rampaging pig? It would be too much for anybody, no?
“You stuck to the main tracks on the island, right?” Jones asked, turning to face me.
He seemed to have no issues looking at me post–pig incident.
He was still doing his intense eye contact thing, trying to hook me in whenever I risked a glance his way.
“As in, the paths where the horses and carts go?”
Implication being that I’ve only explored about as far as the visiting tourists.
This rankled, maybe because it’s true—I haven’t ventured as far into the wildness of the island as I might have.
Want to say it’s because I’m so busy with the farm shop, which I am, but if I’m honest, it’s also because I’m nervous of going further afield.
I do love it here. But all the things I love are also the parts that scare me a bit. The wildness, the lack of, you know, health-and-safety stuff. Take Windward Ridge, for example.
It’s this absolutely stunning isthmus (just googled this word, what an absurd collection of consonants) that connects Little Ormer and Great Ormer, with a narrow path running all the way along the ridge.
The land drops off on either side, falling away from you into two sandy beaches far below.
Like a walkway through the sky. Stunning—genuinely breathtaking.
And there’s a set of steps cut into the rock, all the way from the top of the ridge down to the sea.
It looks like an incredible place to swim—the water’s almost turquoise where it touches the sand.
But the steps are literally just…steps. No handrail. No sign saying, maybe, watch your footing a bit because you’re miles above the ground on a very steep downhill staircase. And it makes me feel nervous.
Which is very much not the attitude I was shooting for when I turned up here, determined to start life over. To find my brave again. To be the woman I want the mother of my future child to be.
“I’m planning to go hiking soon,” I said.
This was true, in the sense that right then I had just made this plan.
My week is ridiculously busy, though, packed with cleaning, stocktaking and restructuring the shop layout—I panicked slightly.
Really don’t have time to start hiking. “Next Monday, maybe. When the shop’s next closed. ”
“Great idea,” Jones said, taking a bite of his sandwich. “Tackling Pook Rock, perhaps?”
I had no idea where that was. How did he suddenly know the island better than me? We’ve only been here for ten days.
Was alarmed to notice that even though Jones was irritating me, I was no longer able to use this to help me overlook his attractiveness. Even eating a bacon sandwich looked good on him. Found myself gazing at his forearms, his hands, his mouth. Has the barn-wall moment addled my brain?
“Absolutely,” I said. “That’s top of my list. How’s your…” I couldn’t think of the right word for it. “Recovery? Going?”
“I’m fine,” he said. Bit short—embarrassed, maybe. “And you?”
“Yep! I’m fine, too.”
“Great.”
We clattered about the kitchen in silence.
“Good that we’re both fine,” Jones said.
“Yep.”
He sighed. He looked as though he was deliberating.
“Are you OK?” he asked eventually, putting his sandwich down on the plate.
“I just said—”
“Charlie, I don’t want to get involved in your life, at all, but your hands are shaking so much you’re spilling water down your arm.”
Put down the glass of water I just poured and knotted my hands behind my back. Didn’t think he’d notice the shaking. It’s just a stress thing that plays up when my sleep is bad.
“You seem a bit…anxious,” he said. “Are you? Anxious? In general, I mean?”
“What? Like, do I have anxiety? Oh, no, I’m a bit highly strung, that’s all. Probably haven’t eaten enough.”