‘You said you didn’t have this equipment. But when I asked you a moment ago, you said it reminded you of Ben.’

Annie pursed her lips and then spoke curtly.

‘It was something similar. Not as technical. It was a very old contraption that was much like a stethoscope if you must know.’ Annie looked perturbed. ‘At the doctor’s surgery. None of these fancy at home machines.’ Annie looked at me sternly. ‘I’ll be serving coffee downstairs in fifteen minutes if you can drag yourself out of this pit.’

Annie marched out of the room clutching the box with the heart monitor in it.

I lay back and closed my eyes again, waves of negativity flooded my body. Something didn’t feel right about any of what just happened. It reminded me of another incident and I found myself thinking back to the first day I met Annie when I got burned by the teapot. I began to feel a glimmer of an instinctual feeling, a force that was pulling me closer to the life growing within me. I had felt safe until now here at the beach house, but Annie’s behaviour towards me was increasingly alarming. This woman I should be thinking of as my mother-in-law was as much a stranger to me as my husband.

I tried to bring myself back to the feeling in the womb, imagining myself tucked away there safely. I even allowed myself a brief image of the baby in there all cosy and I felt a flicker of optimism that I was doing something mildly worthy. Even without the headphones on, I could still hear the heartbeat echoing in my ears. There was a baby inside me. Of course there was… It was natural, innate within me to be able to cope with being a mother. My senses were momentarily awakened by what I had just heard. I would ask Annie to let me hear it often enough to keep me thinking positively about the birth, which was now so close. The shift in my emotion was so slight, but it gave me enough energy to get up from the bed and go to the window. Outside a few clouds had gathered to create a grey tinge to the sky and the ocean looked wide and empty. It made me feel uneasy. I thought about the baby and the responsibility. I was incapable before, why would I be capable now. I would have no choice but to be its mother. That choice had been removed from me before, too easily when I look back now. But today I was a fully grown woman, able to make my own decisions and those for a helpless infant.

The baby would want to be, fed, cuddled and taken out. It would be solely reliant on me. The thought made the panic rise from my stomach to my throat. I slowly backed away from the window and the vast endless sea and went back to the security of the bed.