It was Jon’s turn to go and check round the old gardens, to see if there was anything worth gathering from them. Nell was pregnant again, and the journey was getting a bit too much for her.
There was no food worth getting from this one, but there was a beautiful rose bush growing there.“Nell would like that,” Jon thought. “I’ll come back another day and dig it up for her.”
In another garden, however, Jon spotted some smaller plants. Now those he could dig up and carry home with him.“Nell deserves something lovely. And this will make her smile!”
Going into labour after everyone had gone fishing was not such a smart idea, Nell decided, in between contractions.
Fortunately, in the stillness of the island, sound carried well – and they all came rushing back in time to panic in traditional fashion.
It was a boy! A baby boy! His name was Joshua – and they were going to be sleeping children in shifts again from now on. Never mind – they’d managed before, and they’d manage again. But more living space was a must.
Nell and Jon had gone out exploring - alone together for once. Jon turned to her.
“Nell, you’ve done so well – keeping the whole family together, and happy. I just wanted to tell you that I’m so glad I married you.”
“But if you hadn’t married me, an Istrian, we wouldn’t have had to run for it. We wouldn’t have ended up here.” Nell’s private worry finally surfaced.
“If I hadn’t married you, I would have missed out on so much happiness. Nell, I wouldn’t change a thing. I would do it all over again, even if I knew what was coming.”
He drew her close to him.“I’m not sorry at all. Not one little bit! Let me prove it to you…”
Perdita, like her sister before her, was becoming quite an expert little fisherman. Or fishergirl! She liked the quiet and the solitude, the time to think. And she really liked knowing that what she did helped the whole family.
They sat round the fire that night, eating the food that she had caught, and Perdita felt as though her heart would burst with happiness listening to their praises and thanks.
Jon was playing with his son, laughing as Joshua pulled at his hair. Nell watched from a distance, content herself at the sight of another happy child. Jon’s words to her, a while back, had taken away her guilt, her feeling that somehow this had all been her fault, for being an Istrian.
Penny was up in the night, looking after Joshua.“If I ever have a child of my own, I’ll know what to do,” she thought. “But who will I marry? Who is there for me to have a child by?” The thought niggled at the back of her mind. What was going to happen in the future?
Janet was old enough to learn to fish, and Nell – a pregnant Nell – was teaching her.“Well, we’d both always wanted five children,” she thought. “And it looks like we’re going to have them. Oh well – the more, the merrier, I suppose!”
Food was now plentiful. With so many people helping to produce it, there was time in the day for other things – time to talk together, play together, without always feeling that there was something else urgent to get on with. Jon’s chess set was getting well-used, and even Janet was becoming quite a good little player. The evening meals round the fire were a peaceful and enjoyable time, the firelight dancing on their faces, glancing off Istrian darkness and Sautach fairness, lighting up their eyes and their smiles. There was a little boy asleep in the crib, and another child growing in Nell’s womb. They all felt it, this sense of having turned a corner, of finally establishing themselves properly on this little patch of land.
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