Page 1 of The Women at Ocean's End

Prologue

Galway, May 1957

Constance Macken wiped her nose with the back of her hand; her hanky was nowhere to be found and she wasn’t going back onto the street to look for it. She’d had enough of Mickey Kane calling her names and making fun of her in front of the others.The girl with no da.Her mother called him the original invisible man. ‘One minute he’d been promising me the earth, moon and stars and then quicker than you could say a baby Guinness and a chaser in the local pub, he’d hightailed it off to Dublin with the barmaid.’ That wasn’t much use to Constance, she could hardly go telling the other children that her father had run away and left them. She could scarcely admit it to Dotty, never mind anyone else.

The girl with no da. That’s what they called her, but since news of her mother’s good fortune was in the paper, it had become much worse. ‘They’re only jealous, you know that yourself,’ her best friend Dotty said, but even if she was right, and Constance doubted it, that still didn’t make things any easier.

Constance was small for her age, tiny, in fact; an easy target. At twelve years, she was still waiting to sprout up, but it felt less likely with every passing day as everyone in her class at school shot up around her. Her mother said she was like a little sparrow, not like her best friend. They were the same age and already Dotty Wren had developed curves and stood taller thanany of the boys their age. Constance sighed now. Her mother talked about going away, leaving Galway altogether, and maybe that would be for the best. She’d miss Dotty though – for all she’d be glad to leave behind in this grotty little street, she’d miss Dotty Wren.

‘There she is, boys.’ Mickey Kane’s thin voice cut through the hedges opposite. They must have slipped over the low wall at the side of Mr Wren’s garage. They wouldn’t dare come into Constance’s garden, would they? ‘Want it back? You’ll have to come and get it, Constance.’ Mickey’s hand protruded through the thick privet, waving her handkerchief over and back like a sail swaying on the high seas.

‘Give that here.’ Constance shot to her feet. She was within grasping distance of the hedge when she remembered herself. The last time they caught her, they’d held her down and forced a worm into her mouth. She still remembered the taste, the feeling of it slithering about on her tongue; she’d almost choked through tears and trying to keep it from the back of her throat. In the end, to catch her breath, she’d had to swallow it. The humiliation of it was unbearable; even now, it was like a sharp whack against her gut, doubling her up in its unexpected intensity. If she allowed it to play out in her mind, she could almost be back there lying on the pavement, holding her breath until it felt as if she was going to drown under the weight of them. Their laughter had jeered in her ears as she’d tried to stand and straighten down her vomit-covered dress.

Later, she thought of what they could have done to her. It might have been much worse. The way Glen Howard looked at her sometimes made her shudder with a revulsion she didn’t fully understand. She wasn’t sure which was worse, that numbness of being reduced to something so vulnerable or the raging fear of where it could lead to if they picked on her again.They had pinned her down, sneered at her: that was the undoing of her; she’d been completely helpless.

She shot away quickly from the hedge.

‘I don’t want it back, you’re welcome to it.’ It was her best one, her mother would surely do a dance about it, but she didn’t care. She had to sound as if it didn’t matter, like Dotty. They’d never dare hold Dotty down or call her the awful names they called Constance. Of course, Dotty had two parents. Her parents were married. She carried no shame with her everywhere she went.

‘And now, did you hear, boys, the Mackens are going up in the world. Lah-di-dah!’ Mickey tried to sound posh. ‘Probably be moving out of this dump too…’ He stepped through the hedge, inching just a little too close to Constance for her liking. ‘Will your da be coming back from England now he doesn’t have to make all that money for you?’ There was tittering laughter to that. Constance felt her cheeks flush. It was the lie she’d told once when they’d first begun to jeer her about her father.Oh, he’s gone to England to make money for us.Simple as that and Constance had trotted the lie off because she had wanted to believe it.

‘Probably, but…’ she stammered, felt her lower lip quiver, a small muscle tighten in her jaw as if she was being wound up for fight or flight. She took a deliberate step back from the boys, who were jostling so much in the hedge that the whole border was moving in waves like the ocean.

‘My ma says your mother probably made enough money on that book to buy up this whole street if she wanted to…’ That was Glen Howard, an overgrown bruiser of a boy. Glen had sat on her legs when they’d forced the worm in her mouth. His big face looming behind the others, eagerly lapping up every moment of her agony, as if she was just another creepy-crawly he’d picked up off the ground to pull apart, limb by tortured limb.

‘So?’ Constance asked, placing one foot behind the other to move away from them. She could feel the path give way to grass beneath her sandal. She was reversing gradually towards the empty garden on the other side. It was her only hope. She’d never make it to her own back door. This was what it must be like to be set upon by a tiger or a bear and know that you were within seconds of mortal ruin. All those books she’d read, they never talked about how you could feel sick with fear. Sour bile rose up in her throat now, lodging just where she remembered the worm slithering down.Holy God. Her hands were sweating, thin clammy films building up between her fingers, her palms sticky. She thought her heart might explode in her chest.Just breathe; outwit them, because they would be on her in a flash if they thought she might try to escape. One more step. She felt the border behind her that separated the Macken garden from the one next door. Mr Morrison had died months earlier. His house stood empty, waiting for someone new to take it on. So far, no-one seemed to be very keen on becoming their new neighbour. The Kelly brothers, moving as one, stepped from the hedge. They looked around, appraising the Macken back garden as if they’d landed in a tantalising oasis. Constance did a quick calculation. There wasn’t a hope she’d make it to the back door now. She was nowhere near as fast as the boys when it came to running. Hadn’t she learned that to her cost last time?

The empty house next door loomed over her like a great big silent presence. All the windows were caked in dust and cobwebs hatched by a year’s worth of neglect; it felt as if she was being watched by dangerous eyes.

There was no choice. She might just escape if she slipped through and hid in the undergrowth. From there, she could crawl along the side of Mr Morrison’s old shed and press herself through the narrow gap in the fence further along so she emerged back into her own garden just opposite the scullerydoor. The only thing stopping her was the niggling sense of fear she had about Mr Morrison’s ghost stalking about and keeping an eye on the place. Stupid. She knew it. But ever since the funeral – Dotty had insisted they look through the windows in the mortuary to see the old man laid out in his best suit –Constance had had nightmares about him. It was her first time seeing a corpse and she still hadn’t gotten over it. Added to that terror, Mr Morrison never liked children. Certainly, he’d never been keen on Constance going in to fetch her ball if it strayed across the fence.

‘All the money in the world doesn’t change what your ma is…’ One of the boys guffawed.

‘Trollop.’ They began the familiar murmuring chant that they always teased her with. They hummed it, just enough to be heard, but not so loud that anyone who wasn’t in the know would have had any idea what the taunt was. Constance gasped, tried to push down the ball of fear in her chest. Oh, how she despised them.

‘Doesn’t that make Constance Macken a little bastard?’ Lickey Gillespie said and he pushed his glasses further up his nose, as if he’d just made a brilliant discovery.

‘Little bastard. Little bastard. Little bastard.’ The chant was menacing and now they were moving towards her in intimidating steps. They would fire into a sprint any second.

Be damned with the ghosts, she’d rather take her chances with dead old Mr Morrison than have to endure another worm slithering down her throat. Or worse.

She fell rather than turned back through the small gap in the fence. It was hardly visible and, from the other side, it looked as if she had just disappeared into thin air. Once beyond the fence, she realised there was a thin run, flattened along the centre of the hedges. Foxes. They raced about at night, calling out their strange coughing sound and wakening Constance so shetossed and turned and had to beat down nightmares about Mr Morrison’s garden and what else might be living there.

Now, Constance dropped to her knees. The ground was wet and uneven here, ruptured with roots and bits of debris the old man must have raked to the side over years of clearing back for vegetables and fruits that were too bitter to entice any child to steal them.

In Constance’s throbbing ears, the filthy chorus had grown louder, threatening. Her blood ran cold and icy. There was no going back now. The garden was more overgrown than last time she was here. She’d better not miss the gap to break away from the thick foliage, otherwise she would hit a dead end and be trapped for sure. She took a deep breath, pushed further through the hedges, scratching her knees as she crawled, avoiding animal droppings and hoping that none of it clung to her clothes or her shoes.

Once through the undergrowth, Constance crawled quickly along a narrow trail made by all sorts of nocturnal creatures she preferred not to think about. Evening was drawing in, the smell of woodbine sweet and cloying in the air. Probably her mother had forgotten about the time. Ideas did that to her mother. It was not a bad thing when other children were put to bed while the sun still shone brightly and Constance could laze in the garden or flop into a chair with a book and a glass of milk from the cool cupboard beneath the kitchen sink.

Behind her, she heard the boys move closer. She hesitated, her heart thumping in her chest, suddenly disorientated, she wasn’t sure which way she should go, not without raising her head above the undergrowth. She started to move quickly. Maybe it didn’t matter so much which way she went, if she could find somewhere to hide until they gave up.

Then she heard it. A noise, a mewling, it was a lonesome whine above the voices of the boys who scrabbled somewhere behind her.

It had to be a cat, hadn’t it? Not some ghostly apparition of old Mr Morrison, giving his onions one last check from the spirit world? Constance shivered.There are no such things as ghosts. The nuns at school were adamant about that.No such thing. That’s what Sister Consietta said. Although, the nuns were great believers in purgatory even if Sister Consietta wouldn’t be drawn on where that was exactly.Stop it.Wherever it was, it certainly wasn’t at the end of Mr Morrison’s garden.

Two gardens across, she thought she heard Mr Wren’s car being reversed into the little garage he had built at the back of their house. She was tempted to call to him for help, but she feared the boys would be upon her in an instant. Mr Wren was the nicest of all the grown-ups she knew, and Constance couldn’t help wishing that he was her dad.

There it was again: a mewling sound coming from the end of the garden.

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