Page 21 of The Women at Ocean's End

‘Here? She’s coming to stay here? In the rooms upstairs?’ Ros said then, as if she just realised something very important. ‘But Constance, the room, it’s…’ She threw her hands up in the air. ‘It’s… You can’t put anyone sleeping in there with the state of it at the moment.’ And she shot up from the table.

‘Hold on… what’s wrong with it that a bit of heat won’t put right?’ Constance asked, because honestly, no-one had touched the room in years, it should be perfect, if a little dated.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but it’s damp and it smells of mould and…’

‘Neglect?’ Constance slumped into her seat.

‘Well, let’s say, it needs about twenty years of spring cleaning and a lot of freshening up.’ Ros was too kind to say what they both knew: the rooms upstairs were probably in worse repair than the ones downstairs. ‘Look, I’ll just run up and open a window; do you have anything I can spray to cover over the…?’ She cut her words short, perhaps trying to be delicate so as not to cause offence. Instead she walked to the kitchen sink and emptied out a basin, filled it with hot water and added a good measure of washing powder. ‘I’ll just spend an hour up there; if I open the windows for a few days, I’m sure the place will be right as rain.’ She stood at the door for a second. ‘I don’t suppose you have an electric blanket?’

‘An electric blanket?’ Constance repeated, feeling a little stupid now; obviously she hadn’t properly thought this through.

‘Never mind, I’ll see if we can’t find one somewhere on the island to borrow for a few days until we can get one over from the mainland. We can make sure the bed is aired and if the place is nice and fresh, it’ll be lovely.’ Ros was still talking as she raced upstairs and Constance followed her out into the hallway, already feeling terribly guilty for having made the commitment to Heather without thinking it through.

‘Not…’ Constance broke off, but of course, she knew Ros wouldn’t think of putting Heather into the room the crows had broken into.

‘I thought perhaps the large room at the front?’ Ros waited midway between steps.

‘Perfect, the guest room, that’ll be perfect.’ Constance sighed with a small measure of relief.

13

Heather

A few days later, it was the woman from the pop-up bookshop in Charing Cross who messaged Heather with the news that she’d found a couple of Maggie Macken’s novels among others in a box that she had agreed to take.

‘Don’t you want to keep them for yourself?’ Heather asked, because the woman had seemed keen to pick up copies of her own.

‘Some of these I already have, the rest are yours if you want them,’ the woman said. ‘It’s your lucky day, but you’ll need to come before lunch, because I’m off to the dentist in the afternoon.’

‘Perfect.’ Heather knew that even if the books were the same as the ones she’d unearthed on her mother’s shelves, she was going to buy anything she could lay her hands on.

The stall was quiet, as Heather had expected, although inside the coffee shop seemed to be busy. It was, she could see, quite the place for gathering hipsters and the young and self-consciously upwardly mobile in the area. Through the glass door, she spotted a few pushchairs that looked more Rolls-Royce than casual stroller – wealthy wives with nothing to do but gossip and drink coffee. Heather remembered a time when the idea of having a baby seemed like a possibility. That was all a long time ago; funny, but even now, it still hurt in a dull sort of way when she thought about it.

‘My son agrees with us, by the way.’ The woman was packing one paperback after another into the tote bag Heather had brought along.

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, he thinks that they are ripe for republishing. He said any publisher worth his salt would be mad not to pay to get his hands on them, just to get them out into the world.’

‘Your son is a fan?’ Heather hadn’t thought the books would be enjoyed by young men, but what did she know?

‘No, I’m sorry to say he’s not, he sticks to crime and thrillers, but he’s a literary agent and he’s always on the lookout for something he can help make into the nextbig thing.’ The woman put her fingers up to make air quotes as she said it and she smiled fondly. ‘He’s always been the same, mad about books and a born salesman – he’s only starting out, but he’s already making a name for himself.’

‘You must be very proud,’ Heather said and she wondered again what it must be like to have a child and watch them grow into the person you had hoped they would become. ‘Well, you never know, maybe he’ll discover the next Maggie Macken and we’ll all be queuing to buy her books in Waterstones when they come out.’

‘You really are a fan.’ The woman handed over the bag of books to her. ‘These must have been stashed under a bed for a few years, certainly, sealed up, they’re like new,’ she said proudly, flipping over the pages of one she was keeping for herself. There was time to spare, it was the one thing Heather had too much of these days, and she found herself telling the woman about her own connection to the books, that her mother had known Maggie Macken and she’d been best friends with Constance for years. ‘Oh, well, now, there’s a real connection.’

‘I’m going to see her soon to…’ There was no need to tell this woman about the fact that she was returning to bring her mother’s ashes to their final resting place.

‘Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be going on a little holiday.’

‘Well, it’s not a holiday exactly…’ Heather began.

‘What’s not a holiday exactly?’ a familiar voice said from behind her. She turned to see Philip, standing there and eating an apple as if he was out for a day trip and had all the time in the world to loiter about second-hand bookstalls. Of course, just like Heather, her ex-husband probably had too much time on his hands. When they’d sold their chain of flower shops, he’d had even less of an idea of what he wanted to do with himself than she had, if that was possible. The one thing they did know was that it was a sweet deal and they’d be crazy not to take it. Perhaps they’d both been relieved that their ties were completely severed; even if the divorce had been amicable, who wanted to go to work and face their ex day after day?

‘This one, she’s only off to Ireland, isn’t she? Hobnobbing with the literary crowd too, by the sounds of things.’

‘Hardly,’ Heather sighed, because the way the woman put it made it sound a million miles from the reality of what she was facing on Pin Hill Island.

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