Page 27 of The Women at Ocean's End

She flung open the door of the jeep and leapt from it, onto the overgrown gravel path, racing towards the woman who had meant so much to her when she was young.

‘It’s been too long. I’m so sorry, I should have called or written or something…’ And then, tears were moistening her eyes as she buried her head in Constance’s shoulder and neck and she was overcome with a feeling of love and belonging such as she’d never really felt before.

‘Don’t be silly, I’m just glad you’re here now. Come on in, pet.’ All the while, with her soothing voice, it felt as if Constance wascomforting Heather, with pats on her back and the very essence of lily of the valley coming from her clothes and even her hair.

‘I never thought, I never realised…’ What? Heather knew what, she knew exactly what – she had missed this place, even though it had only been the stem of a memory, from the very root of her childhood, she had missed this place, as others miss a loved one. ‘I’m so glad to be back here, Constance, so glad.’ And she knew, it didn’t matter if the whole house fell down around them, she was just glad to be here.

‘Don’t be fretting now, I have tea in the pot and sure, doesn’t that always make things better,’ Constance said in that lovely soft accent and Heather felt herself carried along between her bags and her baggage and Ros and Finbar and of course Constance into the welcoming embrace of Ocean’s End.

17

Ros

Heather proved a godsend. That’s what Constance called her and Ros, although she’d never been one much for gods or angels or saints, thought Constance might be right.

It was Heather who supplied the smart suit that Ros wore as she waited to be called into the interview room. It was, she realised, the first time she’d ever had to wear a suit for an interview. Before this, she’d fallen into jobs. Her first job, with Wild Bird Ireland, had been a lucky break – she had ambled up to a table on careers day at university, struck up a conversation and ended up falling into an internship of sorts starting the week after she graduated. Her last job working in a busy city centre bar had simply been a case of spotting a notice in the window and asking for the job. So far as she knew, in both cases, she’d been the only applicant. This thought didn’t exactly bolster her confidence for today, but in an effort to be optimistic, she had to admit that at least she was the only candidate sitting here and waiting for an interview. In fact, there was only one chair placed in the corridor outside the interview room.

She suspected the room was used for everything and anything, but someone had stuck a foolscap page on the door with sticky tape, grandly asking for ‘Quiet please, interviews in progress’.

She’d been sitting here for almost half an hour now, waiting for someone to call her in, afraid to take the notes from her pocket that Heather and Constance had helped her to write upfor the interview. They’d been bloody smashing, both of them, really. Constance so wanted her to get this job, sometimes it felt as if she wanted it just as much as Ros did herself. As for Heather – well, she probably had more experience interviewing people for jobs than any number of old hands that might be wheeled out to grill her today.

And Ros knew she would be grilled. Because even if she’d done a brilliant job, it was fairly obvious, the more she talked to people, there had never been a female ranger in this neck of the woods. Certainly, there had never been one stationed on any of the islands in the history of the state. From what she could see, thanks to the website, female rangers mostly ended up in desk jobs. They were to all intents and purposes glorified secretaries and administrators.

When she’d told Max she was applying for his old job, he’d nearly choked on the cup of tea his sister had handed him. It wasn’t that she was underqualified; Max’s only qualification for the job was that he’d worked for a few years with inland fisheries and he’d had a yearning to get away from it all. Island life – or maybe it was more reclusive life – suited him. He told her he’d been the only applicant for the job. That was twenty-five years ago. Now the ranger’s job was better paid, it meant graduates with all sorts of experience would be interested in the post. ‘Apparently,’ he told her with some amusement, ‘there’s a fella over in Ballycove who spent the last twenty years working with a foundation to save the Indian tiger. He’s come back to Ireland because his kids are ready for college and his wife has had enough of hot weather to last her a lifetime.’ Well, she’d never be able to compete with that. She knew too, the added bonus of a free cottage thrown in made it even more attractive.

Ros sighed; she loved everything about the role and not just the cottage. Although she had to admit that having a place to call her own was a sort of heaven she’d never dared to dream shemight experience. The job was challenging at times, but it was fulfilling in a way she’d never imagined work could be and she adored the island, everything about it, from the people to the landscape. She loved it in every season. Even on those days when the rain felt as if it might cut slices from your skin, she loved watching it dance on the water in the distance. She had friends here, good friends, chief among them Constance. In fact, maybe because they had no-one else, Constance felt more like family than a friend, like a great old aunt you were particularly fond of, while still feeling that intense bond of something that went deeper than just the blood running through your veins.

Constance was a one-off. She lived like a poor church mouse and yet always had somethinginfor when Ros called to visit. It made her feel as if she couldn’t do enough for her. Clearing a path or making up the room for Heather coming to stay seemed such small things in return for the deepest friendship she’d ever experienced in her life.

She found herself smiling as the door opposite opened to reveal a familiar face.

‘Shane?’ she managed and felt her cheeks go red. For a second she felt as if she’d lost her balance, trying to figure out if he was interviewer or interviewee. But there was an air about him, unmistakable: he was here to impress. ‘You applied for the job?’ She couldn’t quite believe it. Why on earth hadn’t he mentioned anything when they’d talked about it on the island? And then, suddenly, her next thought – if she herself was overqualified, Shane was overqualified with bells on, she hadn’t a snowball’s chance against him.

‘Yeah, sure, it seems like a nice job and you weren’t sure you’d go for it, so I thought…’ He managed to look embarrassed. Then he remembered where he was and looked back towards the interview room behind him. ‘I think I’d really enjoy the work and make a big difference, so of course I had to apply.’

‘But you’re…’ Ros wanted to say a consultant, a freelancer, an environmental engineer. But of course, all of those things meant nothing and everything if he just wanted a place to put down roots and make a living each week that didn’t fluctuate depending on when clients chose to pay him.

‘Perfectly suited to the job?’ he smiled and she felt as if she was just giving him an opportunity to impress the interviewers within earshot even further. ‘I know, but I just feel a real connection to the place. I want to be a part of restoring it to what it could be with a little care.’

‘Oh, well…’ She wasn’t sure what to say. Later, she would try and find something positive about sitting there like a rabbit caught in headlights and the best thing she could come up with was that at least all thoughts of that near kiss had deserted her. The embarrassment she might have expected to feel had evaporated in the face of almost certain defeat.

The nerves Ros had struggled with earlier multiplied when a woman appeared in the doorway behind Shane. Sonia Mellet introduced herself. She sashayed her way into the middle chair behind a long table that was serving as an interview desk. On either side she was flanked by two old codgers who looked as if they’d been dug out of a locked cabinet from the cold war. At the end of the desk, Keith Duff shuffled papers as if he’d lost his lunch money and it was long past his dinner time.

‘So.’ Sonia fixed Ros with an even stare. ‘You’ve been filling in the ranger’s post for the last couple of weeks?’ She glanced at the CV before her, but her voice softened as she murmured her name. ‘Ros?’

‘Weeks, well actually it’s months, really, I’m there since the start of last summer, so nearly a year in fact…’ she said, and if the temperature was freezing in the atmosphere from the end of the table, she found herself warming to Sonia – two women together in a male-dominated industry.

‘Yes, about that…’ One of the older men, Tom, looked at her now. ‘Well done, I’ve read some of your reports, you’ve done a fair job, considering…’ He sniffed loudly.

‘And so I suppose, we’re on to your education and suitability for the post. You seem well qualified for the job?’

‘Yes,’ Ros answered and began to expand on her degree course and elements of it that she thought most relevant to being a wildlife ranger.

‘Won’t you get lonely, out there on the island?’ the other older man – Captain Jeffers – asked. ‘You’re from the city originally?’

‘I am from Dublin. But I don’t have family there any more. My mum died, before I graduated, and there had always been just the two of us, so…’

‘That’s unfortunate,’ Tom murmured.

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