Page 29 of The Women at Ocean's End

‘Thanks, but I’m not very hopeful.’

‘Why not?’ Sonia swung round to look at her.

‘Because there are no female rangers and you can see for yourself, in this area, well, it’s less likely to happen than maybe anywhere.’

‘Do you really want this job?’ Sonia asked.

‘Of course.’ Ros sighed. ‘Honestly, I’ve never wanted anything more and I think I could be good at it, I think I could make a real contribution.’

‘Then it’s even more important that a woman gets it, wouldn’t you say?’ Sonia smiled and winked at her before heading towards a Mini Cooper parked just outside the gate.

18

Constance

Constance had never imagined she’d have to make a phone call like this, but it was the very least she could do for Dot. True enough, she wasn’t exactly the most regular church-goer on the island, but then, no-one expected someone of her age to walk halfway across the island every week, essentially a ten-mile round trip at eighty-plus years of age. She smiled, thinking that age sometimes turned out to be a dispensation once you got so far along.

Of course, she reminded herself as she picked up the phone and dialled the phone number to what had once been the priest’s house, times had changed. After old Father Hanratty died a decade earlier, there was no priest to spare for a small parish, particularly when vast parishes on the mainland were being chunked together and ministered to by men who in many cases were long past their sell-by date. In place of a parish priest, or even a curate – who were rarer than hen’s teeth these days – they had a parish administrator. He took care of everything from booking masses to scheduling the priest’sonlinediary (if you don’t mind) so the priest could fit in funerals and weddings alongside his work on the mainland. Finbar Lavin managed the parish on a daily basis, from making sure the church doors were oiled to printing out the weekly parish bulletin. He’d even had a go at tuning the old pipe organ and he’d made a fair job of that too, by all accounts. Of course, that was only his part-time job.Finbar was an islander, a true islander, and so he was as happy on the sea as he was on the land.

‘Ah, Constance, is it yourself that’s in it?’ he said and she could imagine his eyes creasing with a broad smile as he spoke. She’d known him from when he was a boy and taught him in the local school when he was old enough to attend; she’d always had a soft spot for Finbar. Back in the day, a group of the kids from around the island would come to Ocean’s End each year and pick the fruit trees that neither she nor her mother had time to tend. There was always too much fruit and they only stayed their best for a very short time. Constance hated to see fruit rotting on the tree, especially when the local kids had such fun gathering it up. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m afraid, as you might have guessed, it’s not a wedding I’m after, so…’ It was a joke between them. When Finbar was a boy of no more than seven, he’d asked her to marry him and at the ripe old age of thirty-eight Constance had solemnly promised that one day she would. They’d laughed about it many times over the years. ‘It’s my friend Dotty, I don’t know if Heather mentioned her, when you brought her over? Her mother?’

But why would she? Heather had taken the urn carrying her mother’s ashes from a large suitcase and placed it wordlessly on the hall table.

‘She and I were the best of friends, but…’ There was no point going into all the nonsense that had kept them apart for years. ‘Well, she’d like to be buried here, Finbar, and I’m not sure what we need to do to…’ Constance wondered, did everyone hedge around the language of death and funerals or was it just her?

‘Of course, of course, I’ll help you in any way I can,’ he said and she felt as if he’d reached out and taken her hand affectionately in his. ‘Would she have liked to be buried here in the cemetery or was she hoping for something a little less formal?’

Constance knew Finbar’s own father had had his ashes buried at sea. That was forty years ago now and it had been the talk of the island for weeks, probably years afterwards. Fortunately, his mother, Mary Lavin, took other people’s opinions in her stride and perhaps she had the only solace a young widow could have by knowing that her husband’s wishes had been granted.

‘No, nothing too flamboyant, but I suppose I’ll need to talk to Heather. I think she might like to be buried with her own mother. Of course, if that isn’t possible then…’ Dotty’s mother was buried alone, her father – well, that was another story and Constance knew it wasn’t one for today either. ‘You see, her mother is buried in a single plot, I suppose she assumed that Dotty would be buried in London.’

Constance had bought her own plot years ago. It wasn’t a morbid decision. It had happened quite out of the blue. She’d been sitting next to her mother’s grave and realised she knew exactly where she wanted to be buried. The old graveyard had a few ragged-looking yew trees – it was hard to grow anything much on this side of the island – and was perched on the side of a hill with magnificent views but little in the way of shelter. However, favourable placing close to the scant remains of a famine wall had allowed a small oak to take root and, that day, it had seemed to stand some chance of survival.

Constance had stood next to it and looked across as clouds chased their own shadows over the hills opposite. In the distance, the village – roughly a dozen buildings snuggled together – looked lovelier than she’d ever seen it before. Far off, she could see the glint of evening light hit off the Atlantic as the tide turned and waves rolled with frothing vigour towards the shore. She’d imagined being buried here meant she could always keep watch over her husband, lying somewhere out there in the vastness.

The following morning she’d marched down to the parish priest’s house with two hundred pounds in her pocket and purchased a plot big enough for two. Not that she had a sinner to share it with; the sea had taken her husband and never given him back. At the other side of the graveyard, her mother rested beneath a tall, old-fashioned Celtic cross and a poem from her own collection. It seemed wrong to be buried next to her mother. As if she was somehow pushing in where she was no longer needed, and a single plot, well, it was just too tragic for words, wasn’t it? The old priest had smiled and taken her money. He’d marked off her plot on a book held in the parish office and probably pocketed half the amount for a gambling habit he’d never hidden as well he had imagined.

‘She’d be welcome to be buried in my plot, if that’s okay with Heather either,’ Constance said and, for the first time since she’d bought the plot, she actually felt a shiver run through her. There was no longer any question, but she would be ending up in there at some point and that time was surely drawing closer with every day.

‘Heather? The English woman? I thought she was London through and through?’

‘Ara, Finbar, she’s one of us really. Didn’t I just tell you her mother lived here at Ocean’s End and she spent almost every summer as a young girl walking along that beach with me. Surely you must remember her?’ Although Heather probably could be a year either side of Finbar.

‘Now you say it, I think I do remember her. It’s funny, I’d all but forgotten your summer visitors from all those years ago,’ he said, but it was a long time ago, no reason why he should remember. ‘I’m sorry to hear about her mother, anyway. I could call up, if you wanted, or if you’d like to pop over to the church here we can have a chat and maybe Heather could decide thenwhere she thinks her mother would prefer. I can collect you both this evening after dinner, if it suits?’

‘Are you sure it’s not too much bother?’ Constance asked, but of course she knew that for Finbar, nothing had ever been a bother. He was a man who covered a lot of ground every day; although he worked hard, he’d never be a millionaire in terms of material goods, but maybe he was wealthy in more important ways that mattered.

‘Of course not, I’ll be expecting a cup of tea though,’ he said, laughing as they ended the call.

Constance stood for a little while in the hallway. Dot’s ashes still sat on the hall table. It seemed an incongruous place for them and so Constance picked up the urn, which was heavier than she’d expected, and carried it through to what had once been a grand reception room. The window looked out across the bay and to the north and south at either end.

‘Here you go, Dot.’She’d like it here, Constance thought, it was always their spot. They’d sit here often and watch as the nights would draw in and Dotty would dream of the bright lights of London and the glamorous lives they were both going to live.Ah, well, best-laid plans. Constance had made it as far as teacher training college, where she’d met Oisin. They’d been a match from the very first moment; the fact that he was charmed by Pin Hill only sealed the deal. Looking back, she was pretty sure that if Dotty had found any glamour in London it was fleeting.

The rain outside was meant to skirt by the island, but for now, it beat against the house with the ferocity of a gale. Constance went back to the kitchen and pulled out a drawer in the dresser. She ran her hands around the back of it, until they came across the old candles she kept there. There were too many blackouts on the island to take a chance on being left in the dark for days on end.

There was no need to light one yet, but somehow, there was a sense of ease in knowing it was here with a box of matches nearby if they were needed.

---