Page 30 of The Women at Ocean's End

19

August 1957

Dotty

Danger had not always skulked in dark corners or at least if it had, Dotty managed to get through life until that day beneath the stairs blithely unaware of it. Now, she wondered if in fact it had always hung in the air, like the cobwebs under Constance’s bed that she didn’t realise were there, until she did, and now she checked each night with an old duster attached her mother’s hardly used broom.

Dotty sighed; she’d rather have had the spiders. She chewed her fingernail, pulling away the raw skin so it hurt and bled and she had to wrap it up in her hanky. A new habit, she hardly knew she was doing it until her mother scolded her. ‘Really, Dotty, I can’t think what’s got into you.’ It seemed to be a constant refrain since that day when they’d come home to find her in the lemon dress. Something else had slipped between them into an invisible crack that Dotty could not quite locate, as if her mother had guessed at secrets Dotty did not want to share and maybe more: that they both knew the truth of what lurked at the very centre of their family.

Dotty exhaled, cursing herself for being so melodramatic. There was nothing else, just that day beneath the stairs. She had to get a grip of herself, it couldn’t be what she thought; herfather was a good man. He had a war medal, after all. And there had been nothing else, no other sign that he was a bad man. At night, Dotty lay in bed, listening while her parents shut up the house for the evening. Her mother’s quick step on the stairs, followed by her father’s slower, considered pace. Sometimes, he would linger at her door, as if about to say goodnight, and her imagination went into overdrive. Would he try to turn the handle? Would he try to push his way past the chair that she’d wedged behind it because she was afraid? He never did, of course he never did. It was silly. Dotty by name and dotty by nature, wasn’t that what Sister Benildus said about her all the time. Dotty knew with the sensible part of her brain she was being childish, just a loopy kid, making up danger where it never existed in the first place.

But then, her father would switch off the electric light in the hallway and the house would plunge into darkness. She would suddenly be overtaken by panic, it felt as if she was drowning in grim shadow that went on forever, stealing her breath, quickening her heart, emptying her very soul. Sometimes, she just sat there and touched her face to feel if the tears that fell from her eyes were real, because she couldn’t be sure if they were hers. It felt as if this life suddenly belonged to some other girl, who looked like her and sounded like her, but she was somehow less than she had been before that day her father had tried to…

At odd times, she found herself touching other things too, as if to confirm that they were actually solid things to be relied upon: the crimson petals on her mother’s roses, the spine of a book, the sharp edge of the kitchen knife. It felt as if she hadn’t slept properly in ages, afraid to close her eyes, she sat up in her bed, her elbows propped on the pillow, her palms beneath her chin to keep her head supported. She was going mad and she had to remind herself it was for no good reason.Her father would never… She’d never been truly afraid of anything in her wholelife – well, maybe she’d been a bit afraid when Sister Benildus talked about the raging fires of hell and it being like trying to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle to get into heaven. Honestly, she’d pinned her eyes narrowly on Dotty when she said it, as if she already knew what lay ahead for her. She’d never been afraid of Sister Benildus, not like Constance was, but then all the nuns made a thing of Constance just because her father was away.

For all their great resemblance, Dotty thought she couldn’t be more opposite to her mother. Sylvie Wren was one of those women who thought every problem could be fixed with a good mop and a liberal dose of elbow grease. The house was empty now, her mother gone to the shops to pick up sausages for tea. Dotty was sitting in the kitchen; the dripping tap was the only aberration in her mother’s drive for perfect neatness in their home. Dotty liked the sound of it or perhaps she liked its predictability. In the utter silence it seemed to fill the whole street with its steady rhythm. It was nice, having the place to herself. She was curled up on the armchair in the kitchen, satisfied after having searched through the kitchen cupboards that her mother had not hidden some treat that she might nibble at, when a noise outside made her stir.

Probably that plague of a cat from next door. Constance had it trailing about the place after her all the time, well, he could bloody well stay on her side of the wall and be content with that. A light shower had cleared and through the open window the aroma of her mother’s sweet peas drifted pleasantly on the evening air.

‘Well, this is a nice how do you do.’ Her father appeared at the back door, as if out of nowhere, and Dotty roused herself with a start. She must have fallen asleep, because the clock above the range said it was an hour later than she expected. ‘Has your mother not got the tea ready yet?’

‘She’s getting sausages, she thought you were…’ Even from the opposite side of the kitchen she could smell a strong odour of alcohol. He must have visited some pub on his way home. Her stomach churned, reminding her of the last time her father had been close to her and smelled of drink.

‘It’s been a bloody hard day and the least a man should be able to expect is a bit of dinner on the table when he arrives home. I swear to God, if I had to spend another hour in that bloody shop today, I think I’d have rammed Jem Hannon’s measuring tape down his throat.’ He shook his head. Her father hated his job and never tired of talking about how much everyone there annoyed him.

‘So, she’ll be gone a while,’ he said, pushing out the scullery door behind him and leaning against it with emphasis.

‘No, she’ll be home soon,’ Dotty said, her voice giving away the fact that she was trying to convince herself of that as much as him. ‘Any minute now, I’d say…’

‘Not too soon, I hope.’ He was smiling at her now. ‘What say you and I play a little game?’

‘I don’t like games.’

‘This is a new game, you haven’t played it before, it’s only for us.’ He began to loosen his tie and moved slowly towards her. ‘Let’s see, I’ll take off my tie and you…’

‘I…’ Dotty was frozen, for one awful second an ice age had stolen into her very heart, terror transfixed her. The sound of one of her mother’s planters crashing from the wall outside startled both of them it seemed, because her father turned towards the window. Just for a second, it was all it took. Suddenly, Dotty knew, it was time to move. She jumped from the chair, slipped behind her father’s back and hurled herself through the back door before he had a chance to call her back.

There was only one place she could think to hide. Mr Morrison’s shed. Lickey had lost interest in it after pilferinganything that caught his eye. Dotty was out of breath by the time she pushed through the rough wooden door. She bent over double for a moment, trying to calm her breathing and her racing thoughts. And then, she started to cry, fat tears racing down her cheeks so fast she thought she might drown in them. She searched around the little shed, not prepared to admit what she was looking for, but knowing, deep down, that if she came across another bottle of poitín she would glug down a huge mouthful to numb the pain. There was none. No surprise, Lickey and his mates had taken anything worth taking. Just one sip, she thought, would have made this bearable. Just one sip.

20

Constance

The sound of the back door being pushed in woke Constance with a start. She opened her eyes to see Heather returning from her walk along the beach, soaked to the skin, of course. Constance had assumed she was in the village. She brought with her that vital aroma of sea air and salty freshness.

‘You look as if you had a good bracing walk.’

‘I forgot how cold it can be here, especially when it decides to turn to winter in an instant.’ Heather shivered, but Constance thought she looked as if someone had switched her on in the few days since she’d arrived on the island. That lacklustre deadness that had lurked behind her eyes and the city grey that no make-up could cover over on her skin had been replaced by a glow that took years off her. Constance didn’t ask what had been weighing Heather down in London, but it was very obvious that being here on the island was healing whatever had been crushing over her before.

Constance told her about the phone call with Finbar.

‘The guy with the boat?’

‘The one and same.’

‘Is he a priest as well?’

‘No, of course not, but he takes care of the church and looks after the parish administrative tasks. There wasn’t a rush to take it on when they needed someone, but Finbar offered and somehow the diocese found money to pay him after a year ortwo. Now, there are a few around the place who wouldn’t mind the job, but the fact is, the best man for the parish has managed to find himself in it.’ That was the truth as far as Constance could tell it.

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