Page 34 of The Women at Ocean's End

‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s a long walk and what are the paths like…?’

‘Don’t worry, we have them well cleared back and plenty of space for us to link you on either side.’

‘I’m sure I won’t need linking,’ Constance said quickly. Ros smiled. Constance hated the idea that anyone would think she was in any way dependent on other people. It was why she insisted on baking each day and plying everyone who came through the door with her hospitality. She wasn’t giving in that she couldn’t take care of herself and anyone else who needed it also.

They made the walk slowly and carefully down along the path. It felt to Ros as much like a pilgrimage as it did a walk to see the little house. From the outside, it looked sad and tragic and she assumed that inside would tell a similar tale, but it was part of Heather’s history. Ros had made her mind up that she would ignore the cracking plaster and rotting wood she absolutely expected to find inside those grimy windows and tired curtains.

‘Actually, it’s quite…’ Ros surprised herself, because she’d never seen anywhere quite like the inside of the cottage.Quirkywas the only word she could think of – a tiny art deco bolthole that with a liberal application of elbow grease could be the perfect getaway or refuge, depending on which you needed. Of course there were spiders and cobwebs and it looked dated, but there were dried logs stacked in an orderly pile next to the stove, cups, saucers and plates neatly displayed in the sideboard and two chairs pulled in at the table, which had an empty vase upon it, just waiting for someone to pop freshly cut flowers in it. The cottage had the air of a place that someone had tidied up before leaving and closing the door behind them with a firm click and a resolve to return at some point, not yet specified.

‘I’m pleasantly surprised, I have to admit.’ Constance smiled and she placed her arm around Heather’s shoulder, squeezing the woman and perhaps thinking that the place would have some greater resonance with her than with either herself or Ros.

‘It’s cute,’ Heather said, ‘and I think I remember being here as a child.’

‘I’m not sure that you ever stayed here. When you came over, I generally put you both up in the main house. Your grandmother refused to move out. This was her home, but you can see the bedrooms are tiny. Monks and prisoners probably have bigger cells.’

‘Oh, but they are connected, how lovely must that have been,’ Ros said, pushing through the door between the two bedrooms. She stood for a moment, looking at the narrow bed that she guessed must have belonged to Heather’s grandmother. It was an old-fashioned cast-iron bed, larger than a single and yet not quite a double. Like the rest of the cottage, it was a study in straight lines, there were no affectations beyond the flashes of brass at the four corners.

The whole place was very much of its time and in keeping with the design of Ocean’s End. At the foot of the bed there was a folded patchwork quilt. It looked hand-sewn. On the tablenext to the bed was a black and white photograph of two young girls, one of them she recognised as Constance and the other had to be Heather’s mother – she was the spitting image of her daughter. The dressing table had been cleared, apart from a long thin comb and a paperback novel. In the corner, there was a tiny fireplace, cast iron and painted white – or at least, Ros assumed it had been white, a very long time ago. There were cobwebs and dust and signs around the windows that they let in plenty of draughts, but it was charming too. Perhaps it was its size, but she imagined that with a fire in the grate, it would be like a womb on a night when the winds howled up from the ocean beyond the garden walls.

‘I’m glad we came here,’ Heather said. She was standing at the end of the main room, a sort of sitting room/kitchen that was hardly big enough by today’s standards to be either. ‘I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it’s lovely to see it. It’s the strangest thing, I have no memory of her, but I feel as if my grandmother is still lingering here, in some small way. Maybe it’s the fact of her apron just left hanging on the hook there and the idea that…’

She reached out and touched the tap, turned it on and waited until water scraped along the pipes and spat into the sink in a few brown-coloured splashes. ‘She must have turned this tap on a million times when she lived here,’ Heather said softly.

‘Probably ten million if I knew her,’ Constance said. ‘She was a devil for washing her hands at every turn. It was as if it was schooled into her from an early age, if her hands weren’t busy chopping or mixing, they were underneath the flowing water. She was such a lovely woman,’ she said sadly and it was clear that she, more than any of them, felt the weight of ghosts who had left here long ago, breathing in the heavy air from across the miles of time.

They stood there for a while, picking up little bits and pieces and examining them. Heather spent ages looking at a picture onthe wall of a couple that Constance supposed were her great-grandparents. Eventually, the screech of a lone bat swooping about the garden reminded Ros that they needed to walk back to the house. As gorgeous and all as this little cottage was, it wasn’t worth risking Constance tripping on the path in the dusky evening light. As they picked their way carefully along the path, each of them seemed to be lost in their own thoughts.

‘If only we could turn back time,’ Constance said to no-one in particular after they’d eaten steak and kidney pie that Heather had picked up in the supermarket earlier that day.

‘Oh, my, wouldn’t that be just marvellous,’ Ros exclaimed and clapped her hands together. ‘But maybe we could in a way. You know, bring that little cottage back to life and…’ She only realised after she spoke that the idea of it really made her feel quite excited. ‘I mean, even if it was just to have it as a place to keep guests, there’s something very special about it. Don’t you think so, Heather?’

‘I suppose. But let’s face it, I’m biased. All I could see were traces of my grandmother.’ Heather smiled and Ros thought the day had relaxed her in a way that somehow softened her out even more than all the walks she’d gone on along the beach over the last few weeks. ‘I was curious to see what it was like, but yes, it would of course be amazing to bring it back to its former glory.’

Ros suspected Heather was too diplomatic to say what they all knew – the sort of work that was needed on that cottage would cost a fortune. Probably, Ros reckoned, with a few quid, you could bring it back to a feasible standard to live in it, but it would cost a lot more to make it into a place people would want to stay.

‘I’m sure there must be good money to make here on the island in summer holiday lets…’ Heather said as if her mind was drifting.

‘Are you joking?’ Ros asked. ‘There’s an absolute fortune to be made, there’s never enough space for visitors in the summer and the local hotel charges premium rates.’

‘Ah, yes, well, they have to make hay while the sun shines. No-one wants to come for a holiday here in winter, in case they get stranded and can’t get home again for days on end,’ Constance said.

‘Still though…’ Ros could feel something like an electrical current racing through her brain. Constance could make something of that little cottage; they could help her, with some of it at least.

‘I’m afraid I can’t see myself letting the place out, even if I did have the money to invest in it now,’ Constance said in that voice she used when she was tired with not just the day, but the whole world as well.

‘I know you don’t want to hear it, Constance, it’s been a long day, but Ros could have a point,’ Heather said gently.

‘Of course she has a point, but I don’t have the sort of money needed for work like that. Over here, Heather, they make you jump through hoops before you can even hang a B&B sign outside your door, you have no idea.’ Constance rolled her eyes and maybe Ros understood. ‘Look, I’m too old to want to learn new tricks; I just want to live out my days in peace and not have to worry about the roof falling on my head,’ she snapped and with that it felt as if all the good humour of the day shattered apart at the same time.

‘Sorry, of course, I’m sorry, I just got a bit carried away. Forget I said anything.’ Heather’s cheeks reddened and she turned away.

They were all silent for a while, thinking over the day. It had been a wonderful day, so much hard work with something worthwhile achieved at the end. It seemed a shame that Constance was happy to let it fall back into weeds again for thenext forty years. Ros had a feeling that being in the cottage had meant a great deal to Heather.

‘A penny for them, Heather?’ Ros asked then, in an effort to revive the earlier light atmosphere.

‘I’m just thinking of your mother, Constance,’ Heather said. ‘And that verse on her grave, the idea that she would have liked her readers to remember her…’

‘I’ve often wondered if it isn’t why a lot of writers write, to be remembered.’ Constance said.

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