Page 41 of The Women at Ocean's End

She raced back to the house and grabbed a bundle of candles her mother had left in the scullery so long ago probably no-one remembered they were there any longer.

‘How long is he gone?’ one of the men said and Constance wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or to her.

‘Just over a week today.’ Mr Gillespie lit one of the candles, held it out towards the centre of the well. Constance held her breath, maybe even her heart stopped ticking for a moment; or at least, that’s what it felt like.

‘We’re going to have to organise someone to go down there.’

‘What?’ Constance said a little too loudly. ‘No, no, you can’t do that, it’s…’ She heard her own words break off, as if falling from a cliff. ‘Here, let me look.’ She made a bit of a show of leaning across, looking down, concentrating hard, although her eyes were firmly closed. ‘No, no, there’s nothing down there, only a tiny drop of water, nothing at all.’

‘But there’s a smell, Constance, and I’m no expert, but I know what that stink is coming out of there, it’s…’ Mr Gillespie rubbed his chin. ‘Not good.’ He stood up again, pulled the door back over the well. From there, he stalked back across the garden and soon he had gathered up a huge rope and some lengths of wood. It took no length of time for them to set up a pulley, as they had probably done when they managed to rescue Constance.

‘Who’s going down?’ said Mr Blackwell, a huge bear of a man who would surely snap the rope in half by the looks of him.

‘We’re all far too heavy. The only one we could ask to go down before was Mrs Macken,’ one of the other men said. It was true, Maggie Macken was a tiny woman just like her daughter. She would be easy to lever up and down, certainly more so than any of the men.

‘She won’t be keen on going down there again,’ one of the other men said.

‘I’ll do it,’ Constance said before she had a chance to think properly and even as she said it she felt sick to the pit of her stomach but there was nothing else for it. She couldn’t risk her mother finding Mr Wren, lying at the bottom of the well with hislunch bag and cigarette case thrown in on top of him. ‘I’ll do it, I don’t mind. I’m lighter than anyone and I’ve been down there before. But you have to be sure to pull me up when I say…’ she said and she tried hard to keep the wobble from her voice.

‘Are you certain, Constance? It’s a long way down and especially after you falling in there and all that. I mean you don’t have to, no-one expects it.’ Mr Gillespie’s voice sounded different suddenly. He was looking at her now in a way he’d never looked at her before, as if weighing her up and she somehow measured to be a much bigger person than he’d realised.

‘Of course I’m sure. Dotty is my friend and Mr Wren was always lovely to us.’ It almost stuck in her throat to say it, but she remembered all the things the nuns said about talking ill of the dead. Whatever else happened, she didn’t fancy coming face to face with a dead man after having just blackened his name. Bad enough she was half responsible for him being down there in the first place.

‘It’s a very brave thing to do,’ one of the other men said solemnly. She smiled, a watery smile, because she knew she wasn’t brave. Far from it, she was going down that well not because she was brave but because it was the only way out if she wanted to save her skin, and Dotty’s too.

‘Come on then, I don’t want to be coming up when it’s dark,’ she said, taking off her cardigan and folding it neatly on the grass.

‘Constance, are you absolutely sure about this?’ Her mother came racing down the path towards her just as Mr Gillespie was fastening the thick rope around her waist. He had wound it already beneath her bottom in a way that she supposed would feel like sitting in a chair when the ground went from beneath her feet.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Constance said with a lot more courage than she really felt. ‘I have a candle and Mr Gillespie promised to bring me back up as soon as I call out.’ And for all of that, there was a great big part of her that wanted to unfasten the ropes that held her and run as far away as she could from this bloody well and Mr Wren and everything that had gone on before.

Then, before she realised what was happening, one of the men lifted her into the well and held her there while the others gathered up the rope, tight and taut. They formed what looked like a one-sided tug-of-war team ready to gently feed her down into the darkness.

‘Your candle, lassie, don’t forget, you need to hold it away from you, you don’t want to get burned,’ one of the older men said. He handed her his lighter, a scratched silver thing that smelled as if he’d just replaced the flints, then he patted her on her head as she was lowered. ‘Watch out for rats,’ he said softly, and if she hadn’t been scared to within an inch of breathlessness, she might have screamed so loudly they’d have had no choice but to pull her back up instantly.

The rope moved slowly and she was tempted to tell the men to hurry, but a part of her was too afraid to risk any sudden noises or movements. For all she knew, there could be anything down here now or worse – although, what could be worse than the man you helped to murder? She pushed thoughts of Mr Wren from her mind on that slow journey downward, but he intruded on her in flashes in the way he’d set upon both her and Dotty in the garden that terrible afternoon. In her memory now, there was something of the wolf about him, but of course, he was just a man – even if he was a very bad man. He was just a man.

She clenched her eyes closed. She didn’t want to remember. The gentle sway of the rope, over and back, had a rhythm similar to that of rocking a cradle for a small child.Don’t think. She leaned into it, tried to concentrate on the image of those bigarms and hands holding her safely in place. Nothing was going to happen to her. She was going to be fine. She’d get near the bottom, shine her candle so they could see just a few feet above where Mr Wren was lying and then she’d call to them to pull her up again. Perhaps she’d tell them there was some smelly water down here and then maybe that would be the end of it. A badger? No-one liked badgers – they still had the repute of TB attached to them. This old well could be locked up again and forgotten about.

It took forever and still, before she knew it, she could sense she was near the bottom. Would they remember how far down they’d sent the rope before?

She knew it, before she saw it or felt it.

‘STOP!’ she screamed.

‘Are you all right, Constance?’ Her mother’s voice cut thin and clear through the gloom and Constance wanted to cry out.No. No.She wasn’t all right, she’d probably never be right again.

‘I’m fine,’ she said and then as quickly as her trembling fingers would allow she lit the candle and held it in her own shadow, careful not to let the light escape too much. She didn’t want the men at the top of the well to see any sign that Mr Wren was here.

Actually, it took a bit of figuring out the dark around her to realise that he was underneath her dangling feet. The water levels had risen and so all that was visible was his hand, lodged in against the side of the well, his bag propped up against it, as if he might pick it up at any moment and be on his way again.

Against the other side of the well, as if watching from a step above, there was a streak of black and white. Constance reached out. She couldn’t help herself. It was soft and wet and cold. A magpie. He’d been caught up in some sort of netting and now his remains seemed to dangle mid-air, suspended from where the net caught on jagged stone. From the looks of him, he’d been down here longer than Mr Wren. She moved the candle aroundto take a closer look, some sense of having been close to the bird before swelling up in her. Had she leaned against him when she was trapped down here? The candle moved slowly, across his glossy feathers; a thin ribbon had become knotted around his toes. Constance’s hair tie. She’d been wearing it that day. Had she rested her head against this poor creature? Had this been the comfort she had felt with her? She reached out to touch his wing, as if to thank him, but when it moved, she realised behind it was a bed of insects, slowly devouring the creature in a tidal frenzy. Poor Mr Magpie. They would start on Mr Wren next, probably; a horrible thought.

‘Take me up,’ she screamed then. ‘Please, bring me up.’ She had started to cry and even if she tried to figure it out, she’d never know if she was crying for the poor old bird and how pathetic he looked here at the bottom of the well, or for herself. Not once did she shed a tear for Mr Wren.

No sign. Absolutely, no Mr Wren. Only the rotting carcass of a badger.

Once she told the lie, to her mother and all of those men, that was it. She realised she was taking a quantity of blame on her shoulders that she couldn’t share with Dotty.

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