Page 44 of The Women at Ocean's End

‘I probably should ask Dotty first.’ Her mother hesitated.

‘Or you could tell her, see her reaction and if she doesn’t like it then maybe figure out another solution.’

‘Just tell her?’

‘Yes, Sylvie, just tell her. You’re in charge, remember. Even if Norman Wren walks in that door this minute, you always have to be in charge of what’s best for you and what’s best for Dotty.’

‘Oh God.’ Sylvie began to cry.

‘What is it?’

‘I never realised I could…’

‘Look, whatever has gone on, this could be a fresh start. We’re leaving for Pin Hill Island in two weeks, now, you can come with us, keep house, we’ll give you a fancy title and there’s a cottage, you’ll have some money and it’s safe. You know what it’s like here as soon as you are a woman without a man. They’ll turn on you as quick as milk in summer. And you’re young and far too pretty, probably even worse for you! They’ll all be expecting you to have designs on their husbands.’ Mrs Macken’s expression changed, as if the very idea was ridiculous.

‘I could be a housekeeper?’ Sylvie declared with a shot of surprise. ‘I could have a job and my own money?’

‘Not a lot of money, probably to start, but enough, and you’ll have the cottage and you’ll both eat with us, so…’

‘You’re very kind… offering me this, you didn’t have to…’

‘Far from it,’ Mrs Macken said softly. ‘It’s the least I can do, and anyway, it’ll work out well for us too. I’m a terrible cook andI can hardly manage to keep the small house here in one piece. I’ll never manage a mansion like Ocean’s End.’

‘I suppose, we’ll be going up in the world,’ Sylvie murmured.

‘It’ll be an adventure,’ Mrs Macken said and it sounded to Dotty, at least, as if it had been agreed. They were moving to Pin Hill Island with Constance and Mrs Macken and she breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t get away from this place – and the idea that her father lay dead at the bottom of the well in Mr Morrison’s garden only yards away – fast enough.

29

Constance

It was all such a long time ago and yet it was one of those things that left a mark that stained every memory Constance had of that time. It was, she knew as she woke up first thing in the morning, the reason why her life had turned out as it had. Some people had pivotal moments, you read about them in the Sunday papers –the day I won the lotteryorthe day my hair fell outorthe day I met my husband. Constance knew, or at least she had convinced herself over the years, that the day she and Dotty had orchestrated the death of Mr Wren was a pivotal day that had stained every single joy and happiness in both their lives from that day on.

Dotty had spent her life sabotaging happiness by turning her back on it and drinking down the guilt. Constance had found that even if she faced life head on and did her best to put things behind her, the price of that afternoon was always going to be exacted on the trading account of her life. God had snatched away her future that day he’d upended Oisin’s boat and seized her husband from her. She always knew, deep down, that it was the price of Mr Wren ending up in that well – she’d paid not just on the double but many times over with that one moment of loss.

‘Good Lord, Ros, you look as if you’ve been up all night,’ Constance said when Ros walked through the kitchen door that morning.

‘Well, I might as well have been. I’m hungover, if I want to admit the truth of it,’ Ros said a little sheepishly. ‘Stupid, I know, it’s the classic loser way to drown your sorrows, right?’ She dropped into a chair at the table and seemed to immediately regret the sudden movement, scrunching her eyes up with the discomfort of it.

‘Drowning your sorrows? Come on, it’s not the end of the world,’ Constance said gently, but she flicked the kettle on and began to root in the cupboards for some herbal tea that might make Ros feel a bit better. Except she wasn’t sure whether to offer hibiscus or ginger, mint or camomile, because it was hard to know if Ros needed settling or soothing or just to have her whole system shot through with something that might put the colour back in her cheeks.

‘Just tea from the pot is fine,’ Ros said as if understanding the indecision of her movements.

‘Tea, so. I suppose, you wouldn’t fancy a bit of a fry-up? I have sausages and eggs.’ She broke off her words, because Ros had turned from deathly white to a sickly greenish white. ‘Never mind, tea it is.’

They sat for a while, watching the wind whisper through the grass in the garden outside. Already, it seemed that the pathways they’d cleared over towards the kitchen garden were being swept across with encroaching dandelions and docks determined to re-establish their lost territory.

‘So, I’m guessing that…’

‘I didn’t get the job. They gave it to someone else. I was just fooling myself; I was nothing more than taking up a space on the interview list so they could offer it to someone else.’

‘I’m so sorry, it really is their loss,’ Constance said, because there was no missing the fact that Ros poured her heart into that job.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter now anyway. The job is gone. They’ve asked if I can stay on until my replacement arrives, so I suppose there is that. It’ll take a few weeks for him to get himself organised to move over here and then…’ She shrugged.

‘Oh, Ros, let’s not think about all that just yet.’ Suddenly it all seemed so final and it hit Constance like a bolt to her chest. Ros would be leaving and she realised how much this girl had come to mean to her. If there were markers in her life, certainly in this, the final chapters, the before and after meeting Ros point stood outside her everyday experience. Before Ros had come along that morning and rescued her from the cold, she’d been to all intents and every purpose very much alone. The only person she really saw regularly was Jay, who did far more than any postman on the mainland would. Apart from that, there were occasional visits from the district nurse, calling in to check up on her. It was just that – a check-up where Constance felt as if she was on stage, acting out a part so there would be no question that she could no longer cope with living on her own. Ros had, in a very short space of time, come to mean so much to Constance. The news that she would be leaving the island to be replaced with some stranger only made the fondness that Constance felt for her all the clearer.

They sat for a while in silence, the clock ticking, the tide turning in the distance, the lonely call of a curlew somewhere across the water beyond the only punctuation marks between them.

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