Page 47 of The Women at Ocean's End

‘She’s right, you know what they say,tell God your plans…’ Constance was doing her best to be jolly, but they all knew Ros had tried everywhere she could think of on the island for work and there was nothing going.

‘I’m going to email tomorrow and tell them that I’ll take up the maternity leave cover, at least it’s a job.’ She’d be able to popacross to the island on her days off, well, while the ferry service was on a regular timetable at any rate. ‘I’ll have to think about George too.’

George was a real worry. He’d rallied somewhat, but he still couldn’t put weight on that leg. Sometimes Ros looked at him and he was as bright as a button, but this morning he seemed to be at death’s door. She wasn’t unduly worried though, he’d had days like this before and he always rallied. She was certain now he was going to be just fine.

‘Oh, George, I don’t mind him coming here, although I’m not sure that I know very much about rescuing goats…’ Constance smiled.

‘Perfect, I can help, if you’d like,’ Heather said. It was kind of her, because Ros suspected she knew even less about rescuing animals than Constance.

She was wrong about George. The following day, he was no better. If anything, he looked as bad as he had on that first day. The infection was obviously back, his eyes were completely glazed and he was barely breathing. The breaths he did take were jagged and shallow and even though she sat with him for over an hour, there was no improvement. She tried everything she could think of to get him to sip some water, but he wasn’t having it. It was as if he’d given up. When he did look at her, just once about five minutes ago, his eyes fastened her with a stare of resignation and it felt as if he was trying to tell her it was time to let him go. Still, she tried to make him as comfortable as possible. He could be all right. She was willing it more than believing it, but miracles did happen and they very rarely happened to disbelievers.

She was bending over his bed when the sound of that bloody jeep turned into the yard once more.

‘Glad I caught you, I was just up at the little grotto.’ Jonah jumped from the jeep, then reached back in to take out a smallcardboard box.Oh, God, hopefully not kittens. The little grotto, built around a small trickle of water that somehow managed to crack through the rocks even in the driest weather, was dedicated to St Deirbhile. Apparently, she was a good woman to visit if you needed help to see – from what Ros could gather, thatseeingcould be either related to your eyes or your understanding. Unfortunately, over the last year or so, there had been three occasions where kittens seemed to have just been left there. Ros felt her anger rise with Jonah. She wasn’t the bloody ISPCA, just because she’d rescued one goat, she couldn’t possibly set up an animal sanctuary, especially not if she was meant to be leaving in two weeks.

‘What?’ she snapped and instantly regretted it when she saw his reaction.

‘Sorry, I just thought…’ he said. ‘If it’s a bad time…’ He began to retreat to the van. And then of course, she thought, well if it was kittens, what was someone like Jonah going to do with them – would he be the sort of man who’d do the unthinkable and drown them in a barrel without even looking for homes for them? She suspected he might be, especially if he was the sort of man to leave his wife and report Ros for not doing her job properly.

‘Okay, what it is it?’

‘If it’s a bad time, I can come back,’ he said, turning to look at her now.

‘I might not be here when you come back.’ Not strictly true, she had another two weeks, but still, wishful thinking. Not seeing Jonah Ashe would be the only good thing to losing this job.

‘It’s Japanese knotweed. I’ve been careful with it.’ He put his hand up before she could begin to lecture him about trailing it across the island. He lowered the box for her to peer inside.

‘It is Japanese knotweed, it’s from up at the well?’ That was unusual, there were outbreaks of this vicious weed in a numberof spots across the island, but Ros had helped treat those last year. They’d marked them off so people couldn’t trail them just anywhere, but of course, you couldn’t do the same for wild animals.Oh no. She knew what was coming next. The deer herd that moved around the island constantly.

‘He’s still here.’ Jonah peered around the doorway behind her. ‘He’s…’ He didn’t have to say it. It was fairly obvious now. George was dying, right before their eyes.

‘Oh, George.’ Ros fell to her knees again, vaguely aware that Jonah had dropped to his also, right next to her.

‘Did he finish the antibiotics?’

‘Yeah, they cleared up the infection too, or they seemed to. It’s just yesterday he fell back into himself, but…’ She felt a huge lump rise up in her throat. ‘It’s happened before, you know, one day he’s fine, the next he’s at…’ She was going to saydeath’s door, but now, she didn’t want to jinx things. Hecouldstill be okay. Hecould.

‘Maybe between us we could make him more comfortable.’ George had begun to shiver. Jonah stood up and went to his car. In a moment, he was back with a battered old sleeping bag, which he handed to her. Then he was placing those two huge sunburned hands beneath George’s fragile body and raising the little goat from his bed with such swift gentleness, with such tenderness, that Ros had a feeling George didn’t even realise he’d been moved. She went to work very quickly on pulling out the used bedding that had bundled up beneath the goat.Oh God. As she took it out, she saw, in the folds, tens and tens of small fly larvae and white insects that surely meant Mother Nature had already sent the call-out that George was not much longer for this world. Even so, she spread the sleeping bag evenly around the bed for him. At least he would have comfort for the time that was left. She bundled up the old newspapers, pushing them outside the back door, she could sort them out later, but for now,she placed her palm lightly on George’s head. She loved this little creature so much.

‘He’s not in any pain, that’s good, isn’t it?’ Jonah said next to her and his voice was hardly recognisable.

‘How do you know?’

‘I don’t think he’s fully conscious,’ he said. ‘Sorry, I hope that’s not too upsetting, but if he was suffering or stressed, he’d make a lot of noise. I’ve seen them with little more than a foot stuck between two rocks, easily sorted and you’d think the world was crashing in on them.’ They both tried to laugh and, maybe, there was some lightness in the fact George wasn’t vocalising any pain. Instead he gave one almighty shudder and Ros knew he was gone.

‘Oh, no,’ she said, trying to stifle a sob.

‘I think that’s it. He’s gone,’ Jonah said softly. ‘But you did everything you could, more than anyone could have expected…’ he added and she found herself looking into his eyes. And for a moment, she felt her breath catch in her chest, because she could swear there was something more there. Something more than just that grumpy, argumentative husk she normally came up against. This was a very different man to the one she thought he was: there was compassion in him and maybe even a little emotion at George’s passing. ‘I’m sorry, I know you were very fond of him,’ he said hoarsely.

‘I was,’ she managed, but she knew, even if she kept the wobble from her voice, her lips were finding it hard to stay in a straight line and so she bit her lower lip in an attempt to keep the tears at bay, but in spite of that, they sprang from her eyes, raced down her cheeks. ‘It was silly, I knew the odds, but I thought maybe…’

‘No. Not silly at all,’ he said and he put his great big arm around her and pulled her towards him in a hug that felt as comforting as she could imagine anything being as she sat hunched there over the little kid goat.

Between them, they buried George in the front garden. There was a free patch, just next to a holly tree that had perished a few years earlier but remained standing, still providing a place where small birds perched occasionally. They dug in silence, wrapped George up in the sleeping bag and laid him gently to rest before covering in his grave again. The whole process was completed within a few hours and when they’d patted in the earth above the mound Jonah turned to her.

‘I don’t suppose you’d have a cup of tea going? I’m absolutely parched.’ He smiled at her and she realised then she was half baked herself; they’d been working in the full heat of the day’s sun and her throat felt as dry as the Sahara.

‘Of course, I should have offered, I just…’ She was all over the place, her mind and her emotions all a jumble, with losing George, and now, he really was gone. She would miss him so much.

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