Page 48 of The Women at Ocean's End

In the little kitchen she ran the tap for a minute before pouring out two pint glasses of fresh cold water which they matched each other in gulping down. She felt much better for it.

‘Right, tea or something stronger?’ She took down the remains of the whiskey bottle she’d opened when she’d heard the ranger’s job had gone to someone else. Max Toolis wouldn’t be coming back for it and she didn’t particularly want to leave it for Shane McPherson.

‘You’ve twisted my arm. Go on,’ he said and she poured them both generous measures which they took outside with their pints of water. The doorstep at the front of the cottage was wide enough for two to sit and warmed by the afternoon sun. They sat there and sipped while looking across at the little mound where George would be sleeping from now on.

‘Thank you,’ she managed, because Jonah might be a philanderer and he might even have reported her to the Parksand Wildlife Service, but he’d been kind to her today when it really mattered.

‘I didn’t do a lot. To be fair, the reason he survived as long as he did was all down to you,’ he said and he clinked his glass against hers.

‘Fat lot of good it did him.’ She shook her head, but when she leaned back against the doorframe and thought about it, she was glad she’d picked George up that day and, for all his faults, she was glad that it had been Jonah who had happened to come along first. Because really, he had helped her every step of the way to save the little goat, first by bringing them back here, then helping her to set up a bed for him, making sure she knew the vet was coming, leaving the feed and, even today, he could have said,I told you so, but he didn’t. Instead, he’d given over a perfectly serviceable sleeping bag when it was painfully clear there was no chance he’d ever get it back and then he’d spent the last two hours making sure that the little goat was buried in the perfect spot. He was not, it seemed to Ros, all bad. And that was something of a revelation.

32

September 1957

Dotty

Dotty did not have the shoes for island living. That was her first thought on arriving on Pin Hill Island as she looked up and down the windy pier they had hoisted her up to from the boat. More to the point, she didn’t want the kind of shoes that would be sensible to have for a place like this. Dotty’s shoes were black and shiny, with a T-bar running up the centre of each foot. Her mother had bought them for her especially, they were half price and it took her a full year to grow into them. She had no intention of growing out of them any time soon and every notion of wearing them as much as possible while they fitted her as well as they did.

Did everyone on Pin Hill Island wear either boring brown shoes or wellington boots?

It was not that she didn’t want to come; in fact, when she heard her mother agree to it, she’d almost wept with relief, for back in Galway, every time she looked out her bedroom window, her eyes wandered across the gardens to the well at the end of Mr Morrison’s. She just hadn’t thought about the reality of it being an island. Lickey Gillespie had told her it was as backward as anywhere in Ireland, had they even heard of electricity over here? Much less the television! ‘Oh, what does Lickey Gillespieknow about anything?’ her mother had said quickly. The decision had been made – even if the bishop himself had asked them to stay, her mother was set on leaving Galway.

It was no good thinking of all that now. They were here. The journey over hadn’t exactly been a pleasure cruise, and Dotty knew her mother couldn’t wait to set foot on dry land.

‘Here.’ Her mother handed her the small suitcase that Dotty had been forced to cram most of her belongings into for their move from Galway. Her mother had been in a state of distraction for weeks. ‘Finding yourself deserted by your husband of fifteen years will do that to you,’ Dotty heard her say in a low tone to Maggie Macken. Her mother was trying to keep the reality of their situation from Dotty, but failing miserably. Her father hadn’t called Dotty ‘Key-hole Kate’ for nothing. As an only child, she’d always known far more about things she shouldn’t than they (her mother especially) realised.

‘Here indeed,’ Dotty said and she looked around her. Here – Pin Hill Island – couldn’t have been more different to their home in Galway than if Maggie Macken had decided to buy a house on the moon.

‘Dotty!’ An excited screech made everyone on the pier turn to see Constance Macken racing along towards them. ‘I can’t believe you’re here at last,’ Constance said and suddenly Dotty was gathered up in an excited hug by her best friend.

‘You look different.’ Dotty stood back a little and inspected her friend. Constance had grown taller, more than that, she had lost that wan and waxy appearance from her cheeks, looking brighter, bigger, better somehow.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m still wearing the same old dresses and I’m still the same old me.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘But I’ve got so much to show you, I can’t wait for you to see Ocean’s End and the beach and our new school and—’

‘Okay missy.’ Dotty’s mother placed a hand on Constance’s shoulder. ‘First of all, you’re going to bring us to where we’ll be staying and I’m going to make us all a lovely pot of tea. My nerves are shattered after that boat.’ She shuddered. It was her first and, she had declared, her last time on a boat, she wasn’t a fan of the water.

Mrs Macken had organised a man to collect them with his horse and cart and even though it meant more jolting about, the girls climbed into the back of the cart and Mrs Wren sat next to the old farmer at the front. It was a day of firsts for Dotty. First time on a boat. First time in a cart. First time on the island. First time seeing Ocean’s End. Whatever the other misgivings she had about leaving the city, or the idea that there wouldn’t be any clothes shops or cinema to visit, Ocean’s End proved to be breathtaking enough to make up for it.

Dotty stood beneath the house, staring open-mouthed at its striking appearance. She’d never seen a house like it. Certainly, in the little terrace that they called home before this, there was nothing like it. Of course, Constance had mentioned it was pretty, but pretty didn’t come close.

All the dreams that Dotty had harboured about running away and becoming a dancer or an actress or something fabulous felt as if they slowly imploded while she was standing there, because aside from the bright lights and the glitz and glamour of a life on stage, what she really wanted was to live like this.

And here she was.

Her worries left behind her in Galway.

A fresh start. She should try to remember that, she decided, as Constance pulled her inside to have tea with Mrs Macken before they settled in to their cottage in the grounds.

‘It’s so cute, I’m a little jealous, but Mammy says, if your mother doesn’t like it, you’re both welcome to live here with us.’

Dotty could hear her friend speaking, but she was too overawed to really pay much attention now they were inside the house. She was dazzled by the white carpet on the stairs. White carpet? Their old house had been covered in linoleum. She wanted to reach out and stroke the carpet – it looked so soft. The staircase twisted and turned away from her up towards the top of the house; it seemed to call to her to explore the upstairs. In the kitchen, she could feel her mother judging the Formica-topped table – her mother took great pride in the state of her own tablecloths.

It was strange, being shown around the island by Constance, as if their lifetime roles had been reversed. Always before this, Dotty had felt as if she was the one in charge, the older, certainly the taller of the pair. But it was nice too; because the locals made such a thing of her, she felt like a movie star. The girls gawped at her shoes and, she knew, the boys gawped at her breasts. Some things didn’t change, even if there was a choppy sea to part the present from the past.

In the cottage, her mother insisted they’d be fine there; it was just the two of them. From the moment she sat on the single bed in the narrow room they’d made up for her, Dotty sighed. There was a finality to the place, as if the idea of being at the edge of the world had drawn her up full stop and somewhere, beyond this place, the demons that had haunted her before were finally frozen in their tracks.

It was wet. The way people talked about it, perhaps, Dotty figured, that they expected sunshine long into autumn. She didn’t know what to expect, her mother saidthat was farmers and fishermen for you, they lived by the weather.She supposed that must be so, but what good was sunshine to her when she spent her days sitting in a classroom anyway?

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