Page 5 of The Women at Ocean's End

‘I totally forgot, I’m so sorry…’ And somehow she managed to explain about the phone call from Carmelita, which felt as if it had been days ago at this point, but really, it was only two hours earlier. Her mother’s carer had caught her just as she was leaving the gym. Heather had come straight over, taking the tube and then walking in the rain so Carmelita could let her into the house before she was due to go and visit the next client on her morning roster.

‘I’m so sorry, is there anything I can do?’ Ruth asked.

‘Oh, God, Ruth, you have done more than enough already.’ And it was true. Ruth was her best friend these days. She’d been the first to swoop in when word seeped through their circle that Heather’s marriage was finally over. It was Ruth who’d come to court with her for the divorce hearing. It was Ruth who’d managed to get them both uproariously drunk afterwards in a Soho bar. They got so drunk that other patrons thought they were celebrating rather than mourning the end of a twenty-year marriage and a business partnership that had made Heather a very wealthy woman.

‘Don’t be silly, this is different and you’re… well, you’ve already been through quite a bit this year so, just ask, if there’s anything.’

‘I think I might…’ Heather started to say, but she wasn’t sure. After all, it was years since she’d stayed in this house, it was firmly her mother’s house. It hadn’t felt like home for so long she could hardly remember it ever feeling that way. ‘I might stay here for the night, just…’

‘Poor you, but it’s completely natural, you need time to get your thoughts straight. It might be good for you to surround yourself with the feeling of your mother for as long as you can,’ Ruth said. ‘Still, if you need anything, you know where I am.’

‘Thanks Ruth.’ She meant it. ‘And, I’m so sorry, for forgetting about us meeting up this morning.’

‘Oh, that doesn’t matter, you know me, happy to eat pastries for both of us…’ With that she laughed that tinkling sound that somehow made Heather feel as if the world could be a lighter place if only you could change the way you looked at it.

It was one of those days that Heather felt she would always remember, not just because it was the day her mother passed away. It was a day she took to herself, to reflect on the absence of the woman she had tried to love more than she’d ever been able to. In spite of everything, Heather found it was comforting to sit in the little kitchen and remember some of the happier times they’d spent together over the years.

Some of the most vivid memories of her mother were those holidays they’d spent back on Pin Hill Island. Her mother had grown up there. She always spoke about it so wistfully. Secretly, Heather suspected she couldn’t shake the dust from her shoes quickly enough to escape to London and follow her West End dreams when she was a girl.

As the evening drew in and the kitchen fell into a series of unfamiliar shadows, Heather wondered if she should call Philipand tell him that her mother had died. Maybe not, what was the etiquette with ex-husbands and the passing of relatives who were no longer related anyway? Her stomach rumbling with hunger pangs pushed her from the chair and she reminded herself that they weren’t connected to each other any more. Philip had started a new life. He could already be dating someone else. In London, a man with a fortune wasn’t going to be single for very long. Heather wondered if he’d slip into a second marriage with some glamorous woman about town, or more likely someone much younger who would fall for his easy charm. The fact that he had just made a cool four million pounds from the sale of their flower shops wouldn’t hurt either.

No. Philip was firmly in her past and, even if she was sitting here alone for the rest of her days, their time together had run its course. She knew that even if staying together might have been easier, it was no longer what either of them truly wanted.

There were half a dozen eggs in the fridge and, for a moment, Heather wondered at the idea of her mother cooking an egg for herself; perhaps that was one of those things Carmelita did when she dropped in twice daily to check up on things. Perhaps Carmelita cleaned too? It was the only likely explanation for the unfamiliar orderliness that had taken hold of the little house. Funny, but Heather could imagine her mother sitting down to a boiled egg some evenings with a triangle of toast on the side. Tonight, because she was here alone and suddenly ravenous and her stomach growled to remind her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She decided to make an omelette. There was salt and pepper, eggs and cheese. She toasted a slightly hardened heel of brown bread to go with it and settled down to the silence of the kitchen again.

She must have slept, sitting at the table on the club chair that had been her mother’s favourite. She woke at nine to the sound of a car alarm pealing into the unheeding London chill fromone or two streets across the back fence. As soon as her eyes shot open, she knew immediately she couldn’t stay here. What on earth had she been thinking earlier? She gathered up her bag and took her mother’s key from inside the front door.

It was only when she was standing out on the street, the night sky that familiar not-quite-black shade of London, that the reality of her situation actually hit her. She was cast adrift, completely alone in this city now. There were no foundations with which to fasten her to anywhere – she had no family, no husband, no business, and even her flat had strangers pinning their notes to the cork board in her kitchen. For the first time in her life, she knew what it was to feel truly lonely. She was alone, completely and utterly on her own. As she stood there, her head swimming, her heart racing in a skipping panic, she understood something that had never made sense before. Was this what her mother had felt? The aching desire to connect with something that made you feel not quite so empty? Had Dotty just needed to blot the world out and keep it at a distance removed enough to feel as if she was protected from it? Had that been it all along?

Heather felt herself stumble, her balance lost, making her swerve. The bricks were cold and rough against her back, but she only vaguely registered them. She fumbled for the key in her oversized bag and when her shaking hands managed to separate it from the jumble of other things she didn’t need, she thrust it as quickly as she could into the door, pushing hard and tumbling back into the hall. When she slammed it shut behind her it seemed to echo into a vastness so deep she might drown in the silence. She felt herself sliding to the floor and then she cried as if her heart might break, uncontrollable sobs that she just gave herself over to, since she had no idea where they were coming from or how to stop them. She had neither the strength nor the will to try. Instead, she lay against the door and sobbed until it felt as if there were no more tears left in her.

3

Ros Stokes

Six months, Ros realised, was the longest she’d spent sleeping in the same bed since her mother died. That was four years ago. Strange, because she hadn’t come to expect ever staying in one place for very long, much less having a place to call her own, what with the state of the rental market in Ireland being what it was. After her mother passed away and she could no longer afford to pay the mortgage, Ros’s biggest priority was finishing out her degree. If she had to sofa surf through her finals, what did it matter? She’d promised her mother she’d graduate with her degree in environmental science and she’d kept her promise. Sometimes, she thought her mother had sent the ranger’s cottage and the job on Pin Hill as her way of saying:well done, darling, well done. It was a nice thought. It made up for the occasional stabs of melancholy when she thought of all the things she was missing out on thanks to a few rogue lymph nodes and a diagnosis that came too late to do much more than let her sit by while her mother slipped away.

No point thinking of any of that now. Ros pulled her hair back from her face. The wind was in one of those moods when it couldn’t decide on a direction and so her too-long red hair blew about her face, making it hard to see ahead of her. She pinned it up untidily with a grip from her bag. No need to preen. The only ones to pass judgement on her appearance were the wild goats and the gulls, who were much too busy catching breakfast tobother with her. With a sheer drop down a rocky face to her left, the one thing she needed was to know exactly where each foot was going to find safe purchase.

This morning, the views were as breathtaking as she’d ever seen them. She’d just walked along a track that ran from her cottage to Muffeen Beag, checking on several nests of sea birds tucked beneath the cliffs out of sight for the most part.

The nests were perfectly intact, hidden from view for the common walker. She felt a familiar swell of relief and gratitude within her that they were safe. She still dreaded coming upon one that had been vandalised by some brute who thought they didn’t matter.

God, she shivered. She was doing far more than her job, far more than the other rangers would have done. Or was she simply making amends? Sometimes she wondered, when the memory of that night came rushing back to her. It was an accident. She hadn’t set out to cause any harm. Not her fault. That was what her supervisor said and Colleen French had told her to remember that, no matter how bad things got. But heads had to roll, not Ros’s obviously, she was just on placement, hardly even a bearing never mind a cog in the wheel. In the greater scheme of things perhaps early retirement was not the end of the world, or at least, that was the way Colleen had tried to paint it. Ros was vilified, of course, the silly girl who’d let slip the location of a precious eagle nest. It resulted in the nest being destroyed by a group of yokel farmers intent on believing that the arrival of the birds posed some threat to their livestock. It was her darkest secret; her greatest mistake. The guilt of it still made her chest constrict if she didn’t push it from her mind in time. Being a woman didn’t help either. She’d toyed with the idea of cutting off her long red hair, resorting to dungarees, but there was no covering over the porcelain fineness of her skin or the fact thather willowy frame belied a resilient hardiness that meant she could work as well as any man, even if she’d never look like it.

The sensible part of her knew it was wrong to tar all farmers with the same brush, but she couldn’t help being wary of them for the most part. They should all be working together for the good of the environment, but too often Ros felt as if it was a them-against-us situation and so she set about her work mostly quietly, making sure to avoid conflict if she could.

It still rattled her. The sadness and waste of the destroyed nest, the shame of being at fault through silly naivety. There was no excuse, she should have known better. Then, when she graduated, she’d been aware that anyone looking too closely at her résumé would have known immediately that it was she who had been responsible for the destruction of something so precious. She had been the reason Colleen French had to retire and, of course, Ros knew what the subtext was – Colleen was a woman, she was soft, not able to do her job, compromised. In truth, it was shorthand for the undercurrent of male chauvinism that was the prevailing culture of a male-dominated profession. Ros still felt badly about Colleen; she’d been good at her job. She didn’t deserve having to take the rap for Ros’s mistake. The finish-up was, neither of them were exactly employable at the end of it, Colleen for having been in charge and Ros for having been the cause of her losing her job. No-one would want to employ the person who cost their boss her job, would they?

Stop it. It was a beautiful morning, she had the most spectacular view in the world all to herself. She should be enjoying it, not beating herself up over things she could not change.

Ros halted suddenly when she heard a strange sound rippling on the breeze before her. It took a moment to pin it down as a bleating goat. The island was full of them. Wild, they roamed about on land that was too scraggy and rocky to farm. Often,they feasted on weeds and wildflowers growing along the sides of the most winding roads, munching happily while motorists tried to navigate already narrow stretches around their reckless dining positions. She’d seen them at the top of Pin Hill the previous summer, when the ground was festooned with daisies and buttercups and all manner of other treats that the goats were happy to idle over for days on end. This goat didn’t sound as if it was idling though; it sounded as if it was in trouble.

She found herself moving more quickly, while still careful to watch her step. One wrong move here and it was a good two-thousand-foot drop into the ocean beneath. But the goat had not fallen over the side, as she feared it might have, instead it was lying in a bunch at the end of the track. It must have fallen from the ledge that hung over the path. A tiny pathetic creature, its bones jagged beneath his shaggy body, it was only young.How long had it been here?she wondered.How long more could it survive?For a moment, she thought she was too late. The goat lay so still. Ros moved as quietly and gently as she could, hardly daring to breathe in case she frightened the animal. Then it bleated once more, much louder than she’d have expected, and the sound startled her so she screamed and found herself almost tripping over the rough surface of the road side. She steadied herself for a moment, trying to assess what the matter was without getting too close. That was the first lesson of conservation.Don’t go close to feral animals. Do not help them, unless you are absolutely certain that they need help.

This goat, a young male from what she could make out, was obviously in trouble, otherwise, Ros knew, she wouldn’t have gotten within fifty yards of him. She walked around the animal now. His head was low, short gasping breaths coming from his open mouth and his eyes closed. Perhaps dying, but then the animal looked at her, lifted his head and opened up those strange eyes, pinning them on her. Ros could swear later it feltas if the little fella was begging her for help. She bent down, put a hand on the creature’s back, ran her palms over the animal to check for breaks. She found what she was looking for quickly. The goat was lying on it, what felt like a dislocated hind leg. Ros was no vet, but it didn’t take a degree in biology to see this kid was in real trouble. The whole shape of the hip and back was completely distorted. She stood for a moment, moved to the side, knowing that her presence alone could be enough to cause too much stress for the goat.

She couldn’t carry him back to the cottage. She didn’t have a car and she couldn’t think of a single person she could call to help her. It felt as if the seconds were ticking loudly in her head, when she heard the roar of what she presumed was a big four-by-four on the road winding up the hill beneath her.

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