Page 59 of The Women at Ocean's End

‘Hope they’re worth it,’ he said and she saw that he too had a coffee, made in his own mug, but it smelled as strong as the best coffee Jake had ever made for her.

‘Oh, I don’t know…’ She told them both about Philip and the baby and the fact that it had made her feel even more as if she was drifting without anchor.

‘What do you mean drifting, aren’t you one of us now?’ Finbar looked at her in a way that made her stop. ‘What’s wrong with you at all, if there’s a job with Constance and you have a place to stay and you’re happy here, why on earth would you be even thinking of going back to England?’

‘Why indeed?’ Jake shook his head.

‘But there is no job with Constance. Not really. I mean, there’s some work, but…’ Heather didn’t want to say out loud that she could afford to drift, in financial terms. There was a sizeable nest egg on which she could live for some time to come, plenty to buy a little cottage with and live out her days here, if she felt like it. The problem was, she’d always been driven. She’d always gone to work, from when she was fourteen and she’d helped out in the little corner shop at the end of the road.

‘You could take this place over…’ Jake said tentatively. ‘I mean, for the winter months. I go back to the real world, it’s only sitting here locked up. You’d have to put in your own stock and pay the electricity, but you know you could…’

‘Seriously?’ she asked. ‘I can hardly make a straight cup of Americano. I think you’re overestimating my practical skills as a barista, Jake. But thanks for the offer, it’s really nice.’

‘No problem, let me know if you change your mind, yeah?’

‘Ah here, come on now, let’s stop beating about the bush.’ Finbar sighed. ‘You’re happy here, aren’t you?’

‘As happy as I’ve ever been anywhere,’ she said, but it was less than the truth because she’d never been happier anywhere in her life.

‘And there’s a place to stay, there’s work you’re enjoying, you can manage to live on what you have for the foreseeable and Jake here is giving you the chance to earn a few bob on the side?’

‘Well, yes, but…’

‘There’s no buts about it. You belong here, you have friends, people who care about you – what have you got in London to bring you back there?’ He had turned to look at her now and she had a feeling he was saying a lot more than he was putting into words.

‘Oh Finbar.’ She knew this, somewhere in her bones, that he cared for her and she supposed, now as she sat here between these two lovely men, she cared for him too, for both of them. They had become her friends since she’d arrived, as good as any she had in London, probably. ‘Thank you.’

‘Okay, okay, less of the sentimentality, are you staying on or not?’ Jake coughed next to her.

‘Sorry,’ she said, suddenly embarrassed, because she was absolutely going nowhere while Constance was alive. She wasn’t going to abandon her, certainly; the truth was, she didn’t want to miss a moment with her. ‘I’m overthinking things.’

‘Don’t be,’ Finbar said. ‘Just stay until the end of the summer at the very least. I haven’t brought you out to see the rest of the islands yet, that’s a day that’ll make you choose Pin Hill Island over any other place in the world, for sure,’ he added.

‘Right, I’m getting us more coffee.’ Jake stood up and took their cups into the van.

‘Well, between coffee and boat trips, I suppose it’s very hard to leave just yet…’ Heather said, but deep in her heart it wasdecided. Pin Hill was home now, she’d found what she was looking for after all.

39

Ros

The email arrived just as Ros was leaving the cottage to pop down to the chemist. It was good news, she supposed, although it really didn’t feel like it. She was too numb to feel anything vaguely resembling happiness about anything at the moment. Constance’s diagnosis had knocked her for six. Since she had heard it, Ros felt as if some tethering line that held her in place had loosened and she was somehow at a remove from everything around her. Nothing felt fully real any more.

They were officially offering her the maternity leave and the hourly rate was even slightly more than she was being paid on the island. It was a stroke of luck that the woman she’d be replacing was employed at the same administrative level as a ranger in the field. Perhaps the cottage had been taken into account as a benefit in kind. At least the maternity leave didn’t kick off for another month and, in the meantime, she had enough holiday entitlement days to tide her over between finishing up on the island and starting in Ballycove.

The second email of the morning was one she’d been expecting. Shane McPherson would be taking up the position of ranger at the start of next week. They were happy for Ros to stay in the cottage until she could organise a new place to live. It was very businesslike; there was no inkling in its tone that they were dismantling her beloved home. Still, nothing lasted forever; if life had taught her anything at this point it was that much. She’dknown this was coming, at some stage, and she’d known that she would have to give the cottage up when the time came. She was ready for it.

Max Toolis wanted nothing from the cottage and so she’d boxed up everything she owned and a few bits belonging to Max that she liked; the rest she’d offered to the bring-and-buy sale to raise much needed funds for the repairs on the Church of Ireland roof. The local WI were thrilled to take every knick-knack they could lay their hands on. She had a feeling that she had probably supplied them with ninety-five percent of their wares on the day. By the end of it, the cottage was pretty much cleared out and she had the satisfaction of knowing that everything had been donated to a good cause rather than ending up in landfill. Her own bits and pieces were stored safely in Constance’s spare back bedroom; perhaps she’d be pleasantly surprised and fall into somewhere charming on the mainland, if their application to the Goat Society didn’t succeed.

One thing she was sure of, she couldn’t imagine staying in the cottage with Shane when he arrived. Not after that last night. Whatever he’d had planned, with arriving and bottles of wine and cooking together and perhaps watching the sun go down, she’d completely messed up. She still wasn’t sure why she’d bolted out of the cottage that evening like a mad woman. That call from a blonde had thrown her certainly, but there was no guarantee it wasn’t his ex – it could be, couldn’t it? Certainly, her running away had nothing to do with the arrival of Jonah – after all, there was nothing between them, well, apart from a dead kid goat and enough bickering since they’d first met to launch a minor international conflict.

She would mention it to Constance. There would be room for her at Ocean’s End. It felt as much like home now as the almost empty cottage that she’d wanted so desperately to hold ontountil that day when Jonah had arrived and looked at her as if he was trying to figure out if he knew her at all.

Ridiculous. She muttered it under her breath, but perhaps she was confirming it for George as she passed by the rose bush she’d planted over his resting place. It was a nice gesture, she had to give Jonah Ashe credit for that.

She was trying to jolly herself along, but she was damned if she was going back up to Ocean’s End with a face as long as a fiddle. Constance had enough on her plate already.

Constance was fast asleep in a garden chair when Ros arrived. Ros lowered herself into the seat next to her and sat watching the clouds scuttle across the sky overhead. Sometimes, she felt as if she could sit here all day, but unfortunately, each time she did, she spotted some other little job to do to keep the place in check just a little more. To stop herself from whipping out the lawnmower and destroying the peacefulness, she looked across at Constance and felt her heart break just a little more at the thought of how little time they had left together. In this light, the old woman looked even more jaundiced than she had the previous day. Ros suspected she had lost more weight too and dark shadows ringed her eyes, making her face look gaunter in the grey light.

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