Page 62 of The Women at Ocean's End

‘I think it would suit you rather well, here. There’s a key here somewhere, two of them if I really look.’ Maggie shook her head; she was as disorganised now as she’d ever been. She went to her desk, rifled through the drawers and pulled out a slender golden key. ‘Ah, here we are.’ She held it up and walked back to the chair, handing the key to Dotty. ‘Well, go on, open it.’ She sipped her drink, sat back in the chair, basking in the comfort of it.

‘Really?’ Dotty felt like a child, opening up the box. Silly, really, because it was, after all, just a box. Inside was a simple wooden finish curved into a silken-covered ravine, in which sat a gorgeous old pen.

‘Mont Blanc,’ Maggie said and even though Dotty wasn’t sure what that meant, she had a feeling it signified something important. ‘Well go on, take it out,’ Maggie urged. She was sitting forward now. ‘I’ve always thought every woman should have a place to store her secrets. You can lift out that casingand underneath hide love letters or maybe just your secrets.’ She threw her head back and laughed.

‘Oh, Maggie.’

‘It’s yours now. You keep it, it’s worth a bit, if you need cash, but I hope you hold onto it and think of me occasionally,’ she said softly.

‘It’s too much, I can’t, I really shouldn’t.’ She’d always admired it and Maggie Macken too. She’d wanted to grow up and become Maggie Macken. Funny, but along the way, she’d forgotten about that. When they lived here, she’d run around the island with the wrong crowd. Eddie Ryan and his mates, none of them would ever amount to much. Last she heard, Eddie was living on the streets in Dublin. His recklessness led him to drugs in the end.A lost cause, Maggie had said sadly, because no-one would wish a life like that on anyone.

It was always going to be easier to tell Maggie about the divorce than admitting it to Constance.

‘I can’t believe it.’ Constance dropped down to sit on a huge rock as if someone had taken the air from her. ‘Are you sure it’s over, is there no hope…?’

‘There is no chance,’ Dotty said firmly. The problem, she knew, was not that her marriage was over so much as the fact that Constance felt she was throwing it away. Constance, who had gone through life trying always to be good and kind and giving to make up for what they did, had finally made amends with the death of her own husband, the wiping out of the future she had banked on. Constance would have given anything to have Oisin back again, she had adored him. Theirs would have been the sort of marriage that could have made it to the golden wedding anniversary, if fate had not stepped in the way. God, what would Dotty have given if her demons could be so easily put aside with the snatching from her of just one thing instead of this all-encompassing misery?

‘But maybe if you talk to him… go back, sit down and have whatever it is out with him…’ Constance stopped and looked out to sea, biting her lip in that way she’d always done as a child when she was trying to figure something out. ‘Look, what about if I take Heather? Just for a while until you get things sorted…’

‘It’s not something we can sort out in a while…’

‘I’ll take her for as long as you want, forever, if you’d let me, you know that.’ For a long moment, in spite of the fact that the waves were crashing beneath them, it felt as if the whole universe had fallen into a deep silence.

‘I know you don’t think I deserve her,’ Dotty said quietly. The searing anger that constantly brewed deep within her finally splintered. Her heart raced with it and words tumbled through her brain – awful words, things she should never say, never think, threatened to escape now. She took a deep breath, needed to keep the darkness buttoned in, it always felt as if her very survival depended on it. ‘I know you think you’d be a much better mother and I know you’re probably right, but she’s mine, do you understand, Constance, Heather is my daughter and I’m not going to just hand her over to you.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. It was just an offer of help, that’s all, plain and simple, one friend to another.’

‘Are we still friends?’ Dotty hated that her voice sounded so bitter, even to herself. Did she always sound like this? She couldn’t bear it. ‘Look, Constance, it’s not my fault your husband died. It’s not my fault that you haven’t got any kids. It’s not even my fault that you were there that day when my father came into Mr Morrison’s garden. I never asked you to follow me or to…’

‘Oh, Dotty. Stop it, it’s all so long ago. Don’t you think it should make us closer, not make us feel as if…’

‘Well, it doesn’t bind us in some eternal friendship like we’ve always tried to pretend. It’s guilt and murder and we’ll never wipe that from our conscience.’

‘We should have come clean, long ago, we should have told the truth. We’d both have been far better off for it.’

‘NO,’ Dotty screamed. ‘No bloody way, we made a promise, you promised me, no-one ever knows what happened that day, that’s what we agreed…’ Dotty thought she’d be sick, right there on the rocks. ‘What good would telling people do? It doesn’t change any of it.’ She felt more nauseous now than she had when the ferry had been rollicking over waves that were thirty-foot high and bashing against their cabin.

‘I’m just saying, we were kids, that’s all, we were just kids. We shouldn’t still be carrying the guilt of it, Dotty.’ Constance reached out to touch Dotty’s arm, her hand cold, but Dotty shook it off. ‘Perhaps if we came clean, gave your father the chance of a proper burial, what’s the worst they’ll do to us?’

‘Listen to yourself, will you? What do you know about what they’ll do to us or what my father deserved?’

‘I still think of him in that well. Dotty, you didn’t go down there, you didn’t see.’

‘Oh, God, here we go.’ Dotty felt as if her blood pressure was about to explode in her chest, drive its way out through the top of her head. ‘You have no idea what it was like, what it’s like now. My father got exactly what he deserved, we might not have planned it, but I’ve never been sorry. Look at me, Heather, do you really think I wanted to end up living like this?’ Her breath caught in her chest, she hardly knew what she’d said, not able to stop herself from saying more. ‘I never wanted to get married, I never wanted to live like this… I wanted…’ She wasn’t even sure what she wanted any more. Did she want what Constance had? To live at Ocean’s End and teach in the local school with every kid on the island adoring the ground she walked on? Did she want to come back here and live a life that she’d yearned so badly to leave behind?

‘Tell me then, go on. If your life is that bad, why don’t you tell me? Maybe I can help, I want to help…’

‘You can’t help,’ Dotty snapped, getting up.

‘No. You’re probably right,’ Constance called after her. ‘No-one can help you, Dotty, you need to help yourself, you need to stop drinking and grow up and be grateful for what you bloody have already.’

‘Oh yeah of course, you were always going to throw that in my face, weren’t you? It’s a cheap shot, but I’m not an alcoholic, if that’s what you’re trying to imply. I don’t need a drink…’ She was shaking, so angry. She might believe she didn’t need a drink, but she wanted one so badly.

‘Someone has to say it. It’s always been there, for years. And no-one has said it and we both know, you’re only hiding from the past, but you’re killing the future and maybe I could stand back and watch you do it to yourself, but I can’t bear to see you do it to Heather.’

‘How bloody dare you?’ Dotty was livid. She ran at Constance, lashed out with a violent swipe that only just missed her face. It shocked them both for a second, so there they were, the world as they’d always known it suddenly rupturing beneath their feet. Dotty took an unsteady step backwards; she could hardly see what was before her eyes. She wanted to make Constance stop saying these things. For one terrible moment of madness, she wanted to kill her. She wanted to throw her over the side of the cliff, hear her scream, watch her horrified expression as she went down into the waves below. She imagined herself doing it too; no remorse. She wanted to shut her up forever. Somehow, she managed to keep herself in check; but only just.

‘I hate you, Constance. I absolutely hate you and this place and everything about us,’ Dotty screamed and she felt tears rush down her cheeks.

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