Page 70 of The Women at Ocean's End

‘No time today, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to ask about Constance, the missus is going to burn the house down at home with all the candles she has lit for her, is she any better at all?’

‘I’m sorry, Jay. I don’t know how much better she’s going to be, you see…’ They wouldn’t have Constance for much longer; even if Heather couldn’t quite put that into words for herself, it didn’t change what they knew to be certain. She was drifting from them as surely as if she was a small boat without anchor on the horizon.

‘Everyone on the island will be devastated to hear that,’ Jay said and he sniffed loudly to cover up his own sadness. He had dropped into a kitchen chair for a moment, as if to gatherhimself up again. ‘Constance has been a part of Pin Hill for as long as most of us can remember. She taught me at school, did you know that?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘She was always a treasure; I don’t think there was a child went through that school that didn’t adore the ground she walked on.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘I won’t disturb her now, so…’ he said, getting up and wiping his hand against his cheeks, but he couldn’t quite cover over the tears that had welled up in his eyes.

‘Are you sure, I can check if she’s…’

‘No. Not now, I’d want to be in better shape to see her if she’s… I wouldn’t want to upset her, you know…’

‘I understand,’ Heather said. Grief, was it worse before or after the event? She wasn’t sure, but it was heavy, like a weight bearing down in the kitchen around her.

After walking Jay to the front door, Heather turned back to the kitchen. What on earth had been sent to her in the post? She grabbed a kitchen knife and slid it along the edges, cutting open the tape and paper covering the parcel.

‘How on earth? I can hardly believe it,’ she breathed when she realised it was the antique letter box her mother had mentioned in her will. God alone knew how it ended up being posted on – she was certain she must have either packed it up in storage by accident or, worse, lost it somewhere along the way in transit.

This had been meant for Constance, her mother had wanted her to have it, and while Heather had pushed the idea of it from her mind, occasionally it bothered her, the regret that it was lost forever. An attached note from the estate agents explained what had happened. One of the people who came to view the house had noticed it on the floor beneath the hall table. It must have fallen when the movers were clearing the place out. They’d handed it over to the agent showing them the property, who’d sent it on to Heather. Relief flooded through her. If shecould have reached across time and space she would have gladly hugged those honest buyers.

Funny, but it looked different here. Now, she examined the keyhole and wondered if the little golden key that fitted nothing else in Ocean’s End might fit it.

She brought it into Maggie’s old office, laid it carefully on the desk. In the slimmest drawer she’d placed the tiny key, with intricate leaf fan design iron work on its end. It slipped easily into the lock, springing open the mechanism with a tiny metal click.

Inside the box was a beautiful Mont Blanc pen, laid in repose on silken printed fabric that looked as if it was from a similar era to Ocean’s End. It must be worth a fortune. How on earth had her mother managed to have this in her possession? She traced her fingertips along the edge of the pen. It was cool and smooth and when she picked it out of the folds of fabric, she saw a tiny tab beneath it. Pulling on it gently, she found herself holding her breath. There was a flat compartment underneath. The letters her mother mentioned in her note to Heather? Of course. There were two envelopes. One addressed to Heather, the other to Constance.

With shaking hands Heather quickly tore open the envelope addressed to her. She noticed the beautiful paper, expensive, elegant; puffins and sea plants in plumes across the grey-blue paper. She held the page to her face, breathing it in, but it smelled only of the cedar box in which they’d been stored for… she checked the date on the top right-hand corner of the page. Six months before her mother’s death. Heather closed her eyes, suddenly overcome with a sense of loneliness she’d never felt before. When this letter had been written, she’d been in the process of taking apart the life she’d built up for years, her marriage, her business, her flat, her purpose; she had felt particularly alone on those days. At that time, she had tried to bepragmatic about it all. It was simply time to move on, not that she had a choice, she couldn’t go on living a life that felt as if it didn’t fit her any more.

She took a deep breath, as if readying herself to dive into bottomless waters that held within their depths darkness as much as promise. Her mother had wanted to say something to her, perhaps it was something vile? God knew, they’d had more rows over the years than any other family she knew, but this was her mother’s final chance to speak, was it too much to hope for some trace of love for her? Probably. She straightened her back, flattened the letter out on the desk before her. It was just one page, but the writing was dense, as if her mother had taken time to plan it out, maybe even rule it out on the page.

Dearest Heather,

I know, if this letter is one begging for forgiveness it should be a lot longer than I can possibly fit in one envelope. It’s too late for me to hold out for any of that. I know now, as I’m writing this to you, it’s too late to make up the time I’ve thrown away in bitterness and anger over the years. But I wanted you to know that I’ve come to the point in my life where I deeply regret the way it all turned out. Most of all, I regret the chance that I missed out on you, on being your mother, on maybe – don’t hate me even more – on being your friend.

In February of this year, I made the bravest decision I’ve ever made in my life. I entered a rehabilitation centre for addiction treatment and finally faced up to the life I’ve led and, more importantly, the chances I’ve allowed to slip away.

I’m proud to say that today, I am one hundred and ninety-six days sober. I won’t lie. It has not been easy. It turns out, going without a drink every single day wasn’t even the toughest thing; the hardest part of all was facing up to the fact that I failed you. I failed you and everyone else who meant something to me in life: Bobby, Maggie, my mother and, of course, Constance. All of you who expected and deserved so much more, I let you down and, I see now, I let myself down also.

A few days ago, I sat in a taxi and travelled to your shop in Covent Garden. I stood across the road for almost half an hour (until my kidneys got the better of me and I had no choice but to dash home again!), I stood there and watched you. You looked so absorbed, making up a bouquet of some sort, you hardly knew there were other people on the planet, much less that I was across the street.

Here’s the thing, I wasn’t brave enough to tell you then, even though I’m hoping I’ll work up to it one day soon. I’m thinking if I can make it to another one hundred and sixty-nine days sober, I might just be brave enough to say this to you instead of taking the coward’s way out in a letter. I’m trying hard to be a better person. To be the sort of person who belongs in your life.

You’ve been the best daughter, in spite of all the times I’ve pushed you away. A better daughter than I deserved and that’s for certain.

None of that changes one essential thing. I love you, Heather, with all my heart and every fibre of my being, always have, always will. No matter that I didn’t knowhow to show it over the years, I wanted you to know this now.

I was broken a long time before you came into my life, far too broken to even think of how to go about fixing things, but my heart disintegrated into a thousand tiny pieces of love the first time I saw you and today, sober but with some small amount of growing hope for the future, I feel the very same.

Stay safe, my darling girl, I love you always.

Dotty xx

Oh, Mum. It was all Heather could say when she eventually looked away from the letter before her. She had read it over many times, trying to make sense of the woman she thought she knew her whole life and this other voice that had slipped into Ocean’s End unexpectedly from beyond the grave. There was so much to take in. Forgiveness? She wasn’t even sure she could get her head around the idea of her mother in rehab. Surely, this could not be the same mother she thought she knew so well. But, she had done it. She’d managed almost twelve months sober. Heather pulled out her phone. Quickly checked the date.Oh no. No. No. No. She was just two days away from the full year when she’d passed away. She’d almost made it. Poor Dotty – she only just ran out of time.

47

Ros

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