Chapter 24
Constance
It was the same every year on the second Saturday in May.
Constance woke with a start from a nightmare that was as real now, some fifty years after it had spun out into reality.
There was the sound of water: not gentle, rippling waves hitting the shore at your feet, this water was hungry, gnashing, pounding against the side of a small red fishing boat.
There were screams, but they came later, with panicked shouting and a sense that the only thing worse would come when there was no sound at all.
It was a beautiful day. Sun shining, high in a clear blue sky, the vista in the distance shimmering with the promise of heat that would not dissipate until fireflies lit up the shrinking night.
Constance imagined Oisin, walking barefoot along the pier, the concrete warm beneath his feet, maybe sandy residues sticking against his toes.
She had made him tomato and corned beef sandwiches, with bottles of diluted lemon and barley water, filled the night before and stored in the cool box of the fridge so they would melt slowly, last longer too.
From the moment Constance had taken him to Pin Hill Island, he had been in love with the sea.
She had fallen in love with him at university, both training to be teachers, their lives stretching out before them, or so they thought.
Funny, but when not one but two jobs came up on the island, she thought it was a sign they belonged here, together.
Her future panning out so perfectly, she couldn’t have asked for anything more.
How were they to know?
That terrible morning, along the pier, all the big trawlers had set out to sea before the dawn had cracked open in the sky across the mainland.
There was nothing to sway Oisin from that trip, not so much as a whisper of a breeze, even the shipping forecast had predicted nothing more than mild swells some two hundred miles out to sea.
Constance had long ago made peace of sorts with the fact that she’d never have the answer to exactly what had happened that day.
For the most part, she just ached for Oisin.
These days, as her own life was drawing slowly to a close, there was something like comfort in the thought that perhaps he would be waiting for her.
It was this thought, dug up after the rigmarole of clenched muscles, unspoken cries and tears staining her cheeks while she slept, that made life bearable once more.
The second Saturday in May. The same dream every year, only, with each year, she knew as sure as grass was green that she was drawing nearer to being reunited with him once more.
This year, somehow, the heaviness that usually weighed her down did not feel so oppressive.
She knew why that was. Despite the fact that Dotty had died, there was life back in Ocean’s End again.
Having Heather and Ros here, of course it didn’t dispel what happened all those years ago – she wouldn’t want that, she wouldn’t want Oisin wiped out completely – but somehow the sadness this year was diluted.
There was something else too. This time, in the dream, Constance was in the boat alongside him.
Instead of standing on the shore, helpless and distraught, she was terrified, but she felt Oisin’s arms encircle her.
She would not have this dream again, she knew it; by next year, they would be reunited.
She felt it in her bones. And maybe, she was grateful for that.