Chapter 27
Ros
The call came when Ros was stretching down the side of one of the small tributary river banks, trying to push back some moss which was covering over what looked like a clump of green figwort.
She’d have to take a photograph with her phone and check it against the app she used to confirm if she was correct.
If she was right, it was a great little find.
She hadn’t seen that particular plant growing along this stretch of the river before.
It was not exactly endangered, but it was too easily overpowered by hardier plants like willows and alders which had colonised river banks all across the mainland.
If it wasn’t for Constance and Heather, the phone buzzing would just be an inconvenience.
She crawled back onto the damp grassy bank and flicked the screen into life.
‘Ah, erm, Ros?’ Keith Duff, as usual, seemed to be checking he’d gotten her name right.
‘Of course.’ She sat up, reaching into the inside breast pocket of her waterproof jacket.
She’d been here long enough to look out to the ocean for incoming weather rather than putting her trust in the meteorological services.
She pulled out a small, slightly battered notebook and a pencil, because with Keith you never knew.
‘Can you talk?’
‘Well, I’m not exactly in the middle of a big stockholders’ meeting, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m sitting on the side of a river called Abhainn Bán, looking at what I think is a new growth of green figwort.’
‘Right, well, whatever about that, you’re sitting down at least.’
‘I am,’ she said slowly, because people only said that when there was bad news, didn’t they? ‘It’s the interview, isn’t it?’
‘It is. You didn’t get the job, Ros, no point sugar-coating it, you’re a big girl.’
‘And, why…’ She realised she’d better clarify.
‘I mean, what let me down at the interview, was it because I was a woman?’ She had to ask; she knew from the few team meetings she’d attended she was the only one.
And there had been comments, the sort you’d expect from stupid men.
Out there, cut off on the island, a woman on her own. A girl, really.
‘Oh, God. Of course not, that would be…’
‘Sexist? Illegal?’ she finished for him.
‘It would. It would, no, no, you can’t say you didn’t get the job on the grounds of…’ His voice had dropped, as if even mentioning the word was too much for him.
‘Sexism?’
‘Well, yeah, but no, no, no, no.’ He cleared his throat, perhaps hoping that was an end to it and she would toddle off and make life easy for him.
‘Why didn’t I get it, so?’ She felt suddenly sick with disappointment.
‘Someone more experienced turned up for interview. We offered him the job yesterday evening and he accepted it this morning.’
‘He?’ So, Shane McPherson, who’d been on the island for less than twenty-four hours – she had already known he’d probably get it, why on earth did she feel so upset now it was official?
‘Now, I hope you’re not going to be awkward about this… just because he’s a man. Shane got the post because he was the best man… I mean, candidate on the day.’
‘I’m not being awkward, but isn’t it good practice to tell me where I went wrong at the interview, in case I apply for something else with the Parks and Wildlife Service?’
‘Oh, right, well, you know, there’s a lovely little maternity leave coming up here in a few weeks, part-time hours. It might suit you if you enjoy surfing, now there’s no cottage but…’
‘So, it would be office-based?’ The irony was, she couldn’t type to save her life, was very dodgy at taking messages and keeping files in order was something she feared would bore her to death.
‘Anyway, that’s grand,’ she said, swallowing down her frustration.
There was a huge lump opening up in her throat and while she might like to drag the old boy over hot coals for a little longer, actually, there was no point.
She definitely did not want him to hear her become a sobbing mess.
‘So, you’ll let me know when he’s arriving on the island?
I presume you’ll want me to stay until he comes and I’ll have to organise a new place to live and a job and… ’ That was it, she was about to cry.
‘It’ll be a while yet and… Ros, there is that little job here. I’m sure that we can find you something to tide you over, if…’
‘Hmm, thanks for that, must go, the rain is coming. I’m going to get soaked here and I still haven’t gotten a good look at that figwort to be sure,’ she said and she hung up the phone before collapsing into a spasm of despairing sobs.
What on earth was she going to do now? She couldn’t leave the island, she just couldn’t, it was the first time she’d ever felt as if she had a real home, the first time in so very, very long.
That evening, Ros felt so low she knew, no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t just put on a brave face and go to Constance’s house and pretend that it didn’t really matter.
It did matter. It mattered very much to her.
She felt as if the idea of leaving was like cutting out some vital organ.
It made her breathless, the fact that she would have to go and live somewhere she knew now she’d never belong.
Pin Hill Island was her home. All right, she wasn’t born and bred here.
She didn’t have any actual family, but she had Constance and now Heather and the fact was they were as close to family as she had in the world.
That evening, she stayed in the ranger’s cottage, snuggled up with a throw she’d bought in the Christmas market several months earlier.
She curled up on the sofa and watched as the sky turned from grey, to shadow, to charcoal to black.
She sat there with a bottle of whiskey that Max Toolis had bought before he left and never gotten round to opening.
Well, he was unlikely to come back and claim it now.
The taste stung her lips but it warmed her mouth and down all the way to the very centre of her empty stomach.
Over the course of an evening where it felt as if time both dragged and stood stock still, she got slowly, miserably drunk.
At some time after ten, she heard the unwelcome sound of a rumbling jeep turn into the back yard.
Bloody Jonah Ashe, it had to be him. She listened as the driver pulled to a stop and the handbrake squeaked noisily.
There was an odd silence for a moment, as if the driver was holding his breath just as Ros was – perhaps he sensed this would not be a good time for a sparring match with her.
Then she heard the jeep door creak open, imagined she heard Jonah cross the yard, although in reality, there wasn’t a sound, but then a loud thunk, as if something hit the door.
Silence, for a full thirty seconds. There was no knock on the door, no calling out of her name, no signs that he had actually come to see the person who lived here.
Just one excited bark and Ros imagined that black-and-white collie that sometimes travelled with him leaping about with excitement because his master had returned to the jeep.
And then she heard the engine roar to life, the sound of the jeep being turned around on the gravel and growling once more onto the narrow road that led away from the cottage.
A half-empty bag of feed nuts, suitable for ewes and lambs.
That’s what he’d left against the back door of the cottage.
Part of Ros wondered if perhaps he was saying sorry for their argument the last evening she’d met him, another part of her couldn’t help but wonder if it was the wages of guilt – had he reported her to the Parks and Wildlife Service for not doing her job properly?
Was Jonah Ashe responsible for her losing out on her dream job?
That thought made her even more upset and then angry.
How could someone be such a complete and utter bastard?
But of course, a man who’d cheat on his wife wasn’t going to have very much in the way of a decent character when it came to other things in life either, was he?
She wallowed for a whole evening and made a silent vow that the following day, she would get up and start all over again. She had done it before; she’d just never actually wanted to do it less than she did now.