The Blackwater Lightship (25 page)

'We were going to have another child if we could,' her mother went on, 'maybe even two more, like a second family, to thank God for him getting better. We talked about having another boy and another girl, or maybe the opposite way around. We planned everything in detail, and I learned a lot about him even though I'd been married to him for years. We had our own little world there. He was in a corner bed by a window, and nurses came and went, and doctors came and 'went, and I never asked them a question. Maybe I knew he was sick, and avoided it, but really I didn't know, and one day I was walking up and down the corridor waiting for the nurses to finish with him when one of the nuns came up to me and asked me if I would come down to the chapel and pray with her. She lit candles and we knelt down.

'"We'll ask Our Lady", she said, "that he has a happy and a peaceful death." Well, I prayed with her, and she held my hand, but I thought she had mixed me up with somebody else. She was a slow, placid old woman, and I'd noticed her from as soon as we arrived, and she'd noticed me, and I knew she wasn't making a mistake, but still I asked her. She brought me down to meet the consultant, who was very arrogant and brusque and had no time for me. Then I had to go back to your father, and pretend nothing had happened. They had given him an injection, and he weakened after that and was dead within two days, and after he died, if that nun hadn't been there I don't know what I would have done.

'I couldn't part from him. You know, I wanted them to draw the curtains and leave me on my own with him, but they kept coming in to say I would have to go. I knew I'd never see him again. And the nun brought me back down to the chapel and I prayed for him, but the praying made no difference, I did not know that there could be blackness like I felt that day.'

'Did you let Granny know he was very sick a good length before that?'

'Well, she knew he was sick.'

'I mean that he was dying.'

'Sure I didn't know myself. I suppose I would have let her know the day I knew, or the day after. I left it all to Pat Bolger. But your father was dead within a day or two. He was so young, he was ready for another life, he was looking forward to coming home. He was the light of my life and he loved you and Declan so much. He didn't want to let you out of his sight. And now he was cold, like he was nothing.

'And I made a promise that day in the chapel, after they'd taken his body out of the ward, that I'd do my best with you and Declan, that I'd try to be as good as the two of us would have been. I made a promise to do my best, but I don't suppose, looking at it now, that I did very well.'

Her mother's hands were trembling as she looked out to sea. Her last remark was made so flatly, the tone so factual and melancholy, that Helen did not feel she should say anything in reply. They sat in silence listening to the waves sweeping in towards the shore. Eventually, Helen spoke.

'I was just thinking,' she said, 'that I have a son who reminds me of my father sometimes, just like you said about Declan, when he turns his head.'

'Which son is that?' her mother asked.

'He's Cathal, the older one, he's quiet, he's like the men down here, he loves not having to talk. And then the other is the opposite.'

'Declan was the opposite to you when you were small. Your father loved having the two of you in the bed on a Saturday morning or a Sunday morning. I never wanted it, but if there was a sound out of you he'd bring you into our bed, and if you came, Declan was sure to follow. And you'd be quiet, you'd suck your thumb, but Declan would crawl all over us, he'd pull his daddy's ears, or he'd want to tickle his feet, and you'd hate all the noise, and Declan would get worse until we got up.'

'I always wanted to be an only child, especially when I was around that age,' Helen said.

'All I ever wanted was a sister,' her mother said. 'Your granny tried to adopt. She was all ready and then a woman in a tweed suit — I don't know who she was, some sort of inspector — came down and asked her where the adopted child would live when our house fell into the sea, and was there an insurance policy? And, of course, there wasn't. And my mother was raging. "You couldn't bring a child up here," the woman said to her. And we were turned down for adoption. She was in a terrible state, your granny; that was the winter she didn't speak to us at all, me or your grandfather.'

'A sister would have changed everything, wouldn't it?' Helen asked.

'It would, yes, it would,' her mother said thoughtfully, regretfully. She said nothing for a while, and then began to shake her head and frown.

'What is it?' Helen asked.

'There's something I will never forget about the funeral,' her mother said. 'It's hard to talk about it. Coming home like that from Dublin and your father so young, and everybody looking and watching, there was a sort of shame about it. It sounds mad, doesn't it? I know it does, but that's what it felt like, so exposed, or maybe that isn't the word. But it felt like shame, those days after he died when we came home.'

'But you didn't look like that,' Helen said.

'I don't know how I looked. I spent those days trying to put back time. And maybe trying to stop time too, because I knew when it was all over and the people went away I would be alone, I'd be sleeping alone, I'd be alone at night, and the job of dealing with you and Declan I'd have to do alone. And I couldn't manage, you know I couldn't manage. I don't know why I'm thinking of all this now. I suppose it's because of Declan.'

The strand grew colder as the afternoon wore on. Helen and her mother folded the rug, and took their swimsuits and towels from where they had half dried on the boulder, and they walked until they came to the gap at Mike Redmond's house, where they scrambled up the cliff.

As they made their way back to the house along the lanes, Helen stopped for a moment.

'There's something I've never realised before, that's just struck me now,' she said. 'I've always believed that you took him away and you never brought him back. I know it's irrational, but that's what it was, that's what I felt. I thought that you had locked him away somewhere, that you knew where he was, that it was all your fault. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I believed all this.'

Lily shivered as she stood there.

'I locked no one away, I'm afraid, Helen,' she said wearily. 'He died in my arms. I watched him go. I know I came home to you all without him. There was nothing I could do.'

'I know, Mammy, I know,' Helen said, and linked arms with her mother and they continued walking.

•          •          •

At the top of the lane they saw Madge and Essie Kehoe approaching.

'Say nothing now,' Lily said.

'Well,' Madge Kehoe said as she came close, 'we've just been down to Dora's house and we were wondering where you were.'

'Dora will kill someone,' Essie interrupted. 'You'll have to stop her. She nearly drove into the ditch.'

'Oh, but she used to be a great driver,' Lily said. 'She'll learn again in no time.'

Helen knew that what her mother had just said was untrue; she felt that the Kehoes also knew that.

'Did you hear about Kitty Walsh from The Ballagh and her poor mother hardly cold?' Madge asked. She spoke quickly, breathlessly.

'There should be a law, you know,' Essie said. They were both excited at what they had just witnessed.

'There is a law,' Madge said, 'but it's the guards, they won't stop her.'

'Sure she's too blind to see them. She wouldn't stop for them,' Essie said. 'And now Dora is driving.'

'Oh, it'll be a while now before she hits the road,' Lily said. Helen noticed that her mother was sounding aloof, almost posh.

The Kehoe sisters' eyes darted from Helen to her mother. 'And is your husband still in Donegal?' Essie asked.

Helen nodded.

'And isn't Declan looking very thin?' Madge said. 'He'll never get a wife if he doesn't fatten up a bit.'

'Oh I'd say there are girls only waiting for him to make up his mind,' Essie said and smiled sourly.

Neither Lily nor Helen spoke; the sisters slowly seemed to realise that they had said too much too quickly. For a second or two they said nothing more until it was clear that Lily and Helen were going to move away. Eventually, Madge broke the silence.

'God knows who we'll have driving next. Old Art Murphy, or Kate Pender.'

'I'd say it'll be a while now before they get their provisional licences,' Lily said, laughing.

'And the judge is a queer dangerous driver,' Madge said.

'We'll all have to watch out so,' Helen said, and made as though to move.

'And who is the other fellow in the car teaching Dora?' Essie asked.

'He's a friend of Declan's,' Helen said.

'Is that so now?' Essie asked. 'And is he teaching in your school?'

Helen did not answer.

'God, you've a right crowd,' Essie continued.

The Kehoe sisters searched their faces to see if there might be some more information for them to gather.

'We'd better be going,' Lily said.

'Call in before you go back,' Madge said.

'We'll have the kettle on for you,' Essie added.

'They're mad, they were always mad,' Lily said as soon as the Kehoes were out of earshot. 'You should be down on your knees thanking God, Helen, that you didn't have to go to school with people like that. I pinched that Essie so hard one day that her oul' father came down home to complain about me. God, when I was growing up here I couldn't wait to get away! Even seeing the two of them puts years on me.'

•          •          •

The driving lesson had just ended when Lily and Helen arrived at the house. Mrs Devereux and Larry were standing beside the car; Declan and Paul were sitting on chairs outside the front door. Declan's face,. Helen noticed, was almost green; she had not seen him looking so sick and so strained before. But he was smiling now and laughing. She realised as she watched him that he was making an effort to keep going.

'Show them now,' Larry said to Mrs Devereux.

'We met the Kehoes,' Lily told them.

'They were full of admiration for you,' Helen said to her grandmother.

'Show them,' Larry repeated.

Mrs Devereux got into Larry's car, closing the driver's door and seeming to concentrate hard. She started the car and let the engine rev for a minute. She acted as though no one were watching her as she put the car into gear and let off the handbrake and then slowly and smoothly edged forward towards the gate. As she prepared to turn into the lane, the car began to shudder and the engine cut out. She started it again, the engine revving and revving until thick, black smoke poured out of the exhaust. She turned the corner and made her way up the lane. All of them went out to the gate to watch her. She stopped the car with a jolt and applied the handbrake and waited until Larry reached her. She moved over into the passenger's seat and let Larry reverse the car and drive it back down. When the car stopped in front of the house, Mrs Devereux got out and dusted herself down. Larry, Paul, Declan and Helen applauded. Lily stood still, stony-faced.

'She's high now,' Lily whispered to Helen, 'but wait until the winter and she'll be screaming at me from the coinbox in Blackwater, or she'll be walking the roads like Moll Trot.'

•          •          •

In the late afternoon Declan's mood darkened. When they had tea in the kitchen, Declan sat apart from them in the armchair by the Aga. All of them were aware, Helen realised, that he was lower now than he had been at any time in the week. He did not speak, but stared straight ahead; no one at the table spoke either, and finally when Larry said something, it was clear that he was merely trying to break the silence by making jokes about Mrs Devereux's driving and the disappearance of the cats. No one laughed or responded, and Larry gave up and became oddly morose in a way which disturbed Helen more than anything.

When they had drunk their tea, Mrs Devereux fussed nervously about second cups. All of them had, at some stage, left the room to use the bathroom and come back. Paul now tried to ease the tension by asking Declan if he wanted to go to bed.

'No, I don't want to go to bed, Paul, I don't want to go to bed. Leave me alone. Do you have a problem with me being here?'

Helen watched Paul's face redden; it was the first time she had seen him at a loss. He said nothing. Mrs Devereux clattered the teacups and saucers in the sink.

'Leave them. I'll do them later,' Helen said.

Her grandmother went to the window and looked out. 'We'll have the dinner later on,' she said. 'I don't have the energy now.'

'I'll make the dinner,' Helen said.

Declan still did not speak, and paid no attention to any of them. He was pale now; the bruise-mark on his nose had spread into his cheek and turned ugly and dark. Helen noticed for the first time how thin his hair had become. He crossed his legs and then crossed his ankle around his leg again, emphasising his thinness. In the dim light of the kitchen, as Helen watched him, he seemed strangely beautiful, despite the spareness of his face and frame, like a figure in a painting, with shadows under his eyes and dark shadowy tufts where he had not shaved. She observed his long, bony fingers.

He caught her looking at him and she looked away. By this time, all of the others except her grandmother had left the kitchen. Mrs Devereux went to the window over and over, as if expecting some sudden arrival, and then went back to the sink, where she had started to peel potatoes. Helen went to help her, noticing as she crossed the room that Declan had turned the sickly, almost green colour he had been outside the house earlier.

Helen and her grandmother worked at preparing the vegetables while Lily came in and out of the room and Declan sat silently staring ahead. Whatever was happening to him filled the atmosphere so that they became conscious of every sound they made — the scraping of vegetables, the clattering of saucepans, the turning on and off of taps — as a disturbance, an irritation, a direct breaking of Declan's fierce and anguished concentration.

Helen could not wait to get out of the room. She wanted to close the kitchen door behind her as she left, with only her grandmother and Declan in the room, but she felt it would be like closing the lid of a pressure cooker. She left the door ajar.