Colm Tóibín - The Blackwater Lightship

'Helen, that is irresponsible.' She began to walk towards the cliff.

'Where are you going?'

'I'm going to get him,' her mother said.

'He wants to be left alone.'

Her mother continued walking away from them towards the cliff.

'It's mucky,' Helen shouted at her, but her mother did not turn.

'Look at her shoes,' Helen said to Larry. 'She'll never get down the cliff.'

'A mother's love's a blessing,' Larry said.

'I presume you're being sarcastic?'

'It's not just you and Declan can go on like that,' Larry said.

'I thought you were a nice simple chap,' she said.

'I think I prefer your granny to your mother,' he said.

'I did that for a while too,' Helen said. 'It's a mistake.'

They sat in the kitchen and listened as Helen's grandmother moved about upstairs. The cats on top of the dresser had disappeared. When her grandmother came down the stairs and into the kitchen, she had a cat under each arm.

'These two gentlemen', she said, 'are disturbed by all the visitors.'

'You've a great view here,' Larry said.

'View?' she asked. 'You can get fed up looking at the sea. I can tell you that now. If I could turn the house around, I would.'

'It has great character, the house,' Larry said.

The cats jumped out of her arms and made their way to the top of the dresser, where they scowled down at Helen and Larry.

'I'm bad on my feet,' her grandmother said. 'I'd love to make my bedroom downstairs, but then the bathroom's upstairs. There's no justice.' She went to the window and parted the lace curtains. 'Oh, here's Lily now,' she said.

Helen and Larry stood up as they heard Declan and Lily talking. As Helen opened the kitchen door, she noticed her mother's shoes all covered in marl and muck. Declan, she saw, had been crying. They did not come into the kitchen, but turned towards the room where Declan had slept.

'Is he all right?' her grandmother called after them.

'He's fine. He's just going to lie down.'

When Larry went and sat in front of the house, Helen's grandmother guardedly closed the kitchen door and checked the window to make sure no one was coming.

'Helen,' she asked, 'is this man Larry, is he going to stay here as well?'

'I don't know, Granny.'

'Helen, are we going to put them into the same room?'

'I don't know.'

'I suppose we're all modern now,' her grandmother said, going again to the window, 'and I'm as modern as anyone, but I would just like to know. That's all.'

'Granny, do you mean – are they partners?'

'Yes, that's what I mean.'

'No, they're not.'

'So where is Declan's partner?' her grandmother asked.

'He doesn't have a partner,' Helen said.

'Do you mean he has nobody?'

'He has us,' Helen said. 'And he has his friends. That's not nobody.'

'He has nobody of his own,' her grandmother said sadly. 'Nobody of his own, and that's why he came down here. I didn't understand that before. Helen, we'll have to do everything we can for him.'

Her grandmother kept her eyes fixed on a point in the distance and said nothing more. When Larry came in and saw them, he pretended he had been looking for something and he left the room as soon as he could.

Helen went to her room and lay down and tried to sleep. She stared at the ceiling, aware of her mother sitting with Declan in the next room, and surprised that the window was just a small slit in the wall, making the room a shadowy, cavernous space, full of damp smells. She had not remembered it like this.

She thought about the previous year when she had come down here with Hugh and Cathal and Manus. The boys had been excited and interested. Manus had a video about hens, and he had spent the journey from Dublin talking about the hens he was going to see in Cush. Cathal, in recent weeks, had become interested in the idea of young and old. His grandmother in Donegal was old; was his grandmother in Cush old? he asked. Helen explained that his grandmother was in Wexford, his great-grandmother was in Cush and, yes, she was old.

The boys had packed their bathing togs and buckets and spades, even though they were only staying one day. Helen explained about the cliff.

'But is there sand?' Cathal asked.

'Yes, plenty of sand,' she said.

'Do they talk English in Cush?' he asked.

'Plenty of English,' Hugh said.

As soon as they got out of the car and stood in front of their great-grandmother's house, the boys looked around them suspiciously. The house seemed decrepit; one of the windows upstairs was broken. When her grandmother came to the door, Helen watched her as though through the eyes of the two boys. There was something frightening about her presence. The boys did not move as Helen and Hugh went towards the old woman. Helen was afraid that Manus might run back to the car, or worse call her grandmother a witch or some other word from his increasingly large vocabulary.

The boys did not want to come into the house. When Helen asked if Hugh could take Manus to see Furlong's hens, Hugh seemed almost too grateful for the excuse to leave.

Helen beckoned Cathal to come inside. He stood in the kitchen, inspecting everything, his gaze critical and utterly unselfconscious.

'Oh, he's the image of your father, Helen,' her grandmother said. 'Isn't he the image of your father!' Cathal looked at her coldly.

When Hugh and Manus returned, it was clear that the trip to see the hens had not been a success.

'They were all dirty,' Manus said.

'Oh now,' Mrs Devereux said, 'Mrs Furlong washes them with soap and water on Mondays, so you came the wrong day.'

'Do you live here?' Manus asked her.

Hugh sat beside the Aga, Helen and Manus and Mrs Devereux at the kitchen table. Cathal would not sit down.

'Your mother now will be here any minute,' her grandmother said to Helen.

'Is she your mother too?' Manus asked.

'No, Manus,' Helen said, 'she's my mother, but she's Granny's daughter. Isn't that a good one?'

Manus wrinkled his face in mock disgust. He hated it when he did not understand things.

'Did you live here?' he asked Helen.

'No, it's my granny's house,' she told him.

'There's an awful stink,' he said.

He began to examine the fly-paper, which hung from the ceiling near the light-fitting. He called Cathal over.

'The flies are dead,' Cathal said, 'and they're stuck to the paper.'

'Lift me up,' Manus said to Hugh.

'You're to be good, Manus,' Helen said. 'It's Granny's house.'

'I want to see the dead flies,' he said.

'The paper is all sticky,' Cathal said.

'It's all manky,' Manus added.

The cats appeared at the window and her grandmother went out and carried them in, one under each arm. As soon as they saw the visitors, they jumped up to their perch on the dresser. Manus wanted someone to help him fetch them down so he could play with them, but Mrs Devereux explained that they didn't like little boys.

'What did you bring them in for?' he asked her sharply.

The day was mild and sunny and Helen thought it might be best for everyone if Hugh took the boys down to the strand. She would go as far as the cliff with them.

She and Hugh were careful to say nothing as they walked down the lane, pretending that this was a normal outing with buckets and spades. Hugh lifted Manus in his arms as they approached the cliff, Helen held Cathal's hand. Just as they came to the edge, the sky darkened and the boys looked down with amazement and alarm.

'Is that the strand?' Manus asked.

'Yes, and you use steps to go down,' Helen said.

'What steps?'

She pointed them out to him.

'And you run down the last bit;' she said.

'I hate it,' Manus said.

'It's lovely when you're down there. And the sea is much warmer than Donegal.'