Colm Tóibín - The Blackwater Lightship

'Yes, we all loved her,' Larry continued, 'but this didn't help me. I still wondered if I could sneak out. I mean it. I actually wondered what would happen if I disappeared. I realised that I would never be able to face any of my friends again, but I thought that would be a small price to pay. I looked around and asked myself if maybe one other person felt like I did, but I think I was the only one who wanted to hide. We stood in a row to be photographed and filmed. Everybody smiled and was very relaxed. I think even I might have smiled. But I wasn't very relaxed. You see, no one at home knew. I had to go back to my flat and phone Paul here and borrow his car and drive down to Tullamore. I got there just before the six o'clock news. I knocked on the door and my mother answered; my father was in the hall. I had worked out what to say, but when I saw my mother it was no use, I couldn't say it. I just blurted out, "You're not to watch the six o'clock news," and I walked into the sitting-room and stood like an eejit in front of the television.'

'And what happened then?' Helen asked.

Larry sighed and stopped.

'Telling it is worse than when it happened.'

'Go on,' Paul said.

'Anyway, I was standing there and my mother kept asking me what the problem was, but I couldn't tell her. My father sat on the sofa looking at me like I was mad. I realised that maybe I could tell my mother, but I certainly couldn't tell him. So I said I needed to be on my own with my mother. My father said that he would go out but I told him not to. I was sure that he'd meet someone who would have seen me on the television. Or he'd go down to the pub and he'd see me himself.'

'Your son's a big girl,' Paul said.

'Shut up, Paul,' Larry said.

'So what happened?' Helen asked.

'He went into the kitchen, but I still couldn't say anything and suddenly my mother looked at me and said: "Are you after joining the IRA?" I couldn't believe it.

Can you imagine me in the IRA? I don't think there was anyone in Tullamore ever in the IRA. They're all too bloody boring. No, I said, no. And then I told her.'

'And what did she say?' Helen asked.

'She said that I would always be her son no matter what I did, but I was to get back into the car this minute and go back to Dublin and she would deal with my father and she would phone me later on. She couldn't wait to get me out of the house. She was all pale and worried-looking. I think she would have been happier if I had been in the IRA.'

'Oh come on,' Helen said, 'that's not true.'

'OK, that's not fair about the IRA,' Larry said. 'I think she was just shocked and surprised. You know, in my family my brothers and sisters \a151 even the married ones \a151 still haven't told my parents that they are heterosexual. We don't talk about sex. She was nice about it afterwards, and she still is OK about it, but my father just grunts at me in the same way as he did before. At least if I was in the IRA we would have something to talk about. It'd be more normal.'

'And are you and Paul partners?' Helen asked.

'Him? You must be joking,' Larry said.

'You'd want to be mad,' Paul said.

'What? To be with you, or to be with him?' Helen asked.

'With him,' Paul said. 'Or maybe with either of us.'

'So do you have a partner, Larry?' Helen asked.

'Tell them, Larry,' Paul said.

'I do, Helen,' Larry said, 'but I couldn't tell you about it.'

'Go on, Larry,' Paul said.

'I'm sure Mrs Devereux has heard enough,' Larry said.

'Oh, don't worry about me,' the old woman said. 'There's nothing would shock me. When you've gone through life like I have, there's very little you don't know.'

'Funny, it's easier to talk like this in the dark,' Larry said. 'It's like going to Confession, except there's no lighthouse in a confession box.'

'Come on, we're all waiting,' Paul said.

'We'll hear all about Paul later on,' Larry said.

'Tell the story,' Paul said.

'Stop me now if I go on too long,' Larry said. 'There's this big family a few doors down from us at home. There are five girls and four boys. My folks are friends with the parents. The parents are very religious – the father is in the Vincent de Paul and the mother is always saying Novenas. They're nice normal people. Their youngest son lives in Dublin. And I'm with him at the moment. That's been going on a few months. The only thing is that I've also been with the other three, I mean the other three sons. Two of them are married, but that doesn't seem to stop them. It's funny, they're all different. The youngest fellow is great.'

When he had finished speaking there was silence. Helen could see traces of light through the window, but the room was now entirely dark.

'They're a terrific family. It must be something in the genes,' Paul said after a few moments.

'It's in their genes all right,' Larry said. 'And in their Terylene trousers.'

'I've heard everything now,' the old woman said. Her voice was hard and it was louder than it needed to be, as though she were addressing some higher power. 'Four of them! They must be a right crowd.'

'My mother has enough to think about at the moment, I imagine,' Helen said.

'I told you that you wouldn't want to hear it, Mrs Devereux,' Larry said.

'Oh guard your heart, that's my advice to you, guard your heart and be careful of yourself

Just then the light was switched on and Helen's mother stood at the door. 'What are you all doing here in the dark?' she asked.

Helen blinked and covered her eyes against the harshness of the electric light. She wished her mother would turn it off again.

'Declan is after being sick, but it's not too bad,' her mother said. 'I've cleaned it up, it's all right, but I think he might go asleep now. I hope he will. I don't know what you were all doing in the dark.'

'We were talking, Lily, we were talking, and we didn't notice the night coming down,' the grandmother said.

'What were you saying when I came in the door?' Helen's mother asked.

'I was saying to the boys that this is a very hard time and it is nice to have their company,' the grandmother said. Helen watched her as she turned her face towards Larry as if daring him to contradict her. 'That's what I was telling them, Lily,' she said.

The old woman stood up then and looked out at the night. She pulled her chair back and began to draw the curtains slowly until Larry came over to help her. As he approached her, she raised her hand as though to hit him. He moved away from her, laughing.

They made up the beds for Larry and Paul in the small room upstairs while Lily took her leave of them, saying that she had not been able to sleep the previous night, making her mother promise that she would turn on the mobile phone. She said she would be back in the morning. Helen walked out to the car with her.

'I couldn't sleep the first night I came here either,' she said.

'If there is a problem, you will give me a ring, won't you?' her mother said.

'I found it very strange being back here after all this time,' Helen said.

Her mother started the ignition and began to reverse the car in the yard. Helen stood out of her way.

Later, when she returned from Blackwater, where she had phoned Hugh, she found Declan by the Aga in his pyjamas and slippers. Paul and Larry and her grandmother were sitting at the kitchen table looking at a full-page advertisement in the Wexford People for Lily's computer company.

'She's a big noise, your mother,' Paul said.

'Lily was always very independent-minded,' Helen's grandmother said. 'Even when she was a baby, if you picked her up to cuddle her or put her on your knee, she'd want to be let down to crawl around on her own, or walk when she was old enough. You could never tell her what to do. You couldn't even tell her to get up in the morning. She'd be up before you. She was always a great worker and she had great brains, she won a university scholarship. The nuns loved her. I took in bathers first so I could pay for her to go to FCJ in Bunclody, and, you know, she nearly became a nun.'