Colm Tóibín - The Blackwater Lightship

Helen tiptoed out of the room, and when she told Paul in the kitchen what was happening in the bedroom, tears came into her eyes.

'He's been wanting to say that for a long time,' Paul said, 'or something like it. It'll be a big relief for him.'

Slowly, hesitantly, the dawn came up in the eastern sky, the sky over the sea. From the window, Helen saw chinks of vague light between the black clouds. It was four-thirty; she did not know that the dawn began so early. She watched from the kitchen window waiting for more light to appear, but what she had witnessed was merely a glimmer, a hint at the beginning of day, and there was no change in the sky for some time. She felt alone now, isolated from everybody, and so tired that she could not summon up, even in her imagination, how she felt about Hugh and Cathal and Manus. Just then, there at the window, she felt nothing except a hardness in her heart against the world.

When it brightened, she put on a pullover and walked down towards the sea. The air was cold and there was a sharp, thin breeze coming from the east. She stood at the edge of the cliff and watched the sea, waves gathering way out and moving deliberately to form and break in a dull curl on the strand, and pull back out.

The sea was a deep metallic blue; there were black rainclouds on the horizon, but the sun was coming through now and it was almost bright. There was no one to be seen; it would be a while before the people in the smallholdings around here woke and got up and started the day. She imagined them locked in the privacy of sleep, or turning slowly, wakened for a second by the dawn light, and then falling back into their sleep.

For some time, then, no one would appear in this landscape; the sea would roar softly and withdraw without witnesses or spectators. It did not need her watching, and in these hours, she thought, or during the long reaches of the night, the sea was more itself, monumental and untouchable. It was clear to her now, as though all week had been leading up to the realisation, that there was no need for people, that it did not matter whether there were people or not. The world would go on. The virus that was destroying Declan, that had him calling out helplessly now in the dawn, or the memories and echoes that came to her in her grandmother's house, or the love for her family she could not summon up, these were nothing, and now, as she stood at the edge of the cliff, they seemed like nothing.

Imaginings and resonances and pain and small longings and prejudices. They meant nothing against the resolute hardness of the sea. They meant less than the marl and the mud and the dry clay of the cliff that were eaten away by the weather, washed away by the sea. It was not just that they would fade: they hardly existed, they did not matter, they would have no impact on this cold dawn, this deserted remote seascape where the water shone in the early light and shocked her with its sullen beauty. It might have been better, she felt, if there never had been people, if this turning of the world, and the glistening sea, and the morning breeze happened without witnesses, without anyone feeling, or remembering, or dying, or trying to love. She stood at the edge of the cliff until the sun came out from behind the black rainclouds.

In the kitchen, her grandmother was at the Aga, still wearing her dressing-gown. 'There's tea on,' she said, 'but maybe you want to make a fresh pot.'

Helen sat at the table. The house was cold and the smell of damp brought her back years. She covered her face with her hands. When Paul came into the kitchen, he told her that she should sleep, that they would go to Dublin in about an hour, and she would need a small amount of sleep if she was going to drive.

'Is Declan asleep?' she asked.

'No, but he's calmer, and he's not in pain, but I don't know how long that will last.'

On the way to her room, she noticed that the door to Declan's room was closed and there was no sound coming from it. She lay down on her own bed, leaving the door of her room open, covering herself with an eiderdown. She curled up, burying her face in the pillow. She dozed lightly and woke with a start and dozed again. She lay there in the grey light feeling that she never wanted to move again; she tried to concentrate on Declan's pain and the need to get him to Dublin, and when she fell asleep she dreamed that she was driving in her sleep, and kept trying to wake, knowing that she would crash if she did not open her eyes. She held the wheel, but saw nothing that was coming and understood that if she did not wake up in the next second she would wreck the car and injure herself. She braced herself for the accident but then found it was Paul standing over her, telling her that Declan's cramps had started again, and there was no point in waiting, that Paul was going to drive ahead, and Helen and her mother were going to follow with Declan in Declan's car and they could take turns driving.

Helen felt sweaty, in need of a shower and a change of clothes, but she knew that she had nothing clean left, not even clean underwear. She packed her things with her eyes half shut, wondering if she should go into the kitchen and invite her grandmother to Dublin – she could travel with Paul, and stay with Helen \a151 but she knew that she would not ask her, that they would leave her grandmother here alone, fretting about her cats, her attitude as steely and direct as ever, but with a loneliness which had only been intensified and deepened by her visitors.

Declan was still in bed. Helen went into his room, where Paul was sitting, and heard him whispering weakly with pain.

'He's going to try and get up soon,' Paul said.

'Do you think you're OK for the journey, Declan?' Helen asked.

He nodded. 'I'll get up soon,' he said.

When she went into the kitchen Helen saw that her grandmother was wearing a bright dress with blue dots, and a navy-blue angora cardigan. She had put on a light lipstick and some make-up. It was as if she were coming to Dublin with them and wanted to look her best, but it was, in fact, Helen knew, that she did not want to appear as though she were being left behind.

When they helped Declan out to the car, Lily insisted on sitting in the back seat with him. Paul and Helen tried to make him comfortable, with two pillows Mrs Devereux had offered them, but he could not settle, lying slumped with his eyes closed. They suggested to Lily that she move into the front seat, but she would not budge from where she was, saying that she wanted to be close to him.

Mrs Devereux came out and stood beside the cars.

'Drive carefully now, and stop if you feel sleepy,' she said.

'Keep that phone turned on,' Lily said.

'Oh God, that phone!'

'Keep it turned on,' Lily repeated.

Declan pulled down the back window of the car.

'Thanks for everything, Granny,' he said weakly.

'Mind yourself now, Declan, mind yourself.'

His grandmother had tears in her eyes.

It was six-thirty when they set off, Paul driving ahead. As soon as they were beyond Blackwater, Lily put the pillows on her lap, and Declan rested his head on the pillows. He was in pain still. In the rear-view mirror Helen could see Lily stroking his face.

'I've a terrible pain,' he said to her, half crying.

'You'll be all right now,' Lily said. 'Paul says they'll have a bed for you and they'll know what to do and we'll all stay close to you.'

As they drove north, through Gorey and Arklow, Helen felt oddly alert, realising that if she stopped or thought too much about sleep she would need a rest, and she knew, as Declan's pain worsened and he tried to vomit in the back of the car, that she could not stop, she must go on until they reached the hospital.