Colm Tóibín - The Blackwater Lightship

'You'll be all right, Declan,' her mother said. 'You'll be all right.'

As they reached the twisting road between Rathnew and Ashford, Declan's pain became intolerable.

'Where exactly is it?' Lily asked.

'Here, here,' he said.

'Is it his stomach?' Helen asked.

'Yes, it's still his stomach, but it won't be long now. We're nearly there.'

Declan tried to vomit again, but it was all dry. As she drove, trying to concentrate all the time on the stretch of road ahead and nothing else, she realised that he had soiled himself. Carefully, hoping that she wouldn't be noticed, she opened the driver's window.

What she heard then in the back of the car surprised her. It was her mother's singing voice, which she had not heard since she was a child; thin and shaky on high notes, it started softly as though Lily were nervously checking to see if she could still sing. Then it became louder and stronger. It was a song she used to sing at night when Helen and Declan were very young, when they still slept in the same room:

October winds lament around the Castle of Dromore

But peace is in the lofty hall, a phaiste bheag a stor,

Though autumn winds may droop and die, a bud of spring are you.

And then, making her voice husky and low, she sang the chorus.

When she had finished the chorus for the first time, she stopped. 'Help me, Helen,' she said, and began the next verse. Helen knew the words, she had sung the song in a choir in school. She joined in with her mother and together they finished the song.

As they joined the Monday-morning traffic into the city from Bray, they sang any song they could think of \a151 Brahms' Lullaby, 'Oft in the Stilly Night', 'The Croppy Boy' – as Declan lay still. Helen dreaded the traffic lights as they approached Stillorgan; if she stopped for too long, she was afraid that she would fall asleep, or not be able to go on.

'Think of something else, Helen,' her mother said.

'I wish I knew the words of more songs,' she said. 'You think of something and I'll join in.'

When they arrived at the hospital, Helen could not remember how to reach the building where Declan had been when she visited him first. St James's was a sprawling complex; she turned at a roundabout towards a set of buildings, but these all turned out to be modern, unlike the wing where Declan had been. She wanted to ask Declan to sit up and help her, but from the silence in the back of the car she knew that he was asleep. She found a modern car park and waited for the barrier to lift. She drove in and found a space. 'I'll find out where we should go,' she whispered to her mother. Declan's head lay peacefully on the pillow. Her mother could not move. She closed the car door carefully and made her way to the main reception area of the hospital.

She realised when she began to talk to the receptionist that she had no idea what to say. There was, the receptionist told her, no AIDS ward in the hospital, although there was a clinic, but that didn't open on Mondays. The consultant Dr Louise Farrell had beds all over the hospital. If her brother was very sick, the receptionist said, he should go to Casualty. Helen tried to describe the building she had been in before, but the receptionist was now suspicious of her, and was ready to be unhelpful. Helen, in her tiredness, felt a sudden burst of temper, and made herself turn away.

She walked out of the reception area and decided to turn right. There were signs for everything, but she recognised nothing. She knew that in the hallway of the old building Paul would be waiting for her, and he would be impatient at her inability to find it. She hoped her mother would have the sense to stay in the car.

In another building she found a porter sitting by a desk. He was reading the paper, and although he had seen her approaching him, he looked down as she came near. She turned away and left. She tried to think back: how did she come into the hospital grounds that day with Paul? She believed she was moving in the right direction, but she could not be sure. It struck her that she should have asked the receptionist to put her through directly on the internal telephone system to Louise or one of her staff; as soon as she could find another porter she would ask to speak to Louise, she thought. As she entered another building and realised it was a kitchen complex she was so frustrated she was close to tears.

By the time she found Paul in the lobby of the building where Declan had been before, she could barely speak. He made her walk with him to a hallway where he had a wheelchair ready. 'Has something else happened?' he asked her.

'No, just the car is miles away.'

'We'll get a porter to wheel him over,' he said. 'It couldn't be that far. Is it the pay car park?'

She nodded.

'That's OK. We can handle that.'

Declan woke as soon as they came back to the car. He said nothing, appearing stunned by his new surroundings. He got out of the back seat without any difficulty and sat into the wheelchair. The porter put a blanket around him, and Paul carried his bag as they wheeled him through the hospital grounds. Lily and Helen walked behind.

When they reached the ward, Paul handed the bag to the porter.

'They won't need us now,' Paul said. 'He'll be given tests and he might even be sedated. There's no point in us waiting around here.'

Helen now realised that she had her mother on her hands, with only one car between them. 'I need to make a phone call,' she said.

Paul directed her to a callbox in the lobby, while her mother went to the toilet. She dialled the number and Hugh picked up the phone. She told him where they were and what had happened.

'You sound terrible,' he said.

'We had a bad night.'

'Do you want me to come down?' he asked.

She said nothing.

'Helen, you can't be on your own like this. You've got to let me help you.'

'What about the boys?'

'They're fine, they're happy. Let me come down.'

'No, we can't both leave them.'

'Helen, why won't you let me help you? It would take me four and a half hours to drive down, that's all.'

'Hugh, I had the worst thoughts during the night.'

'Why don't I drive down now,' Hugh asked, 'see you, spend the night in Dublin, and take you back up tomorrow? You can see the boys, and then you take the car back so you won't even be a night away?'

Once more, she did not reply.

'Helen,' he said.

'Hugh, can you come down now?'

'I'll leave in a few minutes and I should be there by two or three. Will I come to the hospital or the house?' He sounded relieved and eager.

'The house.'

Helen stood in the lobby with Paul, waiting for her mother.

'I'm going to go home and sleep,' he said. 'I'll come back in the afternoon. Tell your mother I'll see her then.'

'We're very grateful to you,' Helen said. Paul embraced her before he left.

Her mother walked slowly towards her, as though she had injured herself.

'We should go back to my house and have a rest,' Helen said.

'I've no clean clothes.'

'I have clean clothes at home,' Helen said. 'Or we can go to the shopping centre. Hugh is coming down from Donegal.'

'Hugh? Oh Helen, I don't think this is the right time to meet him.'

'You've no choice now,' Helen said and linked her mother through the hospital grounds.

When Helen got into the car, she felt an overwhelming tiredness. As she reversed out of the parking space, she had to force herself to turn and look behind. She wondered where Declan was now, if he was lying in bed, or being tested for something by doctors. She and her mother should have left a note for him before they walked out of the hospital, she thought, to say that they would be back later to see him. She put the car into gear and drove it slowly to the barrier. 'You need fifty pence. Do you have a fifty-pence piece?' she asked her mother.