Colm Tóibín - The Blackwater Lightship

Her mother searched through her bag and found a purse with loose change. She handed Helen a fifty-pence piece and Helen opened the window and put it in the slot. The barrier lifted.

'We should have gone to the other car park,' Helen said. 'You don't have to pay there.'

It was a mild, hazy morning, with a promise of sunshine. Helen realised that she would have to phone the school and speak to her secretary and cancel the interviews for Wednesday. All she wanted now "was sleep, even an hour or two of sleep before Hugh arrived.

'It's funny,' her mother said, 'how time flies. Here you are driving me through Dublin, and I remember when you were a little girl and we were taking you to Dublin, you and Declan on the train all in your good clothes.'

Helen drove along Thomas Street and Patrick Street and turned into Clanbrassil Street.

'We used to think the train was going to fall into the sea, it went so close to the edge,' Helen said.

'They were the happiest times,' her mother said. 'Declan and you were so different, but on these trips you were the same. Neither of you would be able to sleep the night before, and you'd both be up in the morning long before us, and you'd both be exhausted on the way home.'

'The strangest thing for me', Helen said, 'was how Daddy used to cross the street in Dublin. At home we were trained to look left, look right and look left again. And if we caught sight of a car coming or heard one in the distance, we were told to wait. But in Dublin, he'd walk out, he'd work out the distance and begin crossing when cars were coming, and then he'd dodge them. Declan and myself couldn't believe it.'

'I remember that there was one thing you loved and one thing Declan loved. Do you remember what they were?' her mother asked.

Helen drove towards Templeogue. 'No, I can't,' she said, 'unless it was Moore Street, or the zoo.'

'No. You both loved Moore Street and you both loved the zoo. It was something else. Declan loved the self-service restaurant in Woolworth's in Henry Street. His eyes lit up when he got in there. You know, he hated ordinary restaurants, the few times we took him; he had no patience, he couldn't understand why it took so long for the food to come. And now in Woolworth's he could get a tray and pick whatever he liked and have it immediately. You were different, you liked restaurants, and had plenty of patience, you liked the ordering and the waiting and the looking around. So Woolworth's was Declan's special treat, and then after it, or before it, you got yours.'

The car was stopped at traffic lights near Templeogue now.

'The escalators,' her mother went on: 'you loved the escalators in Clery's and Arnott's. Declan was afraid of them. He couldn't be persuaded to get on to one. But you could have gone up and down them all day. Do you remember?'

'I do, yes, but I think I liked the sell service as well,' Helen said.

'Yes, but not as much as Declan,' Her mother said. 'I have photographs of the two of you at the zoo and in the airport. I must give you some of them so you can show them to your boys. You both look so happy in them. I'll wait for a while now, because seeing Declan in them would make us all too sad.'

Her mother stopped for a moment and sighed. 'I'd love if some of the happiness could be there in his spirit when he goes, as well as all the suffering.'

They were almost home now. Helen knew that as much as she wanted sleep, she needed silence: no more raw memories, no more of the soft-voiced tenderness that her mother was using in the car. She was dreading her mother corning into her house.

'I hope we were some comfort to Declan, Helen,' her mother said when she had reached the house and stopped the car. 'Do you think we were?'

'Maybe he's easier in his mind,' Helen said. 'I hope he is. I don't know.'

Her mother looked at her searchingly, clearly in need of further reassurance. Helen tried to think of something to say which would cause her mother to relax and cease to be such an uneasy presence.

'We're here, we're here now,' Helen said. 'We'd better go in.'

Her mother did not move, but looked at her again, as though pleading for an answer.

'I think we did our best,' Helen said and got out of the car. She waited for her mother at the gate. She linked her slowly along the path to the front door.

'Yes, that's right,' her mother said wearily, 'and what more could we have done?'

The house seemed cold and strange and, as she walked down the hallway, Helen felt she had entered an unfamiliar place. She would have done anything not to have to make tea for her mother. She forced herself to think that this was her house, where she lived, and it could not be taken away from her now. But she could not step out from her mother's dark shadow. When she turned in the kitchen to face her, she was shocked to find how helpless and broken her mother seemed. In those first moments, as they walked down the hallway to the kitchen, she had imagined someone forceful and pushy coming behind her, determined to stop her having her life. Instead, her mother looked bewildered and shocked.

'Well, this is lovely, Helen, it's lovely, it's very bright,' her mother said. Her voice was quiet and sad.

Helen made tea while her mother sat at the table. When she realised that she had no milk, she offered to go to the shop, but Lily said she would drink it black.

'Declan told me about this house, so I knew what it was like,' her mother said, 'but it's nice to be here.'

'I should go upstairs and make up a bed for you,' Helen said.

'Don't go yet,' her mother said. 'Stay here. You don't have to talk. Sometimes when I'm with my mother, I wish I didn't have to talk.'

'Granny is a great talker,' Helen said.

'Your granny wears me out,' her mother said, 'and now that you and I are talking again I don't want to do that to you.'

'I'll stay up for another few minutes.'

'I come up to Dublin on Saturdays sometimes,' her mother said. 'I'd love to come out here to your house for my tea. I mean I wouldn't stay the night. I hate staying the night in my mother's. And it's your house, and you don't want your mother nosing around too much.'

She sipped her tea and sighed and looked out at the garden. She stared into the distance as she spoke. 'I could see the boys. And then I'd drive home. It'll be all quicker with the new bypass. And that's what's keeping me going, Helen, that's what I dream about now, that you and I could sit here talking about nothing, and watch the boys playing and Hugh coming in and out of the room. And I could stand up and go, and it would be all easy and casual. That's what I dream about now.'

'That's a lovely thought,' Helen said. 'And I promise I'll have milk when you come.'

'Let's go to bed now,' her mother said. 'I've said what I wanted to say.'

She stood up and brought her cup and saucer to the sink.

'We'd better be in good form when Hugh comes,' she said. 'And we'll go and see Declan later, but we'll sleep for a while first, we'll sleep for a while.'

Colm Toibin was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of the novels The South, The Heather Blazing and The Story of the Night. He has also written the non-fiction books Bad Blood, Homage to Barcelona and The Sign of the Cross. The Blackwater Lightship was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize. Colm Toibin lives in Dublin.