The Blackwater Lightship

by Colm Toibin

  ‘Well, I hope it doesn’t rain,’ Madge said. They drank tea and looked around them. ‘And will you be staying here tonight now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Helen said.

  ‘It’s a while since you stayed the night here, Lily,’ Essie said.

  ‘I might well have passed up and down when you weren’t looking, Essie,’ Lily said.

  ‘Oh, Madge would see you then,’ her grandmother said coldly and stared towards the door.

  ‘You haven’t been down here since last year, have you, Helen?’ Essie asked, ignoring the last remark.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And what do you think of the improvements she’s made, Lily?’ Madge asked, pointing to the radiators.

  ‘Lovely, lovely,’ Lily said.

  When they had gone, Mrs Devereux put her finger to her lips and went to the window. ‘Say nothing now! They’re inspecting the cars!’

  Helen and her mother went to the window.

  ‘Stand back both of you!’ her grandmother ordered.

  When the Kehoe sisters had finally disappeared, the three women began to laugh.

  ‘I was in school with Essie,’ Lily said. ‘She was a right hunt.’

  ‘If you’d known her mother, you’d know that she never could have been any other way,’ Mrs Devereux said.

  ‘How do you put up with them, Granny?’ Helen asked.

  ‘I don’t put up with them, Helen,’ her grandmother said. ‘Did you not hear what I said to them? They’ll be raging about that.’

  ‘The oul’ father, oul’ Crutch Kehoe, used to beat them with nettles,’ Lily said.

  ‘Well, if that’s all he did to them, they’re not too bad,’ Mrs Devereux said. ‘They’ll go off now and they’ll fill whoever they meet with the news and gossip. The only lucky thing is they have no telephone.’

  As Helen went down to Declan’s room to tell the others what had happened, she heard them talking animatedly. It was Larry’s voice she heard, telling a story, and the other two interrupting, laughing, egging him on. She left them there; she did not go into the room.

  Her grandmother sat by the window. As the pale light from the sea faded and the shadows grew, Helen focused only on the old woman; she watched her white hair and her long thin face. When her grandmother spoke, the voice was sharp and determined.

  ‘Oh, when I saw you getting out of the car,’ she said to Paul, ‘when I saw you, I said to myself-here’s another of them now.’

  ‘Granny, what do you mean?’ Helen asked her.

  ‘I think you know what I mean, Helen,’ she said.

  ‘She means homosexuals,’ Paul said.

  ‘Granny, you can’t talk about people like that.’

  ‘When I saw him getting out of the car’ – the old woman spoke as though she were talking to herself, trying to remember something – ‘it was the way he walked or turned and I wondered what sort of life he was going to have now, what sort of person he could be.’ She raised her head and looked across the room at Helen.

  ‘It’s a difficult time for all of us,’ Helen said.

  ‘It’s difficult for them, Helen, and it always will be.’

  ‘I think she means homosexuals again,’ Paul said.

  ‘Well, I’m happy,’ Larry said. ‘I’m not happy being here now, but my life’s happy.’

  ‘It’s a stupid word, “happy”,’ Paul said.

  There was silence now. The four of them sat in the gloom as the lighthouse began to flash. Her grandmother looked out of the window as if she had heard a sound or someone approaching. Then she faced back into the room. ‘I’m old and I can say what I like, Helen.’

  Helen realised that she was still afraid of her grandmother, that she would not confront her or defy her. She stared at her across the room, knowing that the old woman could not see the resentment, the dislike. Her grandmother turned to Paul and Larry, her two visitors.

  ‘Declan never told us anything about himself. We always thought that he had a great life in Dublin. No one knew he was sick and no one knew he was one of you.’

  She said nothing for a while, but it was clear that she had merely stopped so that she could gather strength for what she was going to say next.

  ‘But I knew something. I’ve known it for a year now and I never told anyone or said anything. Declan came down here last summer. He left his car way back somewhere so I heard no car, but for some reason I went out to the lane, and I looked down towards the cliff and I saw him coming towards me. He must have passed the house without calling in, or maybe he went down by Mike Redmond’s and walked along the strand. And now he was coming towards me, but he didn’t expect to see me, and I think he didn’t want to see me, and I think that he would have passed by my house if I hadn’t come out to the lane. I hadn’t seen him since Christmas, and I don’t think he had been down here for more than a year. And when he came towards me I could see that he had been crying and he was so thin and so strange, like as though he didn’t want to see me. He was always so friendly, even when he was a little boy. And he tried to make up for it when he came into the house. He was all smiles and jokes, but I’ll never forget seeing him. He had tea here, and both of us knew that there was something awful, something very wrong. I knew he was in trouble, but AIDS was the last thing I thought of, and I thought of everything.’

  Helen held her breath in the semi-darkness as the lighthouse started up. She wondered why her grandmother had not told her this before.

  ‘I knew Declan came down here,’ Larry said. ‘He used to drive out of Dublin on his own, usually to Wicklow, to the mountains; he would drive along those roads for miles. He drove to Wexford a few times, to his mother’s house, but it was always late and he never went in. I think he hoped she’d find him there like you did. But he never saw her. And then he’d drive back to Dublin.’

  ‘I knew something would happen and I waited for it,’ Mrs Devereux said, as though she had not been listening.

  Helen wanted her grandmother to stop talking. She directed a question at Larry and Paul. ‘Do your folks know that you’re gay?’ she asked them.

  ‘Tell her your story,’ Paul said to Larry.

  ‘I’ve told it too many times,’ Larry said.

  ‘Make him tell it,’ Paul said to Helen.

  ‘My grandmother would love to hear it,’ Helen said. She knew that this was the nearest she could come to defiance. ‘Come on, Larry,’ she said. ‘We’re all full of curiosity.’

  ‘All right,’ Larry said. ‘But if it gets boring stop me. After I qualified, I was involved in a gay group in Dublin, and we organised fund-raising and we started a news sheet, and we had meetings all the time. I helped out a bit, and I was around a lot, so the time Mary Robinson invited gay men and lesbians to Áras an Uachtaráin, I was on the list and I couldn’t say no. It was a big deal. We really enjoyed getting ready for it. I know it sounds stupid, but we thought that because the law still hadn’t been changed it might just be a private visit. Anyway, all the newspapers were there, and radio and television. Mary Holland was there and a fellow from RTÉ, it wasn’t Charlie Bird, I can’t remember his name, but I realised that he was from the six o’clock news and they were going to film us all having tea with the President.’

  ‘Oh she’s very nice, Mary Robinson,’ Mrs Devereux said, ‘she’s very refined. There aren’t many like her.’

  ‘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 – even the married ones – 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.’

  ‘I never knew that,’ Helen said.

  ‘Oh, the nuns loved her,’ her grandmother went on, ‘and when she was in her final year and we drove her back up after the Hallowe’en break, they called us in, and they had never looked up or down at us before, oh they were very grand, the nuns, a French order. And Mother Emmanuelle, the grandest of them all, told me that she
believed Lily had a vocation. I smiled at her and said that would be the happiest thing for us. It was all smiles until I got out to the car and I said to your grandfather that I was going to pray to God to stop Lily entering the convent.’

  ‘And did you not want her to be a nun?’ Paul asked.

  ‘Lily? Our beautiful daughter? Have all her hair cut off? And a veil and a draughty old convent and only doddery old nuns for company? I did not! And I lay awake every night thinking about how to stop her. I knew that we could say nothing to her, that talking to her would make no difference. Your grandfather, who was a very good man and is getting his reward in heaven, said that we should accept God’s will, and I said that my not wanting her to be a nun could also be God’s will.’

  ‘Good man, Granny,’ Declan said.

  ‘So what did you do?’ Helen asked.

  Her grandmother looked at the floor and said nothing. The others looked at her in silence, waiting for her to continue.

  ‘I’ll make tea,’ she said. I’m talking too much.’

  ‘No, you’re not, you have to tell us,’ Declan said.

  ‘I’ll make the tea,’ Helen said.

  ‘Well, I thought and I thought,’ she said, licking her lips. ‘And I knew that I had until the end of the Christmas holidays to stop it. And I thought about Lily. You know, when other girls were playing nurses, she had to be the best nurse, and when it came to dressmaking, she’d keep me up all night with patterns and material. She always did what everyone around her did, only more so. It was the same with her studies. She had to be the best and the most enthusiastic. She was with the nuns day and night, so, of course, she wanted to be one of them. And once all that struck me, then I knew what to do. It was just before we collected her for Christmas.’

  ‘What did you do, Granny?’ Helen asked as she filled the teapot.

  ‘Lily needed to have her head turned, that was all. And my sister Statia was married to one of the Bolgers of Bree and she had five sons and no daughters, and they were the wildest young fellows in the county Wexford. They were nice and decent, mind, but Statia loved them all, and she was softer than I was, and she’d let them roam the countryside and have parties, when no one else was having parties, and go to dances in their father’s car and not come home until dinnertime the next day. And they had cousins on the Bolger side who were nearly as bad. All they thought about were hurling matches and girls and dances. Three of the cousins were on the Wexford team.