by Colm Toibin
‘She’s high now,’ Lily whispered to Helen, ‘but wait until the winter and she’ll be screaming at me from the coinbox in Blackwater, or she’ll be walking the roads like Moll Trot.’
In the late afternoon Declan’s mood darkened. When they had tea in the kitchen, Declan sat apart from them in the armchair by the Aga. All of them were aware, Helen realised, that he was lower now than he had been at any time in the week. He did not speak, but stared straight ahead; no one at the table spoke either, and finally when Larry said something, it was clear that he was merely trying to break the silence by making jokes about Mrs Devereux’s driving and the disappearance of the cats. No one laughed or responded, and Larry gave up and became oddly morose in a way which disturbed Helen more than anything.
When they had drunk their tea, Mrs Devereux fussed nervously about second cups. All of them had, at some stage, left the room to use the bathroom and come back. Paul now tried to ease the tension by asking Declan if he wanted to go to bed.
‘No, I don’t want to go to bed, Paul, I don’t want to go to bed. Leave me alone. Do you have a problem with me being here?’
Helen watched Paul’s face redden; it was the first time she had seen him at a loss. He said nothing. Mrs Devereux clattered the teacups and saucers in the sink.
‘Leave them. I’ll do them later,’ Helen said.
Her grandmother went to the window and looked out. ‘We’ll have the dinner later on,’ she said. ‘I don’t have the energy now.’
‘I’ll make the dinner,’ Helen said.
Declan still did not speak, and paid no attention to any of them. He was pale now; the bruise-mark on his nose had spread into his cheek and turned ugly and dark. Helen noticed for the first time how thin his hair had become. He crossed his legs and then crossed his ankle around his leg again, emphasising his thinness. In the dim light of the kitchen, as Helen watched him, he seemed strangely beautiful, despite the spareness of his face and frame, like a figure in a painting, with shadows under his eyes and dark shadowy tufts where he had not shaved. She observed his long, bony fingers.
He caught her looking at him and she looked away. By this time, all of the others except her grandmother had left the kitchen. Mrs Devereux went to the window over and over, as if expecting some sudden arrival, and then went back to the sink, where she had started to peel potatoes. Helen went to help her, noticing as she crossed the room that Declan had turned the sickly, almost green colour he had been outside the house earlier.
Helen and her grandmother worked at preparing the vegetables while Lily came in and out of the room and Declan sat silently staring ahead. Whatever was happening to him filled the atmosphere so that they became conscious of every sound they made – the scraping of vegetables, the clattering of saucepans, the turning on and off of taps – as a disturbance, an irritation, a direct breaking of Declan’s fierce and anguished concentration.
Helen could not wait to get out of the room. She wanted to close the kitchen door behind her as she left, with only her grandmother and Declan in the room, but she felt it would be like closing the lid of a pressure cooker. She left the door ajar.
Larry and Paul were in the dining-room.
‘Larry is going back tonight,’ Paul said. ‘He should really go back to work. I’m going to hang on. I think Declan should go back up tomorrow.’
‘I’ll wait around until after dinner,’ Larry said.
As the meat sizzled in the oven and the vegetables boiled and the smell filled the kitchen, Declan sat impassive and immobile, staring at a fixed point ahead of him as though ready to explode in pain or anger. Paul and Larry remained out of the room while Helen and her mother set the table in the kitchen, carefully including a place for Declan, knowing, however, that he would not sit with them. They moved gingerly, silendy, aware that every sound seemed to grate on his nerves. Mrs Devereux filled a saucer of milk and went outside and put it near the shed for the cats.
Eventually, they sat down to eat. They left a chair for Declan but he did not join them, nor did they ask him to. They busied themselves passing food, alert all the time to Declan’s brooding presence.
‘Would you not eat something, Declan?’ Lily asked.
‘No, leave me alone,’ he said without looking up.
‘Leave him alone,’ his grandmother said. ‘He’s my pet.’
Helen saw how uneasy Paul and Larry had become. Declan’s sunken mood had rendered them useless; if the family were not there, she felt, his friends would have been able to do something, but the signals in the room, the connections, were too tangled and complex now, and no one could think of anything to say, and a strange embarrassed sadness descended on the company.
When Larry got ready to go, Declan did not move. Larry left his bag in the hallway and came into the kitchen and tossed Declan’s hair. Declan held Larry’s hand for a moment and squeezed it, but he did not turn to look at him, and did not say anything.
In the dining-room, Larry stood and discussed the plans for renovation with Mrs Devereux. ‘I have all the measurements now, and I know what you want, and I’ll draw up the plans, and we’ll find a good local builder, a real reliable fellow, and I’ll do the talking. And all these plans will come free of charge. Rob the rich and feed the poor, that’s what I say. No offence meant now.’
Helen noticed her mother standing in the shadows listening suspiciously to this.
‘Oh, I’m very grateful to you,’ Mrs Devereux said. ‘I don’t know where I would be without you.’
‘And you should get the work done before the winter,’ Larry said.
‘Oh, indeed, indeed,’ Mrs Devereux replied.
‘So I’ll post the plans to you during the week for your approval, and I’ll come down again when we get the builder.’
‘Oh now, that’s very kind.’
‘So you’d need to be sure now this is what you want,’ Larry continued.
‘Come on, Lar,’ Paul said. ‘It’ll be midnight and you’ll still be talking.’
As Larry got into his car, the two cats appeared briefly on the roof of the shed, miaowing sharply and watching the departing guest. Mrs Devereux ran in and filled another saucer of milk for them. Accompanied by Helen and Paul, she moved up and down the space in front of the house, and then, alone, she walked up and down the lane, calling to them, but when it was clear that they had gone back into hiding, she returned to the house.
It was almost dark and the beam from Tuskar had begun to wash across the front of the house when Declan’s stomach cramps started. Helen noticed the spasms coming lightly at first, with Declan gasping and holding his breath, and then as time went on she witnessed Declan’s panic each time the spasm approached.
All of them tried to talk to him. Lily knelt down in front of him and held his hands, but he would not look directly at her or speak to her. Paul sat quietly at the kitchen table, watching him. Mrs Devereux did the dishes and swept the floor and went out again in search of the cats. Helen stood at the window.
‘Could you turn off the light?’ Declan asked.
There was still a faint glow in the sky so that after a while when they got used to the semi-darkness, they were able to make out shapes in the kitchen. At regular intervals now Declan began to groan. He asked for the basin under the sink to be put near him, and soon, with each spasm, he vomited and retched into it. When he had vomited the first time he put his head back and cried out. When Helen came near him, he motioned her away. He was breathing heavily all the time, waiting for the next heave to begin, holding his stomach and then moaning when it came, and putting his head back when it was over.
Helen signalled to Paul to come outside; Lily and Mrs Devereux were already in the dining-room. They left the kitchen door ajar, aware that Declan had observed them crossing the kitchen.
‘If everyone stays outside here,’ Paul said, ‘I’ll talk to him. It’s probably too late to ring Louise, and we could ring the local doctor again, but he really wouldn’t know what to do. I think I know
what it is; it’s one of the common opportunistic infections, and it can be treated. So if it lasts much longer, and doesn’t look like going away, then Declan will have to go to Dublin, whether by car or by ambulance.’
Helen felt that Paul was enjoying his authority and the sound of his own voice. Her mother and grandmother listened to him respectfully, grateful that he knew what to do. He moved quietly back towards the kitchen and closed the door. The women waited in the dining-room.
‘I don’t know what the two of you are doing,’ Mrs Devereux said, ‘but I am saying a prayer.’
‘Do you know if it is the first time he has suffered like this?’ Lily asked.
‘I don’t think it is,’ Helen said.
‘Say a prayer now that his suffering will be eased,’ Mrs Devereux said. She knelt down and bowed her head, but Helen and her mother remained seated.
They waited for something to happen in the kitchen, hearing at intervals the sound of retching and spluttering and hearing, too, low cries of pain. Helen could not imagine what Paul was saying to Declan. In all the years she had known her brother, she had never seen him rude or sulky or difficult. As she sat there and waited, she regretted her feeling when Paul spoke earlier that he was pompous and self-regarding. She realised that if Paul were not there they would be helpless, unable to deal with Declan or know how to manage.
After half an hour Paul came out of the kitchen with Declan leaning on him. ‘He needs to go to the bathroom,’ Paul said, ‘and he wants to go to bed.’
Paul helped Declan up the stairs. Lily and Helen went into Declan’s bedroom and smoothed his bed, putting his pillows in place, switching his light off but leaving the light on in the dining-room. They sat in the dining-room waiting for Declan to finish in the bathroom. When Paul called down for fresh pyjamas, they went into Declan’s room again and rummaged in his bag. Helen brought the pyjamas upstairs and handed them to Paul through a chink in the bathroom door. She could hear the shower going.
‘We won’t be long,’ Paul whispered to her and closed the door again.
When Declan came down the stairs he was still leaning on Paul, gasping at each step he took as though moving caused him pain.
‘You’re all right now, Declan, you’re all right now,’ his grandmother said as Paul brought him into the bedroom.
‘He’s too hot,’ Paul said. ‘And he just needs a sheet. And he needs water, maybe with ice in it if you have ice, and he needs the basin and a towel.’
As Declan lay down on the bed, the light from Tuskar spilled across the wall of the room.
‘Do you want us to draw the curtains, Declan?’ Helen asked.
‘No,’ he whispered, ‘but don’t go away, stay around, will you?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to get you some water. Are you all right?’
‘No,’ he said and looked at her evenly. ‘I wish it was over.’
‘You’ll be all right,’ she said, and immediately felt sorry she had said anything. She gripped his hand, still wondering how she could have said such a stupid thing. He was watching her, and she tried to smile, but she could not think what to do. She waited with him, and held his hand until her mother came into the room.
In the hour after midnight, Declan’s stomach cramps began again. He had been sweating heavily; Helen and her mother were sitting by his bed, her mother holding a towel to wipe his brow. He had been still for a while, with his eyes open, and light coming from a covered lamp in the comer. Suddenly, he started to heave; he sat up and held his stomach, pressing hard as though to prevent the cramp coming, and then moaning under his breath in small fits and starts until it died down.
Helen called Paul, who was in the kitchen, and moved so that Paul could take her place beside the bed. Declan had his eyes closed now. Paul told Helen to get an ice pack or a packet of frozen peas to cool him down. She found her grandmother in the kitchen, sitting alone at the table, studying the veins in the back of her hands.
‘I think we’re in for a night of it,’ her grandmother said.
‘He’s very sick,’ Helen said.
‘I’m praying for him. Do you think we could tell him that?’
‘I’ll tell him,’ Helen said.
Helen, Lily and Paul sat in the room with Declan and waited with him each time for the pain to come, and tried to comfort him as he held his stomach and let out deep cries. But after an hour or two the cramps subsided, and Declan lay back in the bed with his eyes closed. He was sweating profusely, but shivering at the same time, and they could not tell whether he was too hot or too cold.
When he quietened, Helen convinced her grandmother to go to bed. And after a while, she decided to go herself. Paul and her mother said they would wait until Declan fell asleep. Paul whispered to her in the kitchen that he did not think the cramps had ended, merely stopped for a while. He was almost sure, he said, that they would return during the night, or the following day. He said he had told Declan earlier that he should return to Dublin. Declan had said that he didn’t want to go.
As soon as she fell asleep, Helen heard him crying out. She got up and dressed. It was almost three o’clock in the morning. Her mother and Paul were sitting by the bed in the darkened room. The pain this time did not seem to come in waves as it had done before. Declan now held his stomach all the time. When he opened his eyes, it was clear that he was frightened. He tried to talk, and murmured something, but they could not make out what he was saying. They asked him if he wanted water, but he shook his head. Helen realised that there was nothing they could do, except stay with him; whatever was happening in his stomach was getting worse. Several times over the next half-hour they brought him to the toilet. Paul went in with him, while Lily and Helen changed the sheets and opened the window of his room and encouraged Mrs Devereux to go back to bed when she appeared in her dressing-gown.
Declan lay on the bed, covered only in a sheet. As soon as he drank some water, he vomited into the basin, his whole thin frame shuddering with the nausea. He tried to turn on his side, but he could not manage it and lay on his back again. Sometimes the pain intensified, and he cried to himself, beyond their comforting.
Paul signalled to Helen to come to the kitchen again. ‘He’s not going to sleep,’ he said, ‘and he’s not going to get better down here. There’s no point in going near the hospital until about eight or eight-thirty. So we should think of leaving here at six or six-thirty. I’ll have to take my car, and if you could take his. I don’t know what your mother wants to do, but she can drive separately with Declan, if she wants, or she can come with one of us. I’ll go first and alert the hospital and do all that, or I’ll take Declan with me, if that’s what you want.’
‘Has he agreed to go?’
‘He knows he has to go.’
‘Has he ever been as bad as this before?’
‘Yes.’
When Helen went back to the bedroom, Declan was having cramps again, this time more severe. While waiting for the next attack, he mumbled and muttered words which she could not make out. But as Lily wiped his face and forehead and held his hand, and talked to him softly, he began to call out under his breath and, when the next attack came, Helen for the first time understood what he was saying.
He was saying: ‘Mammy, Mammy, help me, Mammy.’
Helen wanted to leave the room; she felt she was in the way. Declan’s tone when he spoke was abject, childlike, desperate as he called out again: ‘Mammy, Mammy, help me.’ Lily whispered to him words which Helen could not hear.
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, hesitandy, 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.
