by Colm Toibin
He tried to understand this, but he was also frightened by it, and often succeeded in pretending that it was nothing, it was her period, or a bad mood. It would pass, and he would wait and find the right moment and pull her back in again, and she would lie beside him, half grateful to him, but knowing that he had wilfully misunderstood what was between them. As she watched him now, his voice soaring in the last verse of the song, clearly in love with the sounds of the words he was singing, she knew that anybody else would have laid bare, in the way that he had covered, the raw areas in her which were unsettled and untrusting.
TWO
She woke early, with a strange feeling of disappointment, as though she had missed something important. Her mouth was dry. She realised that she would not get back to sleep, and she lay there going over the events of the party. It struck her that she felt the way a child feels when a buzz of excitement is replaced by bedtime or dull duty.
It was eight o’clock; she had been asleep for only four hours. She got up and, when she was washed and dressed, began to clean up from the party, emptying and refilling the dishwasher, tying up black plastic bags full of rubbish and leaving them outside the back door. By the time Hugh appeared, it was almost done. He was wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt.
‘You should have left it for me,’ he said.
‘It’s all finished,’ she said, ‘so you can concentrate on packing.’
He came over to the sink, where she was standing, and held her.
‘I’m going to miss you,’ he said. ‘I’m going to think all the time of things I want to say to you but you’ll not be there.’
‘If I didn’t have this meeting in the Department and the school interviews I could change my mind, but it’s only a week or so,’ she said.
She closed her eyes and put her mouth against his bare neck. The lack of sleep served only to intensify a sudden desire for him, and now she began to fondle him and he slowly began to kiss her. When she opened her eyes she saw that Cathal was studying them carefully from the kitchen door. She smiled and pushed Hugh away gently with her hands.
‘Cathal,’ she said, ‘your breakfast things are on the table. We’re going to lie down for a while. We won’t be long.’ She wondered if Hugh’s erection was apparent through his shorts.
Cathal remained silent, watching them as he moved towards the kitchen table. They went up to the bedroom and closed the door.
‘Poor Cathal,’ she said. ‘I hope he’s all right. It would be worse I suppose if we were having a big fight.’
‘Much worse.’ Hugh laughed. ‘Much worse.’
By eleven o’clock the boys’ suitcases were in the boot of the car and Hugh’s rucksack was on the back seat. Helen had written out a list of instructions.
‘You’re to go up through Ballyshannon,’ she said. ‘You’re not to drive into the North.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Hugh said.
‘I’m sure you’ve forgotten something,’ she said.
‘We’ve forgotten to kiss you farewell,’ he said.
‘And you’re to mind all those Donegal people,’ she said lightly. ‘They’re sly.’
She made sure that the boys had their seatbelts on in the back seat. Manus was impatient to be gone. He refused to kiss her goodbye. ‘I’m bored waiting,’ he said.
She waved at them as the car drove off.
She knew as she walked back into the house that this next hour or two would be special, a time when she could savour and appreciate the empty, silent rooms and the sweet energy which Hugh and Cathal and Manus had left behind them.
Before lunch, Frank Mulvey and his son came to collect the tables and chairs. When he learned that Hugh and the boys had gone to Donegal, he nodded his head and looked at her. ‘And will you be all right here now?’ he asked.
‘I’ll be fine. It’s just a few days.’
‘My missus’, he said, ‘never lets me out of her sight.’
As she stood at the front gate watching the last of the tables being stacked into the van, she noticed a white car edging its way into the street and a man’s head peering at houses as he drove by. She watched the car pass as Frank and his son closed the back door of the van.
‘It’s quiet enough around here.’ Frank Mulvey surveyed the road as he got into the front.
‘You should have heard us last night,’ she said.
‘You’re not a Dublin woman, are you?’ he asked.
‘No, I’m from Wexford. Enniscorthy,’ she said.
‘Wexford,’ he said. ‘We used to travel to Courtown years ago on motorbikes.’
‘Dublin fellows were all the rage in Courtown, I’d say.’
‘We were the bee’s knees, but that’s all years ago, before you were born.’ He closed the door. She watched him and his son, who had not spoken, put their seatbelts on. He beeped the horn as he drove away.
The white car had now turned in the road and was slowly coming towards her. She realised that the driver was looking for directions. When he drew up to her he pulled down the window.
‘I’m looking for O’Dohertys’, number fifty-five,’ he said.
‘This is it,’ she said.
‘Are you Helen?’ he asked.
There was something both eager and friendly about him, but formal as well, and it occurred to her that he was a teacher looking for a job, coming with references or a CV to her house. She wondered how he had got the address. Her face darkened.
‘Yes, I’m Helen,’ she said stiffly.
‘Hold on, I’ll park the car,’ he said.
She had spent the previous two weeks interviewing teachers and she thought she recognised the type: cocky, self-confident, lacking all reticence, the potential scourge of the staffroom and useless in the classroom. She waited for him at the gate.
‘I’m Paul,’ he said. ‘I’m a friend of your brother’s.’
She said nothing, still half sure that he was a teacher to whom Declan had given her address. She wondered if it was something Declan would do, but she did not know, it was years since she had met any of Declan’s friends.
‘You can come inside, but there’s been a party here, the house is a mess.’
‘A party?’ he asked. His tone was odd and unconvincing.
‘Yes, that’s what I said – a party,’ she said drily.
She brought him to the kitchen and sat down. She did not offer him anything. She expected him to sit down as well but he remained standing.
‘Declan’s in hospital. He’s in St James’s. He asked me to come out here and tell you.’
Helen stood up. ‘I’m terribly sorry. I thought you were a teacher looking for a job.’
‘No, I have a job, thanks.’ It was his turn to be dry.
‘Did he have an accident? I mean, is he OK?’
‘No, he didn’t have an accident, but he’d like to see you.’
‘How long has he been in hospital? Sorry, what’s your name again?’
‘Paul.’
‘Paul,’ she said.
He hesitated. ‘He said he’d like to see you. I don’t know how you’re fixed now, but I could drive you to St James’s.’
‘He wants to see me now? Hey, is this serious?’
Again he hesitated.
‘I mean, is he all right?’ she asked.
‘I saw him this morning and he’s in good form.’
‘You don’t sound very reassuring.’
It was when he did not reply to this that she stopped herself asking any more questions. She looked at her watch; it was ten-past one.
‘I have a meeting in the Department of Education in Marlborough Street at four.’
‘If you come now you can be in Marlborough Street by four,’ he said.
She realised that he was waiting for another question. ‘Right. I’ll come now,’ she said. ‘But it will take me a few minutes to get ready.’
Upstairs, as she changed into her navy-blue suit and white blouse – her nun’s costume, Hugh called it – she went over what Pau
l had said and not said. It would have been easy for him to have said that it was just something minor. Even if he was an alarmist, someone who thrived on bad news, he could still have said something which would indicate that it was not serious. Maybe when he said that he had seen Declan that morning and he was in good form, maybe by this he meant to say that there was nothing wrong really. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror and put on a discreet amount of make-up. She felt a sudden urge or longing, which at first she could not identify, but then knew that it was an urge to be back in the house before Paul’s arrival, to be back half an hour ago without his heavy, ominous presence in the room below.
She brushed her hair and checked herself in the full-length mirror and then, reluctandy, she went downstairs. As she saw him in the kitchen, she felt an intense hostility to him, which she knew she would have to keep under control.
She found her briefcase in the front room and emptied it of books, leaving only a notepad and some biros. She made sure that the downstairs windows were closed, turned on the answering machine, checked she had her keys and then told Paul she was ready.
They drove in silence through Rathfarnham and into Terenure. Helen knew that the next question she asked would elicit information which would leave her in no doubt.
‘You’d better tell me what’s wrong,’ she said.
‘Declan has AIDS. He’s very sick. He sent me to tell you.’
Her first instinct was to run from the car, to watch for the next traffic lights and try to open the door and run to the pavement, and become the person entering a newsagent’s shop or waiting for a bus, become anyone but the person she was now in the car.
‘I’ll pull in if you like,’ Paul said.
‘No, go on, I’ll be OK,’ she said. ‘How long has he been sick?’
‘He tested positive a good while ago, but he’s only been sick the last two or three years, even though he’s looked OK. He was very bad last year, but he pulled through. He has a line in his chest which gets infected, and he has problems with one eye and he gets chemo once a month. He’s much weaker now than he was. He’s very worried about your mother.’
‘So he hasn’t told her either?’
‘No. He decided, or I don’t know if “decided” is the word, to leave it all until the last minute.’
Once again, she was left feeling unable to face the answer to the next question she might ask. She wished she knew Paul better so she could judge whether he had used the phrase ‘the last minute’ casually or deliberately. She thought about it: everything else he said had been measured and deliberate; he would hardly have used a phrase like ‘the last minute’ without meaning to.
‘Is he dying then?’ she asked.
‘It will be harder this time.’
‘Has he been in hospital long?’
‘On and off, but mostly he goes to the clinic.’
‘My mother told me he was busy.’
‘He hasn’t been working. Also he’s been avoiding seeing you and your mother.’
‘What’s he been living on?’
‘He has money saved, and he’s been working on and off.’
‘Does Declan have a boyfriend, you know, a partner?’
‘No,’ Paul said flatly.
‘Has he been living alone?’
‘No, he’s been staying with friends. He’s been travelling a bit. He went to Venice at Easter – two of us went with him – but he doesn’t have much energy. He went to Paris for a weekend, but he got very sick there.’
‘It must have been hard looking after him,’ she said.
‘No, it’s hard now, because he’s weaker and he hates being in hospital, but he is the best in the world.’
‘And why didn’t he tell us?’
They were stopped in traffic on Clanbrassil Street now. Paul glanced at her sharply.
‘Because he couldn’t face it.’
She realised from the way he spoke that he considered her an outsider, a remote figure who had to be brought into the picture. Declan, she thought, had replaced his family with his friends. She wished he had thought of her as a friend.
They said nothing as they drove along Thomas Street. She still could not figure Paul out – the mixture of the dry, factual tone and the something else, which was softer, more sympathetic. They passed the brewery and then turned left into the hospital grounds. He drove into a car park at the side.
‘Does Declan have a doctor he sees all the time, or a consultant?’ she asked as they walked towards one of the hospital buildings.
‘Yeah, but I don’t think she’s here today.’
‘She?’
‘Yeah, Louise. She’s the consultant.’
‘Does Declan like her?’
‘He likes her, she’s a good person, but “like” isn’t really the word.’
As they walked into the reception hall she asked him what he did for a living.
‘I work for the European Commission,’ he said. ‘I’m taking time off at the moment.’
This wing of the hospital was old, with high ceilings, shiny walls and echoing corridors. Paul led the way without indicating how far they were from Declan’s room. She did not know at what point he would turn and open a door and she would find Declan. It astonished her that less than an hour ago she was in her own house, undisturbed.
‘Sorry, Paul.’ She stopped him in the corridor. ‘I have to ask you – are we talking about days, or weeks, or months? What are we talking about?’
‘I don’t know. It’s hard to say.’
As they spoke, a young doctor in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck came up to them.
‘This is his sister,’ Paul said. The doctor nodded into the distance.
‘Don’t go in for a while,’ he said. He seemed distracted.
Helen looked at her watch; it was two o’clock.
‘She has to go at half-three,’ Paul said.
‘I can always cancel the meeting,’ she said.
‘Hold on here,’ the doctor said. I’ll go in and look.’ He walked down the corridor and quietly opened a door on the right.
‘I have a name, you know,’ she said to Paul.
I’m sorry, I should have introduced you properly.’
‘What does Declan want to do about my mother?’ she asked.
‘He wants you to tell her.’
Helen smiled sourly.
‘I speak to her on the telephone sometimes, but I don’t know exactly where she lives. I mean, I have her address, but I haven’t been there. We don’t get on.’
‘I know all that,’ Paul said impatiently. He sounded like someone chairing a meeting.
‘And?’ she asked.
‘He wants you to go and tell her. You can have his car. It’s in the car park. I have the keys.’
The doctor came back and beckoned them to come with him. ‘He wants you both to go in at the same time,’ he said.
The room was darkened but Helen could make out Declan in the bed. His eyes followed her; he smiled. He was thinner than when she had last seen him three or four months before, but he did not look sick.
‘Paul,’ he said in a hoarse whisper, ‘could you open the window and pull the curtains a bit.’ He tried to sit up.
A nurse came in and took his temperature and wrote it on a chart and then left. Helen noticed a dark, ugly bruise on the side of Declan’s nose. He began to speak to Paul as though she was not there.
‘So what do you think of her?’
‘Your sister? She would have made a great reverend mother,’ Paul laughed.
Helen remained motionless and silent. She tried to smile and forced herself to remember how hard this must be for Declan. She wanted to strangle Paul.
‘She’s nice, though,’ Paul added.
‘Hellie,’ Declan said. ‘Will you deal with the old lady?’
‘Do you want to see her?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as she can. And will you tell Granny as well?’ H
e closed his eyes.
‘You should meet my granny, Paul,’ he said. ‘She’s the one would put manners on you. She’s a real paint remover.’
‘It won’t be a problem, I’ll drive out to Granny’s as well,’ Helen said. ‘I’ll make sure it’s not a problem. Hugh and the boys are in Donegal.’
‘I know,’ Declan said.
‘How do you know?’
‘A friend of mine was at your party last night.’
‘Who?’
‘Seamus Fleming. He knows Hugh.’
‘What does he look like?’
‘Tall and skinny. Gorgeous eyes. He flirts,’ Paul interjected.
‘Does he play the guitar?’
‘Yeah,’ Declan said.
‘Is he gay?’ she asked.
‘As the driven snow,’ Declan said. Paul laughed. Declan closed his eyes and lay back and said nothing.
Helen knitted her brow in exasperation. No one spoke for a while. Declan seemed to be asleep but then he opened his eyes. ‘Do you want anything?’ she asked him.
‘Do you mean Lucozade or grapes? No, I don’t want anything.’
‘This is a real shock, Declan,’ she said.
He closed his eyes again and did not reply. Paul put his finger to his lips, signalling to her to say nothing more. They stared at each other across the bed.
‘Hellie, I’m sorry about everything,’ Declan said, his eyes still closed.
Before they left the hospital, they spoke to the doctor again. Helen noticed how friendly Paul was with him and how familiar. The doctor told them that the consultant – he too called her Louise – would be there all the next day, and she would see Helen and her mother at any time.
‘I have to keep convincing myself, Helen said when they got outside, ‘that this is really happening. You’re all so matter-of-fact about it, but the truth is that he is dying in there and I have to go and tell my mother.’
‘No one is being matter-of-fact,’ Paul said coldly.
He walked with her to the car park in front of the new hospital. He opened Declan’s car – a battered white Mazda – and handed her the keys. ‘Have you driven one of these before?’ he asked.