The Blackwater Lightship Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 Paul 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, reluctantly, 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 \a166waiting 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