The Blackwater Lightship Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.
    'I'll be OK, I'm sure,' she said.
    'I'll be here most of the day tomorrow,' he said, 'but here's my home number anyway, I have it written down for you. Also, it seems to me that they don't really need to have him in hospital. He has to have a line put back in and that will be done early tomorrow morning, I imagine. But after that they probably won't do anything else with him, just monitor him. It's really easy to get into hospital, but really hard to convince them to let you out. If you and your mother told Louise that you wanted to take him out, even for a day, then she would listen to you.'
    'The main thing tomorrow is my mother,' Helen said.
    'No, hold on,' Paul said. 'The main thing is Declan, not your mother. He gets depressed in that hospital room, so it's not just a small detail. It's a priority.'
    'Thanks for the correction,' she said.
    She got into the car and closed the door, pulling down the window so she could still talk to him. 'I'm really grateful to you for everything,' she said. She tried to sound as though she meant it, regretting the hostility in her earlier tone.
    'Yeah,' he said and looked away. He was about to say something and then stopped himself. He looked at her, his expression almost hostile. 'I'll see you,' he said.
    She started the car and drove out of the hospital grounds and into the city centre. She found a parking space in Marlborough Street, took her briefcase from the car, put money in the meter and made her way to the reception desk of the Department of Education.
    •          •          •
    She was early and she sat there waiting. If Hugh were here now, she knew, he would make her go home. She wished he were waiting out in the car for her and were coming to Wexford with her. He would probably be in Donegal by now, settling the boys into his mother's house. She would phone him before she left. Her mind kept skipping as she thought about him and the boys and the meeting she was about to attend, and she found that each time she could not focus on what the trouble was, it was like a dark shadow in a dream, and then it became real and sharp — Declan, the hospital, her mother. Mostly, when she worried or was concerned, it was about things which could be solved or would pass, but this was something new for her — and that was why, she