Anne, her secretary, read her a list of phone messages which she had, as instructed, taken verbatim in shorthand. Most of them were routine; one was from John Oakley in the Department of Education. Helen looked through the post. Anne told her that one of the teachers had phoned up to ask why they were doing a second interview since no other school had adopted this practice.

'What does she teach?' Helen asked.

'Irish and English.'

'Could you read me her message exactly?'

The secretary read her out the phone message. Helen thought for a minute and then said: 'We'd better write to her. Could you type out a note saying that the position has been filled, and thank her for her interest, and I'll sign it before I go. She sounds like a real nuisance.'

'Also,' Anne said, 'there's a problem with Ambrose. He was drunk, or at least he had a lot of drink on him on Monday. He implored me not to tell you.'

'When was the last time he was drunk?'

'The sixth of April,' Anne said.

'He's the most obliging handyman in Ireland,' Helen said.

'He's afraid of his life of you,' Anne said.

'But he was sober yesterday, and is he sober today?'

'Yes, and really sorry.'

'I'm going to do nothing about it,' Helen said. 'But tell him you told me, and I've gone off to think about it. Frighten him a bit.' She laughed, and Anne shook her head and smiled.

She walked around the empty, echoing corridors of the school, then went upstairs and sat on a bench opposite the staffroom. Suddenly, the whole weight of what had happened and what was going to happen hit her as though for the first time: her brother was going to die, and they were going to watch him sicken further, suffer and slowly fade. A vision came to her of his lifeless, inert body ready to be put in a coffin and consigned to darkness, closed away for all time. It was an unbearable idea.

She tried to put it out of her mind. She felt tired now, worried that if she stayed too long in one place she would fall asleep and be found by Anne. She walked slowly down to the office and signed the letter and then drove home, desperately wishing that she could lie down on the bed and sleep until the morning. She had a shower and changed her clothes. When she phoned Hugh in Donegal, there was no answer. At four o'clock, she drove back across the city to the hospital.

She met her mother and Paul in the corridor outside Declan's room.

'They're just doing a general check-up on him now,' her mother said. 'They're going to let him out for a few days.'

'Does he want to come to my house?' Helen asked.

'No, he wants to go to Cush, to his granny's house,' her mother said. T don't know why he wants to go there.'

'To Granny's house?'

'Of course, when I tried to phone her, she had the phone turned off,' her mother said.

'He's been talking a lot', Paul said, 'about Cush and the house by the sea.'

'If he wants to go there, then we'll take him there. I told him that.'

'When?' Helen asked.

'If he's going he'll have to go now, because he might have to be back here in a couple of days,' her mother said.

The consultant and the doctor came out of the room. 'He has the all-clear for a few days anyway,' Louise said. 'I'll make out a list of drugs and as soon as pharmacy has them ready he can go.'

'One day we waited here two hours for pharmacy,' Paul said.

'I'll take the prescription up there myself and if you come with me, Paul, and stand there looking at them, then they might do it now,' the consultant said.

Helen and her mother went into the room, where Declan was sitting on the side of the bed.

'I feel all dizzy when I sit up like this,' he said. 'But I'll be all right in a minute.'

'Declan, I stayed in Granny's house last night,' Helen said. 'The beds are really uncomfortable and the sheets are ancient.'

'I'll get sheets from home,' her mother said.

'How was Granny when you told her?' Declan asked.

'She was worried about you,' Helen said.

They went outside "while Declan dressed.

'Do you know who this Paul is?' her mother asked.

'He's an old friend of Declan's. I think he's been very good.'

'This whole thing is a nightmare,' her mother said.

'Yes, I know. He seems so well. It's hard to believe.'

'You can drive us down,' her mother said. 'You're on holidays, aren't you?'

'Not exactly, but I can drive you down.'

When the drugs came, Paul and Declan began to clear out the room, putting rubbish into a black plastic bag and clothes and CDs into a holdall. Declan began to give Paul detailed instructions on how to get to his grandmother's house in Cush. Helen and her mother looked on, puzzled, as Declan told Paul to give these directions to Larry as well – Helen did not know who Larry was \a151 and ask him to come down to Cush too as soon as he could.

They set out for Wexford. Her mother fussed over Declan's comfort in the car and wondered whether he would be better in the front or the back. As they drove through the city, Declan in the back seat, her mother turned to him and said: 'Helen said on the way up that you were worried about how I'd react. Well, you needn't worry about that at all. You and Helen are the two people I care about most, and nothing would ever change that.'

'I should have told you before,' Declan said, 'but I couldn't bring myself to.'

They stopped at Dunnes Stores in Cornelscourt, where Helen left them in the car park and filled up a trolley in the supermarket with things they would need over the next few days. She did not know how her grandmother would respond to their arrival. She realised that for the first time in years – ten years, maybe \a151 she was back as a member of this family she had so determinedly tried to leave. For the first time in years they would all be under the same roof, as though nothing had happened. She realised, too, that the unspoken emotions between them in the car, and the sense that they were once more a unit, seemed utterly natural now that there was a crisis, a catalyst. She was back home, where she had hoped she

would never be again, and she felt, despite herself, almost relieved.

On the journey to Cush, her mother talked about her staff and her clients; she was trying hard, Helen believed, to be witty and bright. A few times they thought that Declan was asleep, but he turned out only to have his eyes closed. Her mother said that at some stage that evening Helen could drive her into Wexford and she could get her own car and bedclothes from home.

'We'll make you very comfortable, Declan,' her mother said.

'Do you think Granny will mind us barging in on top of her like this?' Declan asked.

'She's always loved you, Declan.'

'Yes, but will she not mind?' he asked.

'If she'd turn her telephone on, we could find out.'

'I think she'll want to help in every way she can, Declan,' Helen said.

It was still early evening when they arrived in Cush. Their grandmother came out and looked into the car, unable to make out who its occupants were.

'Is it Declan you have in the back?' she asked Helen when she opened the front door.

'He wanted to come down here for a while, Granny,' Helen said. 'We couldn't refuse him.'

'Oh come in, all of you. Lily, come in and bring Declan in with you.'

They left the car in the lane and" came into the house. Their grandmother turned off the television and moved over to the sink, where she began to fuss with the teapot and kettle. She kept her back to them while they remained uneasily in the kitchen. When Helen looked at Declan in this light, she saw for the first time how sick he was, how tight and drawn the skin on his face was, how tired his eyes seemed, and how shrunken his whole body had become.