It was a few days later as she was driving home from school that a thought struck her which caused her to pull in and sit in the car and go back over everything again. It was this: she could not put the house and its sale out of her mind because she believed that she would some day go back there, that it would be her refuge, and that her mother, despite everything, would be there for her and would take her in and shelter her and protect her. She had never entertained this thought before; now, she knew that it was irrational and groundless, but nonetheless, as she sat in the car, she knew that it was real and it explained everything.

Somewhere in the part of her where fears lay unexplored and conflicts unresolved, there was a belief that the life she had made with Hugh would fail her; not precisely that he would leave her, but more exactly that she would some day or night appear at her mother's door asking to be taken in and forgiven and her mother would tell her that her room was always there for her, and that she could stay as long as she liked. The boys did not exist in this scenario, nor the possibility that she could ever take refuge in her mother's new house, and she realised that it was a fantasy, and something that she must not think about. However, it overcame her like a sudden nausea, and she knew that she could not tell Hugh about it, it would seem too dark and disloyal to him, it would frighten him even more than it frightened her.

She had it in the open now – she was sure she was right about it \a151 and she would have to combat it quietly herself, tell herself over and over that she would never need to appear at her mother's door like this, or sleep, comforted by her mother, in her old room. The house was gone, she thought. I have a new house. But the dark thoughts about the old house continued to trouble her.

And it was only now that it struck her that Declan had just the previous evening enacted the fantasy that she had feared so much. He had come back asking for comfort and forgiveness, as she had felt she would, and they had been ready for him, as though they too had always been alert to their side of the bargain. She was frightened by the symmetry in this, but she did not know what it meant.

Her grandmother came in with a cup of tea and put it on the locker beside her bed.

'Declan's just up,' she said. 'He's in the bathroom. Lily went into Wexford at the crack of dawn, she said she'd be back sometime this morning.'

As soon as Declan had finished in the bathroom, Helen got up and had a shower and dressed herself. The day was overcast and windy. When she went into the kitchen, Declan and her grandmother were there, Declan sitting beside the Aga looking frail and uneasy.

'It's a terrible day,' he said. 'Granny says it might clear up, but it's a terrible day.'

She realised that he was trapped here now, that he had dreamed about this house and the cliff and the strand, but the dreams had not included the possibility of an ordinary morning, with a grey sky and a whistling wind, had not included his trying to talk to his grandmother as she washed up. Her first urge was to think of an excuse to go into the village, offering perhaps to take Declan with her, and to stay there for as long as she could. Her grandmother, she presumed, was as uncomfortable as they were, her routine destroyed by these two half-strange interlopers.

'Do you go into Wexford much, Granny?' Helen asked as her grandmother sat down at the kitchen table.

'Oh, I go in once a week,' she said and sipped her tea.

'How do you get in?' Helen asked.

'This only started last year when I sold the sites,' her grandmother said, moving over to sit at the kitchen table. 'I decided that I would go to Wexford every Wednesday. So I asked around and I discovered that Ted Kinsella in Blackwater ran a sort of hackney service. So I arranged with him that he would drive me into Wexford on a Wednesday morning and collect me outside Petit's supermarket at four o'clock. And I paid him very well for this, as you can imagine. And it was lovely.' Her grandmother smiled and continued. She appeared to relish this opportunity to talk. 'I had the day to myself. I would buy a paper and a magazine and sit in White's or the Talbot and have tea and then I'd wander through the town and look at the shops, and I tried out every place for lunch in the whole town. You'd have to go early or late, or else you'd get into a crush with all the office people. And, of course, I'd avoid your mother.' She laughed, almost maliciously. 'And then I'd go to the supermarket and I'd do the whole week's shopping. I didn't know myself. But it couldn't last, of course. Didn't Ted Kinsella let it be known around that he was driving into Wexford twice of a Wednesday, and didn't he start bringing in all sorts of people with him? Oh, they'd want to know all your business, and they'd look up in your face as they'd ask you were you going to sell any more sites. And then one day \a151 this was the week before Christmas – Ted arrived and told me, if you don't mind, that he had to collect another passenger at five and would I like to wait in the car or would I like to wait somewhere else. And he was already ten minutes late! Oh, I cleaned his clock for him now. I was raging. And I was paying him the same as I was paying him when I drove in on my own. So when I got home I sent him a note with Tom Wallace the postman saying that I wouldn't be going into Wexford any more. I gave no reason. Sure he knew the reason.' She paused and pursed her lips as though she was indignant once again.

'So I thought about it and after a week or so \a151 and I had got used to going in there, it brightened up my whole week – I rang Melissa Power, who's Lily's secretary. I used to know her father and she's very private. Lily had sent her out here a few times with messages when she was too grand to come herself. And I told her not to tell Lily I rang – I was in the phone box in Blackwater – and I asked her who the best taxi driver in Wexford was. I knew there were a few because I had seen ads for taxis in the People. And she gave me the name Brendan Dempsey and I rang him, and he said that it would be expensive all right, but in actual fact it was less than that old fool Ted Kinsella had charged me, and he sounded very nice, very refined, and I go in with him now \a151 oh, he has a beautiful car, I don't know what it is, and I tell him I feel like the Queen of Sheba sitting in it, and some days he knows I don't want to talk, and he always asks me if he can turn the radio on. And he's interesting, he follows the news and he doesn't put his nose into my business, so I have a lovely day on a Wednesday.'

She sat at the table and looked at them both, as though defying them to contradict her.

'You're a great woman, Granny,' Declan said.

'Did you go to Wexford yesterday?' Helen asked.

'I did, Helen,' she said. 'So, with what you brought, we're well stocked up now with plenty of groceries.'

They sat in silence for a while until they heard a car approaching.

'Whisht now,' their grandmother said; 'that's not Lily's car.' She went to the window and parted the lace curtains, and then she walked out into the hallway, closing the kitchen door. Helen and Declan could hear a man's cheerful voice asking her if she was Declan's granny.

'Oh Jesus!' Declan said.

'Who is it?' Helen asked.

'It's Larry. I didn't think he'd come today.'

Helen remembered that Declan had told Paul to give directions to a Larry as well, and tell him to come as soon as possible, but clearly he was now embarrassed by his friend's arrival. She wondered if he was content now with simply her and her mother and her grandmother, or if he felt awkward at the arrival of another uninvited guest.

Her grandmother came into the kitchen accompanied by Larry, who began to talk as soon as he arrived.