'The oul' father, oul' Crutch Kehoe, used to beat them with nettles,' Lily said.

'Well, if that's all he did to them, they're not too bad,' Mrs Devereux said. 'They'll go off now and they'll fill whoever they meet with the news and gossip. The only lucky thing is they have no telephone.'

As Helen went down to Declan's room to tell the others what had happened, she heard them talking animatedly. It was Larry's voice she heard, telling a story, and the other two interrupting, laughing, egging him on. She left them there; she did not go into the room.

Her grandmother sat by the window. As the pale light from the sea faded and the shadows grew, Helen focused only on the old woman; she watched her white hair and her long thin face. When her grandmother spoke, the voice was sharp and determined.

'Oh, when I saw you getting out of the car,' she said to Paul, 'when I saw you, I said to myself- here's another of them now.'

'Granny, what do you mean?' Helen asked her.

'I think you know what I mean, Helen,' she said.

'She means homosexuals,' Paul said.

'Granny, you can't talk about people like that.'

'When I saw him getting out of the car' – the old woman spoke as though she were talking to herself, trying to remember something \a151 'it was the way he walked or turned and I wondered what sort of life he was going to have now, what sort of person he could be.' She raised her head and looked across the room at Helen.

'It's a difficult time for all of us,' Helen said.

'It's difficult for them, Helen, and it always will be.'

'I think she means homosexuals again,' Paul said.

'Well, I'm happy,' Larry said. 'I'm not happy being here now, but my life's happy.'

'It's a stupid word, "happy",' Paul said.

There was silence now. The four of them sat in the gloom as the lighthouse began to flash. Her grandmother looked out of the window as if she had heard a sound or someone approaching. Then she faced back into the room. 'I'm old and I can say what I like, Helen.'

Helen realised that she was still afraid of her grandmother, that she would not confront her or defy her. She stared at her across the room, knowing that the old woman could not see the resentment, the dislike. Her grandmother turned to Paul and Larry, her two visitors.

'Declan never told us anything about himself. We always thought that he had a great life in Dublin. No one knew he was sick and no one knew he was one of you.'

She said nothing for a while, but it was clear that she had merely stopped so that she could gather strength for what she was going to say next.

'But I knew something. I've known it for a year now and I never told anyone or said anything. Declan came down here last summer. He left his car way back somewhere so I heard no car, but for some reason I went out to the lane, and I looked down towards the cliff and I saw him coming towards me. He must have passed the house without calling in, or maybe he went down by Mike Redmond's and walked along the strand. And now he was coming towards me, but he didn't expect to see me, and I think he didn't want to see me, and I think that he would have passed by my house if I hadn't come out to the lane. I hadn't seen him since Christmas, and I don't think he had been down here for more than a year. And when he came towards me I could see that he had been crying and he was so thin and so strange, like as though he didn't want to see me. He was always so friendly, even when he was a little boy. And he tried to make up for it when he came into the house. He was all smiles and jokes, but I'll never forget seeing him. He had tea here, and both of us knew that there was something awful, something very wrong. I knew he was in trouble, but AIDS was the last thing I thought of, and I thought of everything.'

Helen held her breath in the semi-darkness as the lighthouse started up. She wondered why her grandmother had not told her this before.

'I knew Declan came down here,' Larry said. 'He used to drive out of Dublin on his own, usually to Wicklow, to the mountains; he would drive along those roads for miles. He drove to Wexford a few times, to his mother's house, but it was always late and he never went in. I think he hoped she'd find him there like you did. But he never saw her. And then he'd drive back to Dublin.'

'I knew something would happen and I waited for it,' Mrs Devereux said, as though she had not been listening.

Helen wanted her grandmother to stop talking. She directed a question at Larry and Paul. 'Do your folks know that you're gay?' she asked them.

'Tell her your story,' Paul said to Larry.

'I've told it too many times,' Larry said.

'Make him tell it,' Paul said to Helen.

'My grandmother would love to hear it,' Helen said. She knew that this was the nearest she could come to defiance. 'Come on, Larry,' she said. 'We're all full of curiosity.'

'All right,' Larry said. 'But if it gets boring stop me. After I qualified, I was involved in a gay group in Dublin, and we organised fund-raising and we started a news sheet, and we had meetings all the time. I helped out a bit, and I was around a lot, so the time Mary Robinson invited gay men and lesbians to Aras an Uachtarain, I was on the list and I couldn't say no. It was a big deal. We really enjoyed getting ready for it. I know it sounds stupid, but we thought that because the law still hadn't been changed it might just be a private visit. Anyway, all the newspapers were there, and radio and television. Mary Holland was there and a fellow from RTE, it wasn't Charlie Bird, I can't remember his name, but I realised that he was from the six o'clock news and they were going to film us all having tea with the President.'

'Oh she's very nice, Mary Robinson,' Mrs Devereux said, 'she's very refined. There aren't many like her.'

'Yes, we all loved her,' Larry continued, 'but this didn't help me. I still wondered if I could sneak out. I mean it. I actually wondered what would happen if I disappeared. I realised that I would never be able to face any of my friends again, but I thought that would be a small price to pay. I looked around and asked myself if maybe one other person felt like I did, but I think I was the only one who wanted to hide. We stood in a row to be photographed and filmed. Everybody smiled and was very relaxed. I think even I might have smiled. But I wasn't very relaxed. You see, no one at home knew. I had to go back to my flat and phone Paul here and borrow his car and drive down to Tullamore. I got there just before the six o'clock news. I knocked on the door and my mother answered; my father was in the hall. I had worked out what to say, but when I saw my mother it was no use, I couldn't say it. I just blurted out, "You're not to watch the six o'clock news," and I walked into the sitting-room and stood like an eejit in front of the television.'

'And what happened then?' Helen asked.

Larry sighed and stopped.

'Telling it is worse than when it happened.'

'Go on,' Paul said.

'Anyway, I was standing there and my mother kept asking me what the problem was, but I couldn't tell her. My father sat on the sofa looking at me like I was mad. I realised that maybe I could tell my mother, but I certainly couldn't tell him. So I said I needed to be on my own with my mother. My father said that he would go out but I told him not to. I was sure that he'd meet someone who would have seen me on the television. Or he'd go down to the pub and he'd see me himself.'

'Your son's a big girl,' Paul said.

'Shut up, Paul,' Larry said.

'So what happened?' Helen asked.

'He went into the kitchen, but I still couldn't say anything and suddenly my mother looked at me and said: "Are you after joining the IRA?" I couldn't believe it.