'There's nothing the doctor can do,' Declan said. 'Ask Paul, he's the expert.'

'Paul isn't a doctor,' his mother said.

'He's read a big book and he knows all about the new therapies. Ask him,' Declan said.

Paul was sitting at the kitchen table.

'I have a few books out in the car. I'll show them to you if you want, but everything Declan is saying is true.'

'He's as calm,' his grandmother said. 'Look at him. I'd be tearing my hair out.'

'I've done all that,' Declan said. 'And I'm not calm. I only look calm.'

'There's a good eye man in Waterford,' his grandmother said.

'It's not the end of the world,' Declan said. 'I just have one eye, but I can see fine. Does the left one look a bit funny?'

'No, it looks perfectly normal,' Helen said.

'Yeah, well I'm going back to bed to sleep on it. If I lose my nose or my mouth or one of my toes, I'll let you all know.'

'Have you taken all your pills?' his mother asked.

He stopped and looked at her.

'You sound exactly like my mother,' he said.

'Is this serious?' Lily asked Paul when Declan had left the room.

'No, he's right about it, it's been coming for the last while. It's the end of something, rather than the beginning. They'll check the other eye more closely now, but they won't be able to do that until next week.'

'Should we not just let the doctor know?' Lily asked.

'On a Saturday morning? No, we should leave her alone.'

'Oh, I got a terrible fright when he said it,' his grandmother said. 'It's the one thing I dread. Your eyes are your most precious possessions. And Declan has the most beautiful eyes. His father, God rest him, had beautiful eyes as well. Lily used to go on and on to me about his eyes.'

'Declan's going to be buried with him now,' Lily said.

'I think Declan wants to be cremated,' Larry said.

'Oh, no one down here has ever been cremated,' Mrs Devereux said.

'Well, he says he wants to be cremated,' Larry said.

'No, he'll be buried like all the rest of them,' Mrs Devereux said. 'I wonder what put it into his head about cremation.'

No one spoke until there was the sound of a door banging upstairs.

'Oh God, listen to that! Oh God, listen!' Mrs Devereux said, standing up.

'What's wrong, Mammy? What's wrong?' Lily asked.

'You remember it well, Lily. My mother and my sister Statia were great believers in it. And that banging door just reminded me of it now. Two knocks would come to the door before someone in the family died. I heard it clearly the night before Statia died. And I woke your father and said we may get up now and drive into Bree because that's the sign for Statia. I got it for my mother, God rest her, we all got it.'

'Did you get it for my father?' Helen asked.

'No; I was just thinking, I didn't. Ah, it's part of the old ways, you'd hear no one talking about that any more, none of the neighbours. And there were other families like ours who had it too, a special warning that someone was dying. It was a gift, I suppose, but there's no one believes in it any more. It's died out.'

'But you did believe it?' Paul asked.

'I did believe it,' Mrs Devereux said. 'I do believe it. I know that I heard it when my mother was dying and I heard it when Statia was dying, but I haven't heard it since, I don't think. I don't know what it is about now, but whatever it is, something like that wouldn't have the same meaning. I don't know what it is.'

'And did you think the door banging upstairs was a sound like that?' Helen asked.

'It just reminded me of it, that's all,' Mrs Devereux said and walked over to the window and looked through the curtains.

Helen noticed her mother saying nothing, seeming disturbed. She wanted to ask her if she too had heard this sound in the past, but decided not to.

'One of the things about having children,' her mother said as though she had not been listening to them, as though involved instead in another conversation, 'is that you fear for them so much. I always felt with Declan that he wasn't able for things. He'd wake easily and cry easily and he was afraid of school and he got sick easily. And when I saw him going anywhere on his own, I always felt that he needed more strength than he had, or someone to watch out for him. The feeling never left me. Helen was always leading the other kids around. You never had to worry about her. But Declan, I've never stopped worrying about him.'

'He'll sleep for a while, Lily,' Mrs Devereux said. 'I don't think he slept very well last night.'

'Where does he stay in Dublin?' Helen asked.

'He stays with Larry, or with a friend of ours, Georgina, who has a big house,' Paul said.

'That's something we could do, isn't it, Mammy?' Helen said. 'We could find him his own place.'

Her mother nodded distractedly; clearly she wanted to talk more about Declan as a child or wanted to avoid talking about the warning knocks to the door when someone was dying. Helen knew that she had raised the subject at the wrong time, and now it would be hard to raise it again.

Declan slept for some of the morning and then woke complaining of a stomach pain. It had begun to drizzle outside as Helen and Larry changed the sheets and pillowcases for him; he sat and shivered in the chair in his room.

'Declan, if you want us to get you an apartment or a small house in Dublin, just say it, say it in front of Mammy, and we'll do it, we'll get it this week.'

'Thanks, Hellie,' Declan said. 'I'll think about it.'

He sank back into the bed and moaned. The bruise around his nose seemed to grow darker every day. 'Leave me,' he said. 'I'll try and sleep again.'

'No,' Helen said; 'you should try and stay awake so you can sleep tonight. Let us stay with you for a bit.'

'OK, bossy-boots,' he said, laughing, 'but I might sleep.'

Larry brought him the Irish Times and Declan leafed through it and then left it down. Larry sat at the bottom of the bed and told Declan and Helen all his plans for making the house more comfortable for their grandmother.

As the afternoon went on, Declan began to go to the toilet at fifteen-minute intervals and came back looking drained. He still had the pain in his stomach, he said. Helen and Larry sat with him while Paul hovered in the room outside. The older women stayed in the kitchen.

'It's a funny thing about the eye,' Declan said. 'It's a relief to have it all over. I used to see all sorts of floaters in front of it, but now I see nothing. That part is finished, anyway.'

The others nodded. It was hard to think what to say in response. After a while, Helen went into the kitchen and left Paul to take her place.

Her mother was in mid-sentence when Helen opened the door. She stopped, and put her cup down.

'Say it to her,' her grandmother said. 'Say it out.'

'Say what?' Helen asked.

'No, I was just saying, Helen,' her mother said, 'I would have loved a daughter who cared a lot about clothes and furnishings and colour schemes and all that. You know, when you came into my house the other day, I would have loved if you had made suggestions about colours or where to put things. I'd love if you had come into my bedroom and looked at my wardrobe and picked out some dress or suit that I never wear, or some jacket, and admired it.'

'It's a new daughter you need then,' Helen said. 'With all your money, why don't you buy one?'

'No, Helen, you're being too hard,' her grandmother said. 'She was just saying that you don't have a great interest in clothes.'

'I'd love if you were the sort of daughter who'd come down and see me and take an interest in my house and my garden and my clothes,' her mother said.