The driving lesson had just ended when Lily and Helen arrived at the house. Mrs Devereux and Larry were standing beside the car; Declan and Paul were sitting on chairs outside the front door. Declan's face,. Helen noticed, was almost green; she had not seen him looking so sick and so strained before. But he was smiling now and laughing. She realised as she watched him that he was making an effort to keep going.

'Show them now,' Larry said to Mrs Devereux.

'We met the Kehoes,' Lily told them.

'They were full of admiration for you,' Helen said to her grandmother.

'Show them,' Larry repeated.

Mrs Devereux got into Larry's car, closing the driver's door and seeming to concentrate hard. She started the car and let the engine rev for a minute. She acted as though no one were watching her as she put the car into gear and let off the handbrake and then slowly and smoothly edged forward towards the gate. As she prepared to turn into the lane, the car began to shudder and the engine cut out. She started it again, the engine revving and revving until thick, black smoke poured out of the exhaust. She turned the corner and made her way up the lane. All of them went out to the gate to watch her. She stopped the car with a jolt and applied the handbrake and waited until Larry reached her. She moved over into the passenger's seat and let Larry reverse the car and drive it back down. When the car stopped in front of the house, Mrs Devereux got out and dusted herself down. Larry, Paul, Declan and Helen applauded. Lily stood still, stony-faced.

'She's high now,' Lily whispered to Helen, 'but wait until the winter and she'll be screaming at me from the coinbox in Blackwater, or she'll be walking the roads like Moll Trot.'

In the late afternoon Declan's mood darkened. When they had tea in the kitchen, Declan sat apart from them in the armchair by the Aga. All of them were aware, Helen realised, that he was lower now than he had been at any time in the week. He did not speak, but stared straight ahead; no one at the table spoke either, and finally when Larry said something, it was clear that he was merely trying to break the silence by making jokes about Mrs Devereux's driving and the disappearance of the cats. No one laughed or responded, and Larry gave up and became oddly morose in a way which disturbed Helen more than anything.

When they had drunk their tea, Mrs Devereux fussed nervously about second cups. All of them had, at some stage, left the room to use the bathroom and come back. Paul now tried to ease the tension by asking Declan if he wanted to go to bed.

'No, I don't want to go to bed, Paul, I don't want to go to bed. Leave me alone. Do you have a problem with me being here?'

Helen watched Paul's face redden; it was the first time she had seen him at a loss. He said nothing. Mrs Devereux clattered the teacups and saucers in the sink.

'Leave them. I'll do them later,' Helen said.

Her grandmother went to the window and looked out. 'We'll have the dinner later on,' she said. 'I don't have the energy now.'

'I'll make the dinner,' Helen said.

Declan still did not speak, and paid no attention to any of them. He was pale now; the bruise-mark on his nose had spread into his cheek and turned ugly and dark. Helen noticed for the first time how thin his hair had become. He crossed his legs and then crossed his ankle around his leg again, emphasising his thinness. In the dim light of the kitchen, as Helen watched him, he seemed strangely beautiful, despite the spareness of his face and frame, like a figure in a painting, with shadows under his eyes and dark shadowy tufts where he had not shaved. She observed his long, bony fingers.

He caught her looking at him and she looked away. By this time, all of the others except her grandmother had left the kitchen. Mrs Devereux went to the window over and over, as if expecting some sudden arrival, and then went back to the sink, where she had started to peel potatoes. Helen went to help her, noticing as she crossed the room that Declan had turned the sickly, almost green colour he had been outside the house earlier.

Helen and her grandmother worked at preparing the vegetables while Lily came in and out of the room and Declan sat silently staring ahead. Whatever was happening to him filled the atmosphere so that they became conscious of every sound they made \a151 the scraping of vegetables, the clattering of saucepans, the turning on and off of taps \a151 as a disturbance, an irritation, a direct breaking of Declan's fierce and anguished concentration.

Helen could not wait to get out of the room. She wanted to close the kitchen door behind her as she left, with only her grandmother and Declan in the room, but she felt it would be like closing the lid of a pressure cooker. She left the door ajar.

Larry and Paul were in the dining-room.

'Larry is going back tonight,' Paul said. 'He should really go back to work. I'm going to hang on. I think Declan should go back up tomorrow.'

'I'll wait around until after dinner,' Larry said.

As the meat sizzled in the oven and the vegetables boiled and the smell filled the kitchen, Declan sat impassive and immobile, staring at a fixed point ahead of him as though ready to explode in pain or anger. Paul and Larry remained out of the room while Helen and her mother set the table in the kitchen, carefully including a place for Declan, knowing, however, that he would not sit with them. They moved gingerly, silently, aware that every sound seemed to grate on his nerves. Mrs Devereux filled a saucer of milk and went outside and put it near the shed for the cats.

Eventually, they sat down to eat. They left a chair for Declan but he did not join them, nor did they ask him to. They busied themselves passing food, alert all the time to Declan's brooding presence.

'Would you not eat something, Declan?' Lily asked.

'No, leave me alone,' he said without looking up.

'Leave him alone,' his grandmother said. 'He's my pet.'

Helen saw how uneasy Paul and Larry had become. Declan's sunken mood had rendered them useless; if the family were not there, she felt, his friends would have been able to do something, but the signals in the room, the connections, were too tangled and complex now, and no one could think of anything to say, and a strange embarrassed sadness descended on the company.

When Larry got ready to go, Declan did not move. Larry left his bag in the hallway and came into the kitchen and tossed Declan's hair. Declan held Larry's hand for a moment and squeezed it, but he did not turn to look at him, and did not say anything.

In the dining-room, Larry stood and discussed the plans for renovation with Mrs Devereux. 'I have all the measurements now, and I know what you want, and I'll draw up the plans, and we'll find a good local builder, a real reliable fellow, and I'll do the talking. And all these plans will come free of charge. Rob the rich and feed the poor, that's what I say. No offence meant now.'

Helen noticed her mother standing in the shadows listening suspiciously to this.

'Oh, I'm very grateful to you,' Mrs Devereux said. 'I don't know where I would be without you.'

'And you should get the work done before the winter,' Larry said.

'Oh, indeed, indeed,' Mrs Devereux replied.

'So I'll post the plans to you during the week for your approval, and I'll come down again when we get the builder.'

'Oh now, that's very kind.'

'So you'd need to be sure now this is what you want,' Larry continued.

'Come on, Lar,' Paul said. 'It'll be midnight and you'll still be talking.'

As Larry got into his car, the two cats appeared briefly on the roof of the shed, meowing sharply and watching the departing guest. Mrs Devereux ran in and filled another saucer of milk for them. Accompanied by Helen and Paul, she moved up and down the space in front of the house, and then, alone, she walked up and down the lane, calling to them, but when it was clear that they had gone back into hiding, she returned to the house.