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mother. Instead of replying, the old woman had gone on to remind Helen of how good she had been to Helen's mother in the time after her father died, how she had comforted her and consoled her, had sat up with her at night, slept in the room with her. How little she had got in return, her grandmother had said. She had seemed surprised, almost affronted, when Helen did not reply.
    As Helen drove through Gorey and then turned left down the coast road, she thought to herself that with her grandmother it would somehow be easy to come like this, with bad news, looking for help. It would not be so easy to approach her mother. As she drove through Black-water, Helen found herself unable to imagine what telling her mother would be like. She realised that the bitter resentment against her mother which had clouded her life had not faded; for a long time she had hoped that she would never have to think about it again.
    When she turned at the ball-alley, she felt she was entering a new realm. For the first mile or so there were no houses, and then a new bungalow appeared on a corner just after the turn into the forest. She was over- whelmed now by sadness, a feeling which replaced the sense of foreboding and shock which had filled her. It was a feeling which she could deal with; there "was no fear in it. The sudden rise in the road and then the first view of the sea glinting in the slanted summer light made it easier. The sadness brought tears to her eyes: she felt it sharply -that this would all go, that Declan would never see it again, never walk these lanes again, just as her father never would; soon they would only be a memory, and that too would fade with time.
    She passed a mud ruin where old Julia Dempsey had lived out her days, and she would have given anything then to go back to the years before their father died, when they were children here and did not know what was in store for them.
    •          •          •
    At her grandmother's gate she stopped the car, pulled up the handbrake and turned off the engine. Her grandmother appeared at the door, her hand shading her eyes even though she stood in shadow.
    'Here you are now, Helen,' she said as Helen approached from the car.
    She had never in her life kissed her grandmother, or shaken her hand; now as she came close to her she did not know what to do.
    'Granny, I'm sorry for barging in on you like this.' 'Oh, it's a great surprise, Helen, it's a lovely surprise.' Her grandmother searched her face and then looked back towards the gate to check that no one else was coming. She turned and walked into the house. The big old Aga cooker in the kitchen was on full, and the room was warm. As Helen came in, the two cats jumped up to the top of the dresser — their constant presence there looking down on the room had amazed Cathal and Manus the previous year — and sat there watching her suspiciously.
    'Now, Helen, there's tea on and I could make you up a fry.'
    'No, Granny, I'll just have tea. I had a meal on the way down.'
    She realised that her grandmother was biding her time, asking nothing, waiting to be told.
    'Granny, I have very bad news.'
    Her grandmother turned and put her two hands into the pockets of her apron as though searching for something. 'I know, Helen. I knew that as soon as I saw you.'
    She remained standing as Helen told her the story. She concentrated fiercely on what was being said so that Helen felt, when she was finished, that the old woman could have repeated every single word she had said. There was something which she had forgotten: in the corner of the kitchen sat a huge television; her grandmother had access to all the English channels as well as the Irish ones. She watched documentaries and late-night films and prided herself on being well informed on modern subjects. She knew about AIDS and the search for a cure and the long illnesses. 'There's nothing can be done, Helen, so,' she said. 'Nothing can be done. It was the same years