The Heather Blazing by Colm Tóibín

them.
    Some of these events were so close, they had been recounted and gone over so much. He realized that he would never fully know what went on, there were too many details left out. Margaret would volunteer memories or incidents, but if she was asked too much her eyes would soften and the look on her face become vague.
    â€œI’m not looking forward to the winter,” she said, and she started to explain how her house had been under a sort of siege the previous winter. When she turned on the light in the kitchen at the back of the house, she said, somebody would throw a stone through the window from the sloping field behind. Young lads from the town, she said, waitedthere for hours. One of the stones had hit her on the leg and terrified her. So she couldn’t use the kitchen after dark, she kept an electric kettle in the living room and made tea there.
    â€œDid you not ring the Guards?” he asked.
    â€œI rang the Guards, I rang Corrigan who owns the field, I even rang the Manse, and they were all full of sympathy. Father Doyle came down to see me, but no one did anything. I meant to tell Carmel about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. It’s very hard. No one would believe me when I said that they must have waited for two or three hours every night with stones. Waiting for me. I could feel them out there. I hope they find something else to do this winter. It’s the last thing you expect that your own would turn on you.”
    She stopped and looked into the distance. The silence lasted between them for a few moments as he wondered what he could do to help her. He even found himself wondering if what she said was true.
    â€œI’ll go and see the Guards about that,” he said.
    â€œWe used to do it ourselves, you know,” she continued. “But we thought it was harmless. Knocking on doors and running away, that’s what it was then, that’s how we used to torment the neighbours. You’d give the door a big bang and then go and hide. There was a man up the Irish Street, a Mr. Metcalfe, a Protestant man, he used to go mad at us, he’d chase us up to the Market Square. I suppose that sort of thing is old-fashioned now. Your father used to love it, and Tom.”
    She offered him a second glass of whiskey, but he told her that he was driving.
    â€œYou’d better not then,” she said, “although they’d never stop you.”
    â€œDo you ever think of them,” he asked, looking up at her, “my father and Tom?”
    â€œThink of them?” she asked. “I do all right, I do.” Her tone was factual and melancholy. He let the silence continue between them, sorry now that he had asked the question, thathe had not let her talk of her own accord. She was thinking, a troubled look appeared on her face. He wished that he could ask her another question.
    â€œAre you playing any golf at all?” she asked him.
    â€œI grew tired of it,” he said, “and tired of the club.”
    â€œThey’re terrible snobs, all those golf people,” she said.
    â€œI was no good anyway. I don’t even play bridge any more,” he said.
    â€œCarmel told me that,” she said. “I love the bridge myself. It keeps you very alert.”
    â€œYou must come down some day now before we go back, I could come in and collect you in the morning,” he said.
    â€œIt would be nice now, but don’t worry about it, because I know you’re on your holidays.”
    â€œYou could have your lunch with us.” He heard himself saying the word “lunch” and felt uncertain about it. She would always call it “dinner.”
    â€œLunch is the word in Dublin now,” he said. “Do they still call it dinner here?”
    â€œLuncheon,” she said in an English accent, “that’s what Mrs. Allen in the Bridge Club calls it. But it’s all the same really, isn’t it, it’s all