The Heather Blazing by Colm Tóibín Page A

food.” She laughed. “Luncheon,” she said again. “Funny, all the words they have.”
    He took the whiskey bottle and offered her some.
    â€œI don’t know why I’m offering you the whiskey,” he said.
    â€œOh, I won’t have any more. I won’t be able to sleep if I have any more.”
    â€œDoes whiskey not help you to sleep?” he asked.
    â€œWhen you’re my age you don’t need the sleep.”
    â€œHow many hours do you sleep?”
    â€œI doze a lot and wake up and doze off again.”
    There was silence again in which he felt close to her and happy sitting there talking to her.
    â€œMadge Kehoe invited us over and we had a great evening,” he said.
    â€œShe’s very nice. I haven’t seen her for years. I got a Mass card from her when your Uncle Tom died, and a letter. It was your father who knew the Kehoes and the Keatings, they’ve always been very nice. Her mother was nice as well, old Mrs. Keating.”
    â€œIt’s changed a lot down there, the erosion,” he said. “The old house is nearly at the cliff.”
    â€œThat’s been going on for years, for years since that terrible storm. It was before you were born.”
    â€œAnd was there no erosion before that?”
    â€œSo they used to say. I remember your father saying that. He loved it down there, your father.”
    They talked until darkness fell. She sent him out to the kitchen to get an electric fire. The summer was over now, she said, even though the days were good. It was beginning to be cold at night. As he turned on the light in the kitchen, he realized that this was the target for the stones, but they came only in the winter, she had told him.
    â€œI’ll go and talk to the Guards,” he said when he came back, “about those fellows up in the field. They should be able to stop that. Or I’ll talk to John Browne. Did you ever contact him?”
    â€œHe has a clinic all right in Murphy Floods on a Saturday. They say that he’s very obliging.”
    â€œHe could sort it out for you.”
    â€œThere’s another of them as well who has a clinic,” she said absentmindedly.
    â€œI’ll talk to the Guards anyway,” he said.
    â€œThey’d listen to you,” she said, and smiled at him warmly.
    He carried the tray with the empty glasses and the bottle of whiskey down to the kitchen before he left.
    â€œIt was lovely to see you now,” she said. “It was a great surprise.”

CHAPTER SIX
    â€œWhisht, whisht.” His grandmother put her hand up to stop them talking and then inclined her head towards the door, waiting for a sound. And when they listened and discovered that there was no sound, the men around the fire went on talking until it was time for news on the wireless, when she would order silence again.
    â€œTom will want to know the news when he comes in.”
    The chimney smoked in the dark back room. “Who’s my pet?” she asked him, and they all looked at him. He did not reply.
    â€œWho loves you the best?” she asked him, and went as though to tickle him. Her grey hair was tied back in a bun.
    â€œYou do,” he said.
    They always quizzed him about school: how many slaps he got, how he was at spelling, how he was getting on at his Irish. Irish was important if you wanted to get a good Leaving Cert and a good job, his grandmother said.
    â€œYour Uncle Stephen and your Daddy were great at Irish. Your Daddy got a university scholarship.”
    In November when it became dark at half past four his Uncle Stephen came home from the Sanatorium on the Wexford Road and lay in bed in the front room downstairs. Eamon was allowed to sit with him as long as he did not go too close.
    â€œDo you like reading?” Stephen asked him.
    â€œSome books,” he said and he played with a toy car around the table and the floor, while Stephen sat up in bed reading. There was a