The Hunter

Trey has made it crystal clear that this isn’t Cal’s territory, and he has no right to trespass on it. It’s her place, not his; her family, and her quarrel. Regardless of what level of shit she’s pulled, he can’t bring himself to go up against her. She isn’t a little kid any more, for him to take decisions away from her and make them himself in the name of her own good. She has her plan; all he can do is keep following along behind her, in the hope that, if things go wrong, he’ll be close enough.

“One reason I retired,” he says, “was so I could stop having to deal with people I don’t like. Johnny Reddy’s a shitbird and I don’t like him. That means I don’t plan on having any dealings with him ever again. As far as I can, I plan on ignoring that he ever walked into this town.”

None of the men answer that. They drink, and watch Cal. Dull patches of color from the window slide along their sleeves and their faces as they move.

Mart sips his pint and regards Cal meditatively. “D’you know something, bucko,” he says, “I’ve a bone to pick with you. You’re here, what, two year now?”

“Two and a half,” Cal says. “Near enough.”

“And you’re still refusing to play Fifty-Five. I was willing to cut you a bitta slack while you settled in, but at this stage you’re only taking up space, and plenty of it. It’s time you started earning your keep.” He shifts on the banquette, with difficulty, and fishes a battered pack of cards out of his pocket. “Now,” he says, slapping it down on the table. “Whatever money Johnny left you, get ready to lose it.”

“D’you know what goes well with Fifty-Five?” Malachy says, leaning to reach under the table.

“Oh, shit,” Cal says.

“Quit your whinging,” Malachy says, coming up with a two-liter Lucozade bottle half full of innocent-looking clear liquid. “This stuff’s great for sharpening the mind; you’ll learn twice as fast.”

“And you can’t get engaged without it,” Mart says. “ ’Twouldn’t be legal. Barty! Give us a few shot glasses there.”

Cal resigns himself to the ruin of everything he had planned for tomorrow, which luckily wasn’t much. The night’s business was serious enough that Malachy saved the poteen for afterwards, to make sure everyone kept a relatively clear head, but it’s over and put aside, at least for now. Mart is shuffling the cards, more deftly than anyone could expect from his swollen fingers; Senan is holding the poteen bottle up to the light and squinting at it to assess its probable quality. “You asked Lena to marry you?” P.J. asks Bobby, his head suddenly popping up as he chews over the conversation. “Lena Dunne, like?”

Everyone starts ribbing Bobby about his proposal, and P.J. about his slowness on the uptake, and giving Cal another round of shit just for the sake of thoroughness. The warmth has flowed back into the air, stronger than ever. What gets to Cal is that, just like everything else that’s passed in the alcove that evening, it’s real.

Eighteen

Johnny won’t go beyond the boundaries of the yard. During the day he sleeps, fitfully, surfacing every couple of hours to demand a cup of coffee or a sandwich, most of which he leaves uneaten, and to pace around the edges of the yard, smoking, peering into the trees and twitching at the strident buzzes of grasshoppers. Sometimes he watches telly with the little ones on the sofa, and does Peppa Pig noises to make Alanna laugh. Once he kicks a football around the yard with Liam for a while, till the rustles among the trees make him edgy and he heads inside again.

At night he’s awake: Trey hears the faint insistent yammer of the telly, the creak of the floorboards as he moves around, the front door opening as he looks out and then closing again. She can’t tell who he’s afraid of. It could be Cal, or the men of the townland. In her opinion, he’d be right to be afraid of either, or both.

He’s still afraid of Nealon, even though the interviews went smooth as silk. Sheila dredged up some reserve of energy and became suddenly more ordinary than Trey has ever seen her, politely offering tea and glasses of water, laughing at the detective’s jokes about the weather and the roads. Maeve and Liam, both of whom have known the Guards for the enemy since the first time Noreen threatened them for robbing sweets, explained to Nealon without a blink that Johnny never left the house on Sunday; Alanna peeped out shyly from under Trey’s arm, and dived back into hiding whenever Nealon looked at her. Every one of them was perfect, like they were born and bred to it. When the sound of the detective’s car faded down the mountainside, Johnny was cock-a-hoop, hugging everyone he could catch, praising them for their brains and their bravery, and assuring them that they’re out of the woods with not a thing to worry about in the world. He still jumps every time he hears an engine.