Trey watches the men turn this over in their minds. They watch each other as they do it, and Johnny watches them all watching. Every trace of the nervousness Trey saw in him earlier is gone. He’s spread in his chair, as easy as the king of the mountain, smiling benevolently, giving them all the time they need.
They’re not dishonest men, or anyway not what they or Trey would consider dishonest. Not one of them would ever rob so much as a packet of mints from Noreen’s, and between any of them, a spit and a handshake would be as solid as a legal contract. An Englishman wanting to reap from their land falls under different rules.
“Let’s see your man Rushborough,” Senan says. “I want a look at this fella. Then we’ll see what we’re at.”
There are nods from the other men. “That’s settled, so,” Johnny says. “I’ll bring him down to Seán Óg’s on Monday night, and ye can see what you think of him. Don’t be ripping the piss outa the poor lad, is all I ask. He’s used to highfalutin types; he wouldn’t be able for ye at all, at all.”
“Ah, musha, God love him,” Dessie says.
“We’ll be gentle,” Mart assures Johnny. “He won’t feel a thing.”
“Like fuck ye will,” Sonny says. “I wouldn’t bring that poor bastard anywhere near this shower, if I was you. D’you know what a few of them did to my Yank cousin? They told him Leanne Healy’s young one fancied him—Sarah, the good-looking one with the arse on her—”
“Mind your tongue,” Senan says to Sonny, tilting his head at Trey, but he’s started to chuckle, remembering. All of them have. The gold, by unanimous agreement, is no longer a subject for discussion. It’s a thing to be turned over in private, until Rushborough comes.
“Go on outa that, now,” Johnny says to Trey. “It’s past your bedtime.”
Johnny wouldn’t know what Trey’s bedtime was even if she had one, which she doesn’t. He’s just got no more use for her tonight, and he wants to let the men relax into conversations they won’t have with her there. She unfurls herself from her corner and picks her way between outstretched legs, saying good night politely to the men, who nod as she passes.
“Are you not going to give your daddy a hug?” Johnny asks, smiling up at her and reaching out an arm.
Trey leans over to him, puts one hand stiffly on his back, and lets him wrap his arm around her and give her a playful little shake. She holds her breath to keep out his spice-and-cigarettes smell. “Look at you,” he says, laughing up into her face and ruffling her hair. “Getting too big and dignified to hug your aul’ daddy good night.”
“Night,” Trey says, straightening up. She wants a look at Rushborough, too.
Cal spends the next morning dicking around in his house, waiting for Mart to show up. He has no doubt that Mart will in fact show up, so there’s no point in getting his teeth into anything serious. Instead he does dishes and wipes various stuff that looks like it could use it, with one eye on the window.
He could dick around in his vegetable patch instead, and let Mart come talk to him there, but he wants to invite Mart in. It’s been a long time since Mart’s been in this house. This was by Cal’s choice: what happened to Brendan Reddy lies between them, cold and heavy. Cal accepted the boundaries Mart drew around it—he doesn’t ask for names, he keeps his mouth shut, he keeps Trey’s mouth shut, and everyone gets to live happy ever after—but he wasn’t going to let Mart pretend it away. But the Johnny Reddy situation—Cal is starting to think of it as a situation—means that, regardless of how little he likes it, things need to shift.
Mart shows up halfway through the morning, smiling up at Cal on the doorstep like he comes over every day. “Come on in,” Cal says. “Outa the heat.”
If Mart’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. “And why not, sure,” he says, knocking the dirt off his boots. His face and arms are burned a rough red-brown; under the sleeves of his green polo shirt, edges of white show where the sunburn stops. He rolls up his straw hat and stuffs it in a pocket.
“The mansion’s looking well,” he observes, glancing around. “That lamp adds a touch of style. Was that Lena?”
“Can I get you some coffee?” Cal asks. “Tea?” He’s been here long enough to know that tea is appropriate regardless of the weather.
“Ah, no. I’m grand.”
Cal has also been here long enough that he knows better than to take this as a refusal. “I was gonna make some anyway,” he says. “You might as well join me.”
“Go on, then; I can’t let a man drink alone. I’ll have a cuppa tea.”
Cal switches on the electric kettle and finds mugs. “Another hot one,” he says.
“If this keeps up,” Mart says, taking a chair and arranging himself around his worst joints, “I’ll have to start selling off my flock because I haven’t the grass to feed them. And come spring, the lamb crop’ll be fuckin’ atrocious. Meanwhile, what are them eejits on the telly showing? Pictures of childer ating ice creams.”
“The kids are a lot cuter than you are,” Cal points out.
