“I doubt he’d miss me,” Cal says. “I don’t think that guy likes me much.” Rushborough was civil to him, with the pinch-lipped, flickery-lidded civility that Brits save for people they dislike, and looked at him as little as possible. Cal could see Johnny getting twitchy over it. He likes Johnny twitchy.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t say he’d notice either way,” Mart says. “He’s other things on his mind. Did you see the face on him? Like a child that just saw Santy.”
“Yeah,” Cal says. He thinks of Rushborough thigh-deep in the river, the pan held high as a trophy and his teeth bared in an exultant grin, sunlight splintering all around him and water streaming down his arms. He didn’t look like a kid to Cal. “I’m just gonna get some food and a shower, and I’ll be there. I’ve been sweating like a sinner in church.”
“You’ll have someone to give you a hand with both of those,” Mart says, grinning and pointing at Cal’s front yard with his crook, as they round the bend. “You might not end up any less sweaty after, but.”
Lena’s car is parked in the yard. Without meaning to, Cal quickens his pace. Normally Lena’s old blue Skoda is one of his favorite sights, but these days everything unexpected has the queasy shimmer of bad news about it. “Holy God, you’re in a hurry,” Mart says, grinning more broadly. Cal slows down.
He’s been getting edgier and edgier, the last few days. There are too many little things he doesn’t like. He doesn’t like it, for example, that Johnny came down to the river yesterday to help sow the gold. Cal had it all figured that Johnny was staying well clear of that part of the operation, but Johnny was right there on the riverbank with the rest of them, and Cal isn’t sure why. He doesn’t like his own enforced inaction, either: in normal times he’s happy to direct his fixing instinct towards old chairs, but these aren’t normal times, and the situation calls for a lot more than standing in mud watching some dumbass Brit play treasure hunter. He doesn’t like the way Johnny is cutting Trey away from him, as nimbly as Mart’s dog cutting out a sheep he has use for, and he doesn’t like the fact that he can’t work out what use Johnny might have for the kid. Most of all he doesn’t like Trey keeping things from him, although he knows she’s under no obligation to tell him anything at all.
“I won’t stop in to say hello,” Mart says. “Your missus isn’t mad about me, didja spot that? I never done anything on her that I can think of, but she’s not a fan.”
“There’s no accounting for tastes,” Cal says.
“When we’re all rolling in gold, maybe I’ll buy her a great big hamper of treats for them dogs of hers, and see if she changes her tune. Meanwhile, I’ll leave ye to it.”
“See you at Seán’s,” Cal says. Another thing he doesn’t like is the sense of alliance with Mart that’s somehow been thrust on him. He had the boundary between the two of them carefully and clearly mapped out, and it held firm for two years, although Mart sometimes poked at it just out of devilment. Now it’s lost its solidity. Johnny himself may be nothing but a yappy little shitbird, but he’s somehow brought with him enough force to pull the whole townland off true.
“Don’t be rushing,” Mart says. “I’ll tell the lads you’ve a good excuse for being late.” He lifts his stick in farewell and trudges off, the heat from the road making his legs waver like he’s about to dissolve into thin air. Cal heads round to the back of his house, over the withering lawn.
Lena is in her rocker on the back porch, where Cal knew she would be. She has a key to his house, but walking in when he’s not there is a border line she hasn’t yet been willing to cross. Sometimes Cal wishes she would. He likes the idea of coming home to find her curled on his sofa, absorbed in a book, with a mug of tea in her hand.
Lena came as a complete surprise to Cal. When his wife left him, he planned on being done with women for good. He had been with Donna since he was twenty; she was the only woman he had ever wanted, and the last thing he intended was to ever start wanting another one. He was planning on being one of those guys who are happy to have a good-natured flirtation in the bar, maybe a one-night stand every now and then, but nothing more. He knows from Lena that she felt a little differently, maybe because her husband died rather than walking out on her. It wasn’t that she was set against ever taking another man; it was just unimaginable. And yet, somehow, here they are, wherever here is. The fact of them still startles Cal sometimes. He feels like he has no right to it, after how adamantly he ruled out anything of the kind.
“Hey,” he says. “Everything OK?”
“Grand,” Lena says, which lets Cal take a breath. “I let Rip out, before he et the door off the hinges; he’s down the back field, with mine. And I’d murder a glass of that tea, if you’ve any in the fridge.”
