Sheila shakes her head again. All her movements have a spare, contained quality, like she’s eking herself out to last the day. “You’re not doing it ’cause you think it’ll clear your debt,” she says. “You owe me nothing. And you’re not doing it for me, anyhow. You’re doing it for Trey.”
“Well then,” Lena says. “If you want to bring the kids down to mine, bring them.”
This time Sheila looks at her differently, with something almost like interest. “Everyone’d be asking you questions,” she says. “You always hated that. People poking their noses in.”
It’s the first time she’s spoken like Lena is someone who used to be her friend. “I’m older now,” Lena says. “They can ask all they like. It’ll do them good. Get the aul’ circulation going.”
“What would you tell them?”
“Whatever we fancy, sure. The English fella’s here hunting for Bobby’s aliens, maybe, and him and Johnny are after bringing one into the house, and you’re sick of cleaning alien shite off your floors.”
Sheila laughs. The laugh, clear and free and youthful, takes both of them by surprise. Sheila snaps her mouth closed and looks down into her mug like she’s done something ill-judged.
“Doireann Cunniffe’d fall for it,” Lena says. “As long as you kept a straight face.”
That pulls a faint smile out of Sheila. “I was awful for that,” she says. “You had the best poker face of any of us. I was always the one that’d start in giggling and give us away.”
“That was half the fun, sure. Talking our way outa trouble afterwards.”
One of the kids shrieks again. This time Sheila gives the window a brief glance. “If I told them what we usedta get up to,” she says, “they wouldn’t believe it, to look at me now. The children. They wouldn’t believe a word.”
The thought seems to chafe at her. “Sure, that’s the way it goes,” Lena says. “I’d say our parents got up to plenty that we wouldn’ta believed, either.”
Sheila shakes her head. “I’d like them to know,” she says. “To warn them, like. One minute you’re a bunch of mad wee messers, and then next thing you know…You tell Trey. She’ll believe you.”
“She’s fifteen,” Lena points out. “We’ll be lucky if she believes a word outa any adult, the next few years.”
“You tell her,” Sheila repeats. She picks at something stuck to her mug, which seems to irritate her. The shrieking outside has stopped. “I left him one time,” she says. “Middle of the night. He was asleep, drunk. I packed the kids into the car—the four of them, just, ’twas before Liam and Alanna—and I went. Mostly I remember how quiet it was: the rain on the windscreen, and not another soul on the roads. The kids went asleep. I drove for hours. In the end I turned around and came back. There was nowhere I could drive to that was far enough to be worth my while.”
Her fingers have stilled on the mug. “I felt like a prize feckin’ eejit,” she says. “He never knew, anyway. I was glad of that. He woulda made fun of me.”
“If you think of something I could do,” Lena says. “Say it to me.”
“Maybe,” Sheila says. “Thanks for the jam.” She gets up and starts clearing away the tea things.
—
Cal is doing the dishes after lunch when Trey and Banjo show up. The sound of the door banging open hits him with a surge of relief so disproportionate it almost knocks him off his feet. “Hey,” he says. “Long time no see.”
Trey gives his injured face one long, unreadable look, but then her eyes skid away. “I came yesterday morning,” she informs him. “You were out.”
The fact that she came at all has to be a good thing, but Cal can’t tell by her whether she was just there for carpentry purposes, or whether she wanted to talk. “Well,” he says, “I’m here now.”
“Yeah,” Trey says. She crouches to meet Rip’s welcome and rub his jowls.
She hasn’t brought anything. Mostly Cal doesn’t like it when Trey shows up with food—he doesn’t require an entrance fee—but today he would have welcomed a packet of cookies or a hunk of cheese or whatever. It would mean she was planning to stick around awhile.
“What’s with his paw?” he asks, indicating Banjo.
“Fell over him,” Trey says, that little bit too promptly. “That was days ago, but. He’s grand. He’s only looking for ham slices.”
“Well, we got those,” Cal says. He goes to the fridge and tosses Trey the packet. He doesn’t try asking about her lip, which looks pretty much healed. Apparently today everybody is politely not asking anybody anything. “You want something to eat?”
“Nah. Had lunch.” Trey drops onto the floor and starts feeding Banjo scraps of ham.
“No thank you,” Cal says automatically, before he can stop himself.
Trey rolls her eyes, which comforts him a little bit. “No thank you.”
“Hallelujah,” Cal says, getting out the iced tea. His voice sounds fake to him. “We got there in the end. Have some of this. This weather, if you don’t keep drinking you’ll shrivel up.”
Trey rolls her eyes again, but she downs the iced tea and holds out her glass for more. “Please,” she adds, as an afterthought.
