The way he says it, it sounds more than possible; it sounds obvious. Trey wants to believe him, and is furious with herself for it.
“All we need to do,” Johnny says, “is find out which ones are which. Tomorrow you’ll go down to the village, see what you can pick up. Hang around Noreen’s, keep an eye on who’s friendly and who’s a bit off with you. Stop in to Lena Dunne. Talk to your Yank, see if he’s heard anything.”
Trey sprays more cleaner on the wall. “Not today, but,” her dad says, with a grin in his voice. “Let the hare sit. Do ’em good to stew for a bit, amn’t I right?”
“Yeah,” Trey says, without looking at him.
“Missed a bit up the top there,” her dad says, pointing. “You’re doing a great job. Keep it up. Perseverance is a virtue, hah?”
—
After lunch, Sheila and Trey and Maeve go out front to deal with the remains of the fire. They have the mop bucket and the stewpot, both full of water. The yard is noisy with grasshoppers, and the sun hits them like a solid blow. Sheila tells the little ones to stay inside, but they stray out onto the step and hang off the door, watching. Alanna is sucking on a biscuit.
The galvanized barrel was stuffed with rags and newspapers, now black and fragile, edges crumbling in on themselves. Wisps of smoke still curl from the heap. When Trey touches the side of the barrel, it’s hot.
“Move,” Sheila says. She hefts her bucket with a hard grunt of effort, braces its lip on the barrel, and pours. The barrel lets out a vicious hiss and a puff of rising steam.
“More,” Sheila says. Trey pours in the water from the stewpot. The residue in the barrel is sinking into a sodden mess.
“Get the rake,” Sheila says. “And the spade. Whatever’s got a long handle.”
“Why?” Maeve demands. “It’s out.”
“One spark and we’ll have the whole mountain on fire. Get the things.”
The shed, at the far edge of the yard, holds tools from a time before they were born, when Sheila tried to turn the yard into a garden. Trey and Maeve scuff their way through scattered scraps of black that disintegrate under their feet. “I hate them lads,” Maeve says. “They’re a shower of fuckin’ pricks.”
“They don’t give a shite if you hate them,” Trey says. She and Maeve have never liked each other much, not since they got old enough to tell the difference, and today neither of them likes anyone much.
They heave aside a cobwebbed stepladder and a rust-ridden wheelbarrow to dig out a rake, a hoe, and a spade. “It’s not Daddy’s fault,” Maeve says defiantly, as they get back to the barrel. Neither of them answers her.
They dig the handles of the tools into the barrel and stir, extinguishing any hidden smolders. It gives off a thick, acrid reek. “Stinks,” Maeve says, wrinkling her nose.
“Fuck up, you,” Trey says.
“You fuck up.”
Sheila swings round and catches each of them a slap across the face, in one move so neither of them has time to jump back. “Now ye’ll both fuck up,” she says, and turns back to the barrel.
The mess resists them, clogging and tangling the handles. In the end Sheila pulls the rake free and stands back, breathing hard. “Get rid of that,” she says, nodding at the barrel. “And come straight home, or I’ll malavogue the pair of ye.” She picks up the bucket and the stewpot and heads back to the house.
Trey and Maeve take one side of the barrel each and drag it around the back of the house and up the mountainside. There’s a ravine where they dump unwanted large things, broken bikes and Alanna’s outgrown cot. The barrel is awkward to grip and heavy, scraping across the yard with a loud relentless grating, leaving a wide swathe of raw dirt and a leaking trail of black liquid in its wake. When they get in among the underbrush, they have to stop every minute to heave it over roots and brambles.
“You think you’re so great,” Maeve says. She sounds like she’s on the verge of tears. “Now look what you done.”
“You haven’t got a clue,” Trey says. Her arms ache from hauling the barrel; flies are whirling noisily at the sweat on her face, but she doesn’t have a hand free to swat them away. “You thick cow.”
The ravine drops out of the mountainside with lethal suddenness. Its sides are steep and rocky, blurred in patches by muscular, tenacious bushes and tangles of tall weeds. At the bottom, among the undergrowth in the dried-up streambed, Trey can see the flash of sun on something else discarded.
“You fucked it up on purpose,” Maeve says. “You never wanted him back.”
They swing the barrel together, over the edge of the ravine. It bounces down to the streambed in great zigzagging arcs, letting out a deep ominous boom each time it hits the ground.
—
“I’m going out,” Trey says, as they clear the table after dinner. Sheila had nothing in, so dinner was a dispiriting stew of potatoes, carrots, and stock cubes. Johnny made a big production of praising the flavor and talking about fancy restaurants where traditional Irish cooking is all the rage. No one except Liam was hungry.
“You’re going nowhere,” Sheila says.
“Going for a walk.”
“No. Wash them up.”
