The Searcher(135)

“So, Sunny Jim,” Mart says, breaking a long silence. He hasn’t been singing. “You got what you were after.”

“Yeah,” Cal says. He wonders whether Mart is expecting him to say thank you.

“The child can show that to her mammy, if she likes, and tell her where it came from. No one else.”

Cal says, “ ’Cause Sheila’ll make damn sure the kid keeps her mouth shut.”

“Sheila’s a smart woman,” Mart says. The sun between the spruce branches streaks his face with brightness and shadows. It blurs away the wrinkles and makes him look younger and stronger, at ease. “It’s a feckin’ shame she ever took up with that eejit Johnny Reddy. There was a dozen fellas that woulda jumped at the chance to get in there, but would she look twice at them? Would she fuck. Sheila coulda had a good house and a farm and all her childer in university. And look at her now.”

“You tell her what happened?” Cal asks.

“She already knew the young fella wasn’t coming back. There was nothing else she needed to know. What you saw up there, would it do any good, her having that in her head?”

“I’m gonna go up to Sheila Reddy,” Cal says, “once I get the use of this arm back. Give her a hand fixing that roof.”

“Ah, now,” Mart says, with a flinch and a grimace. “Not one of your finest inspirations there, Sunny Jim, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“You think?”

“You don’t want to make a woman like Lena jealous. Next thing you know, there’s a full-on feud breaking out all round you, and I’d say you’ve caused enough trouble around here for a while, amn’t I right? Besides”—he grins at Cal—“who’s to say Sheila’d want you? Your reputation for mending roofs isn’t the greatest, now.”

Cal says nothing. His arm is cramping from carrying the spade.

“D’you know, though,” Mart says, struck by something, “you’re after putting an idea into my head. Sheila Reddy could do with a bitta looking after, all right. A few bob here and there, maybe, or a few sods of turf, or someone to mend that roof for her. I’ll have a chat with the lads and see what we can sort out.” He smiles at Cal. “Would you look at that, now. You’re after doing some good around here, after all. I don’t know why I never thought of it before.”

Cal says, “ ’Cause she mighta figured out why you were doing it. Now that she knows you were mixed up in this, it can’t do any harm, and it’ll help keep her quiet. One way or another.”

“Let me tell you something, Sunny Jim,” Mart says reprovingly. “You’ve a terrible habit of thinking the worst of people. D’you know what that is? That’s that job of yours. It’s after warping your mind. That attitude’s no use to you now. If you’d only relax a wee bit, look on the bright side, you’d get the good out of the aul’ retirement. Get yourself one of them apps that teach you to think positive.”

“Speaking of thinking the worst,” Cal says, “the kid is gonna keep coming round to my place. I don’t expect the townland to give either of us any shit about it.”

“I’ll have a word,” Mart says superbly, holding back branches for Cal as they come out of the spruces onto a trail. “Sure, you’ll do the child good. Women who haven’t had a dacent man around while they’re growing up, they end up marrying wasters. And the last thing this townland needs is whatever you get when you cross a Reddy with a McGrath.”

“I’d put him in that bog first,” Cal says, before he can stop himself.

Mart bursts out laughing. It’s a big, free, happy sound that spreads out, almost shockingly, across the hillside. “I believe you,” he says. “You’d be straight back up there with that spade, on the double. Jaysus, man, it’s a mad world we live in, hah? You’d never know where it’d take you.”

“No shit,” Cal says. “Anyway, I thought you thought the kid was gay.”

“Well, will you look at that,” Mart says, grinning. “We’re back on conversational terms. I’m only delighted. And the child can marry a waster whether she’s gay or not, can’t she? That’s what we voted for: the gays can make fools of themselves, same as the rest of us, and no one can stop them.”

Cal says, “That kid’s no fool.”

“We all are, when we’re young. The Indians do have it right: it’s the parents that oughta arrange the marriages. They’d make a better job of it than a buncha young people that’s only thinking with their wild bits.”

“And you’d have been married off to some skinny girl who’d want a poodle and a chandelier,” Cal points out.

“I would not,” Mart says with an air of victory. “My daddy and mammy never agreed on anything in their lives; there’s no chance they’d have agreed on a woman for me. I’d be where I am now, free and single, and without the consequences of Sheila Reddy’s foolishness to deal with.”

“You’d just find something else to get mixed up in,” Cal says. “You’d get bored.”

“I might, all right,” Mart acknowledges. “How about yourself?” He squints at Cal, evaluating. “I’d say your mammy would have found you a nice cheerful young one with a good steady job. A nurse, maybe, or a teacher; no eejit for you. We’re not looking at any Elle Macpherson—she wouldn’t want you having the hassle of that—but pretty enough. A girl that was up for a few laughs, but no nonsense about her; no wild streak. And your daddy wouldn’t have given a shite one way or another. Am I right or am I right?”