The Searcher(40)

“Hey,” Cal says, with pleased recognition, “I’ve heard that name before. Now where . . .” He snaps his fingers. “That’s it. Lena. Noreen’s sister. She was telling me about her young days, and she mentioned you.”

Sheila looks at him without curiosity, waiting for what he wants.

Cal grins. “Lena said the two of you used to run wild together. Get out your windows at night and hitch rides to discos.”

That finds Sheila, enough to get a faint twitch of a smile. One of her top teeth is missing, near the front. “That was a long time ago,” she says.

“Know what you mean,” Cal says ruefully. “I remember when, if I went out, I was heading half a dozen different places and I wasn’t coming home till daylight. Nowadays, three beers in Seán óg’s and I’ve had just about all the excitement I can handle for one week.”

He gives her a sheepish smile. Cal has had plenty of practice being harmless. At his size, he has to put the work into that, specially with a lone woman. Sheila doesn’t seem afraid, though, not now that she’s placed him. She’s not the timid kind. Her first wariness wasn’t of him as a man, but of whatever authority he might be carrying with him.

“Back then,” he says, “I’d have thought nothing of walking home wet. These days, though, my circulation isn’t too good; by the time I make it all the way down the mountain, I won’t be able to feel my toes. Could I trouble you for a handful of paper towels to soak up a little of this, or an old cloth? Maybe even a dry pair of socks, if you’ve got some to spare?”

Sheila examines his foot again and finally nods. “I’ll get something,” she says, and she turns and goes back behind the house. The kids hang off the play structure and watch Cal. When he smiles at them, their expressions don’t change.

Sheila comes back carrying a roll of paper towels and a pair of men’s gray socks. “Now,” she says, passing them over the gate.

“Miz Reddy,” Cal says, “you just saved my day. Much obliged to you.”

She doesn’t smile. She watches, arms folded at her waist, as he makes himself comfortable on a boulder by the gatepost and takes off his boot. “Excuse my foot,” he says, with an embarrassed grin. “It was clean this morning, even if it’s not now.” The kids, who have edged closer to watch, giggle.

Cal wads up paper towel and presses it inside his boot to soak up some of the water, taking his time. “It’s beautiful country round here,” he says, nodding at the mountain slope rising behind the house.

Sheila takes one glance over her shoulder and then looks away again. “Maybe,” she says.

“Good place to raise a family. Clean air and plenty of space to run wild; there’s not much else a kid needs.”

She shrugs.

“I was raised a country boy,” Cal explains, “but I was in the city a long time. This here looks like paradise to me.”

Sheila says, “I’d be happy enough if I never saw it again.”

“Oh?” Cal says, but she doesn’t answer.

He tests the boot, which is about as dry as it’s going to get. “I’m fond of hillwalking,” he says. “The city turned me fat and lazy. Now that I’m here, I’m getting back into good habits. Although I better get back into the habit of looking where I put my feet.”

That doesn’t get a response, either. Sheila is harder work than he bargained for—Noreen and Mart and the guys in the pub have given him high expectations of the small talk around here—but at least now he knows where Trey got his conversational skills. And she doesn’t seem to mind him talking away. She’s watching him wrap his wet sock in more paper towel and tuck it away in his pocket, without interest, but without giving the impression that she has anything urgent to get back to.

“Ahh,” Cal says, pulling on the dry sock, which is worn but whole. “Now that’s an improvement. I’ll give these a good wash and get them back to you.”

“No need.”

“I guess I wouldn’t want my socks back once they’d been on some stranger’s big ol’ muddy feet, either,” Cal says, lacing up his boot and grinning. “In that case, I’ll bring you a new pair, soon as I get into town. In the meantime . . .” He produces two Kit Kat bars out of his jacket pocket. “I brought these to eat along my way, but now that I’m turning back early, doesn’t seem like I’ll need them. Would it be OK if I offered them to your young ’uns?”

Sheila comes up with a trace of a smile. “They’d like that, all right,” she says. “They do love the sweet stuff.”

“That’s kids,” Cal says. “My girl, when she was that size, she’da eaten candy all day long if we’da let her. I could tell if my wife had candy anywhere in the house, because my girl was like a bird dog, pointing right at it.” He mimes. Sheila’s smile grows, and softens. A freebie, even a little one, does that to poor people; it loosens them. Cal still recognizes that in himself, even though it’s been twenty-five years since he was that kind of poor. It’s the sweet warm wave of astonishment that, just for once and out of the blue, the world is feeling generous to you today.

“Hey,” he calls, getting up and holding out the chocolate over the gate. “You guys like Kit Kats?”