The Searcher(64)
“I’d say he went back to England,” Mart says, considering the possibilities. “He’d be happier there. I wonder if he ever got that novel written.”
Cal says, “What you guys do to badgers is none of my business.”
“I don’t do anything to badgers,” Mart reminds him. “Sure, I said that already. I don’t believe in harming any creature unless there’s a need.”
Cal would like his head to be a lot clearer. He takes a swig of his beer, in the hope that it might dilute the poteen in his blood.
“D’you know what you did that was great,” Mart says, aiming a knobbly finger at Cal, “when you first moved in? You asked for advice. Always asking me what was the best builders’ providers, and what to do about the septic tank. I thought well of you for that. It takes a wise man to spot when he needs the bitta advice from someone that knows his way around. This fella won’t end up like Lord Muck, I thought to myself; this fella’ll do grand.” He peers reproachfully at Cal, through the haze of smoke that has thickened in the air. “And then you stopped altogether. What happened there, boyo? Did I lead you astray some way, and you never told me?”
“Not that I know of,” Cal says. “Did you?”
“I did not. So why are you not asking my advice any more? Do you not think you need it, hah? You’ve got the measure of this place now, you’re grand on your own?”
“OK,” Cal says. “Gimme some advice.”
“Now,” Mart says approvingly. “That’s better.”
He settles himself deeper into the banquette and gazes up at the damp-stains on the ceiling. The music has slowed to something old and haunting, the tin whistle spinning a tune whose shapes are strange to Cal, the fiddle a long low drone underneath.
“After the brother died,” Mart says, “I was at a bit of a loose end. All on my ownio in them dark winter evenings, no one to chat to. I wasn’t myself, like; my mind wouldn’t settle. ’Twasn’t healthy. So I’ll tell you what I did. I went into a bookshop in Galway, and I got them to order me a load of books on the aul’ geology. I read them books from cover to cover. I can tell you everything there is to know about the geology round here.”
He points at the little window, coated thickly with darkness. “D’you know those mountains out there,” he says, “where you went for your wee bit of a saunter the other day? Those are red sandstone. Four hundred million years ago, those were laid down, when the land was right down by the equator. ’Twasn’t green then; it was nothing but red desert, hardly a living thing on it. But it got the rain then, too, torrents of it. If you go up in those mountains and you dig about a bit, you’ll find layers of pebbles and sand and muck, and that tells you there were flash floods out in that desert. A few million years after that, a coupla continents smashed into each other, and they crumpled up those mountains like bits of paper; that’s why some of those rocks do be standing up vertical. A volcano shot rocks into the air and sent lava flowing down the mountainside.”
He reaches for his pint, smiling at Cal. “When you went for your wee wander,” he says, “that’s what you were wandering over. It’s a great comfort to me, knowing that. The things we do up those mountains, your walk and Malachy’s still and all the rest of it, they don’t make a blind bit of difference. No more than the midges.”
He raises his pint to Cal and takes a long swallow. “That’s what I did,” he says, wiping foam off his lip, “when I caught my mind getting restless.”
Cal says, “I don’t know if geology’s my style.”
“Doesn’t have to be the geology,” Mart reassures him. “Whatever you fancy yourself. Astronomy, maybe—sure, haven’t you the whole sky at your disposal, now you’re away from the city lights? Get yourself an aul’ telescope and a few charts, and away you go. Or a bitta Latin might suit you. You strike me as a man who never got all the education he could handle. We’ve a great tradition here of going out and getting our own education, if no one offers it to us on a plate. Seeing as you’re here now, it’s only right you should join in.”
“Is this like buying Bobby a harmonica?” Cal asks. “Keep me busy, so I don’t start doing crazy shit?”
“I’m looking out for you, is all,” Mart says. The twist of mockery is, for once, gone from his voice; his eyes are steady on Cal’s. “You’re a dacent man, and I’d like to see you happy here. You deserve that.”
He claps Cal on the shoulder, his face breaking into a grin. “And if you go alien-mad like Bobby, I’m the one that’ll have to listen to you. Get yourself a telescope. And go on up there and get me a pint, in exchange for all that good advice.”
By the time Cal returns, walking very carefully, with Mart’s pint and his own, the conversation is clearly over: Mart is deep in an argument with a couple of the guys about the relative merits of two TV game shows Cal has never heard of, and breaks off only long enough to throw Cal a wink as he takes his glass.
The night goes on. The argument about TV shows gets heated enough that Cal keeps a hand on the table in case someone tries to turn it over, and then somehow dissipates in a burst of insults and laughter. Deirdre sings “Crazy” in a mournful contralto, her head thrown back and her eyes closed. The Lucozade bottle empties, and Malachy produces another one from under the table. The musical corner takes off into a wild reel that has people stamping and slapping tables to the beat.