The Searcher(75)

“Nope. Just the way it comes.”

She takes milk from the fridge for herself. Cal likes the way she moves around the kitchen, efficient but not rushed, at ease with the place. He considers what it would be like to live your life in a place where your personal decisions, whether to get married or to have kids or to move away, alter the entire townland. Outside the windows, the rain is still coming down thick as ever.

“So what’ll happen when all the bachelors die off?” he asks. “Who’ll take over the farms?”

“Nephews or cousins, some of them. God knows about the rest.”

She brings the mugs of tea over to Cal on the floor and sits down, with her back against the wall and her knees up. One of the pups is scrabbling at the edge of the box. She scoops it into her lap. “I like them this age,” she says. “I can come and have a cuddle whenever I fancy one, and then put them back when I’ve had enough. Another week or two and they won’t stay put for it; they’ll be getting under my feet instead.”

“I like ’em this way,” Cal says, “but I like ’em a little bit bigger, too. When they get to playing with you.”

“They’re always needing something then. Even if it’s just an eye out so you don’t step on them.” She holds her tea out to the side, away from her pup, which is trying to clamber up her knees. “Once they’re out of the basket, I can’t wait for them to get big enough to have a bit of sense. That’s why I got a half-grown dog and not a pup. And now look at me.”

“You find homes for the rest?”

“Two. Noreen’ll take the others, if no one else does. She says she won’t, but she will.”

“Your sister’s a good woman,” Cal says.

“She is. She drives me mental sometimes, but the world wouldn’t get far without the likes of her.” She smiles. “I do make fun of her sometimes because her youngest, Cliona, she’s exactly the same as her mam, but the truth is I’m glad of it. Without someone to take over Ardnakelty when Noreen gets old, the place’d fall apart.”

“Cliona the one that’s around ten or eleven?” Cal asks. “Red hair?”

“That’s the one.”

“She was helping out one time I went into the store. She told me I was buying the wrong dish soap, it’d dry out my hands and wouldn’t get my dishes shiny, and she went up that ladder to fetch me the one she recommends. Then she asked me why I moved here and why I’m not married.”

Lena laughs. “There you go. We’re in safe hands.”

Cal shifts so he can hold the pup one-handed and drink his tea, which is strong and good. He says, “I’ve been asking around about Brendan Reddy.”

“I know, yeah,” Lena says. Her puppy, exhausted by its efforts, has collapsed on her lap. She tickles the tiny pads of one paw. “Why?”

“I met your old friend Sheila. She’s pretty cut up about her boy going off.”

Lena shoots him an amused look. “Knight in shining armor?”

“Just saw a question that needed answering,” Cal says. “My neighbor Mart, he thinks I’m bored, looking for something to occupy my mind. He might be right.”

Lena blows on her tea and regards him across the mug, still with that wry quirk to one corner of her mouth. “How’re you getting on with it?”

“Not too good,” Cal says. “I’ve heard plenty about Brendan, but no one wants to talk about where he might have gone, or why.”

“Maybe they don’t know.”

“I’ve talked to his mama, his two best buddies, and his girlfriend. Not one of them had anything to say. If they don’t know, who would?”

“Maybe no one knows.”

“Well,” Cal says, “I did wonder about that. But then Mart warned me to back off, the other night. He thinks I’m gonna get myself in trouble. That sounds to me like someone knows something, or thinks they do.”

Lena is still watching him sideways on, as she drinks her tea away from the pup. “Are you one of those people that can’t rest easy? If they don’t have any trouble in their lives, they go looking for some.”

“Not me,” Cal says. “What I went looking for was peace and quiet. I’m taking what came my way. Same as you are.”

“These pups are hassle. They’re not trouble.”

“Well,” Cal says, “no one’s explained to me how Brendan Reddy might be trouble, either. Who’s Mart scared of?”

Lena says, “I didn’t think Mart Lavin was ever afraid of anyone.”

“Maybe not. But he thinks I should be.”

“Then maybe you should.”

“I’m contrary by nature,” Cal explains. “The more people try to shoo me away from something, the more I dig my heels in. I always was that way, even as a little guy.” His puppy has eased its gnawing on his finger; when he looks down he sees that it’s fallen asleep, sprawled gracelessly against his chest, in the cup of his palm. “I figure,” he says, “if anyone in this townland’s gonna give me a straight answer about Brendan Reddy, it’ll be you.”

Lena leans back against the wall and examines him, drinking her tea and stroking her pup with her free hand. In the end she says, “I don’t know what happened to Brendan Reddy.”