‘Makes sense,’ I tell them, ‘seeing as he isn’t really a youth. What age is he anyway?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Fiachra says. ‘Old enough to boss people around. Maybe, like, twenty?’
‘Twenty seems fair,’ says Layla, popping a toffee into her mouth. ‘Like, any older and it would be seriously creepy for him to be in youth club.’
‘Because ye are, like, youths.’
Fiachra snorts, and Charley nods, as though I have said something incredibly wise. I smile at them.
Waiting for the bus, Lon approaches, gangly legs and neck. He’s really tall. Even for normal-sized people. He smiles at me. ‘How ya, Maddy?’
‘Hi, Lon.’
‘Tell your sister I’m sorry she’s not feeling the best. Could you give her this for me?’ He hands me an envelope. He looks at me like I am knock-off her. Inexpensive. Just a little … less. He pauses, leaning on the bus stop with one leg making a triangle on the pole, like a rockabilly flamingo. His arms akimbo. Lon likes to take up space. I blink at him. He’s saying things to Charley now, about the club. His hair is something else. I bet that takes him time. Time and product.
‘… the old Hellfire Clubs of the eighteenth century …’
His cheekbones are threatening to burst out from his skin. Lon is exactly the kind of boy who would secretly contour his own face for maximum rock-god impact. And lie about it. He’s spindling himself towards the gang of schoolkids, gesticulating like he’s holding court. He told Oona he liked her name, and grinned like he deserved a gold star for being kind. His grin’s the same way that it is with Catlin. If she weren’t beautiful, he wouldn’t care.
‘… in homage to their reckless, rebel souls …’
His voice is a low, quiet purr of a thing. Making fun of me, all latent sleaze. He releases a wisp of cigarette smoke, and I can’t help but inhale it and stifle a cough.
‘Lon loves history,’ Eddie tells me. His voice is unobjectionable. The sort of voice you could take anywhere. When it’s not wobbling, it’s actually quite manly. He would make a good Galway boyfriend for Catlin, I think. Solid. Dependable.
Oona sees through Lon a little bit as well, I suspect. She looks at him as though he were an interesting sculpture. Of a prick.
‘I too like history,’ she says, smiling. He smiles back at her. Not getting that she hates him. That we both hate him. I smile at Oona, then I smile at Lon. Everyone’s smiling, but only some of us know why.
‘I like history as well.’ This is not my finest conversational offering, but I run with it. ‘Especially the famine times. They’re fascinating. I kind of like reading about the struggles of the normal, underprivileged people. Like we would have been back in the day. Not aristocrats,’ I finish.
Oona smiles at me and I smile back. Look at me, saying things and getting smiled at like a proper human being.
‘Don’t you live in a castle though?’ asks Cathal.
He has me there, the sibling-eating bastard.
‘We only just moved in,’ I offer lamely.
‘Madeline and Catalina are the stepchildren of a local man called Brian,’ Lon explains, in case anyone would think I was a person in my own right.
‘Her name is Catlin, Lon. But, yeah. We are.’ I’m trying to make an effort, but I can feel the surly building under my skin, honing my usual sense of danger into something more immediate. My fingers twitch. I want to run away. Or slap him. Maybe both.
‘Brian’s great,’ Lon tells me. ‘Very involved in the local community.’ He says it like he’s complimenting me. On my breasts. At a bus stop. Outside a prison.
‘Brian is great,’ says Charley. ‘He offered to pay for our hoodies and everything.’
‘Would you ever shut up about them hoodies?’ snaps Lon.
‘Don’t tell my sister what to do,’ says Eddie, his voice an octave lower, thrumming. Very definite. I remember what Brian said at the wedding about the Collinses. And clearly so does Lon, who shuts right up.
‘He gave us the money anyway,’ says Fiachra. ‘We spent it all on beer and trampolines.’
‘Nice,’ I tell him, and he nods at me. It does sound nice. I wonder how many of them ended up in A & E that summer.
‘Brian is cool,’ says Layla quietly. ‘He lets people be who they are.’
I have never had a conversation this long about the merits of any adult with more than one person at a time. If I didn’t know Brian, I would be decidedly creeped out by him now.
‘He does,’ I say. ‘Mam loves him, like. They’re happy.’
Oona sits with me on the bus home. We chat a bit (not about Brian, thank God) but mostly kind of lull together. Looking out the windows. When I’m with a stranger, I normally feel like I should be saying things. Like if I don’t, they’ll find out what I’m like and then dismiss me. But this feels grand. Easier. Like I have made a friend. And one is enough for the time being.
I think of Oona’s expression when our eyes met. There was something there. A little pool of warmth. Something rare.
I walk with Layla up the driveway, smiling. I look for the robin, but something must have taken it away. There is no trace. Another day. Another body lost.
The mountains loom.
8
Bay Leaf
The castle is grave quiet, statue still. I call for Catlin or Mam, but no one answers. It’s a little bit of a relief. Reporting back about the day at school is exhausting. I take off my shoes so they don’t leave wet footprints on the flagstones and traipse to the kitchen, to make a cup of tea and start my homework. I need to wrap my head around some stuff – our maths teacher is of the ‘it makes sense to me so it will clearly make sense to you’ variety, and I don’t want to end up sobbing into my maths paper. Catlin says I shouldn’t worry about college till final year, but Catlin would say that. The only medicine she wants to practise is drinking too much cough syrup ‘to see what will happen’. (She threw up sugar-vomit is what happened.)
Too much trigonometry later, I raise my head. Mamó is at the kitchen table, drinking from a brown ceramic mug filled with what looks like dishwater and twigs.
I cannot tell how long she has been there, watching me work. Annoying me silently. Like a spy. Her face is disinterested and her skin remarkably smooth for a woman who is, in Catlin’s words, ‘as old as balls’.
I rise and begin putting my things back in my schoolbag.
‘You’ll have a cup of tea with me,’ she states. It is in no way an invitation. I incline my head and sit opposite her. She busies herself with mugs and spoons and teabags. She knows where everything is.
The urge to rearrange things just to mess with her is strong. I swallow down. I am calm. I am mature. I am impermeable.
Like granite.
‘Any visitors today?’ I ask. My voice is smug. I cannot help myself. I’m wasting all my energy not raising an eyebrow.
‘A few clients, yes.’ She tilts her head. The way owls do. Her eyes are very large and very bright. Her hair is grey. Her face is buttered leather, only paler. Her sleeves rolled up. She has a farmer tan.
‘And what did you do to them?’ My voice comes out meaner than I intend. Something about her makes me want to kick things.