“Why not? He dumb?”
“No!”
“Then why?”
“Hated school. The teachers.”
The kid is shooting out answers like he’s on the timed round of a quiz show. Cal can tell, watching him, that it feels good. This—the two of them facing each other across this table, the notebook and pen—is what Trey has been working towards, all this time.
“Gimme a little more about him,” Cal says. “What’s he like?”
Trey’s eyebrows twitch together; clearly he has never tried to articulate this before. “He’s a laugh,” he says, in the end. “He talks a lot.”
“You sure you’re related?”
Trey gives Cal a blank stare. “Never mind,” Cal says. “Just joshing you. Go on.”
The kid makes a baffled what-do-you-want-from-me grimace, but Cal waits. “He can’t sit still,” Trey says, in the end. “Mam gives out about that. He got in hassle in school for it, and for messing.”
When Cal keeps waiting: “He likes motorbikes. And making stuff. Like when I was a kid, he made me little cars that actually went, and experiments out the back field to blow stuff up. And he’s not thick. He has ideas. In school he made a load of money buying sweets in town and then selling them at lunch, till the teachers found out.” He glances at Cal, checking whether that’s enough.
Cal is thinking that it sounds like Brendan takes after his daddy a lot more than Trey does, and look what Daddy ended up doing. “Good,” he says. “I like to get an idea who I’m looking for, see what direction it points me. Your brother have any medical conditions? Mental illnesses?”
“No!”
“It’s not an insult, kid,” Cal says. “I need to know.”
The kid is still affronted. “He’s grand.”
“Never went to the doctor for anything?”
“He broke his arm one time. Came off a motorbike. But he went to the hospital for that, not the doctor.”
“He ever seem depressed to you? Anxious?”
Clearly these aren’t concepts to which Trey has given a lot of thought. “He was well pissed off when he didn’t get into college,” he offers, after considering this.
“Pissed off like what? Like staying in his room all day? Not eating? Not talking? What?”
Trey gives Cal a look like he’s being a drama queen. “Nah. Like pissed off. Like he swore a lot, and he went out on the lash that night, and he was in a humor all week. Then he said fuck college anyway, he’d be grand.”
“OK,” Cal says. That doesn’t sound like a tendency towards depression, but family aren’t always the best observers. “Who’d he hang out with?”
“Eugene Moynihan. Fergal O’Connor. Paddy Fallon. Alan Geraghty. Some other lads as well, but mostly them.”
Cal writes those down. “Which one was he closest to?”
“He doesn’t have a best friend, like. Just whichever of them are about.”
“He have a girlfriend?”
“Nah. Not the last while.”
“Exes?”
“He went out with Caroline Horan for a couple of years, in school.”
“Good relationship?”
Trey shrugs. This is an extravagant one that means How the hell would I know?
“When’d it end?”
“A while back. Before Christmas.”
“Why?”
Another shrug. “She dumped him.”
“Any beef there? She accuse him of anything? Hitting her, cheating on her?”
Shrug.
Cal underlines Caroline’s name. “Where would I find Caroline? She work around here?”
“In town. Or she did when Bren was going out with her, anyway. Shop that sells shite to tourists. And sometimes she usedta give Noreen a hand—her mam and Noreen are cousins. I think she’s in college now, but, so I dunno.”
“He have any problems with anyone else?”
“Nah. Fought with the lads, sometimes. Nothing serious, but.”
“Fought like what? Arguments? Yelling? Fists? Knives?”
Trey gives Cal the drama-queen look again. “Not knives. All the rest, yeah. Didn’t mean anything.”
“Just guys being guys,” Cal says, nodding. This may well be true, but it needs checking. “What’s he do for fun? Any hobbies?”
“Plays hurling. Goes out.”
“He a drinker?”
“Sometimes. Not every night, like.”
“Where? Seán Óg’s?”
That gets an eye-roll. “Seán’s is old fellas. Brendan goes into town. Or people’s houses.”
“What’s he like drunk?”
“He’s not a bad drunk or nothing. He goes messing, like him and his mates robbed a load of signboards from outside shops in town and put them in people’s gardens. And one time Fergal’s parents were away and he had a party, and he passed out drunk, so the rest of them put a sheep in his bathroom.”
“Brendan ever get rowdy?” Cal asks. “Start fights?”
Trey makes a dismissive pfft. “Nah. He gets into fights the odd time, like once a bunch of lads from Boyle jumped on them in town. But he doesn’t go looking.”
“What about drugs? He ever do any of those?”
That gives Trey his first real pause. He eyes Cal warily. Cal looks back at him. He’s got no duty to nudge and cajole, not here. If Trey decides he doesn’t want to do this after all, that’s fine by Cal.
“Sometimes,” Trey says, finally.
“What kinds?”
“Hash. E. Bitta speed.”
“Where’s he get it?”
“There’s a few lads around the townland that always have stuff. Everyone knows to go to them. Or he’d buy it in town, sometimes.”
“He ever do any dealing?”
“Nah.”
“Would you know?”
“He told me things. I wouldn’t rat on him. He knew that.”
There’s a quick fierce flare of pride in Trey’s eyes. Cal is getting the flavor of this. The kid was Brendan’s pet brother, and everything about that was special.
“He ever have any problems with the police?”
The corner of Trey’s mouth twists scornfully. “Mitching off school. This fat lump comes down from town and gives us shite.”
“He’s doing you guys a favor,” Cal says. “He could report it to child protective services, get you and your mama in big trouble. Instead, he takes the time to come out here and talk to you. Next time you see him, you thank him real nice. Brendan run into police any other ways?”
“He got caught speeding, coupla times. Racing, like, with his mates. Nearly lost his license.”
“Anything else?”
Trey shakes his head.
“What about stuff he didn’t get caught for?”
They look at each other. Cal says, “I told you. Any bullshit, we’re done.”
Trey says, “He robs off Noreen sometimes.”
“And?”
“And off places in town. Nothing big. Only for the laugh.”
“Anything else?”
“Nah. You gonna tell Noreen?”
“Pretty sure she already knows, kid,” Cal says dryly. “But don’t worry, I’m not gonna say anything. How’d Brendan get on with your daddy?”
Trey doesn’t flinch, just one blink. “Bad.”
“Like what?”
“They’d fight.”
“Argue? Or it got physical?”
Trey’s eyes snap furiously with the fact that this is none of Cal’s damn business. Cal sits and watches, letting the silence stretch, while the kid’s instincts drag him two ways.
“Yeah,” Trey says, in the end. His face has tightened up.
“How often?”
“Few times.”
“Over what?”
“Dad said Brendan was a waster, sponging. Bren said look who’s talking. And sometimes . . .” Trey’s chin jerks sideways, but he keeps going. He’s sticking to his side of the deal. “To make Dad leave Mam or one of us alone, sometimes. If he was raging.”