“I didn’t,” Senan says. “I thought you were one of them hipster shites and you’d be asking Noreen for avocados.”
“It was the beard that done it,” Mart explains to Cal. “We don’t see many like that around here. It needed accounting for.”
“This fella thought you were on the run,” someone else says, nudging his neighbor.
“Just lazy,” Cal says. “I let the shaving slide for a while, and next thing you know, this happened.”
“We’ll give you a hand with that,” the deep-voiced guy in the corner says.
“I’ve got used to it,” Cal says. “I think I’ll hang on to it a while longer.”
“Lena’s got a right to see what’s under there, before she gets herself into anything.”
“You’ll be only gorgeous.”
“Noreen’s got razors.”
“Barty! Give us the shop key there!”
They’re all grinning at Cal, leaning forwards, glasses going down. The reel beats in the air like a pulse.
Cal has been sizing them up all evening, just in case. The deep-voiced guy in the corner is his top priority. He and Senan are going to be trouble, and probably Malachy; if Cal can take care of them, the rest are likely to back down. He readies himself, as best he can.
“Get outa that,” Mart tells them, throwing an arm around Cal’s shoulders. “I told ye all from the start, this fella was sound as a pound. And wasn’t I right? If he wants a big Chewbacca head on him, he can have one.”
For a moment the alcove is still, balanced on the edge and ready to tip either way. Then Senan roars with laughter and the rest join in, like they were just kidding all along. “The face on him,” someone says, “thought he was about to be fuckin’ sheared like a sheep,” and someone else shouts, “Look at him there, ready to take on the lot of us! Get up, ya boy ya!”
They settle back into their seats, still laughing, with their eyes still on Cal, and someone shouts to Barty to bring this madman another pint. Cal stares right back at them and laughs as long and loud as the rest. He wonders which of these men is the most likely to spend his nights in a field with a sheep and a sharp knife.
Senan sings something in what must be Irish, long melancholy phrases with a quaver at the end, his head back and his eyes closed. The deep-voiced guy, whose name turns out to be Francie, slides over to introduce himself to Cal; this somehow spirals into a full account of how Francie’s true love left him because he had to look after his mother through her twelve-year decline, a story heartrending enough that Cal is moved to buy Francie a pint and they both need another shot of poteen. At some point Deirdre is gone, and so is the buck-naked window guy. Someone sets off the rubber fish behind the bar when Barty isn’t looking, and they all sing “I Will Survive” along with it, at the top of their lungs.
By the time people start to leave, Cal is drunk enough to accept a ride home from Mart, mainly out of a confused feeling that it would be uncivil to refuse, given that he owes Mart his beard. Mart sings all the way, in a cracked tenor with surprising volume, jaunty songs about girls who are all the prettiest in town, with some of the words missing. Cold air streams through the open windows, and the clouds are breaking up so that stars and darkness whisk dizzyingly across the windshield. At every pothole the car soars. Cal figures either they’ll get home or they won’t, and joins in on the choruses.
“Now,” Mart says, pulling up with a jolt outside Cal’s gate. “How’s the aul’ stomach holding up?”
“Pretty good,” Cal says, fumbling for his seat-belt clip. His phone buzzes in his pocket. It takes him a moment to work out what on earth that might be. Then it comes to him that it must be Alyssa, WhatsApping him: Sorry I missed you, catch you later! He leaves the phone where it is.
“It is, of course. No better man.” Mart’s wispy gray hair is sticking straight out on one side of his head. He looks beatifically happy.
“Barty looked pretty glad to get rid of us,” Cal says. The last time he looked at his watch, it was three in the morning.
“Barty,” Mart says with magnificent scorn. “Sure, that pub’s not even rightly his. He only got his hands on it because Seán Óg’s son fancied himself sitting in an aul’ office, the big jessie. He can put up with us having a wee carouse every now and again.”
“Should I have given Malachy a coupla bucks?” Cal asks. “For the”—he can’t come up with the right word—“the ’shine?”
“Sure, I looked after all that,” Mart tells him. “You can sort me out some other time. You’ll have plenty of oppornoon—opteroon—” He waves a hand at Cal and gives up.
“Whoops,” Cal says, as he clambers out of the car. He regains his footing. “Thanks for the ride. And the invitation.”
“That was some night, bucko,” Mart says, leaning over a little too far to talk through the passenger window. “You’ll remember that one, hah?”
“Not sure I’ll remember a damn thing,” Cal says, which makes Mart laugh.
“Arrah, you’ll be grand. Get a good sleep, that’s all you need.”
“I intend to,” Cal says. “You too.”
“I will,” Mart says. His face crunches into a grin. “Here I was planning on taking over guard duty from P.J. halfway through the night, d’you remember? I shoulda known better. That was never on the cards. But I’ve been an optimist all my life.” He waves to Cal and revs off up the road, taillights weaving.
Cal decides not to bother getting as far as the house just yet. Instead he lies down on his grass and looks up at the stars, which are thick and wild as dandelions right across the sky. He thinks about that telescope Mart suggested, and decides it wouldn’t suit him. He feels no urge to understand the stars better; he’s contented with them as they are. It’s always been a trait of his, whether for better or for worse, to prefer setting his mind to things he can do something about.
After a while, he sobers up enough to feel the rocks poking at his back and the cold seeping into him. It also occurs to him, gradually, that it might not be smart to lie out here with something or someone on the loose that takes the throats out of sheep.
When he picks himself up his head spins, and he has to lean over with his hands on his thighs for a little bit till it stops. Then he trudges across the lawn, which feels very wide and bare, towards his house. There’s no movement in the fields, and no sound in the hedges or the branches; the night has come to its deepest point, the deserted pre-dawn borderland. His clump of woods is a dense smudge against the stars, silent and still. Mart’s house is dark.
TWELVE
Cal wakes up late: sun is pouring in at his bedroom window. His head is a little tender and feels like it’s been stuffed with sticky carpet fluff, but apart from that he’s in surprisingly OK shape. He runs his head under the cold tap, which clears it a little bit, and fixes himself some fried eggs and sausages, a couple of painkillers and a lot of coffee for lunch. Then he tosses his bag of dirty laundry into the trunk of his car and heads for town.
The day is deceptively bright, with a hard chill in the shadows and a little breeze that flirts its way close and then slices right in. The Pajero bumps rhythmically over the potholes at an easy lope. Alongside, the shadows of small clouds glide across the brown mountains.
Cal is clear that last night he got warned. The warning, however, was done with such subtlety that—whether by design or not—he’s unsure what, exactly, he was being warned off. He has no idea whether Ardnakelty has worked out that he’s looking into Brendan Reddy’s disappearance and wants him to knock that shit off, or whether he’s just been poking around too much for a stranger and needs instruction in local customs.