Chapter Nineteen #4
Bobby still looks dubious, but he creases up his forehead and gives the question his full attention.
“I wouldn’t say Róisín’d be into that,” he tells Cal, after a few moments’ thought.
“She’s a great one for the chats. If something was up, I’d say she’d tell me all about it before I even knew to ask. ”
“Yeah,” Cal says. “That’s what I thought about Lena. She’s pretty chatty, too. Normally.”
Bobby goes back to thinking. His face is puckered with trouble; if Cal the expert can’t keep a relationship afloat, clearly a beginner like Bobby is screwed. Cal wishes he had kept his mouth shut.
“What I’d do,” Bobby says eventually, “is I’d go over to her place and I’d sit there, on the step.
Not hassling her, like; just waiting. And either she’d come out and tell me to fuck off—not like that, ’cause Róisín doesn’t use language, but you know what I mean—and then at least I’d know where I was. Or else she’d come out and talk to me.”
“What if she didn’t?” Cal says.
“Then I’d keep waiting,” Bobby says. He gives Cal a shy sideways glance. “That’s probably wrong,” he adds humbly. “ ’Tisn’t subtle, or anything. But ’tis the best I can do.”
Cal hopes Róisín appreciates Bobby the way he deserves. “It sounds pretty good to me,” he says.
“Ye’ll be grand,” Bobby assures him, from the heart.
“I was only saying to Róisín the other day, no word of a lie, I’d rather we were like the two of ye than any other couple I know; the way ye just trot along together, no drama, happy out.
Lena’s head’s just melted by alla this that’s been going on.
Once that’s sorted, ye’ll be right as rain. ”
“Well,” Cal says, “thanks. I hope you’re right. You ask Róisín to marry you yet?”
“Not yet,” Bobby says. “But I bought a ring,” he adds, glancing at Cal to see if he’s going to get a ribbing for this. “Your man said I could swap it if she doesn’t like it, or if she says no.”
“Tell me something,” Cal says. He’s not sure how to word this, but he feels like the issue needs addressing. “You gonna take her out looking for aliens?”
Bobby blinks, wrong-footed, and hides in his coffee. “I never seen any aliens,” he corrects Cal. “Lights, only.”
“OK,” Cal says. “You gonna take her looking for UFOs?”
Bobby looks up at him. “There was never any aliens,” he says, simply and a little sadly. “I’d say half the time them lights was just Malachy Dwyer and the other mountainy lads taking the piss outa me. And the rest was bog-lights or satellites, that kinda stuff.”
“Could’ve been,” Cal says gently.
“It was,” Bobby says. “I’d say I knew that all along, underneath. But the nights woulda got awful long with nothing to go looking for.”
“That’s the truth,” Cal says. “You could’ve done a lot worse than aliens.”
Bobby smiles a little bit at that. “ ’Twill be strange, without them,” he says. “It’s a change.”
“Well,” Cal says, “you can’t get away from those.”
“I never had any before, but,” Bobby explains, “not since my daddy died and I took over the farm. I stopped looking for any. I thought I’d keep jogging along the same way as always, till I dropped dead.
I’m not complaining,” he adds hastily, in case the universe should take umbrage at his ingratitude.
“I’m over the moon with myself. Only every now and again it feels awful strange, d’you know the way? ”
“Yep,” Cal says. He does. He has a feeling that he strayed into the same illusion as Bobby, and with a lot less of an excuse.
“Come here to me,” Bobby says, struck by an idea. “D’you know that holy water bottle I brought you from Lourdes?”
“Got it right there,” Cal says, nodding to the mantelpiece.
Bobby looks gratified. “I put a drop of mine on the ring,” he says. “For luck. You oughta do the same: put it on yourself, before you go see Lena.”
“Good idea,” Cal says. He finds himself actually considering it.
“I’ll show you,” Bobby says, seizing the chance to offer something useful.
He goes to the mantelpiece and brings back the Mary bottle, holding it carefully upright.
“Now,” he says, uncapping it and handing it over.
“Just put your thumb over the top and tip it up, and then rub the drop of water on your forehead. Normally you’d make the sign of the Cross, but Protestants mightn’t be allowed, I don’t know. ”
He gazes hopefully at Cal. Cal gives up and does what he’s told, smearing his thumb down his forehead between his eyebrows. The water leaves a cold streak where the air hits it. He knows it’s meant to be a blessing, but it feels like some older and fiercer ritual, an anointing for battle.
Once Bobby heads home, looking a lot happier, Cal spends the remainder of the morning getting so restless he could bite himself.
He needs to talk to Mart, but he can’t see Mart anywhere—presumably he’s doing something in his bottom field, hidden from Cal’s view by the slope of the land—and he doesn’t want to go out looking.
He’s reluctant to leave the house. Somewhere out there are Tommy and Eugene, both of them pushed to the edge, right where Cal wants them.
If either of them should come calling, Cal can’t afford to miss him.
In the end he heads out back, to collect the last of the oak leaves and add them to his compost pile—this doesn’t particularly need doing, but it’ll prevent him from chewing the furniture and let him keep an eye out for Mart.
A few rooks swoop back from the day’s business to see what he’s doing with their oak tree; they hang around, competing to see which of them can find the most unhelpful stuff to drop in the wheelbarrow.
Maybe they’ve caught what’s in the air, because today their screwing around has an ugly edge.
Among their usual contributions of rocks and discarded plastic, Cal picks out lumps of what smells like fox shit and something that turns out to be the leftovers of a finch, head and one wing ripped off, delicate claws curled.
He’s turning the wheelbarrow towards the compost pile when, somewhere, a howl rises through the cold gray air.
After the first frozen second Cal knows it has to be a dog, but it sounds like no dog he’s ever heard; this is a death cry or a war cry, as savage and desolate as a wolf’s. The hair lifts on his neck.
Beside him Rip is hunched, teeth bared. When the sound ends, the air stands still. Even the rooks are silenced.
The howl rises again. This time Cal realizes which way Rip is pointing, and then he’s dropped the wheelbarrow and he’s running.
He vaults his wall without breaking stride and goes flat out for the crest of the slope that hides Mart’s bottom field. He’s walked this land a hundred times and never realized the breadth of it, how long it takes to cross. The howling goes on and on, closer now.
Halfway across the bottom field, Mart’s little red tractor is on its side, revving hard, with its tires pointing uphill towards Cal. Beside the tractor Kojak stands with all four paws braced, nose to the sky, howling. Sheep have clustered in the field’s far corner, unsettled, watching.
“Sit,” Cal says to Rip. “Stay.”
When he rounds the tractor, Kojak cuts off in mid-howl and spins to face him.
His eyes are white-ringed and he shows his fangs.
Mart is on the ground, lying on his side with his back to Cal.
His blue beanie is too bright, unnatural, against the faded grass.
The lower half of him is pinned under the tractor.
Cal moves forward very slowly, holding out one hand and saying soothing words of some kind: Hey boy it’s me, you know me buddy, everything’s OK…
Gradually Kojak’s hackles go down, and the hunch of his spine eases.
He starts up a high wild whine. “Good boy,” Cal says steadily.
“You did great. Now you just sit a minute and I’ll fix it all up.
” He moves towards the tractor, and Kojak lets him.
He has no doubt that he’s kneeling to a dead man. He almost leaps out of his skin when Mart’s eyes open.
“Jean-Claude,” Mart says. His voice is thin, but it’s clear, and his eyes are focused on Cal’s. “The very man I was hoping to see.”
The relief almost drops Cal. The earth, boggy from all these weeks of rain, must have cushioned the worst of it.
He can’t see any blood; the angles of Mart’s neck and back are natural, not distorted, and he lifts one hand in something like a wave.
Cal knows what tractor accidents can do, but everyone has a story about the guy who got lucky.
“Don’t try to move,” he says. He gets down on the ground and reaches to turn off the tractor, and its angry roar fades into stillness. “I’m gonna get P.J. He’s got a winch. You just hang tight and we’ll get this off you.”
“Don’t be a fool, man,” Mart says. “I can’t feel a thing below the waist. I’m not complaining, ’cause this’d be awful sore otherwise, but on the other hand, the bottom half a me is porridge.
” He has to take a new breath after every few words.
“This tractor’s the only thing holding me together.
If you lift it offa me, I’ll bleed to death before you can put it down. ”
“OK,” Cal says. “OK.” Mart is right. God only knows what’s ripped apart inside him, sealed off from bleeding by the tractor’s weight. “OK. I’m gonna get you an ambulance.”
“You do that, Sunny Jim,” Mart says. “I’d say they’ll get here too late for the action, but we’ll give it a go. Take your time; I won’t go anywhere.”
Cal’s cop voice gets the call-taker’s attention, but it can’t do much more than that. She’ll get an ambulance to them as soon as possible, she can’t give him an ETA, he should keep his friend warm and not try to move him.
“They’re on their way,” he says, when he hangs up.
Mart’s eyes crease in amusement. “They are, o’ course,” he agrees obligingly.