Chapter Twenty-Two #4
Cal is hit by a sudden sense of wonder. “Sure,” he says. “She like tacos?”
“Dunno. Probably. She likes most things.” Trey glances back and forth between the wood and her diagram, and pencils in another careful line. “We’re kinda going out,” she says.
Cal can feel every cell of her alert for his reaction.
He wants to put his hands on her shoulders and turn her to face him so she can see his great big grin.
“Well, congratulations,” he says. “You guys arrange the whole thing through ambassadors, like Aidan and Ciara? Schedule a reminder on your calendars?”
“Nah. Just sorta happened.”
So all those hours surveilling the Moynihan house, whatever else they accomplished, did at least one purely good thing. “I dunno,” Cal says. “Maybe I should interview her first. Make sure she’s not a bad influence.”
“Fuck off,” Trey says. He can hear her grinning too.
“Charm school.”
“Fuck off.”
Cal feels like he should be giving her an educational speech here, but he’s unequipped for it, not yet having been able to bring himself to add “do lesbians need to use some kind of condom or what” to his search history, and anyway the kid appears to be doing just fine without his input.
“You guys be good to each other,” he says.
“Duh. We are.”
Maybe not entirely without his input. He looks at Trey’s messy bent head and remembers her three years ago, all claws and prickle, no more willing or able to forge human ties than a wild animal.
If she’s moving away from him, building her own world where she and Kate are good to each other and sing songs he doesn’t know and goof around with hat emojis, he had a hand in getting her there.
His phone beeps. Lena: Will I bring anything? He texts back, Nah we’re good. See you soon.
“I gotta take a shower,” he says. “You run down to Noreen’s, pick us up some sour cream and a lettuce.”
“C’n I take the car?”
“No.”
“I drove my mam’s before.”
“So don’t. This weekend I’ll start teaching you.
Today you take your bike.” Her hands on the wood have lost the soft formlessness of a little kid’s; they’re callused and wiry from work, scarred here and there by tool-slips and splinters.
They still catch at Cal’s heart. “And if Kate’s coming over,” he says, “you better hide that thing.”
This seems like the kind of evening where everyone might feel a little clumsy, what with one thing and another, so Cal heads that off by giving people stuff to do.
As soon as Kate arrives, he sets her and Trey to cutting vegetables for taco toppings.
Trey has apparently texted Kate whatever updates she needs, because she doesn’t ask questions, just starts in slicing bell peppers and giving the lowdown on the musical differences in the band where she plays bass.
Cal, mixing spices, stays quiet and watches the two of them sideways.
He has the radio on, some Irish music station, to give Trey something to rib him about.
Trey has lit the fire and it’s burning steadily, no spitting, sending out a tang of spruce; the wood Cal chopped, stacked high in the corner by the fireplace, is well seasoned after all.
Trey and Kate seem the same together as they always have: at ease, working deftly side by side at the tiny counter, expert in each other’s movements from the football pitch.
Kate brought a box of brownies for dessert, which Cal approves of as a sign of good raising.
She hasn’t exactly dressed up, but unlike Trey, she appears to have actually picked out her clothes—she has on cargo pants and a Foo Fighters sweatshirt, both clean.
Trey is wearing much the same outfit she had on the first time Cal ever saw her, jeans and a red hoodie, except now the jeans fit and the hoodie looks like it was bought for her rather than inherited from a random sibling.
That first day, she wouldn’t come within grabbing distance of him.
He doesn’t think she spoke more than a dozen words.
Before that, before he even got a good look at her, she bit him.
She’s shredding lettuce in time to “Chasing Rainbows,” head-bopping along, pausing to snitch a slice of pepper from Kate’s chopping board.
He has to look away, before she turns and catches him staring at her like a big dumb goofball, or before he puts a hand on her head and embarrasses her in front of her brand-new girlfriend.
Lena comes in the door red-nosed with cold; when Cal kisses her, she smells icy.
“Kojak’s not doing too good,” he says, as he takes her coat.
“He’s going to P.J. tomorrow, but I said I’d keep him one more night, in case being around Rip might help.
” It’s not working. Kojak is still motionless in his corner; Rip and Banjo are sprawled by the fire, giving him the wide berth that combat-eyed guys get on buses.
“He won’t eat. I thought maybe you could do something with him. ”
“I’ll give it a shot,” Lena says. “Is he drinking?”
“Yeah. Some.”
“That’s a good sign, anyhow,” Lena says. She moves towards the corner, taking her time. When Kojak lifts his lip a fraction, she stops and sits down on the floor, sideways on, not looking at him. “What’s for dinner?”
“Tacos,” Trey says.
“Beef ones,” Kate says. Cal sets the frying pan heating, and tilts it to spread the oil around.
“Lovely,” Lena says. She settles herself comfortably against the wall and snaps her fingers for Rip and Banjo. They come over, glancing warily at Kojak, and she strokes their heads. “Pass me over a bitta mince for these lads,” she says, “before you put the spices in.”
The radio is playing “The Irish Rover,” fast and scrappy. P.J. taught Cal the words to this one, back when they were cutting brambles; he sings along, in an undertone, while he scoops a chunk of ground beef onto a plate for the dogs. Kate does a half-mocking dance step.
Cal expects Trey to bitch about this level of folksiness, but she’s keeping an eye on Lena, sideways, checking her over. “When’s your rematch against Lisnacarragh?” Lena asks her.
“Next weekend,” Trey says. She’s moved on to grating cheese; she cuts off a chunk to eat while she works, and gives Kate half. “Unless the pitch is rained out again.”
“I’ll bring ye,” Lena says. “As long as Aidan goes in the boot.”
“Aidan’s sound,” Trey objects.
“He is, yeah. And he’s like having a chimpanzee in the car.”
“He nearly got himself killed last month,” Cal says, “hanging out my car window to throw a sandwich at some other kid.”
“He wasn’t trying to hurt him,” Trey explained. “They’re mates.”
“We could be bringing Zoe Greaney,” Kate says. “Mr. O’Donnell only lets her ask three questions a class, ’cause he says otherwise his brain’ll shrivel up and die.”
“When he told us stratus clouds can cover the whole sky,” Trey says, “she asked if that’s why it gets dark at night.”
Lena is laughing, keeping it quiet so as not to startle Kojak. Cal brings her the plate of ground beef and a spoon, and she smiles up at him and touches his wrist before she takes it. His ring is on her finger.
“Or Jayden Crilly,” Trey says. “He licked sheep shite off the back of a school bus seat.”
“Aw, jeez,” Cal says. “He have a good reason, or was he just hungry?” He tips the rest of the ground beef into his frying pan. It sends up a sizzle. Condensation is misting the windows against the cold outside.
“He was dared. And he’s weird.”
“If that’s John Paul Crilly’s young fella,” Lena says, “I’m not surprised. John Paul put a dead bee in his ear on a dare, one time. He hadta go to Emergency.” She’s feeding Rip a bite of mince off the spoon, while Banjo writhes with anticipation. Kojak, watching, twitches an eyebrow.
“Well, I can see why you want to stick around here,” Cal tells Trey. “You wouldn’t get that kinda action up in the big city.”
He catches Trey’s glance at Lena, watching for her response.
“I suppose you could do worse,” Lena says. “You haveta live somewhere, sure.” She gives Banjo his bite of ground beef. Kojak’s nose is stretching forward. She ignores him.
“Kate’s staying here as well,” Trey says. “Once we leave school.”
“ ’M going to train for a paramedic,” Kate says. “I can live at home for that; it’s only over in Ballinasloe.”
Cal finds himself blown away by them, all their plans.
When he was that age, his only plan was to save up a few bucks so he could hit the highway the day he turned eighteen, and maybe take Darla Myers on a date or two first. “Sounds good,” he says.
“And Aidan’s gonna be an electrician, right?
All you guys need to do is get Ciara into plumbing and make Ross into a mechanic, and you’ll be ready for anything. ”
“Did Aidan break the bad news to his dad yet?” Lena asks.
“Last week,” Trey says. “His dad didn’t even freak out, just said the farm’ll be there if he changes his mind. Aidan reckons he must be on chill pills.”
“Nah,” Kate says, putting the vegetable dishes on the table. “It’s ’cause of everything that’s been going on. He doesn’t care if Aidan turns out to be an electrician, or a binman, or a YouTuber, as long as he’s OK.”
“Makes sense,” Cal says. He remembers Kate heading home to her mama, the other day, to prove she wasn’t dead after the party.
A kid who has an inkling that adults have viewpoints of their own, rather than just being gratuitous pains in the ass, might be able to see Trey’s complicated parts and take them as they are, maybe even with gentleness.
He would like Trey to have some gentleness around her, in whatever world she’s building for herself.
“Then c’n I start my apprenticeship next year?” Trey says, to Cal. “As long as I’m OK?”
“I’m not the boss of you,” Cal says. He sprinkles his seasoning mix into the pan.
“You know what I mean. You gonna keep giving me hassle about finishing school?”
“Nah,” Cal says. “You’re no dummy. If you figure next year’s the right time, it probably is.”
Trey’s double take makes him grin. She gives him a stare that’s somewhere between baffled and suspicious. He wiggles his eyebrows at her.
“Now,” Lena says softly. “There we go.” Kojak is snuffling at the outstretched spoon. When he snaps the ground beef off it, Lena moves the plate under his nose, ignoring the other dogs’ reproachful gazes, and he eats.
Cal adds tomato paste and water to the pan and watches Trey and Kate trying to work out how much lime juice to put in the salsa.
For a second he sees them vividly, sturdier and better brushed, telling work stories in this kitchen with grown women’s voices while he and Lena, grayer, laugh along.
He and Lena won’t be exactly what he used to picture.
The boundary walls they set in place haven’t held up, on this shifting terrain; what they share from now on won’t have the simplicity and the clarity that both of them loved.
But they’ll be something; they’ll be here.
He wishes Mart could see this too. Maybe he was right, and it’s only a matter of time before some other Tommy comes along to raze the stone walls and the hedgerows, cram the animals into hangars, strip the names from the fields.
Ardnakelty will carve itself new channels, the way it always has, and keep on going.
Kojak has scoured the plate clean. He gets up, with some difficulty, and stalks stiffly to the front door.
“Let him out,” Lena says. She unfolds herself from the floor and brings the plate to the sink. “He must be bursting for a pee.”
“He might not come back,” Trey says. Cal was thinking the same thing. The food could have given Kojak enough strength to find somewhere he’ll be allowed to die.
“He mightn’t,” Lena says. “That’s his choice.”
Trey opens the door, and Kojak vanishes into the sweep of cold dark air. “Hey!” Trey says. “It’s snowing.”
They all go out to the step to look. Cal has never seen snow here before.
It’s falling thickly; all across the garden, in the wide V of light spilling from the door, the air is filled up with big, soft, unhurried flakes and silence.
It smells changed, scoured to utter purity, like it’s preparing for something to happen.
Snowflakes brush against Cal’s cheeks and get caught in his beard.
Lena turns up her face to meet their fall.
Trey puts out her arm to catch some on her hoodie sleeve and shows them to Kate, the two of them leaning shoulder to shoulder.
In the oak, the rooks complain about the inconvenience and tell each other to shut up and go back to sleep.
“I can’t remember the last time it snowed,” Lena says. “Snowed properly, like, and stuck.”
“This’ll stick,” Cal says. In the morning the fields will lie smooth under snow; high on the mountains, where Trey used to live, the spruce trees will be dark scrawls against white.
“Cumulonimbus,” Kate tells Trey, pointing upwards.
“That’s why it’s dark,” Trey tells her, and they both snort with laughter.
The stillness is immense. The light shows a slice of garden, the gate hanging open, the patch of road outside, all whitening fast. Everything beyond that is invisible in the night.
Cal can feel the miles of it around him on every side: snow falling on Ardnakelty, on the fields and the scattered rooftops, into the crevices of the drystone walls, on the backs of the patient cattle, over the curled small creatures and the seeds that wait deep underground for spring.
A low dark shape shambles into the light. “Hey, boy,” Lena says softly. Kojak, head down against the snowflakes, plods towards the door.
“Good boy,” Trey says, as he nudges his way between her and Kate. He shakes himself and heads for the fire to warm up, leaving a trail of wet paw prints across the floor.
“That beef’s gonna be ready,” Cal says.
After the outdoors, the house surges with warmth and rich smells: woodsmoke, dogs, meat and spices. On the radio, Jessie Buckley is singing “When I Reach the Place I’m Going.”
Kate puts more wood on the fire with one hand and phones her mam with the other, to reassure her that she won’t bike home in this, she’ll get a lift off Cal or Lena.
Cal gives the ground beef a last stir, Trey deals out taco shells onto plates, and Lena sets the table, while outside the windows the snow falls on.