one that taught me to shoot.”
Trey absorbs this, watching the edge of the wood. “What jobs?”
“Care assistant in an old folks’ home. And waitressing in a diner, in her time off.”
“My mam used to work in the petrol station up the main road,” Trey says. “When Emer went off, but, there was no one to mind the little ones while we were in school. My granddads and grannies’re all dead.”
“Well,” Cal says, “there you go. People do their best with what they’ve got.”
“What about your brother and sisters? Did they go with you?”
“Well, they’ve got different mamas,” Cal explains. “I’m not sure what-all they did.”
“Your dad was a hoormaster,” Trey says, light dawning.
It takes Cal a second to figure that one out; when he does, he lets out a crack of laughter that he has to stifle. “Yeah,” he says, still laughing. “That about covers it.”
“Shht,” Trey says suddenly, nodding upwards at the wood. “Rabbit.”
Sure enough, at the edge of the wood there’s movement in the long grass. Half a dozen rabbits have come up for their evening feed. They’re at their ease, trying out leaps and lollops just to stretch their legs, pausing now and again to nibble some delicacy.
Cal looks down at Trey, who is nestling the rifle into his shoulder, his whole body alert and eager. His buzzed hair looks like the baby fur on Lena’s puppy. Cal feels an impulse to lay his hand on the top of the kid’s head.
“OK,” he says. “See if you can get us some dinner.”
The bullet zips over the rabbits’ heads, and they leap for the undergrowth and are gone. Trey looks up at Cal, dismayed.
“ ’S OK,” Cal says. “They’ll be back. You got close enough that it’ll take ’em a while, though, and it’s time we were both heading home.” The dusk is coming down thicker; soon enough, Mart or P.J. will be heading for the wood to keep watch.
“Aah! Five more minutes. I almost had that one.”
The kid looks bereft. “So you’ll get one next time,” Cal says. “No rush; they’re not going anywhere. Now lemme show you how to unload.”
They unload the gun and start back across the field towards the house. Trey is whistling to himself, something Cal hasn’t known him to do before, a jaunty little tune that sounds like something that might come out of the tin whistle in Seán Óg’s; like it might be about setting out on a spring morning to see a pretty girl. The rooks are settling down and the first of the night creatures are out: a bat dips over the tree line, and something small scuttles in the long grass at their approach.
“Nice one,” Trey says, glancing up sideways at Cal. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” Cal says. “You got a good eye. You’ll learn fine.”
Trey nods and, with nothing left to say, slopes off towards the cover of the hedge. Cal tries to watch after him, but long before he reaches the road he’s invisible, vanished into the dusk.
Cal finds himself curious about what’s going down at Seán Óg’s tonight. He makes a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner and then takes a bath, to spruce himself up for whatever it might be. It’s Saturday, so he phones Alyssa, but she doesn’t pick up.
ELEVEN
When Cal sets out for the pub, the darkness has a sawtooth edge of cold. Smoke is rising from Dumbo Gannon’s chimney, and as Cal passes his house he catches the scent of it, rich and earthy: the turf that people round here cut from peat bogs up in the mountains, dry out, and burn. The fields and hedges seem filled with sharp, restless movement; all the animals are feeling the countdown to winter.
The door of Seán Óg’s opens on brightness and a warm fug, leaping with loud voices and music and curling with smoke. Mart, at his alcove table surrounded by his buddies, lets out a welcoming roar when he sees Cal step in. “The man himself! Come here to me now, Sunny Jim, and take a seat. I’ve something for you.”
Mart’s alcove is crowded: Senan is there, and Bobby, and a bunch of other guys whose names Cal isn’t sure of. All of them have a high-colored, glittery-eyed look, like they’re a lot drunker than Cal would expect at this hour. “Evening,” he says, nodding to them.
Mart moves along the banquette to make room for him. “Barty!” he calls up to the bar. “A pint of Smithwick’s. You know this shower of reprobates, amn’t I