without the likes of her.” She smiles. “I do make fun of her sometimes because her youngest, Cliona, she’s exactly the same as her mam, but the truth is I’m glad of it. Without someone to take over Ardnakelty when Noreen gets old, the place’d fall apart.”
“Cliona the one that’s around ten or eleven?” Cal asks. “Red hair?”
“That’s the one.”
“She was helping out one time I went into the store. She told me I was buying the wrong dish soap, it’d dry out my hands and wouldn’t get my dishes shiny, and she went up that ladder to fetch me the one she recommends. Then she asked me why I moved here and why I’m not married.”
Lena laughs. “There you go. We’re in safe hands.”
Cal shifts so he can hold the pup one-handed and drink his tea, which is strong and good. He says, “I’ve been asking around about Brendan Reddy.”
“I know, yeah,” Lena says. Her puppy, exhausted by its efforts, has collapsed on her lap. She tickles the tiny pads of one paw. “Why?”
“I met your old friend Sheila. She’s pretty cut up about her boy going off.”
Lena shoots him an amused look. “Knight in shining armor?”
“Just saw a question that needed answering,” Cal says. “My neighbor Mart, he thinks I’m bored, looking for something to occupy my mind. He might be right.”
Lena blows on her tea and regards him across the mug, still with that wry quirk to one corner of her mouth. “How’re you getting on with it?”
“Not too good,” Cal says. “I’ve heard plenty about Brendan, but no one wants to talk about where he might have gone, or why.”
“Maybe they don’t know.”
“I’ve talked to his mama, his two best buddies, and his girlfriend. Not one of them had anything to say. If they don’t know, who would?”
“Maybe no one knows.”
“Well,” Cal says, “I did wonder about that. But then Mart warned me to back off, the other night. He thinks I’m gonna get myself in trouble. That sounds to me like someone knows something, or thinks they do.”
Lena is still watching him sideways on, as she drinks her tea away from the pup. “Are you one of those people that can’t rest easy? If they don’t have any trouble in their lives, they go looking for some.”
“Not me,” Cal says. “What I went looking for was peace and quiet. I’m taking what came my way. Same as you are.”
“These pups are hassle. They’re not trouble.”
“Well,” Cal says, “no one’s explained to me how Brendan Reddy might be trouble, either. Who’s Mart scared of?”
Lena says, “I didn’t think Mart Lavin was ever afraid of anyone.”
“Maybe not. But he thinks I should be.”
“Then maybe you should.”
“I’m contrary by nature,” Cal explains. “The more people try to shoo me away from something, the more I dig my heels in. I always was that way, even as a little guy.” His puppy has eased its gnawing on his finger; when he looks down he sees that it’s fallen asleep, sprawled gracelessly against his chest, in the cup of his palm. “I figure,” he says, “if anyone in this townland’s gonna give me a straight answer about Brendan Reddy, it’ll be you.”
Lena leans back against the wall and examines him, drinking her tea and stroking her pup with her free hand. In the end she says, “I don’t know what happened to Brendan Reddy.”
“But you could take a guess.”
“I could, yeah. But I won’t.”
“You don’t strike me as the kind that scares easy,” Cal says. “Any more than Mart does.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t get involved in things.” She grins suddenly. “That does people’s heads in. There’s always someone trying to get me to join the Countrywomen’s Association, or the Tidy Towns. Probably if we’d had kids I’da done it: the PTA and sports clubs, and all the rest. But we never did, so I don’t have to. Sure, Noreen’s involved enough for the two of us.”
“That she is,” Cal says. “Some people are built that way, and some aren’t.”
“Tell that to Noreen. She’s been that way since the day she was born; it drives her mental that I’m not the same. That’s one reason why her and the rest are always trying to matchmake me. They think if I get myself a nice fella who’s up to his neck in the townland’s business, he’ll pull me in as well.” Lena gives Cal another grin, frank and mischievous, unembarrassed. “Which kind are you?”