The hunter, p.13
The Hunter, page 13
The crowd in the pub shifts and eddies, without hurry but with method. People pause at the entrance to the alcove, listening to the singing, or swapping news, or waiting for the bar to clear; after a few minutes they move on, leaving the space for someone else. None of them intrude on the alcove. Cal didn’t expect them to. Soon enough they’ll want to meet Rushborough, but that can wait for another day. For now they’re content to circle, collecting impressions to discuss at leisure: his clothes, his hair, his accent, his manner; whether he looks like a Feeney, whether he looks like a millionaire, whether he looks handy in a fight; whether he looks like a fool. Cal isn’t sure what a millionaire is supposed to look like, but to him this guy looks like he could do plenty of damage in a fight, and he doesn’t look like any kind of fool at all.
The singing comes round to Cal. He doesn’t try to add to the greenery—even if he wanted to, it would make a dumb tourist out of him, and he’s not aiming to be a tourist right now. He sticks with “The House of the Rising Sun.” Cal has the right voice for pub singsongs, a big man’s voice, nothing showy or impressive, but good to listen to. He spots Johnny noticing that he takes his turn as a matter of course, and not liking it.
When he’s accepted his round of applause, and Dessie has launched into “Rocky Road to Dublin,” Cal heads for the bar. Barty, topping up two glasses at once, nods to him but can’t take the breath to talk. His face is sweating harder.
“Women,” Mart says with deep disapproval, appearing at Cal’s shoulder. “This pub’s full of women tonight.”
“They get everywhere,” Cal agrees gravely. “You reckon they should stay home and take care of the kids?”
“Ah, Jaysus, no. We’ve the twenty-first century here now. They’ve as much right to a night out as anyone. But they change the atmosphere of a place. You can’t deny that. Look at that, now.” Mart nods at the girl in the pink dress, who has started dancing with one of her girlfriends in a few square inches of space between the tables and the bar. A large guy in a too-tight shirt is hovering hopefully nearby, making spasmodic movements that are presumably intended to match theirs. “Is that what you’d expect to see in this pub on a Monday night?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that in here,” Cal says truthfully.
“That’s disco behavior, is what that is. That’s what you get when there’s women in. They oughta have pubs of their own, so they can have their pint in peace without some potato-faced fucker trying to get into their knickers, and I can have mine without your man’s hormones getting in the air and spoiling the taste.”
“If they weren’t here,” Cal points out, “you’d be stuck looking at nothing better’n my hairy face for the evening.”
“True enough,” Mart concedes. “Some of the women in here tonight are a lot more scenic than yourself, no harm to you. Not all of them, but some.”
“Enjoy ’em while you can,” Cal says. “Tomorrow the scenery’ll be back to normal.”
“Near enough, maybe. Not all the way back, as long as we’ve got Bono over there drawing the crowds.”
They both glance over at the alcove. Rushborough has launched into a song about some guy getting killed by the British.
“Whatever the Croppy Boy sounded like,” Mart says, “he didn’t fuckin’ sound like that.”
“You show him how it’s done,” Cal says.
“I will, in a while. I’ve to lubricate the vocal cords a bit more first.”
Cal, interpreting this correctly, catches Barty’s eye and points to Mart. Mart nods, accepting his due, and goes back to watching Rushborough, between moving shoulders. All the men in the alcove are gazing at the guy. Cal is out of patience with them. As far as he’s concerned, Rushborough has a face that would make any sensible man want to walk away, not sit there goggling at him like he hung the moon.
“Will I tell you something, Sunny Jim?” Mart says. “I don’t like the cut of that fella.”
“Nope,” Cal says. “Me neither.” He’s been trying to guess what this guy might do, if he figures out he’s been taken for a ride. He finds he doesn’t much like the possibilities.
“He’s who he says he is, anyway,” Mart informs him. “I thought he mighta been some chancer that spun Johnny a line, trying to scam a bitta cash outa the lot of us. Johnny’s not as cute as he thinks he is. A real first-class scam artist could make mincemeat outa him, and be long gone before Johnny ever noticed a thing.”
“That’s the impression I got,” Cal says. He hasn’t decided which option he likes less: Trey’s father being a good con artist, or being a bad one. He accepts the pints from Barty and hands Mart his Guinness.
“But this fella knows about that fairy mound, and putting cream by it. He knows about the time Francie’s great-granddad fell down the well and it took two days to get him back up. He knows the Fallon women had a name for being the finest knitters in this county. And didja hear when he sang ‘Black Velvet Band’? I never heard anyone but Ardnakelty people sing ‘A guinea she took from his pocket.’ Everyone else has the girl robbing a watch. His people came from around here, all right.”
“Maybe,” Cal says. “But he still doesn’t strike me as the type to go misty-eyed when someone sings ‘The Wearing of the Green.’ ”
“That article there,” Mart says, eyeing Rushborough over his glass, “doesn’t strike me as the type that’s ever gone misty-eyed over anything in his life.”
“So what’s he here for?”
Mart’s bright glance swivels to Cal. “A coupla year back, people were asking the same about you, Sunny Jim. A few of them still do.”
“I’m here because I landed here,” Cal says, refusing to bite on that. “This guy’s come looking.”
Mart shrugs. “Maybe he doesn’t give a shite about the heritage; ’tis gold he wants, pure and simple. And he thinks it’ll be easier to slip a quare deal past us if we take him for a sap that’d be happy with a handful of shamrock.”
“If that guy believes there’s gold out there,” Cal says, “he’s got more to go on than some story his granny told him.”
“I’ll tell you this much, anyway,” Mart says. “Johnny believes it’s there. He wouldn’t go to all this trouble, dragging himself away from the bright lights and the film stars back to an inferior environment like this, just for the grand or two he’ll get if there’s nothing in them fields.”
“You figure he knows something we don’t?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. Maybe he’s saving it up for the right moment, or maybe ’tis something he’s planning on keeping to himself. But I’d say he knows something.”
“Then why’s he fucking around salting the river?”
“Now that,” Mart says, “I don’t know. Maybe he’s only aiming to be sure, to be sure. But I’ll tell you what’s occurred to me, Sunny Jim. Anyone that gives Johnny that bitta cash is in deep. Psychologically, like. Once you’ve sunk a few hundred quid into this, you won’t back out; you’ll let Paddy Englishman take whatever samples he wants, and dig up any field he chooses. Getting the lads to salt that river might be Johnny’s wee bitta insurance, against anyone changing his mind.”
It occurs to Cal that the insurance won’t just be psychological. Like Mart figured, salting the river is probably some kind of fraud. Anyone who gives Johnny that money will be giving him something he can hold over their heads, or at least try to.
Trying to hold anything over these guys’ heads would not be a smart move. Johnny ought to know that, but Cal reached the conclusion, well before he met Johnny, that the guy is careful not to know anything that might make him uncomfortable.
“So you’re out, huh?” he says.
“Ah, God, no,” Mart says, shocked. “Sure, I’d be going in forewarned; my psychology wouldn’t be running wild on me. I wouldn’t stay in one minute longer than I wanted to. To be honest with you, if the rest of them shams decide they’re on for it, I might haveta join in just outa the kindness of my heart. They’ll make a pig’s arse outa the whole operation if I’m not there to advise them.” He eyes the group in the alcove with tolerant scorn. “They wouldn’t have a baldy notion where the gold oughta lie in the river; they’ll throw it in wherever takes their fancy. And I’d bet my life they’ll just sprinkle in the dust as it is, the way half of it’ll be washed downstream before it can sink to the bottom, and we’ll never see it again. What they oughta do is roll the dust into little pellets of mud, the way it’ll go straight to the bottom, and then the mud’ll dissolve away and leave it ready for your man to find.”
“Sounds to me like you’re in,” Cal says.
“I hate a botched job,” Mart says. He cocks his head at Cal. “How about you, Sunny Jim, now you’ve had a look at His Lordship? Are you in or out?”
“I’m here,” Cal says. “That’s all I am, right now.” The sense of being in cahoots with Mart doesn’t sit well with him. “So,” he says, “the fairy mound’s real, huh?”
Mart flicks him a grin that says he knows what’s in Cal’s head and is enjoying it. “ ’Tis there, anyhow. And Mossie does plow around it, but that could just be outa laziness: his daddy and his granddaddy did it, so he hasn’t the initiative to do anything different. Beyond that, I’m making no guarantees. You’re welcome to go down there and look for the fairies any night you like. Tell Mossie I sent you.”
“And make sure I have a few shots of poteen first,” Cal says. “To shorten my odds.”
Mart laughs and claps him on the shoulder, and turns to nod to a stout guy leaning on the bar. “How’s she cuttin’?”
“Not a bother,” says the guy. “Your man’s having a grand aul’ night, anyhow.” He nods at Rushborough.
“Sure, who wouldn’t, in a fine establishment like this,” Mart says. “ ’Tis a while since I saw you in here yourself.”
“Ah, I’d be in every now and again,” the guy says. He takes his pint from Barty. “I’ve been thinking of selling a few acres,” he mentions. “That field down near the river.”
“I’m not in the market,” Mart says. “You could try Mr. Hooper here. He could do with something to keep him occupied.”
“I’m not offering. I’m only saying. If there was gold on it, or even if your man went looking for gold on it, I could triple the price.”
“Out you go with a spade, then,” Mart says, smiling at him, “and start digging.”
The guy’s jowls set mulishly. “Maybe your man’s granny said there was gold on your land, but she never said there was none anywhere else. Johnny Reddy can’t be keeping this to himself and his pals.”
“I’m no pal of Johnny Reddy’s, bucko,” Mart says. “But I’ll say this for the man: he’s wise to start small. Let you bide your time, and see what way the wind blows.”
The guy grunts, still dissatisfied. His eyes are on the alcove, where Dessie is putting plenty of bawdy winks into a song about a guy coming home drunk and finding various unexpected items in his house, and Rushborough is laughing. “See you again,” he says, picking up his glass and giving Mart a brief nod. “I’ll be back in soon enough.”
“D’you know what Johnny Reddy’s real failing is?” Mart asks, considering the guy’s back as he wades through the crowd towards his table. “He doesn’t think things through. It wouldn’t take a psychic to predict that fella, and plenty of others like him, but I’d put money on it that he never once occurred to Johnny.”
“That guy doesn’t look like a happy camper,” Cal says.
“I did consider sending him in to have the chats with Mr. Rushborough,” Mart says, “just to watch what wee Johnny made of that. But that fella has no subtlety about him. He’d go putting a sour taste in Paddy Englishman’s mouth, and then where would we be at all?”
“Do people know?” Cal asks. And, when Mart cocks his head inquiringly: “That Johnny’s aiming to salt the river.”
Mart shrugs. “There’s no telling who’d know what, around here. I’d say there’s a dozen different stories going around this same pub, and a few dozen different ways that people wanta get in on the action. We’re in for an interesting wee while. Now come on back, before that chancer robs our seats on us.”
The night proceeds. Gradually the singing runs out of momentum; Con puts his guitar back in the corner, and Rushborough buys him and everyone else in the alcove a double whiskey. The pub has started to run out of momentum, too. The non-locals have reached the maximum level of drunkenness at which they still consider it reasonable to drive home on unfamiliar roads. The old people are getting tired and heading for their beds, and the young ones are getting bored and taking bags of cans back to each other’s houses, where they’ll have more scope. The girl in pink leaves with the potato-faced fucker’s arm around her waist.
By midnight, all that’s left in the pub is a dense fug of sweat and beer breath, Barty wiping down tables with a rag, and the men in the alcove. The ashtrays have come out. Rushborough smokes Gitanes, which lowers him further in Cal’s esteem: Cal feels that, while people are entitled to their vices, anyone who isn’t a dick finds a way to pursue those vices without giving everyone in the room a sore throat.
“I’m proud,” Rushborough informs them all, throwing an arm around Bobby’s shoulders, “I’m proud to claim this man as my cousin. And all of you, of course all of you, I’m sure we’re all cousins of some degree. Aren’t we?” He looks about half drunk. His hair is ruffled out of its sleek sweep, and he’s tilting a little bit, not drastically, off center. Cal can’t get a good enough look at his eyes to decide whether it’s real.
“ ’Twould be a miracle if we weren’t,” Dessie agrees. “All this townland’s related, one way or another.”
“I’m this fella’s uncle,” Sonny informs Rushborough, pointing his cigarette at Senan. “A few times removed. Not far enough for me.”
“You owe me fifty years’ worth of birthday presents, so,” Senan tells him. “And a few quid in communion money. I don’t take checks.”
“And you owe me a bitta respect. Go on up there and get your uncle Sonny a pint.”
“I will in me arse.”
“Look,” Rushborough says, with sudden decision. “Look. I want to show you all something.”
He lays his right hand, palm down, in the middle of the table, among the pint glasses and the beer mats and the flecks of ash. On the ring finger is a silver band. Rushborough turns it around, so that the bezel is visible. Set into it is a pitted fragment of something gold.
“My grandmother gave me this,” Rushborough says, with a wondering reverence in his voice. “She and a friend found it, when they were children digging in the friend’s garden. About nine years old, she says they were. Michael Duggan was the friend’s name. They found two of these, and kept one each.”
“My great-uncle was Michael Duggan,” Dessie says, awed enough to talk quietly for once. “He musta lost his.”
The men lean in, bending low over Rushborough’s hand. Cal leans with them. The nugget is about the size of a shirt button, polished by time on the high surfaces, ragged in the crevices, studded with small chunks of white. In the yellowish light of the wall lamps, it shines with a worn, serene glow.
“Here,” Rushborough says. “Take it. Have a look at it.” He pulls the ring off his finger, with a reckless little laugh like he’s doing something wild, and passes it to Dessie. “I don’t really take it off, but…God knows, it could have been any of yours as easily as mine. I’m sure your grandparents were digging away in the same gardens. Side by side with mine.”
Dessie holds up the ring and peers at it, tilting it this way and that. “Holy God,” he breathes. He lays one fingertip on the nugget. “Wouldja look at that.”
“ ’Tis beautiful,” Con says. Nobody makes fun of him.
Dessie passes the ring, held over a cupped hand, to Francie. Francie, giving it a long stare, nods slowly and unconsciously.
“That’ll be quartz,” Mart informs them all. “The white stuff.”
“Exactly,” Rushborough says, turning eagerly towards him. “Somewhere in that mountain, there’s a vein of quartz, shot through with gold. And over thousands of years, much of it was washed down out of the mountain. Onto Michael Duggan’s land, and all of yours.”
The ring passes from hand to hand. Cal takes his turn, but he barely sees it. He’s feeling the change in the alcove. The air is drawing in, magnetized, around the shining fragment and the men who surround it. Till this moment, the gold was a cloud of words and daydreams. Now it’s a solid thing between their fingers.
“The thing is,” Rushborough says, “the important thing is, you see, my grandmother didn’t just discover this by chance. The one thing that frightens me, the one thing that’s been giving me pause about this whole project, is the possibility that her directions are no good. That they’ve been passed down over so many generations, they got warped along the way, to the point where they’re not accurate enough to lead us to the right spots. But you see, when she and her friend Michael found this”—he points to the ring, cupped like a butterfly in Con’s big rough hand—“they weren’t digging at random. They picked the spot because her grandfather had told her his father said there was gold there.”
“And he was right,” Bobby says, starry-eyed.
“He was right,” Rushborough says, “and he didn’t even know it. That’s one of the marvelous aspects: her grandfather didn’t actually believe in the gold. As far as he was concerned, the whole thing was a tall tale—something invented by some ancestor to impress a girl, or to distract a sick child. Even when my grandmother found this, he thought it was just a pretty pebble. But he passed the story on, all the same. Because, true or false, it belonged to our family, and he couldn’t let it disappear.”
