Trey nods. She’s no wiser. She can tell he believes it, but he always does; it’s one of his gifts, taking every word out of his own mouth as gospel. She had forgotten what it’s like talking to him, how misty and muddy.
Johnny leans in a little closer, his smile widening. “I’ve no need to go anywhere, sure,” he says confidentially. “Will I tell you something?”
Trey shrugs.
“I’ve a plan,” Johnny says. “When I’m through, the only place we’ll be going is a lovely new house with a big bedroom for each one of ye. And you won’t have to be walking around with holes in your jeans, neither.”
He waits for her to ask. When she doesn’t, he settles his arms better on the gate, preparing to tell the story anyway. “There’s a fella I met,” he says, “over in London. I was in an Irish pub, having a pint with a few mates and minding my own business, when this lad came over to me. English fella. I was wondering what he was at in a place like that—the pub’s a bit rough, now, and he was the type you’d expect to see drinking brandy at a fancy hotel. The coat on him, and the shoes: you could tell they cost more than I’d see in a month. He said he’d been asking around for an Ardnakelty man, and I was pointed out to him.”
Johnny rolls his eyes whimsically. “Course I reckoned this was bad news, one way or another. I’m no pessimist, but Ardnakelty never worked in my favor before. I was about to tell him to fuck off for himself—which woulda been the worst mistake of my life—only he offered to get me a pint, and I was a bit short of a few bob that day. And then didn’t it turn out his granny was from Ardnakelty. One of the Feeneys, she was. She went over to London before the war, doing the nursing, and married a big-shot doctor. She usedta tell this fella stories about the place, how beautiful it was, how she’d run wild on the mountains—same as you do, sure.” He smiles at Trey. “And she told him something else, as well. You know there’s gold somewhere at the bottom of these mountains, don’t you?”
“Teacher said that,” Trey says. “In Geography.”
He points a finger at her. “Fair play to you, paying attention in school. You’ll go far. Teacher was right. The men that lived here thousands of years ago, they knew where to look for it. There’s more ancient gold pieces found in this country than anywhere in the whole of Europe, did Teacher tell you that? Bracelets as wide as your hand, collars bigger than dinner plates, round bits like coins that they sewed onto their clothes. Your great-great-granddads and great-great-grannies woulda been dripping with it, at feasts. They’da been out on this mountain, round their fires, shining so bright you could hardly look at them. They were digging it up by the handful, musta been, big nuggets of it, as easy as we’d cut turf.”
He mimes grabbing a fistful and holding it high. His voice has caught alight, rising. His excitement tugs at Trey, but she doesn’t like it. It doesn’t fit in the still night. She feels like he’s drawing notice, in ways that aren’t safe.
“Only then the Brits came,” Johnny says, “and that land was taken away from our people, and they emigrated, or they starved—and, bit by bit, the knowledge got lost. Except…” He leans in closer. His eyes are bright. “It wasn’t lost altogether. There were still a few families that passed it down, all those hundreds of years. This fella in the pub—Cillian Rushborough, his name is—his granny’s granddad told her where to look. And she told Cillian.”
He cocks his head at her, teasing, waiting for her to ask more. In the moonlight, with his eyes shining and a half-smile on his face, he looks barely older than Brendan.
Trey says, cutting to the end, “And your man Cillian told you, and now you’re gonna dig up the gold.” That’s all he came home for: money. The realization is a sweep of relief. She’s not stuck with him forever. If he finds nothing, and his novelty value in the village wears off, he’ll be gone.
Johnny laughs. “Ah, God, no. Only a fool would hand over a treasure map to a man he doesn’t know from Adam, and Cillian’s no fool. But he needed a man from Ardnakelty. The directions his granny gave him, they’re all Greek to him: ‘In the old riverbed that’s dried up now, just by the northwest corner of that field the Dolans bought offa Pa Lavin…’ He needs someone that knows his way around the place. And if he blew in here on his own, there’s not a man that would let him go digging on their land. But with me on board…”
He leans in closer. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he says, “that I’ve learned along the way. The best thing you can have in life is a bit of a shine on you. A bitta possibility; a bitta magic. A shine. People can’t stay away from that. Once you’ve got it, it doesn’t matter a tap whether they like you, or whether they respect you. They’ll convince themselves they do. And then they’ll do whatever you want from them. D’you know where I was last night?”
Trey shrugs. Only a few points of yellow light are left among the dark fields below them, and the chill of the breeze is sharpening.
“I was down at Seán Óg’s, having the crack with half this townland. Four years ago, if I was on fire, there’s not a one of them lads woulda pissed on me to put me out. But when I walk in there wearing this”—he flicks the lapel of his leather jacket—“and buying the drink and telling them about the life in London, they’re all crowded round me, laughing at my jokes and patting me on the back for being a great fella altogether. Because I’ve got the shine of a bitta cash and a bitta adventure on me. And that’s nothing. Wait till they see what I’ve got up my sleeve.”
Trey hasn’t been around anyone who talked this much since Brendan went. Brendan’s stream of chat and messing made her want to be part of it, even when all she could think of to do was grin at him. Her dad’s talk bombards her. It makes her feel more silent than ever.
“The one and only Mr. Cillian Rushborough arrives from London in a few days’ time, as soon as he’s wrapped up some important business affairs, and then…” Johnny nudges Trey’s arm with his elbow. “Then, hah? We’ll be on the pig’s back. You’ll have dresses outa Giorgio Armani, or VIP tickets to meet Harry Styles; take your pick. This fella here can have a diamond collar. Where d’you fancy going on holiday?”
Trey can feel him wanting her to put all her hope on him. She can’t remember when she first knew that he’s too puny to take that weight. She thinks of Brendan, before he went out the door for the last time, promising her a new bike for her birthday, and meaning it.
“What if he doesn’t find gold?” she asks.
Johnny grins. “He’ll find it,” he says.
Away among the trees, up the mountainside, there’s a rattle of wings in branches and a bird’s harsh alarm call. Trey wants, suddenly and sharply, to be inside.
“Gonna go in,” she says.
Her dad looks at her for a second, but then he nods. “Go on,” he says. “Tell your mammy I’ll be in soon.” When Trey glances back at him as she rounds the house, he’s still leaning on the gate, with his face tilted up to the moon.
Sheila is wiping down the kitchen counters. She nods when Trey comes in, but she doesn’t look up. Trey finds a slice of bread, butters it, rolls it up and leans against the fridge to eat it. Banjo slumps heavily against her leg and lets out an extravagant sigh. He wants to go to bed.
“He’s outside,” Trey says. “He says he’ll be in soon.”
Her mam says, “Where’d you get that hoodie?”
“Lena.”
Sheila nods. Trey says, “Are you gonna let him stay?”
Sheila keeps wiping. She says, “He lives here.”
Trey pinches off a bit of her bread for Banjo and watches her. Sheila is a tall woman, rangy and rawboned, with thick red-brown hair starting to gray and pulled back in a ponytail. Her face is like old wood, worn shiny in some places and rough in others, and immobile. Trey is looking for the beauty her dad talked about, but she’s seen her mother’s face too many times; she doesn’t know how to interpret it in those terms.