“Plastic Paddy,” says Sonny McHugh, with tolerant scorn. Sonny is a large man, with a spray of dusty-looking curls and a spreading belly, but he has a small man’s quack of a voice; it sounds stupid coming out of him. “We’ve a cousin like that. In Boston. He came over for the summer, three or four years back, d’ye remember? The young fella with the big thick neck on him? He brought us a digital camera for a present, in case we hadn’t seen one before. Couldn’t believe we knew The Simpsons. Shoulda seen the look on the poor fucker when he saw our house.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your house,” Bobby says, perplexed. “You’ve the double glazing and all.”
“I know, yeah. He thought we’d be in a thatched cottage.”
“My land’s not a tourist attraction,” Senan says. He has his feet planted wide apart and his arms folded. “I’m not having some gobshite trampling all over it, frightening my ewes, just because his granny sang him ‘Galway Bay.’ ”
“He wouldn’t be trampling all over your land,” Johnny says. “Not to start with, anyway. He wants to start off panning in the river; easier than digging. If he finds gold in that river, even a small little biteen, he’ll be delighted to pay each and every one of ye a lovely chunk of cash for the opportunity of doing some digging on your land.”
That gets a brief, vivid silence. Con glances at Sonny. Bobby’s mouth is wide open.
“How much digging?” Senan asks.
“Samples, he’d want, first off. Just stick a wee tube down into the soil and see what it brings up. That’s all.”
“How much cash?” asks Sonny.
Johnny turns up his palms. “That’s up to yourselves, sure. Whatever you can negotiate with him. A grand each, easy. Maybe two, depending on what mood he’s in.”
“For the samples, only.”
“Ah, God, yeah. If he finds what he’s after, it’ll be a lot more than that.”
Trey has been so focused on her dad, she hadn’t thought about the fact that these men would be making money from his plan. The surge of helpless rage burns in her throat. Even if he knew about Brendan, Johnny would be grand with filling up Ardnakelty’s pockets, as long as he got what he wanted. Trey isn’t. As far as she’s concerned, all of Ardnakelty can fuck itself to eternity and beyond. She would rather pull out her own fingernails with pliers than do anyone here a favor.
“If there’s gold there…” says Con McHugh. He’s the youngest of the men, a big lad with rumpled dark hair and a handsome, open face. “My God, lads. Imagine that.”
“Ah, it’s there,” Johnny says, as easily as if he was talking about milk in the fridge. “My young one over there, she learned all about it in school. Didn’t you, sweetheart?”
It takes Trey a second to realize he means her. She forgot he knew she was there. “Yeah,” she says.
“What did Teacher say about it?”
All the men’s faces have turned towards Trey. She thinks about saying the teacher told them the gold was round the other side of the mountains, or that it was all dug up a thousand years back. Her dad would beat her afterwards, if he could catch her, but she doesn’t consider that worth factoring into her decision. Even if she said it, though, the men might not be swayed by what some teacher from Wicklow thought. Her dad is a good talker; he might still talk them round. And she would have wasted her chance.
“He said there’s gold at the bottom of the mountain,” she says. “And people usedta dig it up and make things out of it. Jewelry. It’s in the museums in Dublin now.”
“I saw a program about that on the telly,” says Con, leaning forward. “Brooches the size of your hand, and big twisty necklaces. Beautiful, so they were. The shine offa them.”
“You’d look only gorgeous in one of them,” Senan tells him.
“He wants them for Aileen,” Sonny says. “Great big lad like him fits in her pocket—”
“How’d you get out tonight, hah, Con?”
“She thinks he’s off getting her flowers.”
“He went out the back window.”
“She’s got one of them GPS trackers on him. She’ll be banging on the door any minute.”
“Get in behind the sofa there, Con, we’ll say we never saw you—”
They’re not just having the crack. Each of them, even Con reddening and telling the rest to fuck off, has one eye sliding to Johnny. They’re making time, to assess what they think of him and his story and his idea.
While they’re doing it, Trey’s dad gives her a tiny approving nod. She gives him a blank look back.
“I’m only saying,” Con says, when he’s shaken free of the slagging and the other men have settled back, grinning, into their seats. “I wouldn’t say no to a shovelful or two of that stuff.”
“Would any of ye?” Johnny asks.
Trey watches them picture it. They look younger when they do, like they could move faster. Their hands have gone still, letting their cigarettes burn away.
“You’d have to keep a bit,” Con says. His voice has a dreamy hush. “A wee bit, only. For a souvenir, like.”
“Fuck that,” Senan says. “I’d have a Caribbean cruise for my souvenir. And a nanny to mind the kids on board, so the missus and meself could drink cocktails outa coconuts in peace.”
“California,” Bobby says. “That’s where I’d go. You can go round all the film studios, and have your dinner at restaurants where your woman Scarlett Johansson does be sitting at the next table—”
“Your mammy wouldn’t have any of that,” Senan tells him. “She’ll want to go to Lourdes, or Medjugorje.”
“We’ll do the lot,” Bobby says. His color is up. “Feck it, why not? My mammy’s eighty-one, how many more chances will she have?”
“And this drought can go and shite,” Sonny says, on a rising burst of exuberance. “Bring it on, hah? If there’s no grass and no hay, I’ll buy in the best feed, and my cattle can eat like lords all year round. In a brand-new barn.”
“Jesus, will you listen to this fella,” Mart says. “Have you no sense of romance, boyo? Get yourself an aul’ Lamborghini, and a Russian supermodel to ride in it with you.”
“A barn’ll last longer. A Lamborghini’d be bolloxed in a year, on these roads.”
“So would a Russian supermodel,” says Dessie, snickering.
“The Lamborghini’s for your road trip across America,” Mart explains. “Or Brazil, or Nepal, or wherever puts a glint in your eye. I wouldn’t say the roads in Nepal are much better than ours, mind you.”
Johnny is laughing, topping up Bobby’s whiskey, but Trey catches his watchful eye on Mart. He’s trying to figure out whether the encouragement is sincere, or whether Mart is playing at something. Obviously he remembers this much, at least: Mart Lavin is always playing at something.
He remembers Francie, too. Francie is saying nothing, but Johnny leaves him to it without so much as a glance. Francie doesn’t like being nudged, even a little.
Trey adjusts her thoughts on her father. With her, he’s so ham-fisted he doesn’t even realize it, but with other people he’s deft. Scuppering his plan is likely to be harder than she thought. Trey has little practice trying to be deft with anyone.
“I’d have the finest ram in this country,” P.J. says with decision. “I’d have that young fella from the Netherlands that went for four hundred grand.”
“Sure, you’d have no need to wear yourself out raising sheep any more,” Mart tells him. “You could just sit back and watch the gold pop up outa your land. With a butler bringing you food on toothpicks.”