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“You can sell land,” Cal says. “Lena sold hers.”

Mart snorts. “That’s not the same at all, at all. She’s a woman, and that wasn’t her land, ’twas her husband’s. I’d sell my own kidneys before I’d sell my family’s land; my father’d come outa the grave and take the head off me. But we can go the whole year round without seeing a new face, or a new place, or doing anything we haven’t done all our lives. Meanwhile we’ve all got brothers WhatsApping us photos of wallabies, or posting on Facebook how they’re baptizing childer in the jungles of Brazil.” He smiles at Cal. “It doesn’t bother me, sure. When I get to feeling restless, I do a bitta reading about something new, to keep my mind on an even keel.”

“Geology,” Cal says.

“Sure, that was years ago. These days I do be looking into the Ottoman Empire. They were some boyos, them Ottomans. You’d want to get up early to take them on.” Mart adds an extra half-spoon of sugar to his tea. “But some of the lads haven’t got the same resources. They balance along grand most of the time—they’re used to it, sure. But we’re all a wee bit off-kilter, this summer, waking up every morning to fields that need rain worse and worse and aren’t getting it. We’re on edge, is what we are; our balance is upsetted already. And then along comes the bold Johnny, prancing in here with his stories about film stars and millionaires and gold.” He tastes the tea and nods. “Look at P.J., now, over the wall. Do you reckon he’s got the resources to keep his mind on an even keel when Johnny’s offering him the sun, moon, and stars?”

“P.J. seems pretty down-to-earth to me,” Cal says.

“No harm to P.J.,” Mart says. “He’s a fine man. But he’s worn to a frazzle, fretting day and night about what he’s going to feed his sheep if this weather doesn’t break, and he’s got nothing else in his head to distract him when he needs a bit of a rest from that. No wallabies and no Ottomans, only the same aul’ life he’s had since he was born. And now Johnny’s after bringing him something brand-new and shiny. P.J.’s bedazzled, and why wouldn’t he be?”

“I guess,” Cal says.

“And even the rest of them, that mightn’t be as easily bedazzled as P.J.: they’re allured, is what they are. They’ve got a bad case of allurement.”

“Fair enough,” Cal says. He doesn’t feel he’s in a position to judge them for that. He supposes what brought him to Ardnakelty could be described, from some angles, as a bad case of allurement. That got knocked out of him good and hard. The landscape still holds the power to bedazzle him, simply and wholly, but when it comes to everything else about the place, he sees too many of its layers for that. He and it have reached an equilibrium, amicable even if not particularly trusting, maintained with care and a certain amount of caution on all sides. All the same, taking everything into account, he can’t bring himself to regret following where that allurement led him.

“And here’s the thing of it,” Mart says, pointing the spoon at Cal. “Who’s to say they’re wrong? You’re sitting there thinking P.J.’s a fool for getting mixed up with Johnny, but even if Paddy Englishman was to change his mind about the samples, maybe ’tis well worth the few hundred quid to P.J., to have something new to think about for a while. The same as it’s worth it to me for the entertainment. Maybe it’ll do him a lot more good than spending that money on a psychologist who’d tell him he’s suffering from stress because his mammy took him outa nappies too early. Who’s to say?”

“You’re the one that was calling them all a bunch of eejits, five minutes ago, for wanting to get involved,” Cal reminds him.

Mart wags the spoon at him vigorously. “Ah, no. Not for getting involved. If they go into this the way they’d put a few bob on an outsider in the Grand National, there’s no eejitry in that. But if they’re believing they’ll be millionaires, that’s a different thing. That’s eejitry. And that’s where it could all go a bit pear-shaped.” He throws Cal a sharp glance. “Your young one told them her teacher says the gold is there.”

Cal says, “Trey was there? Last night?”

“Oh, she was. Sitting in the corner like a wee angel, not a peep outa her till she was spoken to.”

“Huh,” Cal says. He thinks less and less of his chances of making it through this summer without punching Johnny Reddy’s teeth out. “Well, if she says her teacher said that, he probably did.”

“A year or two back,” Mart says meditatively, “that wouldn’ta made a blind bitta difference. But now there’s plenty of people around here that reckon your young one’s worth listening to. It’s great what a mended table can do, hah?”

“She’s not mine,” Cal says. “And this gold story’s got nothing to do with her.”

“Well, if you’re feeling technical,” Mart acknowledges, “she’s not. And maybe it hasn’t. But in the lads’ minds, it has, and she’s having an effect. Isn’t that a turn-up for the books altogether? Who woulda thought a Reddy would ever have that much credit in this townland?”

“She’s a good kid,” Cal says. He’s clear that Mart is giving him a warning, although a delicate one, for now.

Mart is reaching for another cookie, absorbed in picking the one with the most chocolate chips. “She doesn’t go running around looking for trouble, anyway,” he agrees. “That’s a great thing.” He selects a cookie and dunks it in his tea. “D’you know something? The things these lads have planned for the gold, if it shows up, would give you the pip. Cruises, and barns, and tours of Hollywood. There’s not a one of them came up with a single iota of originality.”

“What’re you gonna spend yours on?” Cal asks.

“I won’t believe in that gold till I get my hands on it,” Mart says. “But if I do, I’m telling you now, I won’t be spending it on any feckin’ Caribbean holiday. I might put in a space telescope on my roof, or get myself a pet camel to keep the sheep company, or a hot-air balloon to bring me into town. Watch this space, boyo.”

While he listens to Mart, one part of Cal’s mind has been picturing the wandering line Johnny is talking about, from the foot of the mountain through all those men’s land to the river. “If there’s gold on your land and P.J.’s,” he says, “it’s gotta run through my back field.”

“I was thinking the same, all right,” Mart agrees. “Imagine that: you mighta planted them tomatoes on a gold mine. I wonder will they taste any different.”

“So why didn’t Johnny invite me along last night?”

Mart slants a look towards Cal. “I’d say this is some class of fraud, what Johnny’s got planned for Paddy Englishman. You’d know better than I would.”

“Not my department,” Cal says.

“If you were planning anything that might be fraud, would you invite a Guard along?”

“I’m a carpenter,” Cal says. “If I’m anything.”

Mart’s eyebrows twitch at an amused angle. “A Guard and a blow-in. Johnny doesn’t know you the way I do, sure. You’ve a dacent respect for the way things are done here, and you can keep your mouth shut, when that’s the wisest thing to do. But he doesn’t know that.”

That answers the question of why Johnny came running over to Cal’s place to shoot the breeze before he even got his stuff unpacked. Not to check out the guy who was hanging around his kid; to find out whether the ex-cop was the kind who would screw with his scam.