“Don’t give a shite,” Trey says. Banjo lets out a whimper every time he puts that paw to the ground. She strokes his head. She doesn’t want to stop and look him over till they’re out of Rushborough’s sight.
“You’ll be a big help to us now, but. You’ll do a great job with that wee yoke. All you’ve to do is give one or two people a look at it—pick people that’ll talk, now—and the rest’ll do itself. I’d pay to see Noreen’s face when you pull that out.”
Trey heads past the car, towards the road. “Where are you going?” Johnny demands.
“Gonna get Banjo’s paw seen to,” Trey says.
Johnny laughs, but it has a forced sound. “Get away outa that. The dog’s grand; not a bother on it. You’re carrying on like he took its leg off.”
Trey keeps going. “Come here,” Johnny snaps after her.
Trey stops and turns. Once he has her, Johnny doesn’t seem to know what to say to her.
“That all turned out well, hah?” he says in the end. “I won’t lie to you, I was worried there. But he likes you. I can tell.”
“He’s got no granny that’s from here,” Trey says. “Right?”
Johnny moves, looking back at the house. The windows are empty. “He’s a mate of mine. Not a mate exactly, like, but I know him from around.”
“And there’s no gold.”
“Ah, you never know,” Johnny says, wagging a finger at her. “Sure, didn’t your own teacher say it’s out there?”
“Somewhere. Not here.”
“That’s not what he said. He just never said it is here. It might be. Here’s as good as anywhere.”
It strikes Trey with a new clarity that she hates trying to have conversations with her father. She says, “And your man’s not rich.”
Her dad makes himself laugh again. “Ah, now, depends what you mean by rich. He’s no billionaire, but he’s got more than I’ve ever had.”
“What’s his name?”
Johnny comes closer to her. “Listen to me,” he says, keeping his voice down. “I owe that lad money.”
“He lent you money?” Trey says. She doesn’t bother to conceal the disbelief. Rushborough isn’t thick enough to lend her dad money.
“Ah, no. I was doing a bitta driving for him, here and there. Only then I was driving something up to Leeds, and I got robbed. ’Twasn’t my fault, someone musta set me up, but he doesn’t care.” Johnny is still moving, his feet shifting in the gravel of the drive, making little crunching noises. Trey wants to punch him to make him stop. “I had no cash to pay him back. I was in big trouble, d’you get how much trouble I was in?”
Trey shrugs.
“Big trouble. D’you get what I mean? Big trouble.”
“Yeah.”
“Only I’d this idea. I’d had it in the back of my mind for years, bouncing it around, like—I had it all mapped out in my head where the gold oughta be, I knew whose land it hadta be on, I’d a wee ring with a nugget in that I picked up in an antique shop for proof…I’d to beg himself to give it a go. He didn’t want me coming over here alone, he said he’d never see hide nor hair of me again. So I said he could come with me if he wanted, be the other fella.” Johnny shoots a glance over his shoulder at the cottage. “I never thought he’d do it. Him stuck in a tip like this, for weeks, no nightlife, no women? But he likes something new. He gets bored awful easy. And he likes keeping people on their toes, the way you never know what he’d do next. I’d say ’twas that.”
Trey thinks of Rushborough, or whatever his name is, sitting at their kitchen table, smiling at Maeve, asking her about Taylor Swift. She knew then he was all wrong. She feels like a fool for not having seen the rest.
“I wouldn’ta chosen it,” Johnny says, with an injured note like she accused him. “Having him around you and your mammy, and the wee ones. But I had no choice. I couldn’t tell him no, could I?”
Cal would have, Trey knows. Cal wouldn’t have got himself into this in the first place.
“It’ll be grand,” Johnny assures her. “It’s all going great guns. You just do your wee bit, so the lads know there’s gold out there for the taking. Next thing, after himself finds the stuff in the river, he’s going to give them a choice: they can have a grand each to let him take samples on their land, or they can invest a few grand in his mining company and be in for a share of everything he finds. He’s got other people back in London looking to be investors, we’ll say, but he wants to give first shot to the boys from the auld sod. Only they have to decide quick, ’cause the London lads are at him. Keep things moving, bish bosh boom, keep them excited, keep the pressure on, d’you see? If all of them go for the investment, I’m paid off. Free and clear. If we can get more people on board after that, it’s all profit.”
“They’re not gonna give him money,” Trey says. “Not just ’cause they hear I found that thing.”
“They’ve already thrown in a few hundred, sure. That’s what they’ll be thinking of. Why not go that one extra step and be in for the big prize?”
“ ’Cause they’re not thick,” Trey says. “And they don’t trust you.” The way the evening has gone gives her a freedom that takes her by surprise. She doesn’t need to lick up to her dad any more.
Johnny doesn’t argue with that. He smiles a little, looking out over the dark fields. “I forget you’re only a child,” he says. “You haveta understand men. These lads around here, they’ve been hardworking men all their lives. Everything they’ve got, they earned. A man’s supposed to be proud of that, but the truth is, he can get awful weary of it. He gets to craving something he didn’t have to earn; something that fell into his hands, for no reason at all. That’s why people play the lottery. ’Tisn’t the money they want, even if they think it is; ’tis that moment when they’d feel like they’re one of God’s own handpicked winners. These lads want to feel lucky, for once. They want to feel like God and the land are on their side. They might not give five grand for the chance of fifty, but they’ll give it for the chance to feel lucky.”
Trey doesn’t know what he’s on about and doesn’t care. She says, “Leave Cal outa it.”
“I never wanted him in it to start with,” Johnny says, offended. “I wouldn’t take a penny off a man that’s been good to you. I turned him down flat. D’you know what that fella did? He threatened to go to the Guards if I didn’t let him in. That’s what you get for hanging off a Yank. Would any man from around here do that?”
Trey says, “Leave him outa it or I’ll throw this yoke in a bog.”
“You’ll do what you’re told,” Johnny says. He sounds like everything about him has worn thin. “Or I’ll beat the living shite outa you.”
Trey shrugs.
Johnny rubs a hand down his face. “Right,” he says. “I’ll do what I can. Just get your bit right. For Jesus’ sake.”
Trey heads off down the road. “Where d’you think you’re going?” Johnny calls after her. “There’s no vet open at this hour.”
Trey ignores him.
“Are you headed to your man Hooper’s?”
Trey wants to speed up, but she has to wait for Banjo. He isn’t whimpering any more, but he’s limping heavily, favoring the hurt paw.
“Ah, come back here,” Johnny calls. She hears the car door open. “I’ll give the pair of ye a lift.”
“Get fucked,” Trey calls back to him, without turning her head.
—
Trey cuts across fields till she’s sure her dad can’t have followed her. Then she finds a moonlit spot, near enough a wall that she won’t stand out too clearly, and squats down to examine Banjo’s paw. Her heart is still going hard.
The paw is swollen. When Trey tries to feel for lumps or breaks, Banjo whimpers, moans urgently, and finally growls, although he follows that up with a frenzy of licking to apologize. Trey sits back and rubs his neck the way he likes best. She isn’t going to push him till he snaps at her. It would break his heart.