The sound of Senan’s station wagon comes to them faintly from far around the bend. It pulls up away on the road next to the other cars, and Francie crushes out his smoke underfoot. Johnny gets out of the car and picks his way through the grass and weeds towards them, with Senan and Bobby at his back like guards.
When he gets close enough, Johnny glances from one face to another and half-laughs. “What’s all this, lads?” he asks. “God almighty, ye’re looking awful serious.”
Mart holds out the spade. “Dig,” he says.
Johnny looks at it in disbelief, grinning. Cal can see his mind skittering for escape routes. “Ah, now,” he says. “I’m not dressed for—”
“You said there was gold,” Sonny says. “Let’s see it.”
“Jesus, lads, I never said ’twas on this spot. Your man Rushborough never pinned down the places that close. And sure, I told ye from the start, the whole thing coulda been—”
“Here’ll do,” Francie says.
“Ah, lads,” Johnny says. “Is this my penance, is it, for bringing Rushborough here? Sure, I’ve lost more than any of ye, but I’m not—”
Mart says, “Dig.”
After a moment Johnny shakes his head like he’s humoring them, steps forward and takes the spade. For a second his eyes catch Cal’s. Cal looks back at him.
He strikes the spade into the earth, with a small gritty scrape, and drives it home with his foot. The ground is dried hard; it sinks only a couple of inches. Johnny glances up wryly, inviting the other men to share the absurdity. “We’ll be here all night,” he says.
“Then you’d better get moving,” Con says.
Johnny looks around their faces again. None of them change. He bends back to the digging.
—
Nobody wants to get in the car. Somehow they’ve all picked up something in the air, something they don’t understand but don’t like, and they all turn defiant against it. Liam shouts, demanding to know where they’re going and why and where Daddy is, till Sheila shoves him, still yelling and kicking out at her, into the back seat. Alanna, sobbing piteously, attaches herself to Trey’s legs and has to be peeled off, while Sheila retrieves Liam from halfway across the yard and throws him back into the car with a slap to keep him there. Even Banjo hides under Trey’s bed; Trey has to drag him out, while he howls tragically and tries to burrow into the floor, and carry him to the car. The catch of the boot is broken; with so much stuff jammed into it, it keeps flying open, and every time it does, Banjo tries to make a break for it over the back seat.
Maeve gets into bed, pulls the sheet over her head, and refuses to move. Trey tries dragging her and tries hitting her, but she just kicks and stays put. Sheila, battling the others, can’t help. Trey doesn’t have time for this shit. Nealon could drive up any minute.
She kneels by Maeve’s bed. She can tell by the shape under the sheet that Maeve has her hands over her ears, so she pinches a fold of arm and digs her nails in. Maeve squeals and kicks out.
“Listen to me,” Trey says.
“Fuck off.”
“Listen or I’ll do it again.”
After a second Maeve takes her hands off her ears. “I’m not going,” she informs Trey.
“That detective’s coming for Daddy,” Trey says.
That puts a stop to Maeve’s fussing. She pulls the sheet off her head and stares. “Why? Did he kill your man?”
“Rushborough was dodgy,” Trey says. “Daddy was only protecting us. Now we’ve to protect him. I’m gonna stop the detective getting him.”
“You are not. How?”
Outside, the car horn beeps. “Don’t have time to explain,” Trey says. “The detective’s coming. You haveta help Mammy get the little ones away, quick.”
Maeve is giving Trey a suspicious stare. Her hair is a mess from being under the covers. “Daddy’s not even here. He went out with some guys.”
“I know, yeah. They’re gonna rat him out if we don’t move quick.” Trey is sick to death of coming up with the stories people want to hear. All this talking feels unsafe and fake, like she’s pretending to be someone else. She wants Maeve gone, all of them gone, so she can get on with things in quiet. “Come on,” she says.
After a moment Maeve kicks off the sheet and gets up. “You better not fuck up,” she tells Trey, as they head out.
Sheila has the car pointed at the gate and the engine running. “Wait till you see the car,” she says to Trey, out the window. “And then run like mad, after.”
“Yeah,” Trey says.
Maeve slams the car door. Sheila reaches a hand out the window and grips Trey’s arm for a second. “Jesus,” she says. That smile is back on her. “I never reckoned on you.” Then she puts the car into gear and takes off, out the gate and down the road.
Trey watches the car’s dust cloud wander lazily across the yard, golden in the last sunlight splitting through the pines, and then dissipate. The sound of the engine fades. The birds, unfazed by all the yelling and carry-on, are settling for evening, flipping back and forth between trees and bickering over perches. Under the dusky air, its windows shuttered by the reflections of trees in the glass, the house looks like it’s been empty for weeks. For the first time Trey can remember in all her life, it feels peaceful.
She supposes she should walk through it one more time, but she has no impulse to do that. She’s already taken Brendan’s watch out of its slit in her mattress and strapped it on her wrist. She would have liked to take away the coffee table that she made at Cal’s, but she has nowhere to take it. Apart from that, there’s nothing she wants from here.
She picks up the spare petrol can from the dirt of the yard, where her mother left it, and heads for the shed.
—
The shadow of the mountain has stretched far across the fields, and the sky has dimmed to a dull, filmed lilac. The hole in the dirt is growing, but slowly. Johnny is soft, a limp-muscled wisp next to the dense, unspared bodies around him; he’s panting, and the gaps between spade strikes are getting longer. Cal barely notices him. Johnny, after weeks at the center of Ardnakelty’s universe, isn’t important any more; nothing he does will make a difference now. Cal is watching the men watching him.
“Come on, lads,” Johnny says, raising his head and shoving hair out of his eyes with a forearm. “We’ll find fuck-all here. If it’s gold ye want, at least let me take ye where Rushborough said it’d be. I’m not guaranteeing anything, I never did, but—”
“You’re not deep enough,” Senan says. “Keep going.”
Johnny leans on the spade. Sweat shines on his face and darkens the underarms of his shirt. “If ye want your money, I’ll pay ye back. All this drama, there’s no need for—”
Con says, “We don’t want your money.”
“Lads,” Johnny says. “Listen to me, lads. Give me a few weeks, just, and I’ll be outa your hair for good. I swear to God. I’m only waiting till it won’t bring that Nealon fella after me, is all. Then I’ll be gone.”
“You’re waiting for him to settle on some of us, instead,” Bobby says. Mostly Bobby is a funny little man, but the depth of his anger has burned that away; no one would make fun of him today. “Get to fuck.”
“Ye don’t want Nealon pulling me in. I’m telling ye. I’d never say a word about what went in the river, ye know I wouldn’t, but there’s stuff on my phone. If he starts looking into me, we’ll all be in the shite together. If ye’ll just hang on a few—”