Читаем The Hunter полностью

“I know you have. I’d bet my life she was the one that ditched you, but, not the other way round. If she hadn’ta kicked you out the door, you’d be there still. Am I right?”

“What are you, my therapist?” Cal demands. He’s aware that tonight isn’t only, or even primarily, about his engagement. Everyone here has stuff to tell him and ask him, and stuff they want to tell each other about him. Not a one of these things will be said in so many words; lack of clarity is this place’s go-to, a kind of all-purpose multi-tool comprising both offensive and defensive weapons as well as broad-spectrum precautionary measures. The only smart thing Cal can do is keep his mouth shut as much as possible and pay attention. The booze won’t help. If Malachy has a bottle of poteen under the table, he’s screwed.

“I’d make a fine therapist,” Mart says, diverted by this intriguing new possibility. “There’d be none of this ‘Tell me about your childhood’ blather that’s only meant to keep you coming back till your bank account runs dry. Practical solutions, that’s what I’d offer.”

“You’d be fuckin’ woeful,” Senan says. “Some poor bastard would come in to you looking for help with the depression, and you’d tell him all he needed was to get a hobby and buy himself a hat with fuckin’—earflaps, or sequins, or some shite. Half the place would kill themselves before the year was out. The hills’d be alive with the sound of shotguns.”

“They would not,” Mart says with dignity. “They’d be alive with the sound of contented men in elegant headgear learning to play the trombone, or reading up on Galileo. You’ll come to me when yourself and Lena hit the rough patches, won’t you, Sunny Jim?”

“Sure,” Cal says. “You can get me a top hat.”

“You’d do better in one of them raccoon ones. With the tail left on.”

“You’ll haveta do the Marriage Mile now,” Malachy tells Cal, settling back on his banquette.

“Yeah?” Cal asks. “What’s that?” He sinks a couple more inches of his pint. Each of the guys is going to buy him one to congratulate him, and then he’ll have to buy a round to show his appreciation; and, while he’s the biggest guy there, the rest have put in a lot more dedicated training. He made himself a hamburger the size of his own head for dinner, as what Mart calls soakage, but he still has a tough evening’s work ahead.

“Have you never seen it done?”

“How would he have seen it done?” Senan asks. “There’s been fuck-all marriages here the last coupla years, and all the lads were from outside the parish. Other townlands wouldn’t do it,” he explains to Cal.

“Ah, no,” Malachy says. “ ’Tis an old Ardnakelty tradition. My granddad said it was old when his granddad was young; you wouldn’t know how far back it’d go. Thousands of years, maybe.”

“What’ve I gotta do?” Cal asks.

“You’ve to get a torch,” Malachy explains, “and you light it from your hearth fire. Have you a fireplace?”

“What’s that matter?” Senan demands. “I lit mine with a fuckin’ Zippo. No one gave a shite.”

“I’ve got a fireplace,” Cal says. “I’d rather not light it in this weather, though.”

“I’ll lend you my Zippo,” Senan says. To Malachy: “Go on there.”

“You run with the torch through the village,” Malachy says, “and then up to your woman’s house and all round it, and then back to yours. To show the place that you’re bringing the two hearth fires together.”

“And you do it in your jocks,” Francie says. “To prove that you’re hale and hearty, and fit to be the head of a family. I heard back in the day the lads ran it naked, but then the priests put the kibosh on that.”

“Huh,” Cal says. “I better buy myself some fancy new boxers.”

“That’s the real reason the lads around here get married young,” Malachy explains to Cal. “While they can still put on a good show. No one wants to see a big aul’ dad bod puffing down the street.”

“I looked like Jason Momoa,” Senan tells him. “Back when he was on Baywatch.”

“You did in your hole,” Francie said. “The pasty fuckin’ legs on you, glowing in the dark all the way—”

“The muscles on me. I was a fuckin’ ride back then.”

“Well, shit,” Cal says, giving his belly a rueful look. “Sounds like I better start working out, too.”

“At least you got engaged in summer,” Francie points out consolingly. “This fella”—Senan—“got engaged on New Year’s Eve, and he froze his bollox so bad he thought he’d have to call off the wedding.”

“Damn,” Cal says. “I’m gonna be a busy man. We got traditions where I come from, too, and I gotta cover all those.”

“Have you to wave a flag?” Mart inquires. “The Yanks’d wave a flag at the drop of a hat. We’re different here; we reckon most people probably already noticed we’re Irish.”

“No flags,” Cal says, “but I’m supposed to bring her daddy an animal I shot myself, to show I’m a good provider. Lena’s daddy’s gone, though, so probably I should bring it to her oldest brother.”

“Mike’d eat a rabbit,” P.J. says helpfully. “He’s a great man for the meat, is Mike.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Cal says. “I don’t know what I’da done if he was a vegetarian.”