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“We should go too!” Rian said, as soon as Martin was out of earshot. “Did you hear what his father said about the trout?”
“You’re nine years old. You think you’d be good at sawing down trees thicker than a man lying down?”
“I’d be absolutely ferocious at it,” Rian said. “How is it spelled? Larkspur? I’m putting it in my book.”
That night after everyone had finally drifted off to sleep, even their mother, who sometimes sat up in the chair when the birth of a new baby was near, Rian crept to the foot of the sleeping loft’s ladder and whispered, “Macdara, are you awake? Are there grizzly bears in Montana, Macdara?”
But the others roared at him to be quiet, that he’d break their heads with his constant chatter, he should be sent to live with the tinkers, Jesus Christ, even they wouldn’t take him, between the fighting and the constant jabbering, he should simply be abandoned somewhere far away.
In response, Rian let crack an enormous fart and, laughing, dove into his bed.
THE NEXT MORNING, MARTIN CAME down the lane to say goodbye as promised, and Mary shook holy water on his head. The baby was coming; Mac could tell by the way she walked the floors early that morning and took deep breaths.
“Come on,” Martin said, wanting to get beyond so many sets of eyes to say his goodbyes. “Let’s walk into the Cuan.”
Mac hesitated. “My mother—”
“Go,” Mary said. Cathal was pulling at his eyebrow and asking if she was sure he shouldn’t go for the women yet.
Once they got past the holly bush where they normally met up, Martin shoved a handful of coins into Mac’s pocket. “Everyone’s giving me money so take some for the dances.”
“Would you stop,” Mac said, pushing them back at Martin. One coin fell onto the road and Rian, who’d followed Mac, pounced on it. The two older boys laughed, realizing they were acting like old men they’d seen.
“Who will I go to the dances with now?”
“You can’t be serious. You have no shortage of brothers.”
Mac laughed because it was true, but something would change. First Sean, now Martin. Barry and Fearghal were fun but they were only fourteen and thirteen. Since Martin told him, Mac felt a question on the tip of his tongue, but he just didn’t know how to ask it. He wanted to ask his friend if he had any fear of going, fear that he’d not come back, fear that he’d hate it or the people would be strange or anything at all. Fear of being lonely. But Martin would only say no.
“It got put together so fast. I didn’t even have time to get a few odds and ends to bring with me.”
“The shops in America will have everything you need.”
“They will, I suppose,” Martin said. The Sullivans’ dog barked at them and followed them for a while. Martin threw a stone at him to go home and Mac told him not to do that, he might hit the poor creature; the Sullivans weren’t good to it so it was probably only looking for company. Mac stopped to scratch its ears and Martin remembered when they were much smaller boys, how they saved a different one of the Sullivans’ dogs from falling through the blowhole near the cliff. Mac would miss his friend. They walked along the lane as far as the football pitch, looped around the farthest goalpost, and then headed home.
“Martin!” Rian said, catching up to them. “I just thought of something. Now that you’re out of the picture, does that mean Margaret Carroll is available?”
Martin and Margaret had a little romance going, the extent of which was Martin going over to her house one day to look at the record player her brother had sent their parents from England.
“Excuse me?” Martin asked.
“I mean, can I make my move once you’re gone.”
“She’s fifteen.”
“I know that.”
Martin looked at Mac and shook his head.
“Best of luck to you,” he said to Rian.
THE BABY STARTED COMING AROUND the time PJ’s rented car wound its way down the coast road toward the airport, Martin’s pale face in the back window where he was watching the Cuan retreat. Still, Mary said it wasn’t quite time to call the women. Finally, very early the following morning, Cathal climbed the ladder to the loft, grabbed hold of Mac’s foot to wake him, and told him to run to Honnie’s. The women arrived just after dawn and told the Joyce boys to be gone, to come back in a few hours. Honnie, sad after having said goodbye to two of her sons the day before, brought a sack of buns and told them to eat them down on the beach. It was cold at that hour, frost on the grass, so Mac made up a game where they hopped around like pats of butter on a hot skillet, and after a while his brothers’ cheeks flushed and they grew warm. Seamus, only two, was allowed to stay up in the house with the women, but Eamon cried that he was still cold so Mac took his little feet and put them under his own jumper to warm them against his belly. He taught him how to withdraw his arms from his sleeves and tuck his hands into the pocket of his underarms, where it was always warm. When the morning reached a respectable time to go calling, the older boys ran off to find their friends. Coleman, Rian, Thomas, and Eamon stayed with Macdara.
Just when Mac was thinking he’d have to get them more to eat, they heard a whistle.
“Hup!” Cathal shouted when he got within sight. “A brother!”
His younger brothers around him, Mac observed their father standing on the crest of seagrass, the light behind him, and wondered if he’d wait an hour until the baby settled or if he’d go right away. He’d no doubt taken a mug of whiskey out by the turf shed to wait for news. Last time, when Seamus was born, he’d made Mary a cup of tea, and then while the women were still fussing over her and the baby, he’d slipped out.
