‘Yep,’ Quin said.
‘Now for the food.’ I put the pot on the table. ‘Cumin soup, pepper salad and cozonac – Transylvanian sweet bread.’
Timothy dived on the bread. He was one of those malnourished-looking creatures who could eat for Ireland. ‘This is what they’ll feed us?’ he asked, his mouth full of food. ‘Is it some sort of earthly paradise?’
To date the four of us had done a couple of successful short trips, where no one lagged behind too badly or had bitter arguments over map-reading （a regular occurrence with hikers）， so we’d decided to chance a six-nighter to Transylvania.
Quin and I had been the previous June. While he’d have preferred the going to be tougher, we’d both been enchanted, me in particular. There were wildflower meadows, medieval-style villages and tall, spiky castles, truly terrifying-looking at night. The guest houses had ranged from gorgeous to charmingly odd.
But at times I’d been frustrated by the recommended route, suspecting that we were missing out on undervalued gems and overlooked beauties.
So this time, I was in charge, tweaking and deviating from last year’s itinerary.
‘Stick with me,’ I said, ‘I’ll show you the true Transylvania.’
‘… Aaaand the issue of the brown bears?’ Taryn asked politely.
‘I’ll do my best to prevent us from being mauled to death by brown bears,’ I said. ‘That’s all I can promise.’
44
It was Friday morning and Bronte was reading her life story. I had to admit I was very interested. Ireland’s small Anglo-Irish tribe was very different to the rest of us. They tended to be big landowners and have strong ties to England, often sending their kids to boarding school there.
Bronte had been one of four children, the youngest by far to ‘a third son’ – which translated as ‘having no money’。 She’d been brought up in County Tipperary, on what she called a small farm, which bred horses and ‘dry stock cattle’。 （No idea, but Dennis briefly emerged from his catatonia to express that this was a good money-making enterprise.）
‘Did you live in a beautiful old house?’ Trassa asked wistfully. ‘With tapestries and lovely curtains?’
‘Oh, no. A seventies bungalow. Everyone had more money than us.’
‘Everyone?’ I was looking for context.
‘Oh.’ She blushed. ‘I don’t mean the people in the town –’
‘– the peasants,’ Chalkie threw in.
‘I mean our cousins, our friends. We were always the poor relations. It was dismal. Everyone else went to boarding school.’ Quickly she added, ‘Not everyone in the town, I mean, but –’
‘– your cousins, your friends.’ Chalkie finished for her. ‘The people that count.’
‘So you went to the local school?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘Because my family’s not Roman Catholic, I went to a Church of Ireland school in a different town – there weren’t enough of us to have a school where I lived. But it was twenty-seven miles away so it ended up that I didn’t really have friends.’
‘The peasants no good to you?’ Chalkie asked.
She turned and gave Chalkie a long, cool stare. ‘I would have loved to be friends with the peasants,’ she said calmly. ‘I utterly adore peasants.’
Chalkie visibly coloured and Dennis stirred from his torpor to mutter, ‘Lads, would ye get a room.’
‘But’， Bronte said, ‘the peasants mistrusted me. They called me “that posho from the stud farm”。’
‘Any fucking wonder, when your ancestors stole their land?’
‘Chalkie,’ I said. ‘Stop.’
What was clear was that Bronte was the original Outsider. Her own tribe looked down on her while the local people kept their distance. Even within her family of origin she was alone: her father had anger-management problems, both her parents drank a lot and the sibling closest to her in age was nine years older.
But she already knew this. It had been established during her first spell in a treatment centre. I wasn’t uncovering anything useful here.
Aged fifteen, at a weekend party with her better-off cousins, she’d had her first brush with drugs. ‘Just hash,’ she said. ‘It was so much fun.’
‘“Just” hash?’ I asked.
‘Compared to heroin, it’s “just”，’ she replied without a flicker.
She was hard to jangle, I’d give her that.