It was lying there, under a tree, her hair itching him, and him not moving it, ever, and Abbey telling him she’d love to come back; and Michael saying, “Of course—we’ll make money, and build a house, and come here whenever we want.”
It was Abbey and Michael Dunbar: Two of the happiest bastards who ever had the nerve to leave.
And oblivious of all to come.
The night was long, and loud with Clay’s thoughts.
At one point, he got up to use the bathroom and found the Murderer, half-swallowed, on the couch. Books and diagrams weighed him down.
For a while, he stood over him.
He looked at the books, and the sketches on the Murderer’s chest. The bridge, it appeared, was his blanket.
Then the morning—but morning wasn’t morning at all, it was two in the afternoon, and Clay woke in bed with a fretful start, the sun on his throat, like Hector. Its presence in the room was huge.
When he got up he was totally mortified; he scrambled. No. No. Where is he? Quickly, he stumbled to the hall, got outside, and stood on the porch in his shorts. How could I have slept so long?
“Hey.”
The Murderer watched him.
He’d come round from the side of the house.
* * *
—
He got dressed and they sat in the kitchen, and this time he ate. The old oven with its black-and-white clock had barely clicked over from 2:11 to 2:12, and he’d eaten a few slices of bread, and a fair few murderous eggs.
“Keep going. You’re going to need your strength.”
“Sorry?”
Now the Murderer chewed and sat, he was opposite.
Did he know something Clay didn’t?
Yes.
There’d been calls from the bedroom through the morning.
He’d slept and shouted my name.
* * *
—
One long sleep and now I’m behind.
That was Clay’s recurring thought as he continued to eat in spite of himself—and he would fight to scratch himself free.
Bread and words. “It won’t happen again.”
“Sorry?”
“I never sleep that long. I barely sleep at all.”
Michael smiled; yes, he was Michael. Was that a past lifeblood flowing through him again? Or was that just how it appeared?
“Clay, it’s okay.”
“It’s not—ah—God!”
He’d rushed to stand up and collected the table with his knee.
“Clay—please.”
For the first time, he studied the face in front of him. It was an older version of me, but the eyes not caught by fire. All the rest of him, though: the black hair, even the tiredness looked the same.
He pulled his chair out properly this time, but the Murderer held up a hand. “Stop.”
But Clay was ready to walk, and not just out of the room.
“No,” he said, “I—”
Again, the hand. Worn and calloused. Workman’s hands. He waved as if at a fly on a birthday cake. “Shh. What do you think’s out there?”
Which meant:
What was it that made you come here?
All Clay heard was the insects. The single note.
Then the thought of something great.
He stood, bent-postured against the table. He lied, he said, “There’s nothing.”
The Murderer wasn’t fooled. “No, Clay, it brought you here, but you’re afraid, so it’s easier to sit here and argue.”
Clay straightened. “What are you even talking about?”
“I’m saying it’s okay—” He broke off, and slowly studied him. A boy he couldn’t touch, or reach. “I don’t know how long you stood in those trees yesterday, but you must have come out for a reason….”
Jesus.
The thought came in with the heat.
He saw me. All afternoon.
And “Stay,” said the Murderer, “and eat. Because tomorrow I have to show you—there’s something you need to see.”
In terms of Michael and Abbey Dunbar, I guess it’s time to ask: What was the real happiness between them?
What was the truth?
The true one?
Let’s start with the artwork.
Sure, he could paint well, often beautifully; he could capture a face, or see things a certain way. He could realize it on canvas or paper, but when it came down to it, he knew: he worked twice as hard as the students around him, who could all produce somehow faster. And he was truly gifted in only one area, which was something he also clung to.
He was good at painting Abbey.
* * *
—
Several times, he’d nearly quit art school altogether.
The only thing that stopped him was the thought of going back to her, admitting failure. So he stayed. He somehow survived on good essays and flashes of brilliance when he so much as inserted her into a background. Someone would always say, “Hey, I like this bit.” There was patience and revelation only for her.
For his final assignment, he found an abandoned door and painted her, both sides of it. On one panel she was reaching for the handle, on the other she was leaving. She entered as a teenager; the girl in school uniform, that bony-yet-softness, and endless hair. Behind it, she left—high-heeled, in a bob, all business—looking over her shoulder, at everything in between. When he received his result, he knew already what it would say. He was right:
Door idea fairly cliché.
Technique proficient but no more, but I admit I want to know her.
I want to know what happened in between.
Whatever did lie in the world between those images, you knew this woman would be okay on the other side—especially, as it turned out, without him.
* * *
—
When they returned to the city married, they rented a small house on Pepper Street. Number thirty-seven. Abbey had a bank job—the first one she applied for—and Michael worked the construction sites, and painted in the garage.
It was surprising how quickly the cracks appeared.
Not even a year.
Certain things became obvious, like everything was her idea: That house for rent, those black-edged plates.
They went and saw movies when it was her thought, not his, and while her degree propelled her immediately forward, he was where he’d always been, on those building slabs; it felt like she was a life force, and he was just a life. In the beginning, the end was this: It was night.
It was bed.
She sighed.
He raised his head to see. “What is it?”
She said, “Not like that.”
And from there it went from “Show me” to “I can’t teach you anymore” to “What do you mean?” to her sitting up and saying, “I mean I can’t show you everything, I can’t take you with me. You have to figure it out.”
Michael was shocked at how calmly she delivered the blows, with the dark up against the window.
“In all the time we’ve been together, I don’t think you’ve ever really…” She stopped.
“What?”
It was such a small swallow, to prepare. “Initiated.”
“Initiated? Initiated what?”
“I don’t know—everything—where we live, what we do, what we eat, where and when and how we—”
“Jesus, I—”
She sat up a notch higher. “You never just take me. You never make me feel like you have to have me, no matter what. You make me feel like…”
He didn’t want to know. “Like—what?”
In a mildly slighter tone: “Like the boy I pulled down to the floor, back home…”
“I—” But there was nothing else there.
Just I.
I and nothingness.
I and sinking, and the clothes hung over a chair—and Abbey wasn’t finished.
“And maybe everything else too, like I said…”
“Everything else?”
The room felt sewn together now, there to be pulled apart. “I don’t know.” She sat straighter, yet again, for the courage. “Maybe without me, you’d still be at home with all the arsehole sayers, blue singlet wearers, and the rest. You might still be cleaning that shit-heap surgery and throwing bricks up to other blokes throwing bricks up.”
He ate down his heart, and a fair share of the dark. “I came to you.”
“When your dog died.”
It hit him hard. “The dog. How long have you been waiting to unleash that?” (There was no pun intended, I’m sure of it.) “Never. It just came out.” Now she crossed her arms, but didn’t really cover herself, and she was beautiful and naked and her collarbones so straight. “Maybe it’s always been there.”
“You were jealous of a dog?”
“No!” Again, he was beside the point. “I’m just—I’m wondering why it took you months to walk to my front door after watching and waiting! Hoping I’d do it for you—to chase you down the road.”