* * *
—
The night before, when they’d looked in the Gregory’s street directory, they’d seen the field behind the house, and all it said was The Surrounds. Now Penny was sure she heard hooves coming down the back, and deciphered the adjacent smell—of animal, of hay, and horses.
The agent tried to hurry them back in.
It didn’t work.
Penny was drawn closer, to the clopping she heard at the fence line.
“Hey, Michael?” she said. “Could you please lift me up?”
He walked the yard toward her.
His arms and her stick-thin thighs.
* * *
—
On the other side, Penny saw the stables, she saw the track.
There was the laneway behind the fence line, which turned by the edge of the house; Mrs. Chilman was the only neighbor. Then the grass and slanted building work, and the white obligatory sports fence; from there it looked made of toothpicks.
In the laneway there were grooms leading horses, track to stables, and most of them didn’t see her; some of them nodded on their way. A minute or two later, an old groom came leading the final horse by, and when its head leaned down, he shrugged it gruffly away. Just before he saw Penny he gave its mouth a gentle slap. “Go on,” he said, “get out.” Penny, of course, smiled, at all of it.
“Hallo?” She cleared her throat. “…Hello?”
The horse saw her instantly, but the groom was oblivious.
“What? Who’s there?”
“Up here.”
“Jesus, love, give a man a bloody heart attack!” He was a stocky build and curly hair, with moistened face and eyes, and the horse was tugging him over. It had a flash of white from ears to nose, but the rest was mahogany brown. The groom saw it was useless stopping him. “All right, here we go. Come on, love.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, give ’im a pat, he’s the biggest bloody sook here anyway.”
Before she did it, Penny checked that Michael was okay, and truth be told, she was light but not weightless, and his arms were starting to shake. She placed her hand on the horse’s blaze, the great white texture, and couldn’t hold back her delight. She looked in the prying eyes. Any sugar? You got some sugar?
“What’s his name?”
“Well, his race name’s City Special.” He gave the horse a pat himself now, on the chest. “Stable name’s Greedy, though, I wonder bloody why.”
“Is he fast?”
He scoffed. “You really are new around here, aren’t you? The horses in these stables are all bloody useless.”
But still, Penelope was charmed. When the horse bobbed upwards for a rougher pat, she laughed. “Hi, Greedy.”
“Here, give him these.” He passed her a few grubby sugar cubes. “Might as well. He’s a lost bloody cause, anyway.”
Beneath her, Michael Dunbar was thinking about his arms, and how long they could possibly hold her.
The agent was thinking SOLD.
Now it was Clay’s turn, to leave his father with the house and the Amahnu.
He stood above him by the couch, the morning still dark.
His hands were healed, from blisters to scars.
“I’ll be away awhile.”
The Murderer woke.
“I’ll be back, though.”
* * *
—
It was fortunate Silver was on a main line; trains came through twice a day in each direction. He caught the 8:07.
At the station, he remembered:
That first afternoon, when he came.
He listened.
The land beside him still sang.
On the train he read for a while, but in his stomach the nerves had begun. Like a kid with a windup toy.
Eventually, he put the book down.
There was really no point.
In everything he read, all he saw was my face, and my fists, and the jugular in my neck.
* * *
—
When he reached the city, late afternoon, he stood at the station and made the call. A phone booth near Platform Four.
“Hello, Henry here.” Clay could hear he was on a street somewhere; the close-up sound of traffic. “Hello?”
“I’m here, too.”
“Clay?” The voice came through tighter, faster, from the grip at the other end. “Are you home?”
“Not yet. Tonight.”
“When? What time?”
“I don’t know. Maybe seven. Maybe later.”
That would give him a few more hours.
“Hey—Clay?”
He waited.
“Good luck, okay?”
“Thanks. I’ll see you.”
He wished he was back in the eucalypts.
* * *
—
For a while he considered going most of the way on foot, but he caught the train and bus. On Poseidon Road, he got out one stop before he normally would, and the city was well into evening.
There was nothing now but cloud cover.
Sort of copper, mostly dark.
He walked and stopped, he leaned at the air, as if waiting for it to finish him off, only it wouldn’t—and quicker than he’d hoped, he stood at the mouth of Archer Street: Relieved to have finally made it.
Terrified to be there.
* * *
—
In every house, the lights were on, people were home.
As if sensing the oncoming theater, the pigeons arrived from nowhere, and dug in close on the power lines. They were perched on TV aerials, and God forbid, on the trees. There was also a single crow, fat-feathered and plump, like a pigeon disguised in a trench coat.
But he wasn’t fooling anyone.
* * *
—
To our front yard—one of the few with no fence, no gate, just lawn—it was leafless, freshly mowed.
The porch, the roof, the blink of one of my movies.
Strangely, Henry’s car wasn’t there, but Clay couldn’t be distracted. He walked slowly on, then, “Matthew.”
He only said it at first, as if careful to be casual and calm.
Matthew.
Just my name.
That was all.
Just above quiet.
And again, a few steps more, he felt the cushion of grass, and now, in the middle, facing the door, he expected me to come—but I didn’t. He had to shout or stand and wait, and he chose, as it was, the first one. His voice so much not-his, as “MATTHEW!” he screamed, and put down his bag, and the books inside—his reading.
Within seconds, he heard movement, and then Rosy let loose a bark.
I was the first to appear out front.
* * *
—
I stood on the porch in almost exactly what Clay was wearing, only my T-shirt was dark blue and not white. The same faded jeans. The same thin-soled sports shoes. I’d been watching Rain Man, three-quarters through.
Clay—it was so damn good to see him…but no.
My shoulders fell, but barely; I couldn’t show how much I didn’t want to. I had to look willing and sure.
“Clay.”
It was the voice of that long-lost morning.
The killer in his pocket.
Even when Rory and Tommy came out, I kept them back, almost benignly. When they argued, I held up my hand. “No.”
They stayed, and Rory said something Clay couldn’t hear.
“Go too far and I’m coming in, okay?”
Had it all been whispered?
Or was it spoken normally and Clay just couldn’t hear it for the noise inside his ears?
I closed my eyes a moment, and walked to the right, and down; and I don’t know how it is with other brothers, but with us there would be no circling. It wasn’t Clay and the Murderer, like boxers—this was me, and I walked at him just short of a run, and it was soon that he hit the ground.
Oh, he fought, all right, he fought hard, and he searched and flailed and falled—for there was no grammar to this, no beauty to it at all. He could train and suffer all he wanted, but this wasn’t training the Clay way, it was living my way, and I found him from the first; no more words but those inside me: He killed us.
He killed us, Clay, don’t you remember?
We had no one.
He left us.
What we were is dead—
But now those thoughts weren’t thoughts at all, they were clouds of landed punches, and every one fell true.
Don’t you remember?
Don’t you see?
And Clay.
The smiler.
As I watch us now, after all he later told me, I see him clearly thinking: You don’t know everything, Matthew.
You don’t know.
I should have told you—
About the clothesline.