Henry pocketed a hand.
A fistful of coins.
“Clay, here it is, we’ll see you up there.”
Two boys drove, the other ran.
Out the window: “Oi, Clay!”
He pushed on. He didn’t turn around, but he heard all right. The same thing, every time.
“Get daisies if you can, they were her favorite, remember?”
As if he didn’t know.
The car pulled out, blinker on. “And don’t get done on the price!”
Clay ran faster.
He hit the hill.
* * *
—
In the beginning it was me who trained him, then Rory, and if I did it with an old-school brand of foolish integrity, Rory bludgeoned but never broke him. As for Henry, he’d made a scheme of it—he did it for the cash, but also because he loved it, which we’ll witness soon enough.
From the outset, it was straightforward, yet stupefying: We could tell him what to do.
He would do it.
We could torture him.
He’d endure it.
Henry could boot him out of the car because he’d seen a few mates walking home in the rain, and Clay would get out, he’d break into a jog. Then, when they drove past and shouted “Stop bludging!” out the window, he’d run faster. Tommy, guilty as all buggery, would look out the back, and Clay watching till the car dropped out of sight. He’d see the bad haircut getting smaller and smaller, and that was how it was: It might have looked like we were training him.
But really, we weren’t even close.
Through time the words became less and less, the methods more and more. We all knew what he wanted, but not what he was going to do with it.
What the hell was Clay Dunbar training for?
* * *
—
At six-thirty, tulips at his feet, he leaned forward, into the cemetery fence. It was nice and high, this place; Clay liked it. He watched the sun, grazing amongst the skyscrapers.
Cities.
This city.
Down there, the traffic was herded home. The lights changed. The Murderer came.
“Excuse me?”
Nothing. He tightened his grip on the fence.
“Young man?”
He looked over now and an old woman was pointing, sipping her lips. They must have been tasty.
“Would you mind?” She had shapeless eyes, a tired dress, and she was wearing stockings. The heat meant nothing to her. “Would you mind if I asked for one of those flowers?”
Clay looked into the deep wrinkle, a long streak above her eyes. He handed her a tulip.
“Thank you, thank you, young man. For my William.”
The boy nodded and followed her through the open gate; he navigated the graves. When he got there he crouched he stood he folded his arms he faced the evening sun. He had no idea how long it took for Henry and Tommy to be either side, and the dog, tongue out, at the epitaphs. Each boy stood, slouched yet stiff, hands in pockets. If the dog had pockets, she’d have had her paws in them, too, for sure. All attention was then given to the gravestone and the flowers in front of it, wilting before their eyes.
“No daisies?”
Clay looked over.
Henry shrugged. “Okay, Tommy.”
“What?”
“Hand it over, it’s his turn.”
Clay held out his hand. He knew what to do.
He took the Mr. Sheen and sprayed the metal plate. Next he was handed the arm of a grey T-shirt and gave the memorial a good rub, a good wipe.
“You missed a bit.”
“Where?”
“Are you blind, Tommy, right there, in the corner, look there, are your eyes painted on?”
Clay watched them speak, then gave it a circular polish, and now the sleeve was black; the city’s dirty mouth. All three of them were in singlets and old shorts. All three of them tightened their jaws. Henry gave Tommy a wink. “Good work, Clay, time to go, huh? Don’t want to be late for the main event.”
Tommy and the dog followed first, always the same.
Then Clay.
When he joined them, Henry said, “Good cemeteries make good neighbors.” Honestly, his crap was endless.
Tommy said, “I hate coming here, you know that, don’t you?”
And Clay?
Clay—who was the quiet one, or the smiler—only turned, one last time, and stared across the sunlit district of statues, crosses, and gravestones.
They looked like runners-up trophies.
Every last one.
Back at 18 Archer Street, relations were at a stalemate in the kitchen.
The Murderer backed slowly away, into the rest of the house. Its silence was something awesome—an enormous playground for the guilt to wreak havoc, to work him over—but it was also a deception. The fridge hummed, the mule breathed, and there were more animals in there, too. Now that he’d reversed into the hallway, he could sense the movement. Was the Murderer being sniffed out and hunted down?
Not likely.
No, the animals didn’t remotely pose a threat; it was the two eldest of us he feared most.
I was the responsible one:
The long-standing breadwinner.
Rory was the invincible one:
The human ball and chain.
* * *
—
Around six-thirty, Rory was across the street, leaning against a telegraph pole, smiling wry and rueful, smiling just for laughs; the world was filthy, and so was he. After a short search, he pulled a long strand of girls’ hair from his mouth. Whoever she was, she was out there somewhere, she lay open-legged in Rory’s head. A girl we’ll never know, or see.
A moment earlier, he’d run into a girl we did know, a girl named Carey Novac. It was just beyond her driveway.
She smelt like horse, she’d called out hi.
She’d jumped off her old bike.
She had good-green eyes and auburn hair—miles of it down her back—and she gave him a message, for Clay. It had to do with a book; one of three important to everything. “Tell him I’m still loving Buonarroti, okay?”
Rory was taken aback, but didn’t move. Only his mouth. “Borna-who?”
The girl laughed on her way to the garage. “Just tell him, okay?” But then she took pity, she tilted back, all freckly-armed and sure. There was a kind of generosity to her, of heat and sweat and life. “You know,” she said, “Michelangelo?”
“What?” Now he was even more confused. The girl’s mad, he thought. Sweet but totally mad. Who gives a shit about Michelangelo?
But somehow the thought endured.
He found that pole, he leaned a while, then crossed the road for home. Rory was a bit on the hungry side.
* * *
—
As for me, I was in there, out there, trapped in traffic.
Around, in front, and behind, thousands of cars were all lined up, all pointed the way of assorted homes. A steady wave of heat came through the window of my station wagon (the one I still own), and there was an endless cavalcade of billboards, shopfronts and people portions. With every movement, the city plowed inside, but there was also my signature smell of wood, wool and varnish.
I let my forearm poke from the car.
My body felt like lumber.
Both my hands were sticky with glue and turpentine, and all I wanted was to get home. I could have a shower then, and organize dinner, and maybe read, or watch an old movie.
That wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?
Just get home and relax?
Not a Goddamn chance.
On days like these, Henry had rules.
First, there had to be beer.
Second, it had to be cold.
For those reasons, he left Tommy, Clay, and Rosy at the cemetery and would meet them later, at Bernborough Park.
(Bernborough Park, for those unfamiliar with this neighborhood, is an old athletics field. Back then it was a crumbling grandstand, and a good car park’s worth of broken glass. It was also the venue of Clay’s most infamous training days.) Before Henry got in the car, though, he felt it necessary to give Tommy some last-minute instructions. Rosy listened, too: “If I’m late getting down there, tell ’em to hold their horses, right?”
“Sure, Henry.”
“And tell them to have their money ready.”
“Sure, Henry.”
“Are you right with the ‘Sure bloody Henrys,’ Tommy?”
“I’m right.”
“Keep going like this and I’ll put you out there in front of him as well. Do you want that?”