* * *
—
At last, it came, though, it had to.
A Wednesday afternoon.
The meeting was at Rosehill, and the horse was a miler named Arkansas.
Clay was alone in the riverbed.
It had rained in the city for days, and she’d kept him on the inside run. While the other jockeys took their horses, quite rightly, out to firmer ground, Carey had listened to McAndrew. He’d told her wise and drily: “Just take him right through the slop, kid. Keep him on the rail—I almost want paint marks on him when you bring him in, got it?”
“Got it.”
But McAndrew could see the doubt in her. “Look—no one’s run there all day, it might hold up, and you’ll be racing him a few strides shorter.”
“Peter Pan once won the Cup like that.”
“No,” he corrected her, “he didn’t—he did the opposite, he ran out wide, but the whole track was slopped to bits.”
For Carey this was a rare mistake; it must have been nerves, and McAndrew smiled, halfway—as much as he ever did on race day. A lot of his jockeys didn’t even know who Peter Pan was. The horse or the fictional character.
“Just win the bloody thing.”
And she did.
* * *
—
In the riverbed, Clay rejoiced:
He laid a hand on a plank of the scaffold. He’d heard drinking men say things like “Just give me four beers and you’ll never get the smile off me,” and that was how this was for him.
She’d won one.
He imagined her bringing him in, and the gleam and the clock hands, McAndrew. On the radio, they would soon cross to Flemington, down south, and the commentator finished with laughter. He said, “Look at her, the jockey, she’s hugging the tough old trainer—and take a look at McAndrew! Did you ever see someone look so uncomfortable?”
The radio laughed, and Clay laughed, too.
A pause, then back to work.
* * *
—
The next time he came home, he thought and dreamed on the train. He concocted a great many moments, for celebrating the win of Arkansas, but should have known it would always be different.
He went straight to the stands of Hennessey.
He watched her race for two fourths and a third. And then her second first. It was a sprinter called Blood on the Brain, owned by a wealthy undertaker. Apparently, all the horses he owned were named for fatal conditions: Embolism, Heart Attack, Aneurysm. His favorite was Influenza. “Very underrated,” he’d say, “but a killer.”
For Blood on the Brain, she’d kept him nice and relaxed, and brought him through on the turn. When she came in, Clay watched McAndrew.
He was tight but thrilled in his navy blue suit.
He could almost read his lips.
“Don’t even think of hugging me.”
“Don’t worry,” she’d said, “not this time.”
* * *
—
Afterwards, Clay walked home.
He crossed the Hennessey floodgates, out through the smoke of the car park, and the bright red rows of taillights. He turned onto Gloaming Road, which was suitably noisy and choked.
Hands in pockets.
The city folding in, at evening, then—
“Hey!”
He turned.
“Clay!”
She appeared from around the gate.
She’d changed from out of her racing silks, in jeans and shirt, but barefoot. Her smile, again, like the straight.
“Wait up, Clay! Wait up—” And he could feel the heat and blood in her, as she caught him and stood five meters away, and he said to her, “Blood on the Brain.” Then smiled, and told her, “Arkansas.”
* * *
—
She stepped through the dark, and half leapt at him.
She almost tackled him down.
Her heartbeat like a storm front—but warm, inside his jacket—and that traffic still trapped, still standstill.
She hugged him terribly hard.
People walked past and saw, but neither of them cared to notice.
Her feet were on his shoes.
What she said in the pool of his collarbone.
He felt the beams of her bony ribcage, a scaffolding all of its own, as she hugged him fierce and friendless: “I missed you, do you know that?”
He squeezed her and it hurt but they liked it; and the soft of her chest hardened flat.
He said, “I missed you, too.”
When they lessened, she asked him, “Later?”
And, “Of course,” he said. “I’ll go there.”
They would go there and they’d be disciplined—their rules and regulations; unsaid but always sensed. She would itch but nothing-more him. Nothing more but tell him everything, and not saying that this was the best of it—her feet on top of his.
In the past there were hardening facts.
Our mother was dead.
Our father had fled.
Clay searched for him after a week.
In its lead-up, with every passing hour, something in him was building, but he didn’t quite know what it was; like nerves before a football game, but it never seemed able to dissolve. Maybe the difference was that football games were played. You ran out onto the field; it began, it ended. But not this. This was constant beginning.
* * *
—
Like all of us, Clay missed him in a strangely worn-out way.
It was hard enough missing Penny.
At least with her you knew what to do with it; the beauty of death—it’s definite. With our dad there were too many questions, and thoughts were much more dangerous: How could he leave us?
Where did he go?
Was he okay?
That morning a week later, when Clay found himself awake, he stood and dressed in the bedroom. Soon, he made his way out; he had to fill that space. His reaction was sudden and simple.
He got to the street and ran.
* * *
—
As I said, he went Dad! DAD! WHERE ARE YOU, DAD?!
But he wasn’t quite able to shout.
The morning was cool with spring.
He’d run hard when he first slipped out, then walked the early darkness. In a rush of fear and excitement, he didn’t know where he was going. When he’d started the internal calling, he’d soon discovered he was lost. He got lucky and wandered home.
Upon arrival, I was on the porch.
I walked down and took his collar.
I held him, one-armed, against me.
Like I said, I’d turned eighteen.
I thought I should try to act it.
“You okay?” I asked, and he’d nodded.
The stomach-feeling had eased.
* * *
—
The second time he did it, the very next day, I wasn’t quite as forgiving; there was still a reach for his collar, but I dragged him across the lawn.
“What the hell are you thinking?” I asked. “What the hell are you doing?”
But Clay was happy, he couldn’t help it; he’d quelled it again, momentarily.
“Are you even listening?”
We stopped at the fly-screen door.
The boy was barefoot-dirty.
I said, “You have to promise me.”
“Promise what?”
It was the first time he noticed the blood down there, like rust between his toes; he liked it and he smiled at it, he liked that blood a lot.
“Take a Goddamn guess! Stop bloody disappearing!”
It’s bad enough he’s disappeared.
I thought it but couldn’t yet say it.
“Okay,” he said, “I won’t.”
Clay promised.
Clay lied.
He did it every morning for weeks.
* * *
—
Sometimes we went out, we searched for him.
Looking back, I wonder why.
He wasn’t in abject peril—the worst would be losing his way again—but it somehow felt important; another holding-on. We’d lost our mother and then our father, so we couldn’t lose any more. We simply wouldn’t allow it. That said, we wouldn’t be nice to him, either; he got dead-legged upon return, at the mercy of Rory and Henry.
The problem, already back then, though, was that it didn’t matter how much we hurt him; we couldn’t hurt him. Or how much we held him; we couldn’t hold him. He’d be gone next day again.
Once, we actually found him out there.
It was a Tuesday, seven a.m.
I was going to be late for work.
The city was cool and cloudy, and it was Rory who caught a glimpse. We were several blocks east, where Rogilla met Hydrogen Avenue.
“There!” he said.