He liked her garrulous hair (you’d think it was hair that talked, he said), and she was skinny and country-real.
In the lead-up to spring carnival, Cootamundra won twice more, against better, more experienced fields. She told Clay she loved this kind of front-running horse, how they were the bravest ones. It was a howling Saturday night. The pair of them at The Surrounds. “He just gets out and runs,” she’d said, and the wind flung up the words.
Even when he ran second (the first time ever for Carey), the owner presented her with a gift: a fresh-bought consolation beer.
“Really?” said old McAndrew. “Give that bloody thing here.”
“Oh, shit—sorry, kid.”
He was one of those hard-boiled businessmen, a lawyer—deep-voiced and commanding—and always like he’d just had lunch; and you could bet it had been a good one.
* * *
—
By October, the bridge was slowly forming, and the prestigious spring races started.
It was partly here at home, but mostly south at Flemington, and other fabled tracks down there; like Caulfield, Moonee Valley.
McAndrew was taking three horses.
One was Cootamundra.
There was discussion now with Sinclair. Where before he’d seen Carey’s promise—and self-glory through association—that second-placing had got him wondering. Till now they could often claim; that is, they could race him at lighter weight, because the jockey was only an apprentice. In the big ones that wasn’t the case. One afternoon, she heard them; it was in McAndrew’s office, of schedules and unwashed breakfast plates. Carey was outside, eavesdropping, her ear against the fly screen.
“Look, I’m just exploring the options, okay?” said the thick-voiced Harris Sinclair. “I know she’s good, Ennis, but this is Group One.”
“It’s a horse race.”
“It’s the Sunline-Northerly Stakes!”
“Yes, but—”
“Ennis, listen—”
“No, you listen.” The scarecrow voice cut through her. “This isn’t emotional, it’s because she’s the rider of the horse—that’s it. If she’s injured, suspended, or turns into a cake shop in the next three weeks, fair enough, we’ll change her, but as it is? The thing isn’t broken so I’m not gonna fix it. You have to trust me on this one, okay?”
There was a chasm of doubtful silence, before McAndrew spoke again.
“Who’s the bloody trainer, anyway?”
“Okay…,” said Harris Sinclair—and the girl tripped back and ran.
She forgot all about her bike chained up at the fence line, and ran home to Ted and Catherine. Even in the night, the thrill of it was too much, she couldn’t sleep, so she escaped, she went out, she lay down on her own at The Surrounds.
Unfortunately, what she hadn’t heard were the words that were spoken next.
“But, Ennis,” said Harris Sinclair, “I’m the owner.”
She was close, so close, then replaced.
Here, at 18 Archer Street, there were five of us who remained.
We were the Dunbar boys, we lived on.
Each in ways of our own.
Clay, of course, was the quiet one, but not before he was the strange one—the one who ran the racing quarter, and the boy you’d find on the roof. What a mistake to take him up there that day—he turned it forcefully straight into habit. As for his running the suburbs, we knew he would always come back now, to sit with the tiles and the view.
When I asked if I might run with him, he’d shrugged and we soon became: It was training, it was escaping.
It was perfect pain and happiness.
* * *
—
First, in between, there was Rory.
His goal was expulsion from school; he’d wanted to leave since kindergarten, and would take the opportunity. He made it clear I wasn’t his guardian, or parent by hostile takeover. He was frank and undeniable: Vandalism. Constant truancy.
Telling teachers where to stick their assignments.
Alcohol on school grounds.
(“It’s just a beer, I don’t see what you’re all so upset about!”) Of course, the only good thing to come of it was my meeting Claudia Kirkby; the first time he was suspended.
I remember knocking on her door, and going in, and the essays strewn on the desk. It was something on Great Expectations, and the top one got four out of twenty.
“Jesus, that isn’t Rory’s, is it?”
She made an attempt to tidy them. “No, Rory actually got one out of twenty—and that was for handing in paper. What he wrote was totally worthless.”
But we weren’t here for the essay.
“Suspended?” I asked.
“Suspended.”
She was candid but very friendly; it amazed me that she spoke with humor. Suspension was no laughing matter, but there was something in the tone of her. I think she was reassuring me. There were twelfth graders in this place who looked older than her, which made me strangely happy; if I’d stayed till the end myself, I’d have finished the previous year. Somehow that felt important.
Soon she got down to business, though.
“So, you’re okay with the suspension?”
I nodded.
“And your—”
I could tell she was about to say father. I hadn’t notified the school yet that he’d left us; they would find that out in due course.
“He’s away at the moment—and besides, I think I can cover it.”
“You’re—”
“I’m eighteen.”
It didn’t need to be justified, given I looked a little older, or maybe that’s just my perception. To me, Clay and Tommy always looked younger than they were. Even now, all these years later, I remind myself Tommy’s not six.
In her classroom, we talked on.
She told me it was only two days.
But then, of course, the other business:
They were certainly something to see—her calves, her shins—but not what I’d first imagined. They were just, I don’t know, hers. There’s no other way to say it.
“So you’ve seen the principal?” she interrupted, for I was lost in my glance down floorwards. When I looked up, I saw the writing on the board. It was neat and looped, in cursive. Something about Ralph and Piggy; the theme of Christianity. “You’ve spoken to Mrs. Holland?”
Again, I nodded.
“And, you know—I have to ask. Is it…do you think it’s because—”
I was caught in the warmth of her eyes.
She was like your morning coffee.
I recovered.
“Our mother dying?”
She didn’t say anything else then, but she didn’t look away from me, either. I spoke to the desk and its pages: “No.” I even went to touch one, to read it, but stopped myself in time. “He’s always been like this; it’s just now I think he’s decided.”
Twice more he would be suspended; more visits for me to the school—and to be honest, I wasn’t complaining.
It was Rory at his most romantic.
He was Puck with a pair of fists.
* * *
—
Next Henry, and Henry was on his way.
He was stick-skinny. A sinewy mind.
His first touch of genius was making money at the Naked Arms. It was all the middle-aged drinkers there, standing out the front. He noticed they all had dogs with them, and the dogs were overweight; as diabetic as their owners.
When he, Clay and Rory came back from the shops one night, he put his shopping bags down on the ground.
“What the hell are you doin’?” said Rory. “Pick those bloody bags up.”
Henry looked over. “Check that bunch of blokes out.” He was fourteen years old, and a mouth. “Look—they’ve all told the missus they’re walking the dog.”
“What?”
“Look there, are your eyes painted on? They go out for a walk, but come to the pub and drink. Look at the state of those retrievers!” Now he walked over. He gave them a turn of his smile, for the first but not the last time. “Any of you lazy bastards want me to walk your dogs?”
Of course, they loved him, they fell for him.
They were amused by the sheer audacity.
He made twenty a night for months.
* * *
—
Then Tommy, and what was to come:
Tommy got lost in the city; he was trying to find the museum.