She’d left in the morning and was supposedly staying the night at Kelly Entwistle’s house, but caught a train to the city instead. Late afternoon, she stood for close to an hour, outside the McAndrew Stables; the small office in need of a paint job. When finally she could loiter no longer, she walked in and faced the desk. McAndrew’s wife was behind it. She was in the midst of a mathematical working-out, and chewing a ball of gum.
“Excuse me?” Carey asked, outrageously jittery and quiet. “I’m after Mr. Ennis?”
The woman looked at her; she was permed and Stimoroled, then curious. “I think you might mean McAndrew.”
“Oh yeah, sorry.” She half smiled. “I’m a bit nervous,” and now the woman noticed; she’d reached up and lowered her glasses. In one motion she’d gone from clueless to all summed up.
“You wouldn’t be old Trackwork Ted’s daughter, would you?”
Shit!
“Yes, Miss.”
“Your mum and dad know you’re here?”
Carey’s hair was in a braid, wired tautly down her head. “No, Miss.”
There was almost remorse, almost regret. “Good lord, girl, did you get here on your own?”
“Yes, I got the train. And the bus.” She almost started babbling. “Well, I got the wrong bus the first time.” She controlled it. “Mrs. McAndrew, I’m looking for a job.”
And there, right there, she had her.
She’d stuck a pen in the curls of her hair.
“How old are you again?”
“Fourteen.”
The woman laughed and sniffed.
* * *
—
Sometimes she heard them talking at night, in the confines of the kitchen.
Ted and Catherine.
Catherine the Great and Belligerent.
“Look,” said Ted. “If she’s going to do it, Ennis is the best. He’ll look after her. He doesn’t even let ’em live in the stables—they have to have proper homes.”
“What a guy.”
“Hey—be careful.”
“Okay,” but she was hardly softening. “You know it’s not him, it’s the game.”
Carey stood in the hallway.
Pajamas of shorts and singlet.
Warm and sticky feet.
Her toes in the streak of light.
“Oh, you and the bloody game,” said Ted. He got up and walked to the sink. “The game gave me everything.”
“Yeah.” Sincere damnation. “Ulcers, collapsing. How many broken bones?”
“Don’t forget the athlete’s foot.”
He was trying to lighten the mood.
It didn’t work.
She went on, the damnation went on, it darkened the girl in the hall. “That’s our daughter in there, and I want her to live—not go through the hell that you did, or what the boys will….”
Sometimes they rumble through me, those words, and they’re hot, like the hooves of Thoroughbreds: I want her to live.
I want her to live.
Carey had told Clay that once; she’d told him one night at The Surrounds.
And Catherine the Great was right.
She was right about all of everything.
We found him upstream where the river gums start.
What could we possibly say?
Michael mostly stood with him; he put his hand on him very gently, till we quietly made our way down.
* * *
—
I stayed the night, I had to.
Clay made me sleep in his bed, while he sat propped against the wall. Six times I woke in the night, and Clay had remained quite upright.
By the seventh he’d finally fallen.
He was sideways, asleep on the floor.
* * *
—
Next morning, he took only the contents of his pocket: The feel of a fading peg.
On the drive home, he sat beside me very straightly. He kept looking into the rearview, expecting to almost see her.
At one point he said, “Pull over.”
He thought he might throw up, but he was just cold, so cold, and he thought she might catch up, but he sat by the roadside alone.
“Clay?”
I said it close to a dozen times.
We walked back to the car and drove on.
* * *
—
The newspapers talked about one of the best young jockey prospects in decades. They talked of old Mr. McAndrew, who, in the pictures, was a broken broomstick. They talked about a family of jockeys, and how her mother had wanted to stop her—to forbid her from joining the game. Her brothers would come from the country, to make it in time for the funeral.
They spoke of ninety percent:
Ninety percent of jockeys are injured every year.
They talked about a tough business, predominantly flimsy pay, and one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
* * *
—
But what about what they didn’t say in the papers?
The papers didn’t talk about the sun when first they’d spoken—so near, and huge, beside her. Or its glowing of light on her forearms. They didn’t mention the sound of her footsteps, when she came to The Surrounds, and the way she rustled closer. They didn’t mention The Quarryman, and how she would read and always return it. Or how she’d loved his broken nose. What good were newspapers anyway?
On top of everything else, they didn’t mention if there was an autopsy, or if the previous night was upon her; they were certain it was instant. Taken, like that, so quickly.
McAndrew was retiring.
They claimed it wasn’t his fault, and they were right; it was the game and these things happened, and his care for his jockeys was exemplary.
They all said it, but he needed a rest.
Much like Catherine Novac, way back from the start, the horse protectionists called it tragic, but so was the death of horses—overrun and overbred. The game was killing all of them, they said.
But Clay knew the answer was him.
* * *
—
At home, when we arrived, we sat in the car a long time.
We turned into our father, after Penny died.
Just sitting. Just staring.
Even if there had been Tic Tacs or Anticols, I’m sure we wouldn’t have eaten them.
Clay thought it, over and again:
It wasn’t the game, it was me, it was me.
And credit to the rest of them, they came.
They came and sat in the car with us, and at first all they said was “Hi, Clay.” Tommy, as the youngest and greenest, tried to talk about the good things, like the day she came and met us—in waters still to come—and how she’d walked right through the house.
“Remember that, Clay?”
Clay said nothing.
“Remember when she met Achilles?”
* * *
—
This time he didn’t run anymore, he only walked the maze of suburbs; the streets and fields of the racing quarter.
He didn’t eat, and didn’t sleep, and couldn’t shake that feeling of seeing her. She was a girl at the edge of everything.
As for the rest of us, it was so clear how hard it had hit him, but we barely knew the half of it—and how could we understand? We didn’t know that they met at The Surrounds. We didn’t know about the night before, or the lighter, or Kingston Town or Matador, or Carey Novac in the eighth. Or the bed we’d failed to burn.
When our father called us up, a few nights in a row, Clay just shook his head at me. I said we’d take good care of him.
* * *
—
And the funeral?
It could only be one of those bright-lit things, even if they held it indoors.
The church was totally packed.
People came out of the woodwork, from racing identities to radio hosts. Everyone wanted to know her. So many knew her best.
No one even saw us.
They didn’t hear his countless confessions.
We were buried down deep in the back.
* * *
—
For a long time, he couldn’t face it.
He would never go back to the bridge.
What he did was feign alrightness:
He came to work with me.
When our father called, he talked to him.
He was the perfect teenage charlatan.
In the night, he watched the house diagonally across the street, and the shadows moving within. He wondered where the lighter was. Had she left it under her bed? Was it still in the old wooden box down there, with the letter folded within?
There was no sitting on the roof, not anymore—only the front porch, and not sitting, but standing, leaning forward.
* * *
—
One evening he walked to Hennessey, the grandstands gaping casually.
A small crowd was by the stables.
They gathered at the fence.