“She had a right to be upset,” I said, but soon I started to flounder. I was lost in the cream of her shirt, and the way it had waves and ripples. “I mean, what are the odds?” Could a shirt be somehow tidal? “Turning around at that exact moment—” It jumped from my mouth and I knew it. What a mistake!
“Are you saying it was her fault?”
“No! I—”
She was giving me a hiding!
She was holding those papers now. She smiled gently, reassuringly. “Matthew, it’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it that way—”
I sat on a graffitied desk.
The usual teenage subtlety:
A deskful of Goddamn penises.
How could I possibly resist?
It was then she stopped talking and took a silent, brazen risk—and it was that that I first fell in love with.
She laid her palm down on my arm.
Her hand was warm and slim.
“To tell you the truth,” she said, “so much worse happens here every day, but with Rory, it’s one more thing.” She was on our side, she was showing me. “It’s not an excuse, but he’s hurting—and he’s a boy,” and she killed me, like this, in an instant. “Am I right, or am I right?”
All she’d had to do was wink at me then, but she didn’t, for which I was grateful—for she’d quoted something word for word, and soon she’d stepped away. She sat now herself, on a desk.
I had to give something back.
I said, “You know,” and it hurt to swallow. The waters now still in her shirt. “The last person who ever told me that was our dad.”
* * *
—
In the running, something was coming.
Something sad, but mainly for me.
Through winter, we stayed consistent; we ran Bernborough, we ran the streets, and me then to coffee and kitchen, and Clay gone up to the roof.
When I timed him, the problem was awkward.
The runner’s most dreaded dilemma:
He ran harder, but wasn’t getting faster.
We thought it was lack of adrenaline; motivation was suddenly thin. What else could he do but win State? The athletics season was still months away; no wonder he was feeling lethargic.
Clay, though, wasn’t buying it.
At his side, I talked him on.
“Up,” I said, “up. Come on, Clay. What would Liddell do, or Budd?”
I should have known I was being too nice to him.
* * *
—
When Rory was suspended that last time, I had him come to the job with me; I fixed it with the boss. Three days’ worth of carpet and floorboards, and one thing was certainly clear—he wasn’t allergic to work. He seemed disappointed when each day ended; and then he left school, it was final. I ended up almost begging them.
We sat in the principal’s office.
He’d snuck in and stolen the sandwich press from the science staff room. “They eat too much in there, anyway!” he’d explained. “I was doing ’em a bloody favor!”
Rory and I were on one side of the desk.
Claudia Kirkby, Mrs. Holland, the other.
Ms. Kirkby was in a dark suit and light blue shirt, Mrs. Holland, I can’t remember. What I do remember is her silver, sort of slicked-back hair, the softness of her crow’s feet, and the brooch on the pocket, on her left; it was a flannel flower, the school’s emblem.
“Well?” I said.
“Well, um, what?” she asked.
(Not the answer I was expecting.)
“Is he getting kicked out for good this time?”
“Well, I’m, um, not sure if that’s—”
I cut her off. “Let’s face it, he bloody deserves it.”
Rory ignited, almost with joy. “I’m sitting right here!”
“Look at him,” I said. They looked. “Shirt out, sneer on. Does he look like he cares even remotely about this? Does he look repentant—”
“Remotely?” Now it was Rory who interjected. “Repentant? Shit, Matthew, give us the dictionary, why don’t you?”
Holland knew. She knew I wasn’t stupid. “To be honest, um, we could have used you last year in our, um, year twelve cohort, Matthew. You never looked that interested, but you were, weren’t you?”
“Hey, I thought we were talking about me.”
“Shut up, Rory.” That was Claudia Kirkby.
“There, that’s better,” replied Rory. “Firm.” He was looking firmly somewhere else. She hugged her suit jacket a little tighter.
“Stop that,” I said.
“What?”
“You know.” But now I was back onto Holland. It was afternoon and I’d come home from work early to be well-dressed and clean-shaven, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t tired. “If you don’t expel him this time, I’m going to jump over this desk, rip off that principal’s badge, pin it on me, and expel the bastard myself!”
Rory was so excited he almost clapped.
Claudia Kirkby somberly nodded.
The principal felt for the badge. “Well, I’m, um, not so sure—”
“Do it!” cried Rory.
And to everyone’s surprise, she did.
She methodically did the paperwork, and suggested surrounding schools, but I said we didn’t need them, he was going to work, and we shook hands and that was it; we left them both behind us.
Halfway to the car park, I ran back. Was it for us, or Claudia Kirkby? I knocked on the door, I reentered the room, and they were both inside, still talking.
I said, “Ms. Kirkby, Mrs. Holland, I apologize. I’m sorry for your trouble, and just—thanks.” It was crazy, but I started sweating. It was the truly sympathetic look on her face, I think, and the suit, and the gold-colored earrings. The small hoops that circled a glint there. “And also—and sorry to ask this now, but I’ve always been caught up with Rory—so I’ve never asked how Henry and Clay are doing.”
Mrs. Holland deferred to Ms. Kirkby.
“They’re doing fine, Matthew.” She’d stood up. “They’re good kids,” and she smiled and didn’t wink.
“Believe it or not,” and I nodded to the doorway, “so’s that one out there.”
“I know.”
I know.
She said I know, and it stayed with me a long time, but it started outside at the wall. For a while I hoped she’d come out, as I leaned, half bruising my shoulder blades, but there was only the voice of Rory.
“Oi,” he said, “you coming?”
At the car he asked, “Can I drive?”
I said, “Don’t even Goddamn think about it.”
He got a job by the end of the week.
* * *
—
And so winter turned into spring.
Clay’s times were still much slower, and it happened, a Sunday morning.
Since Rory got his job as a panel beater, he worked hard at the trade of drinking. He started taking up and breaking up with girls. There were names and observations; one I remember was Pam, and Pam was blond hair and bad breath.
“Shit,” said Henry, “did you tell her that?”
“Yeah,” said Rory, “she slapped me. Then dumped me and asked for a mint. Not necessarily in that order.”
He would stumble back home in the mornings—and the Sunday was mid-October. As Clay and I headed for Bernborough, Rory was staggering in.
“Jesus, look at the state of you.”
“Yeah, good one, Matthew, thanks. Where are you two bastards going?”
Typical Rory:
In jeans and a beer-soaked jacket, he had no problems staying with us—and Bernborough was typical, too.
The sunrise looted the grandstand.
We did the first 400 together.
I told Clay, “Eric Liddell.”
Rory grinned.
It was more like a dirty smirk.
On the second lap he entered the jungle.
He had to take a leak.
By the fourth he’d gone to sleep.
Before the last 400, though, Rory seemed nearer to sober. He looked at Clay, he looked at me. He shook his head in contempt.
On the fiery hue of the track, I said, “What’s the matter with you?”
Again, that smirky smile.
“You’re wrong,” he said, and he glanced at Clay, but the assault was aimed at me. “Matthew,” he said, “you’re kidding, aren’t you? You must know why it’s not happening.” He looked ready to come and shake me. “Come on, Matthew, think. All that nice romantic shit. He won State—so fucking what? He couldn’t care any less.”
But how could this be happening?
How could Rory be knowing such perfect things, and altering Dunbar history?
“Look at him!” he said.
I looked.
“He doesn’t want this—this…goodness.” To Clay now. “Do you want it, kid?”
And Clay had shaken his head.