There was no time for anything, or anyone else.
She’d be riding now, more trackwork and into barrier trials, and start begging, internally, for races. From the outset she was told by McAndrew: “If you pester me, you’ll never get anything.”
She would gladly put her head down, keep her mouth shut, and do the work.
* * *
—
As for Clay, he was determined.
He knew she had to leave him.
He could make her stay away.
He’d already planned to start training again, as hard as he could, and Henry was ready, too. They’d sat together up on the roof one night, and Miss January was in on everything. They’d get a key for Crapper’s apartment block, and make a comeback at Bernborough Park. There’d be money, and plenty of gambling.
“Done?” said Henry.
“Done.”
They shook hands and it was appropriate, really, for Henry was letting go, too—of that woman of great anatomy. For whatever reason, he decided:
He folded her up and laid her down, on the slanted slab of roof tiles.
* * *
—
The evening of December 31, Carey and Clay went down to Bernborough.
They ran a lap of the decimated track.
The stand gone to hell in the sunset; but a hell you’d gladly enter.
They stood and he clenched the peg.
He held it slowly out.
He said, “Now I need to tell you,” and he told her all of everything, of those waters always to come. They were ten meters short of the finish line, and Carey, she listened in silence; she squeezed the peg through his hand.
When he’d told her the story entirely, he said, “Do you see now? Do you see? I took a year and I never deserved it. A year with you. You can never, ever stay with me.” He looked at the infield, that jungleland, and thought there was no disputing it, but Carey Novac could never be beaten. No—horses could lose, but not Carey; and damn her for this, but we can love her, because this is what she did next.
* * *
—
She turned his face and she held it.
She took and she handled the peg.
She held it up slow to her lips.
She said, “God, Clay, you poor kid, you poor boy, you poor kid…” The grandstand lit her hair. “She was right, you know, Abbey Hanley—she said beautiful—can’t you see it?” Up close she was light but visceral, she could keep you alive with her pleading; the pain in her good-green eyes. “Can’t you see I’ll never leave you, Clay? Can’t you see I’ll never leave?”
Clay looked like he might fall then.
Carey wrapped him tightly.
She just held him and hugged him and whispered to him, and he felt all her bones within her. She smiled and cried and smiled. She said, “Go to The Surrounds. Go on Saturday night.” She kissed him on the neck there, and pressed the words all down. “I’ll never leave you, ever—” and that’s how I like to remember them:
I see her holding him, hard at Bernborough.
They’re a boy, a girl and a peg.
I see the track, and that fire, behind them.
At 18 Archer Street, I was elated, but tempered by sadness.
Clay was packing his bag.
For a while, we stood together, out on the old back porch, and Rosy was down on the couch. She slept on the ball-less beanbag, which we’d thrown, all worn, on top of it.
Achilles was under the clothesline.
He chewed his way into mourning.
* * *
—
We stood till the sky had paled into view, and soon the perfection of brothers, who said nothing but knew he was going.
See, when Clay told us there was one more thing to do, and that Tommy should get the turpentine, but no matches, we all walked silently out. We walked to The Surrounds.
We stood with the household monuments: Their distance and downtroddenness.
We walked to the mattress and stayed with him, and said nothing of the plastic sheet; no, all we did was stand, as the lighter came out of his pocket. In the other he still had the peg.
We stood till Tommy doused it, and the flame stood straightly upwards. Clay crouched down with the lighter, and first the bed resisted, but soon came roaring on. That sound, the sound of surf.
The field lit up.
The five of us stood.
Five boys and a burning mattress.
* * *
—
When we went back inside, The Surrounds remained.
There hadn’t been close to a westerly.
He’d go alone to Central Station.
He hugged each of us warmly, and separate.
After Tommy he finished with me—and both of us told him to wait, at different moments—and me, I lifted the piano lid, and reached through the dress for its button. The books, I could tell, should wait.
He held it, the button from Vienna.
She was back in the grip of decision.
It was worn but pristine in his palm.
* * *
—
As for Tommy, it was close to ten minutes after, when the rest of us stood on the porch, and watched Clay walk away, and he did something utterly crazy: He trusted Rory to look after Hector.
“Here,” he said quickly, “hold him.”
For both Rory and Hector there was shock, and not a small amount of distrust. As they eyed each other closely, Tommy raced in through the house, and soon came running back round.
* * *
—
We stood and we looked at Clay.
And Tommy was running down after him.
“Clay!” he screamed. “Hey, Clay!”
And of course he was taking Achilles—and the mule, amazingly, was running. He was running! You could hear the hollowing hoofbeats, as the boy ran him down the street; and Clay had turned to meet them, and looked at the boy and the beast.
There wasn’t even a moment.
Not a second of hesitation.
It was how it was meant to be, and his hand came out for the reins.
“Thanks, Tommy.”
It was quiet but all of us heard, and he turned and he walked and took him, as full morning had come to hit Archer Street—and we all went downwards to Tommy. We watched as they left us behind.
In there, out in the suburbs-world, a boy walked the streets with a mule. They set out for a bridge in Silver, and took the darkest waters with them.
Once—and I write this at least ALMOST for the last few times—in the tide of Dunbar past, there was a woman who told us she would die, and the world ended that night, in that kitchen. There were boys on the floor, they were burning; and the sun came up the next morning.
All of us woke up early.
Our dreams were like flight, like turbulence.
By six o’clock, even Henry and Rory were mostly awake; our notorious sleeper-inners.
It was March, and awash with leftovers from summer, and we stood together, in the hallway—skinny arms and anchored shoulders. We stood but we were stuck there. We wondered what to do.
Our dad came out and tried; a hand on each of our necks.
An attempt at some sort of comfort.
The problem was, when he walked away, we saw him take hold of the curtains, and one hand on the piano; he hung on, his body was shaking. The sun was warm and wavy, and we were quiet in the hall, behind him.
He assured us he was okay.
When he turned and came to face us, though, his aqua eyes were lightless.
* * *
—
As for us:
Henry, Clay, and I were in singlets and old shorts.
Rory and Tommy wore just underwear.
It was what they’d gone to sleep in.
All of us tightened our jaws.
The hallway was full of tiredness, of boyish legs and shins. All outside their bedroom—strung toward the kitchen.
* * *
—
When she came out, she was dressed for work, in jeans and a dark blue shirt. The buttons were slits of metal. Her hair was braided down the back; she looked ready to go out riding or something, and cautiously, we watched her—and Penelope couldn’t help it.
She was blond and braidwork, beaming.
“What’s got into you lot?” she asked. “No one died, did they?”
And that was what eventually did it: She laughed but Tommy cried, and she crouched down close and held him—and then came all the rest of us, in singlets, shorts and falling.
“Too much?” she asked, and she knew it was, from being smeared by all those bodies.
She felt the clench of boys’ arms.
Our dad looked helplessly on.
So there she was.