Bridge of Clay(126)

It looked like Matador got it, and it sounded that way, too—for a hush blew over the crowd.

She looked at him.

She held him, single-handed.

Her freckles nearly exploded.

He won.

She thought it but didn’t speak, and it was lucky she didn’t, too, because it was the greatest run they’d ever seen, or been part of in the stands, and there was a poetry, they knew, to the thought of it.

So close, so close, then gone.

The photo somehow proved it:

Queen of Hearts won by her nostrils.



* * *



—

“Her nostrils, her fucking nostrils!” called Petey afterwards, in the confines of the stalls—but this time McAndrew was smiling.

    When he saw Carey so hurt and dejected, he came over and took a look at her. Almost an examination. She thought he might check her feet.

“And what the hell happened to you? The horse is still alive, isn’t he?”

“He should have won.”

“Should’ve nothing—it was something we’ve never seen, a run like that,” and now he made her look at him, in the hard blue eyes of a scarecrow. “That, and you’ll get that Group One for him one day, okay?”

The beginnings of a kind of happiness.

“Okay, Mr. McAndrew.”



* * *



—

From there, Carey Novac, the girl from Gallery Road, would start her apprenticeship in earnest. She started on January 1.

She’d be essentially working round the clock now.

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.