Bridge of Clay(128)

* * *



—

It was Ennis McAndrew who drove him there, in a truck and horse trailer combined. At least three months had passed them by since Clay had gone and faced him.

The great thing was that McAndrew was training again, and when he saw him with Achilles at Hennessey, he shook his head and came over, and dropped everything.

He said, “Well, look what the bloody cat dragged in.”



* * *



—

They’d driven much of the way in silence, and when they spoke, they spoke looking outwards; the world beyond the windshield.

Clay asked him about The Spaniard.

And the opera singer, Pavarotti.

“Pava-what?”

His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

    “You called Trackwork Ted that once—when you saw him at Gallery Road. You took two young jockeys to see him, remember? To watch him, and learn to ride?” But now Clay looked away from the windshield, and out the window instead. Those reams of empty space. “Once, she told me the story.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Ennis McAndrew, and he drove on very thoughtfully. “Those jockeys were effing worthless.”

“Effing?”

“Worthless.”

But then they returned to hurting again.

There was guilt for enjoying anything.

Especially the joy of forgetting.



* * *



—

When they made it to the turnoff, Clay said he could take it from there, but Ennis wouldn’t have a bar of it. “I want to meet your father,” he said. “I want to see this bridge. Might as bloody well…We’ve come too far for me not to.”

They drove the open hill, then turned down into the corridor, and the eucalypts were always the same. They were gathered, and waited around down there, like muscled-up thighs in the shade. A football team of trees.

When McAndrew saw them, he noticed.

“Jesus,” he said, “look at them.”



* * *



—

On the other side, in the light, they saw him in the riverbed, and the bridge remained the same. No work had been done for several months, since I’d sunk to my knees in the dirt: The curvature, the wood and stone.

The pieces stood waiting for this.

They climbed from out of the truck.

When they stood by the riverbed and looked, it was Ennis who’d spoken first. “When it’s finished, it’s going to be magnificent, isn’t it?” and Clay was matter-of-fact.

He answered only “Yes.”



* * *



—

    When they opened the trailer, and brought the animal out, they walked him down to the bedrock, and the mule looked dutifully around. He studied the dry of the river. It was Clay with a pair of questions.

“What?” he asked the animal.

“What’s so unusual about this?”

Well, where’s the bloody water?

But Clay knew it was coming, and at some point, so would the mule.



* * *



—

In the meantime, Ennis shook hands with Michael.

They spoke drily, like friends, as equals.

McAndrew had quoted Henry.

He pointed to the bridles and hay.

He said, “That stuff you can probably do something with, but the animal’s totally useless.”

Michael Dunbar knew how to answer, though, and almost absently, he looked at Clay, and the knowingness embodied in the mule. He said, “You know, I wouldn’t be totally sure of that—he’s pretty good at breaking and entering.”

But again there was guilt and embarrassment, and if McAndrew and Clay knew to quell it, the Murderer knew he should, too.



* * *



—

For a while they watched the mule—the slow and meandering Achilles—as he steadily climbed from the riverbed and began his work in the field; he stooped and mildly chewed.

Without thinking, McAndrew spoke; he motioned slightly but surely at the boy.

“Mr. Dunbar, take it easy on him, okay—” and this time, finally, he said it. “He’s got a heart like Goddamn Phar Lap.”

And Michael Dunbar agreed.

“You don’t even know the half of it.”



* * *



—

    Ten minutes later, once coffee and tea had been offered, and declined, McAndrew started for home. He shook hands with the boy and his father again, and made his way back into the trees; Clay went running after him.

“Mr. McAndrew!”

In the shade, the truck stopped, and the broomstick trainer got out. He walked from the dark to the light. He exhaled. “Call me Ennis, for Christ’s sake.”

“Okay, Ennis,” and now Clay looked away. The pair of them were baked in sunshine, like kindling of boy and old man. He said, “You know—you know Carey…”—and it hurt just to say her name—“you know her bike?” Ennis nodded and came closer. “I know the combination for the lock—it’s thirty-five-twenty-seven,” and Ennis knew the number immediately.

Those figures, that horse.