Bridge of Clay(130)

—

It’s also a thing to see, when you see your father change.

You watch him fold in different places.

You see him sleep another way:

    He leans forward onto the ward bed.

He takes air but doesn’t breathe it.

Such pressure all held within.

It’s something fatigued and trodden-looking, and clothes that sigh at the seams. Like Penny would never be blond again, our dad would lose his physique. They were the dying of color and shape. It’s not just the death of them you see when you watch a person dying.



* * *



—

But then—she’d make it out.

Somehow, she’d climb from all of it, and traverse the hospital doors. She’d go straight back to work, of course, though death was at her shoulder.

No more hanging from the power lines for that old guy.

Or draping round the fridge.

But he was always out there somewhere:

On a train or a bus, or footpath.

On the way back home to here.



* * *



—

By November she was miraculous.

Eight months and she’d managed to live.

There was another two-week hospital stint, and the doctors were noncommittal, but sometimes they’d stop and tell us: “I don’t know how she’s done it. I’ve never seen anything so—”

“If you say aggressive,” said our dad, and he’d pointed, calmly, at Rory, “I’m going to— See that kid?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m going to tell him to beat you up.”

“Sorry—what?”

The doctor was quite alarmed, and Rory suddenly awoke—that sentence was better than smelling salts.

“Really?” He was almost rubbing his hands together. “Can I?”

“Of course not, I’m joking.”

But Rory tried to sell it. “Come on, Doc, after a while you won’t even feel it.”

    “You people,” said that particular specialist, “are totally out of your minds.”

To his left there was Penny’s laughter.

She laughed, then quelled the pain.

“Maybe that,” she said to the doctor, “is how I’ve been able to do it.”

She was a happy-sad creature in blankets.



* * *



—

On that occasion, when she came home, we’d decked out the entire house: Streamers, balloons, Tommy made a sign.

“You spelt welcome wrong,” said Henry.

“What?”

“It’s only one L.”

Penelope didn’t mind.

Our father carried her from the car, and for the first time, she actually let him—and next morning we all heard it, before first light had hit the house: Penny was playing the piano.

She played through the sunrise, she played through our fights. She played through breakfast, and then long past it, and none of us knew the music. Maybe it was a misspent rationale, that when she was playing she wasn’t dying—for we knew it would soon be back again, having swung from wire to wire.

There was no point closing the curtains, or locking any of the doors.

It was in there, out there, waiting.

It lived on our front porch.





When Clay ran back from McAndrew, our father was standing with Achilles.

He asked if Clay was okay.

He told him he’d really missed him.

“You didn’t build while I was away?”

“No.” He patted the mule, but cautiously. “There could be thousands of people working on this bridge, and the world could come to see it…but they’d all know who it belonged to.” He handed him the lead of the animal. “You’re the only one who can finish it.”



* * *



—

For a long time, Clay stood outside.

He watched Achilles eating.

Evening would soon be upon them.

There was one thought overpowering him, and at first he didn’t know why.

I think he just wanted to talk to him.

It was the legend of Pont du Gard:


Once, in France, which wasn’t even France then—it was the ancient world—there was a river that proved unbeatable. That river, today, is the Gardon.

For centuries, the people who lived there could never quite finish a bridge, or if they did, the river destroyed it.

     Then one day the devil strolled into town, and made an offer to the villagers. He said, “I can build that bridge for you easily! I can build it in a single night!”

And the villagers, they almost cried.

“But!” The devil was quite beside himself. “The first one who crosses the bridge next day is mine to do with what I please.”

So a meeting was held in the village.

It was discussed and finally agreed.

They took up the devil’s offer, and watched in total rapture, in the night, as he tore stones from up on the mountaintops, and anything else he came by. He threw and juggled the pieces, and made arches in twos and threes. He made that bridge and aqueduct, and in the morning, he awaited his payment.

He’d made his bargain; he’d lived up to it.