Bridge of Clay(134)

She struggled to hold a hand up.

She raised it to my face.

I could feel the hot-tin roof of it, as she ignited on top of the sheets; it was one of those oxymorons again—it cooked her from within.

She said, “Promise you’ll still keep reading.” She swallowed, like heavy machinery. “Promise me, promise, okay, kid?”

I said, “Of course,” and you should have seen her.

She caught fire, beside me, on the bed.

Her papery face was lit.



* * *



—

As for Michael Dunbar, in the kitchen, our dad did something strange.

He looked at the bills, then me.

Then he walked outside with his coffee cup, and hurled it toward the fence—but he’d somehow got the angle wrong, and it landed amongst the lawn.

When a minute went by, he’d collected it, and the cup remained unharmed.



* * *



—

From there the door was flung open, and death came in from everywhere; it marauded all that was hers.

    But still, she wouldn’t allow it.

One of the best nights was late in February (nearly twenty-four months in total), when a voice arrived in the kitchen. It was hot and very humid. Even dishes on the rack were sweating, which meant a perfect night for Monopoly. Our parents were in the lounge, watching TV.

I was the top hat, Henry the car, Tommy the dog, Clay the thimble. Rory, as always, was the iron (which was the closest he’d get to actually using one), and he was winning, and rubbing it in.

Rory knew I hated cheaters, and gloaters more than anything—and he was doing both, way out in front, rummaging everyone’s hair, each time we had to pay him…till a few hours in, it started: “Oi.”

That was me.

“What?”

That was Rory.

“You rolled nine but moved ten.”

Henry rubbed his hands together; this was going to be great.

“Ten? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Look. You were there, right? Leicester Square. So get your ironing arse back one spot to my railway and fork out twenty-five.”

Rory was incredulous.

“It was ten, I rolled ten!”

“If you don’t go back, I’m taking the iron and ejecting you from the game.”

“Ejecting me?”

We sweated like merchants and swindlers, and Rory struck out at himself for a change—a palm through the wire of his hair. His hands were already so hard by then. Those eyes gone even harder.

He smiled, like danger, toward me now. “You’re joking,” he said, “you’re kidding.”

But I had to see it through.

“Do I look like I’m Goddamn joking, Rory?”

“This is bullshit.”

    “Right, that’s it.”

I reached for the iron, but not before Rory had his greasy, sweaty fingers on it, too, and we fought it out—no, we pinched it out, till coughing was heard from the lounge room.

We stopped.

Rory let go.

Henry went to see, and when he came back in with a nod of okay, he said, “Right, where were we, anyway?”

Tommy: “The iron.”

Henry: “Oh yeah—perfect, where is it?”

I was deadpan. “Gone.”

Rory searched the board in a frenzy. “Where?”

Now, even deader-pan. “I ate it.”

“No way.” Disbelief. He shouted. “You gotta be kidding me!” He started to stand, but Clay, in the corner, silenced him.

“He did,” he said. “I saw him.”

Henry was thrilled. “What? Really?”

Clay nodded. “Like a painkiller.”

“What? Down the hatch?” He burst forth with loudmouthed laughter—blond in the white-blond kitchen—as Rory turned fast, to face him.

“I’d shut up if I were you, Henry!” and he paused for a moment, then went out back, and returned with a rusty nail. He slammed it down on the proper square, paid his money, and glared at me. “There, you dirty bastard. Go try swallowing that.”

But, of course, I didn’t have to—for when the game started up again, and Tommy rolled the dice, we heard the voice from the adjoining room. It was Penny, part gone, part alive.

“Hey, Rory?”

Silence.

We all stopped.

“Yeah?”

And looking back, I love the way he called that now—how he stood, and was ready to go to her, to carry her or die for her if he had to; like the Greeks when called to arms.

    And the rest of us sat, we were statue-like.

We were stilled, and remained alert.

God, that kitchen and its heat, and the dishes all looking nervous; and the voice came stumbling forward. It was on the board between us: “Check his shirt….” We felt her smiling. “Left pocket,” and I had to let him. I let him reach over and in.

“I should give you a fucking nipple cripple while I’m at it, you bastard.”

But soon, he’d managed to find it.

His hand reached in, he produced the iron, and he shook his head and kissed it; tough lips on silver token.

Then he took it and stood in the doorway, and he was Rory and just young and untough for a moment, the metal gone soft in an instant. He smiled, and shouted his innocence, his voice gone up to the ceiling.