Bridge of Clay(21)

We sat, we stood and leaned.

The kitchen quiet.

What was there to say?

Did we have a meaningful chat about uniting even stronger at times like these?

Of course not.

We spoke our few sentences, and Rory, pub-bound, was first to leave. The Naked Arms. On his way out he put a warm and humid hand, just briefly, on Clay’s head. At the pub, he’d likely sit where we’d all sat once—even the Murderer—on a night we’d never forget.

Next, Henry went out back, probably to arrange some old books, or LPs, which he’d amassed from weekend garage sales.

Tommy followed soon after.

Once Clay and I had sat for a while, he’d quietly walked to the bathroom. He showered, then stood at the basin. It was cluttered with hair and toothpaste; held together by grit. Maybe it was all he needed to prove that great things could come from anything.

    But he still avoided the mirror.



* * *



—

Later, he went to where it all began.

His hoarding of sacred sites.

Sure, there was Bernborough Park.

There was the mattress at The Surrounds.

The cemetery on the hill.

Years earlier, though, for good reason, it all started here.

He made his way up to the roof.



* * *



—

Tonight he walked out front, then around to near Mrs. Chilman’s house—fence, to meter box, to tiles. As was his habit, he sat about halfway, blending in, which was what he did more as he got older. In the early days he went up mostly in daylight, but now he preferred not to be seen by passersby. Only when someone climbed up with him did he sit on the ridge or the edge.

Across the road, diagonally, he watched the house of Carey Novac.

Number 11.

Brown brick. Yellow-windowed.

He knew she’d be reading The Quarryman.

For a while he watched the varied silhouettes, but soon he turned away. Much as he loved seeing just the slightest sight of her, he didn’t come to the roof for Carey. He’d sat up here well before she’d even arrived on Archer Street.

Now he moved over, a dozen tiles to the left, and watched the length of the city. It had clambered from its previous abyss, big, broad and street-lit. He took it all steadily in.

“Hi, city.”

At times he liked to talk to it—to feel both less and more alone.



* * *



—

    It might have been half an hour later when Carey came out, fleetingly. She put one hand on the railing, and held the other, slowly, aloft.

Hi, Clay.

Hi, Carey.

Then back in.

Tomorrow, for her, was a brutal start like always. She’d wheel her bike across the lawn at quarter to four, for trackwork at the McAndrew Stables, down at Royal Hennessey.

Toward the end, Henry came up, straight from the garage, with a beer and a bag of peanuts. He sat at the edge, near a Playboy in the gutter; a dead and dying Miss January. He gestured for Clay to follow, and when he arrived, he made his offerings; the nuts and the sweating beer.

“No thanks.”

“He speaks!” Henry slapped his back. “That’s twice in three hours; this really is a night for the books. I’d better get down to the newsagent’s tomorrow and do another lotto ticket.”

Clay looked silently out:

The dark compost of skyscrapers and suburbia.

Then he looked at his brother, and the surety of his beer sips. He enjoyed the thought of that lotto ticket.

Henry’s numbers were one to six.



* * *



—

Later, Henry gestured to the street, where Rory came laboring upwards, a letterbox over his shoulder. Behind him, the timber pole dragged along the ground; he swung it to our lawn, triumphant. “Oi, Henry, throw us a nut, y’ weak lanky prick!” He thought for a moment but forgot what he was saying. It must have been funny, though, it must have been sidesplitting, because he laughed on his way to the porch. He angled up the steps and lay noisily down on the deck.

Henry sighed. “Here, we better get him,” and Clay followed, to the other side, where Henry had propped a ladder. He didn’t look at The Surrounds, or the immense backdrop of slanted rooves. No, all he saw was the yard, and Rosy running laps of the clothesline. Achilles stood chewing in the moonlight.



* * *



—

    As for Rory, he weighed a drunken ton, but they somehow slung him to bed.

“Dirty bastard,” said Henry. “Must have twenty schooners in ’im.”

They’d never seen Hector move so quickly, either. His look of alarm was priceless, as he leapt, mattress to mattress, and out the door. On the other bed, Tommy slept against the wall.



* * *



—

In their bedroom, later, much later, it said 1:39 on Henry’s old clock radio (also bargained for at a garage sale), and Clay was standing, his back to the open window. Earlier, Henry had sat on the floor, writing a quick-fire essay for school, but now he hadn’t moved for minutes; he lay on top of the sheets, and Clay was safe to think it: Now.

He bit down hard.

He made his way to the hallway, aiming for the kitchen—and faster than expected, he was next to the fridge, his hand in the assorted recycling.