Bridge of Clay(37)

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As you can see, in many ways, he was almost the perfect other half of Penelope; they were identical and opposite, like designed or destined symmetry. Where she came from a far-off watery place, his was remote and dry. Where he was the single son of an only mother, she was the only daughter of a single man. And lastly, as we’re about to see—and this was the greatest mirror, the surest parallel of fate—while she was practicing Bach, Mozart, and Chopin, he was obsessing on an art form of his own.



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One morning, spring holidays, when Michael was eight, he sat in the surgery waiting room and it was 39 degrees Celsius; the thermometer on the door frame said so.

Close by, old Mr. Franks smelt like toast.

His mustache still had jam in it.

Next was a girl from school named Abbey Hanley: She had limp black hair and powerful arms.

    The boy had just fixed a spaceship.

The postman, Mr. Harty, was struggling at the door, and Michael left the small grey toy near the girl’s feet and helped the ailing postie, who stood like a hapless messiah, with the hellish light behind him.

“Hey, Mikey.”

For some reason he hated to be called Mikey, but the young murderer-to-be squashed himself to the door frame and let him in. He turned back just in time to witness Abbey Hanley stand for her appointment, and crush the spaceship underfoot. She had a mighty pair of flip-flops.

“Abbey!” laughed her mother. A few embarrassed notes. “That wasn’t very nice.”

The boy, watching the whole sad event, closed his eyes. Even at eight he knew what fucking bitch meant, and he wasn’t afraid to think it. Then again, thinking it was no accomplishment, and he knew what that meant, too. The girl smiled out a pretty shameless “Sorry” and trudged toward old Weinrauch.

A meter away, the postman shrugged. A button was missing where his guts surged forward with great determination. “Girl trouble already, huh?”

Bloody hilarious.

Michael smiled, he spoke quietly. “Not really. I don’t think she meant it.” The fucking bitch.

Harty pressed him. “Oh, she meant it, all right.”

Toast-and-Jam Franks coughed up a smirk of agreement, and Michael tried to move on. “What’s in the box?”

“I just deliver, kid. How ’bout I put it down here and you do the honors? It’s addressed to your mother, at home, but I figured I’d just bring it here. Go ahead.”



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When the door closed, Michael took another look.

He circled the box with suspicion, for it dawned on him what it was—he’d seen these boxes before: The first year it was delivered in person, with condolences, and a stale pile of scones.

    The second year it was left on the front porch.

Now they just shoved it in the post.

Charity for charred children.



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Of course, Michael Dunbar himself wasn’t charred at all, but his life, supposedly, was. Each year, start of spring, when rogue bushfires often began, a local philanthropy mob called the Last Supper Club took it upon themselves to prop up the lives of fire victims, whether they were physically burnt or not. Adelle and Michael Dunbar qualified, and this year all was typical—it seemed almost tradition that the box be both well-meaning and full to the brim with absolute shit. Soft toys were always despicably maimed. Jigsaw puzzles were guaranteed to be a few pieces short. Lego men were missing legs, arms, or heads.

This time around, when Michael went for a pair of scissors, he did so without enthusiasm, but when he returned and cut the box open, even Mr. Franks couldn’t help peering in. The boy pulled out a sort of plastic roller coaster with abacus beads at one end, then some Lego—the giant kind, for two-year-olds.

“What, did they rob the bloody bank?” said Franks. He’d finally cleared out the jam.

Next was a teddy bear with one eye and half a nose. See? Brutalized. Beaten up in some kid’s dark alleyway between bedroom and kitchen.

Then came a collection of Mad magazines. (Okay, fair enough, that was pretty good, even if the final fold-over page was already done, on every single one.) And lastly, strangely—what was this?

What the hell was this?

Were these people having a laugh?

Because there, at the very bottom of the box, keeping the foundations together, was a calendar, and it was titled Men Who Changed the World. Was Michael Dunbar to choose a new father figure here?

Sure, he could go straight to January and John F. Kennedy.

    Or April: Emil Zátopek.

May: William Shakespeare.

July: Ferdinand Magellan.

September: Albert Einstein.

Or December—where the page turned to a brief history and the work of a small, broken-nosed man, who would become, through time, everything the murderer-to-be admired.

Of course it was Michelangelo.

The fourth Buonarroti.



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The oddest part about the calendar wasn’t so much the contents but the fact that it was outdated; it was last year’s. It most likely was just there to give added support to the box, and clearly it was well used: when each page opened to a photo or sketch of the man of the month, the dates were often scrawled with events, or things to do.