Bridge of Clay(42)

“That’s okay.”

They were really hitting it off.



* * *



— Eventually, they stood again, and the boy was given a tour.

It didn’t take very long, but it was useful to know where to sleep, and where the bathroom was.

“I’ll let you unpack, and have a shower.”

In the bedroom there was a wooden desk, where he set up each and every book. He put clothes in the wardrobe, and sat on the bed. All he wanted was to be home again—he could have sobbed just to walk through the door. Or sit on the roof with Henry. Or see Rory staggering up Archer Street, a whole neighborhood of letterboxes on his back…

    “Clay?”

He lifted his head.

“Come and eat something.”

His stomach roared.

He leaned forward, feet glued to the floor.

He held the wooden box, he held the lighter and looked at Matador, and the fresh-collected peg.

For a whole range of reasons, Clay couldn’t move.

Not yet, but soon.





Of course, Abbey Hanley hadn’t meant to destroy him.

It was just one of those things.

But one of those things turns into other things, which lead to more coincidence, which leads many years later to boys and kitchens, boys and hate—and without that long-lost girl there was none of it: No Penelope.

No Dunbar boys.

No bridge, and no Clay.



* * *



—

All those years earlier, when it came to Michael and Abbey, everything was open and beautiful.

He loved her with lines and color.

He loved her more than Michelangelo.

He loved her more than the David, and those struggling, statued slaves.

At the end of school, both he and Abbey made good scores, they made city scores, and they were numbers of escape and wonder.

On Main Street, there was the odd pat on the back.

A few congratulationses.

Sometimes, though, there was a mild disdain, a sense of why-the-hell-would-you-want-to-leave? It was the men who did it best, especially the older ones, with their ripe faces, and an eye clenched tight at the sun. The words came out lopsided:

    “So you’re goin’ the city, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir? You’re not fuckin’ there yet!”

“Shit—sorry.”

“Well, just don’t let ’em turn you into an arsehole, all right?”

“Say again?”

“You ’eard me….Don’t let ’em change y’ like they change every other bastard who leaves. Never forget where y’ from, right?”

“Right.”

“Or what y’ are.”

“Okay.”

Clearly, Michael Dunbar was from Featherton, and he was a bastard, but potentially an arsehole. The thing is, no one ever said, “And don’t do anything that’ll earn you a nickname like Murderer.”

It was a big world out there, and the possibilities were endless.



* * *



—

The day the results came in, Christmas holidays, Abbey told him she’d stood by the letterbox. He almost could have painted it: The mass of empty sky.

A hand on her hip.

She’d baked in the sun for twenty minutes before she went back for a lawn chair and a beach umbrella, a thousand miles from the sea. Then for a cooler, and some Icy Poles; God, she had to get out of here.

In town, Michael was hurling bricks up to a guy on a scaffold who was hurling bricks up to another guy. Somewhere, much higher, someone was laying those bricks, and a new pub was going up: for miners, farmers and minors.

At lunch, he walked home and saw his future, folded up, poking out, in the cylinder reserved for the junk mail.

Ignoring the omen, he opened it. He smiled.

When he phoned Abbey, she was panting from running up the path. “I’m still waiting! Bloody town wants to keep me here an extra hour or two, I reckon, just to punish me.”

    Later, though, at the job, she’d appeared and stood behind him, and he’d glanced back and dropped his bricks, one each side. He faced her fully. “Well?”

She nodded.

She laughed and so did Michael, until the voice flew down, between them.

“Oi, Dunbar, y’ useless prick! Where are me Goddamn bricks?!”

Abbey, ever-present, called back.

“Poetry!”

She grinned, and left.

A few weeks later, they left.



* * *



—

Yes, they packed and headed for the city, and how do you sum up four years of apparent, idyllic happiness? If Penny Dunbar was good at using a part to tell the whole, these were parts that remained only that—just fragments and drifting moments: They drove eleven hours, till they saw the rising skyline.

They pulled over and watched the length of it, and Abbey stood up on the hood.

They drove onwards till they were in it, and part of it, and the girl was in her commerce degree, and Michael was painting and sculpting, surviving the surrounding geniuses.

They both worked part-time jobs: One serving drinks in a nightclub.

The other as a laborer, on construction sites.