Bridge of Clay(43)

At night, they’d fall into bed, and each other.

There were pieces, given and taken.

Season after season.

Year after year.

Now and then, on afternoons, they ate fish-’n’-chips at the beach, and watched the seagulls appear, like magic, like rabbits out of hats. They felt the myriad sea breezes, each one different from the last, and the weight of heat and humidity. Sometimes they’d just sit there, as a giant black cloud floated in, like the mother ship, and then run in its oncoming rain. It was rain that fell like a city itself, with the coast-long nighttime southerly.

    It was milestones, too, and birthdays, and one in particular, when she gave him a book—a beautiful hardcover with bronze lettering—called The Quarryman, and Michael staying up reading, while she slept against his legs. Always, before he closed it, he’d go again to the front, to the author’s short biography, where below, midpage, she’d written:

    For Michael Dunbar—the only one I love, and love

and love.

From Abbey



And of course, not long after, it was going home to get married on a still spring day with the crows aaring outside, like inland pirates: Abbey’s mother sobbed happily in the front pew.

Her father traded a worn work singlet for a suit.

Adelle Dunbar sat with the good doctor, eyes glowing behind some brand-new blue-rimmed glasses.

It was Abbey crying herself that day, all wet, white dress and smoky.

It was Michael Dunbar as a younger man, carrying her out into sunshine.

It was driving back, a few days later, and stopping halfway, where the river was awesome, something insane, raging downstream—a river with a strange name, but a name they loved—the Amahnu.

It was lying there, under a tree, her hair itching him, and him not moving it, ever, and Abbey telling him she’d love to come back; and Michael saying, “Of course—we’ll make money, and build a house, and come here whenever we want.”

It was Abbey and Michael Dunbar: Two of the happiest bastards who ever had the nerve to leave.

And oblivious of all to come.





The night was long, and loud with Clay’s thoughts.

At one point, he got up to use the bathroom and found the Murderer, half-swallowed, on the couch. Books and diagrams weighed him down.

For a while, he stood over him.

He looked at the books, and the sketches on the Murderer’s chest. The bridge, it appeared, was his blanket.

Then the morning—but morning wasn’t morning at all, it was two in the afternoon, and Clay woke in bed with a fretful start, the sun on his throat, like Hector. Its presence in the room was huge.

When he got up he was totally mortified; he scrambled. No. No. Where is he? Quickly, he stumbled to the hall, got outside, and stood on the porch in his shorts. How could I have slept so long?

“Hey.”

The Murderer watched him.

He’d come round from the side of the house.



* * *



—

He got dressed and they sat in the kitchen, and this time he ate. The old oven with its black-and-white clock had barely clicked over from 2:11 to 2:12, and he’d eaten a few slices of bread, and a fair few murderous eggs.

“Keep going. You’re going to need your strength.”

“Sorry?”

Now the Murderer chewed and sat, he was opposite.

    Did he know something Clay didn’t?

Yes.

There’d been calls from the bedroom through the morning.

He’d slept and shouted my name.



* * *



—

One long sleep and now I’m behind.

That was Clay’s recurring thought as he continued to eat in spite of himself—and he would fight to scratch himself free.

Bread and words. “It won’t happen again.”

“Sorry?”

“I never sleep that long. I barely sleep at all.”

Michael smiled; yes, he was Michael. Was that a past lifeblood flowing through him again? Or was that just how it appeared?

“Clay, it’s okay.”

“It’s not—ah—God!”

He’d rushed to stand up and collected the table with his knee.

“Clay—please.”

For the first time, he studied the face in front of him. It was an older version of me, but the eyes not caught by fire. All the rest of him, though: the black hair, even the tiredness looked the same.

He pulled his chair out properly this time, but the Murderer held up a hand. “Stop.”

But Clay was ready to walk, and not just out of the room.

“No,” he said, “I—”

Again, the hand. Worn and calloused. Workman’s hands. He waved as if at a fly on a birthday cake. “Shh. What do you think’s out there?”

Which meant:

What was it that made you come here?

All Clay heard was the insects. The single note.

Then the thought of something great.

He stood, bent-postured against the table. He lied, he said, “There’s nothing.”

    The Murderer wasn’t fooled. “No, Clay, it brought you here, but you’re afraid, so it’s easier to sit here and argue.”