Bridge of Clay(76)

“It’s the best thing anyone’s ever given me,” he said, and he lit it a moment, then closed it. “You rode so well today.”

She gave him back The Quarryman.

She smiled, she said, “I did.”



* * *



—

Earlier, it was one of those good nights, too, because Mrs. Chilman opened her window. She called out to them, and up.

“Hey, Dunbar boys.”

Henry had called back first. “Mrs. Chilman! Thanks for patching us up the other night.” Then he went to work. “Hey, I like your curlers there.”

“Shut up, Henry,” but she was smiling, those wrinkles at work as well.

Both boys now stood and walked closer.

They crouched at the side of the house.

“Hey, Henry?” Mrs. Chilman asked, and it was all a bit of fun. Henry knew what was coming. Whenever Mrs. Chilman looked up like this, it was to ask for a book, from his collections every weekend. She loved romance, crime, and horror—the lower the brow, the better. “You got something for me?”

He mocked. “Do I have something for you? What-a-y’ think? How does The Corpse of Jack the Ripper sound?”

“Got it already.”

“The Man She Hid Downstairs?”

“That was my husband—they never found the body.”

(Both boys laughed—she’d been a widow since before they knew her; she joked about it now.) “All right, Mrs. Chilman, shit, you’re a tough customer! How about The Soul Snatcher? That one’s a bloody beauty.”

“Done.” She smiled. “How much?”

“Oh, come on, Mrs. Chilman, let’s not play that game. How about we do the usual?” He gave Clay a quick flick of the eyes. “Let’s just say I give it to you gratis.”

    “Gratis?” She was peering up now, contemplating. “What’s that, German, is it?”

Henry roared.



* * *



—

When they did lie down, she recalled the race.

“But I lost,” she said, “I blew it.”

Race Three.

The Lantern Winery Stakes.

1,200-meters and her mount was called The Gunslinger, and they missed the start terribly, and Carey brought him back. She weaved her way through the traffic and took him home—and Clay watched in perfect silence when the field had hit the straight; a riot of passing hoofbeats, and the eyes and the color and the blood. And the thought of Carey amongst it.

The only problem came in the last furlong when she veered too close to the second-placegetter, Pump Up the Jam—seriously, what a name—and the win was taken off her.

“My first time in front of the stewards,” she said.

Her voice against his neck.



* * *



—

On the roof, when the transaction was approved (Mrs. Chilman insisted on paying ten dollars), she said, “And how are you, Mr. Clay? You looking after yourself these days?”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly?” She came out a little further. “Try to make it always.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, lovely boy.”

She was about to close the window again, when Henry tried for more. “Hey, how come he gets to be lovely?”

Mrs. Chilman returned. “You’ve got a lovely mouth, Henry, but he’s the lovely boy,” and she gave them a final wave.

    Henry turned to Clay.

“You’re not lovely,” he said. “Actually, you’re pretty ugly.”

“Ugly?”

“Yeah, ugly as Starkey’s arse.”

“You’ve looked at it lately, have you?”

This time he gave Clay a shove, and a friendly slap to the ear.

It’s a mystery, even to me sometimes, how boys and brothers love.



* * *



—

Near the end he started telling her.

“It’s pretty quiet out there.”

“I bet.”

“The river’s completely dry, though.”

“And your dad?”

“He’s pretty dry, too.”

She laughed and he felt her breath, and he thought about that warmness, how people were warm like that, from inside to out; how it could hit you and disappear, then back again, and nothing was ever permanent— Yes, she’d laughed and said, “Don’t be an idiot.”

Clay said only “Okay,” and his heart was beating too big for him; he was sure the world could hear it. He looked at the girl beside him, and the leg slung loosely over. He looked at her highest buttonhole, the fabric of her shirt: The checks there.

The blue turned sky blue.

The red all faded to pink.

The long ridges of collarbone, and the pool of shadow beneath.

The faintest scent of her sweat.

How could he love someone this hard and be so disciplined, and stay silent and still so long?

Maybe if he’d done it then: if he’d found the nerve earlier, it wouldn’t have gone the way it did. But how could he ever predict such things? How could he know that Carey—this girl who lay across him, and whose breath drew in and out on him, who’d had a life, who was a life—would make up his trifecta, or triumvirate, of love and loss?