Bridge of Clay(89)

“There,” I said to him. “Climb.”

“What—the roof?”

“Just do it, or I’ll break your legs. See how you go running then—” And his heart sank even deeper; because when Clay made it up to the ridge, he saw exactly what I meant.

“You get the idea? Do you see how big that city is?”

It reminded him of something five years earlier, when he’d wanted to do a project on every sport in the world, and asked Penelope for a new exercise book. He’d been under the impression that all he had to do was list every sport he knew, and halfway down the first page, he’d listed eight measly things, and realized it was hopeless—and so, he now realized, was this: Up here, the city multiplied.

He could see it every side.

It was huge and massive and humongous. It was every expression he’d ever heard used, to describe something undefeatable.

For a moment or two, I was almost sorry, but I had to hammer it home. “You can go as far as you want, kid, but you’re never going to find him.” I looked out over the houses; the countless slants of rooves. “He’s gone, Clay, he killed us. He murdered us.” I forced myself to say it. I forced myself to like it. “What we were—there’s nothing left.”

The sky was blanket grey.

Around us, nothing but city.

Beside me, a boy and his feet.

He killed us hung between us, and we knew, somehow, it was real.

The birth that day of a nickname.





From the moment in the Hennessey car park, something new was set in motion. On the surface, all felt normal, as winter continued in full—the dark mornings, the clean sunlight—and bridge and tireless building.

In a steady stream of races, Carey won four, which took the total to six. As always she climbed from the radio; he loved to sit and imagine her. There were also three third placings, but never any seconds. The girl was incapable of finishing second.

On Wednesdays, when Michael was away, and Clay missed things more than usual, he took his radio and box to the trees. He held the lighter and held the peg. He smiled at the iron and feather. He sat amongst the shedded bark skins, like models or casts of body parts, like arms and fallen elbows. Sometimes he stood, the last furlong: Come on, Carey, take him home.

A cavalcade of horses:

Kiama, Narwee, and Engadine.

(She had a knack, it seemed, for place names.) The Lawnmower. The Kingsman.

Sometimes War of the Roses again.

She rode him hands-and-heels.

Then a day arrived, a horse arrived, when a jockey pulled out of a race; a dislocated shoulder. It was Carey who got the mount. The horse was named for a country town, out in the Riverina—and things were about to change for her, and change the course of here.

    A horse called Cootamundra.



* * *



—

It was August by then, and the mornings close to frozen. There was wood and woodwork everywhere. There were masses of blocks and stone. They worked silently with only their hands, and it was like they were building a grandstand, and maybe they kind of were.

He held giant planks in place for him.

“Not there,” said Michael Dunbar. “There.”

He realigned.

Many nights, when his father turned in, Clay stayed out in the river. He planed wood where it needed planing, and rubbed stone against stone for exactness. Sometimes Michael brought tea out, and they sat on the stones and watched, surrounded by wooden monoliths.

Sometimes he climbed the falsework, which grew each day, each arch. The first was almost a testing mold (falsework for the falsework), and the second built faster and stronger; they learned their trade on the job. More than once he thought of a photo; the famous one of Bradfield—the man who planned the Coathanger. The great arch was coming together, and he’d stood one foot either side of it. The gap, like death, below.



* * *



—

As always, he listened to the radio, they played both sides of the tape. There were so many iconic tracks, but his favorite was “Beast of Burden”—maybe in tribute to Achilles, but more likely, a plea to Carey. She was buried inside the songs.

Then came Saturday, late in the month, and the radio on for the racing; there’d been a problem, in the sixth, in the barriers. A horse called Now You’re Dreaming. The jockey was Frank Eltham, and the horse was spooked by a seagull, and caused them a hell of a mess. Eltham did well to hang on, but just when he thought he’d recovered, he was bucked a final time, and that was it, the shoulder.

The horse was scratched, but survived.

    The jockey was sent to the hospital.

He was riding a real prospect—the up-and-coming Cootamundra—in the last race of the day, and the owner was at the trainer, for the best McAndrew could get.

“There is no one to get. This is all I have.”

Every seasoned jockey was already booked; they’d have to go with the apprentice.

The old man called behind him:

“Hey, Carey.”

She was bursting for the ride.

When she was handed the colors of red-green-white, she walked straight back to the Shit Can—the name for the female jockey room, for that’s exactly what it was, an old toilet—and she walked out ready to run.

And she knew.