Bridge of Clay

by Markus Zusak

  At the fence were Clay and Tommy.

  “Achilles?” said one to the other.

  “Achilles.”

  At last, they thought, at last.

  * * *

  —

  With Achilles we had to think ahead, though, and there was beauty and stupidity, common sense and pure outlandishness; it’s hard to know where to begin.

  I looked up council regulations, and there was definitely some sort of bylaw—written in 1946—explaining that livestock could be kept on premises, as long as they were aptly maintained. The said animals, it stated, can in no way infringe upon the health, safety, and well-being of any residents on the property itself, or those bordering the property—which, reading between the lines, meant keeping whatever you wanted, unless someone else complained. Which brought us to Mrs. Chilman: the only real neighbor we had.

  When I went over she invited me in, but we stayed on the afternoon porch. She asked if I could open a jam jar, and when I mentioned the mule, she creaked inwards at first; her wrinkles into her cheeks. Then she laughed from deep in her lungs. “You Dunbar boys are terrific.” There were three or four good marvelouses, too, and a thrill to her final statement. “Life was always once like this.”

  * * *

  —

  And then there was Henry and Rory.

  Henry we told from the outset, but with Rory we kept it a secret; his reaction was going to be priceless (and likely the reason I agreed to it). He was already in a constant bad mood because of Hector sleeping on his bed, and sometimes even Rosy, or at least she’d just rest her snout there:

  “Oi, Tommy,” he’d call across the bedroom, “get this bloody cat off me,” and “Tommy, stop Rosy’s bloody breathing.”

  Tommy would try his best. “She’s a dog, Rory, she has to breathe.”

  “Not near me she doesn’t!”

  And so on.

  We waited the rest of the week, so we could bring the mule home on Saturday. We could all be there to supervise that way, in case anything went wrong (which it might).

  On Thursday we got the supplies. Malcolm Sweeney no longer had a horse trailer, so we’d have to walk him home. The best, we agreed, was early morning (trackwork hour), on Saturday, at four a.m.

  The previous Thursday night, though, it was beautiful, it was four of us there with Sweeney, and Rory most likely out drinking. The sky and the clouds were pink, and Malcolm looked lovingly into it.

  Tommy was brushing the mane, while Henry appraised the tools. He carried stirrups and bridles toward us, and held them approvingly up. “This shit,” he said, “we can do something with…but that thing’s bloody useless.”

  He’d jerked his head with a grin at the mule.

  * * *

  —

  And so it was—we brought him home.

  On a still morning in late March, four Dunbar boys walked the racing quarter, and between us a Greek-named mule.

  He’d stop sometimes by a letterbox.

  He’d gangle and crap on the grass.

  Henry said, “Got any dog bags?”

  All of us laughed on the footpath.

  What always gets me hardest is the memory of Malcolm Sweeney, crying silently by his fence line, as we walked the mule slowly away. He’d wiped at the yeast of his cheeks, and ran a hand through his frosted hair. He was moist and the color of khaki; a sad old fat man, and beautiful.

  And then just simply the sound of it:

  The hooves clopping over the streets.

  Everything around us was urban—the road, the streetlights, the traffic; the shouts that flew right past us, from revelers out all night—and between it the rhythm of mules’ feet, as we walked him over pedestrian crossings, and crossed the empty Kingsway. We negotiated one long footbridge, and the patches of dark and streetlights:

  Henry and me on one side.

  Tommy and Clay on the other.

  And you could set your watch to those hoofbeats, too, and your life to the hand of Tommy—as he led the mule fondly home, to the months and the girl to come.

  So this is what happened:

  They’d broken the unwritten rules.

  There was the feel of her naked legs.

  He remembered the laid-down length of her, and the plastic mound beside them; and how she moved and gently bit him. And the way she’d pulled him down.

  “Come here, Clay.”

  He remembered.

  “Use your teeth. Don’t be scared. It won’t hurt me.”

  He remembered how at just past three a.m. they left, and at home, Clay lay awake, then headed for Central Station.

  Back to the bridge and Silver.

  Carey, of course, went to trackwork, where in the dawn, the old stager, War of the Roses, returned from the inside training track—but returned without his rider.

  She’d fallen on the back straight.

  The sun was cold and pallid.

  The sky of the city was quiet.

  The girl lay face turned sideways, and everyone started running.

  * * *

  —

  At the Amahnu, in Silver, when I told him, Clay broke wildly away. He ran raggedly up the river.

  God, the light here was so long, and I watched him clear to the tree line, till he vanished into the stones.

  My father looked at me numbly; so sad but also lovingly.

  When he attempted to follow, I touched him.

  I touched and I held his arm.

  “No,” I said, “we should trust him.”

  The Murderer became the Murdered. “What if—”

  “No.”

  I didn’t know all I needed to know, but with Clay I was sure of his choices; right now he would choose to suffer.

  We agreed we should wait an hour.

  * * *

  —

  In the trees up high in the riverbed, he kneeled against its steepness—his lungs two treasure chests of death.

  He wept there, uncontrollably.

  That thing he heard outside himself, at last, he could tell, was his voice.

  The trees, those stones, the insects:

  Everything slowed, then stopped.

  He thought of McAndrew, and Catherine. Trackwork Ted. He knew he would have to tell them. He’d confess it was all his fault—because girls just didn’t disappear like this, they didn’t fail without someone making them. Carey Novacs didn’t just die, it was boys like him who made them.

  He thought of the fifteen freckles.

  The shapes and glimpse of sea glass.

  A sixteenth one on her neck.

  She’d talked to him; she knew him. She’d linked her arm through his. And sometimes she’d called him an idiot…and he remembered that slight smell of sweat, and the itch of her hair on his throat—her taste was still in his mouth. He knew that if he searched himself, down near the bone of his hip, her imprint was bitten, and visible; it remained as a hidden reminder, of someone, and something, outlived.

  The clear-eyed Carey was dead.

  * * *

  —

  As the air grew cool, and Clay felt cold, he prayed for rain and violence.

  The drowning of the steep Amahnu.

  But the dry and its quietness held him, and he kneeled like just more debris; like a boy washed up, upstream.

  You had to give it to the young Carey Novac.

  She had a healthy sense of resolve.

  Despite her mum and dad resigning themselves to the fact that their sons would be jockeys, they denied the ambition in her. When she talked about it, they only said, “No.” In no uncertain terms.

  In spite of this, when she was eleven years old, she started writing letters to a particular horse trainer, in the city, at least two or three times a month. At first she was asking for information
, on how best to become a jockey, even if she already knew. How could she start training up early? How could she better prepare? She signed the letters as Kelly from the Country, and waited patiently for answers, using the house of a friend in Carradale (a neighboring town) as the sender.

  Soon enough, the phone rang, at Harvey Street, in Calamia.

  About halfway through the call, Ted stopped and simply said, “What?” A moment later, he went on. “Yeah, it’s the next town over.” Then, “Really? Kelly from the Country? You’ve gotta be joking. Oh, it’s bloody her all right, I’m sure of it….”

  Shit, thought the girl in the lounge room, listening in.

  She was halfway down the hall, making her escape, when the voice came calling through her.

  “Oi, Kelly,” he said, “not so fast.”

  But she could tell her dad was smiling.

  That meant she had a chance.

  * * *

  —

  In the meantime, weeks became months and years.

  She was a kid who knew what she wanted.

  She was hopeful and perennial.

  She ate work up at Gallery Road—a skinny-armed talented shit-shoveler—but she also looked good in the saddle.

  “Good as any kid I’ve ever seen,” admitted Ted.

  Catherine wasn’t overly impressed.

  Neither was Ennis McAndrew.

  * * *

  —

  Yes, Ennis.

  Mr. McAndrew.

  Ennis McAndrew had rules.

  First, he made apprentices wait; you never rode your first year, ever, and that was if he took you in the first place. He naturally cared about riding ability, but he also read your school reports, and especially all the comments. If easily distracted was written just once, you could forget it. Even when he accepted your application, he’d have you come to the stables early morning, three out of six days a week. You could shovel, and lead rope. You could watch. But never, under any circumstance, could you talk. You could write your questions down, or remember them and ask on Sundays. On Saturdays you could come to race meetings. Again, no talking. He knew you were there if he wanted to know you were there. Very factually, it was stated you should stay with your family, go with your friends—because from second year on you’d hardly see them.

  On the alternate days of the week, you could sleep in—that was, you could report to the Tri-Colors Boxing Gym at five-thirty, to run roadwork with all the boxers. If you missed one, the old man would know—he’d know.

  But still.

  He’d never been set upon like this.

  At fourteen she started up the letters again, this time from Carey Novac. Kelly from the Country was gone. She apologized for the error of judgment, and hoped it hadn’t blighted thoughts on her character. She was aware of everything—his laws of an apprenticeship—and she would do whatever it took; she’d muck the stables out nonstop if she had to.

  Finally, a letter came back.

  In Ennis McAndrew’s tight-scrawled hand was the inevitable, identical phrasing:

  Permission from your mother.

  Permission from your father.

  And that was her biggest problem.

  Her parents were resolved as well:

  The answer was still firmly no.

  She would never become a jockey.

  * * *

  —

  As far as Carey was concerned, it was a disgrace.

  Sure, fine, it was perfectly acceptable for her miscreant brothers to be jockeys—and average, lazy ones at that—but not for her. Once she even pulled a framed photo of The Spaniard off the lounge room wall, and threw herself into her argument:

  “McAndrew’s even got a horse from the bloodline of this one.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you read the paper?”

  And then:

  “How could you have had this yourself and not let me? Look at him!” Her freckles were blazing. Her hair, tangled. “Don’t you remember what it was like? Hitting the turn? Taking the straight?”

  Rather than hang it on the wall again, she slammed it to the coffee table, and the impact cracked the glass.

  “You can pay for that,” he said, and it was lucky the frame was a cheap one.

  But never as lucky (or unlucky, as some would argue) as this—

  As they both kneeled down and cleaned up the glass, he spoke absently into the floorboards.

  “Of course I read the paper—the horse’s name is Matador.”

  * * *

  —

  Eventually, Catherine slapped her.

  It’s funny what a slap can do:

  Her water-color eyes were that little bit brighter—unmanaged, alive with anger. Her hair was lifted, just a few strands, and Ted was alone in the doorway.

  “You really shouldn’t have done that.”

  He was talking and pointing at Carey.

  But then the fact of something else.

  Catherine only slapped you when you’d won.

  * * *

  —

  This is what Carey had done:

  One of the best old childhood chestnuts.

  School holidays.

  She’d left in the morning and was supposedly staying the night at Kelly Entwistle’s house, but caught a train to the city instead. Late afternoon, she stood for close to an hour, outside the McAndrew Stables; the small office in need of a paint job. When finally she could loiter no longer, she walked in and faced the desk. McAndrew’s wife was behind it. She was in the midst of a mathematical working-out, and chewing a ball of gum.

  “Excuse me?” Carey asked, outrageously jittery and quiet. “I’m after Mr. Ennis?”

  The woman looked at her; she was permed and Stimoroled, then curious. “I think you might mean McAndrew.”

  “Oh yeah, sorry.” She half smiled. “I’m a bit nervous,” and now the woman noticed; she’d reached up and lowered her glasses. In one motion she’d gone from clueless to all summed up.

  “You wouldn’t be old Trackwork Ted’s daughter, would you?”

  Shit!

  “Yes, Miss.”

  “Your mum and dad know you’re here?”

  Carey’s hair was in a braid, wired tautly down her head. “No, Miss.”

  There was almost remorse, almost regret. “Good lord, girl, did you get here on your own?”

  “Yes, I got the train. And the bus.” She almost started babbling. “Well, I got the wrong bus the first time.” She controlled it. “Mrs. McAndrew, I’m looking for a job.”

  And there, right there, she had her.

  She’d stuck a pen in the curls of her hair.

  “How old are you again?”

  “Fourteen.”

  The woman laughed and sniffed.

  * * *

  —

  Sometimes she heard them talking at night, in the confines of the kitchen.

  Ted and Catherine.

  Catherine the Great and Belligerent.

  “Look,” said Ted. “If she’s going to do it, Ennis is the best. He’ll look after her. He doesn’t even let ’em live in the stables—they have to have proper homes.”

  “What a guy.”

  “Hey—be careful.”

  “Okay,” but she was hardly softening. “You know it’s not him, it’s the game.”

  Carey stood in the hallway.

  Pajamas of shorts and singlet.

  Warm and sticky feet.

  Her toes in the streak of light.

  “Oh, you and the bloody game,” said Ted. He got up and walked to the sink. “The game gave me everything.”

  “Yeah.” Sincere damnation. “Ulcers, collapsing. How many broken bones?”

  “Don’t forget the athlete’s foot.”

 
He was trying to lighten the mood.

  It didn’t work.

  She went on, the damnation went on, it darkened the girl in the hall. “That’s our daughter in there, and I want her to live—not go through the hell that you did, or what the boys will….”

  Sometimes they rumble through me, those words, and they’re hot, like the hooves of Thoroughbreds:

  I want her to live.

  I want her to live.

  Carey had told Clay that once; she’d told him one night at The Surrounds.

  And Catherine the Great was right.

  She was right about all of everything.

  We found him upstream where the river gums start.

  What could we possibly say?

  Michael mostly stood with him; he put his hand on him very gently, till we quietly made our way down.

  * * *

  —

  I stayed the night, I had to.

  Clay made me sleep in his bed, while he sat propped against the wall. Six times I woke in the night, and Clay had remained quite upright.

  By the seventh he’d finally fallen.

  He was sideways, asleep on the floor.

  * * *

  —

  Next morning, he took only the contents of his pocket:

  The feel of a fading peg.

  On the drive home, he sat beside me very straightly. He kept looking into the rearview, expecting to almost see her.

  At one point he said, “Pull over.”

  He thought he might throw up, but he was just cold, so cold, and he thought she might catch up, but he sat by the roadside alone.

  “Clay?”

  I said it close to a dozen times.

  We walked back to the car and drove on.

  * * *

  —

  The newspapers talked about one of the best young jockey prospects in decades. They talked of old Mr. McAndrew, who, in the pictures, was a broken broomstick. They talked about a family of jockeys, and how her mother had wanted to stop her—to forbid her from joining the game. Her brothers would come from the country, to make it in time for the funeral.