Later, he went to where it all began.
His hoarding of sacred sites.
Sure, there was Bernborough Park.
There was the mattress at The Surrounds.
The cemetery on the hill.
Years earlier, though, for good reason, it all started here.
He made his way up to the roof.
* * *
—
Tonight he walked out front, then around to near Mrs. Chilman’s house—fence, to meter box, to tiles. As was his habit, he sat about halfway, blending in, which was what he did more as he got older. In the early days he went up mostly in daylight, but now he preferred not to be seen by passersby. Only when someone climbed up with him did he sit on the ridge or the edge.
Across the road, diagonally, he watched the house of Carey Novac.
Number 11.
Brown brick. Yellow-windowed.
He knew she’d be reading The Quarryman.
For a while he watched the varied silhouettes, but soon he turned away. Much as he loved seeing just the slightest sight of her, he didn’t come to the roof for Carey. He’d sat up here well before she’d even arrived on Archer Street.
Now he moved over, a dozen tiles to the left, and watched the length of the city. It had clambered from its previous abyss, big, broad and street-lit. He took it all steadily in.
“Hi, city.”
At times he liked to talk to it—to feel both less and more alone.
* * *
—
It might have been half an hour later when Carey came out, fleetingly. She put one hand on the railing, and held the other, slowly, aloft.
Hi, Clay.
Hi, Carey.
Then back in.
Tomorrow, for her, was a brutal start like always. She’d wheel her bike across the lawn at quarter to four, for trackwork at the McAndrew Stables, down at Royal Hennessey.
Toward the end, Henry came up, straight from the garage, with a beer and a bag of peanuts. He sat at the edge, near a Playboy in the gutter; a dead and dying Miss January. He gestured for Clay to follow, and when he arrived, he made his offerings; the nuts and the sweating beer.
“No thanks.”
“He speaks!” Henry slapped his back. “That’s twice in three hours; this really is a night for the books. I’d better get down to the newsagent’s tomorrow and do another lotto ticket.”
Clay looked silently out:
The dark compost of skyscrapers and suburbia.
Then he looked at his brother, and the surety of his beer sips. He enjoyed the thought of that lotto ticket.
Henry’s numbers were one to six.
* * *
—
Later, Henry gestured to the street, where Rory came laboring upwards, a letterbox over his shoulder. Behind him, the timber pole dragged along the ground; he swung it to our lawn, triumphant. “Oi, Henry, throw us a nut, y’ weak lanky prick!” He thought for a moment but forgot what he was saying. It must have been funny, though, it must have been sidesplitting, because he laughed on his way to the porch. He angled up the steps and lay noisily down on the deck.
Henry sighed. “Here, we better get him,” and Clay followed, to the other side, where Henry had propped a ladder. He didn’t look at The Surrounds, or the immense backdrop of slanted rooves. No, all he saw was the yard, and Rosy running laps of the clothesline. Achilles stood chewing in the moonlight.
* * *
—
As for Rory, he weighed a drunken ton, but they somehow slung him to bed.
“Dirty bastard,” said Henry. “Must have twenty schooners in ’im.”
They’d never seen Hector move so quickly, either. His look of alarm was priceless, as he leapt, mattress to mattress, and out the door. On the other bed, Tommy slept against the wall.
* * *
—
In their bedroom, later, much later, it said 1:39 on Henry’s old clock radio (also bargained for at a garage sale), and Clay was standing, his back to the open window. Earlier, Henry had sat on the floor, writing a quick-fire essay for school, but now he hadn’t moved for minutes; he lay on top of the sheets, and Clay was safe to think it: Now.
He bit down hard.
He made his way to the hallway, aiming for the kitchen—and faster than expected, he was next to the fridge, his hand in the assorted recycling.
From nowhere there was light.
Jesus!
It was white and heavy and belted him across the eyes like a football hooligan. He brought his hands up as it was turned off again, but still it throbbed and stung. In the new drowning dark was Tommy; he was standing in just his underpants, with Hector at his flank. The cat was a shifting shadow of himself, and eyes in shock from the light.
“Clay?” Tommy wandered toward the back door. His words drooled, midsleep and walk. “Kil’ nee’ s’ fee’…” With a second attempt, he nearly cracked the full code of his sentence. “Achilles knees some feed.”
Clay took his arms and turned him, watching as he ambled the hall. He even bent down and gave the cat a small pat, triggering a few short purrs. For a moment, he expected Rosy to bark, or Achilles to let loose a bray, but they didn’t, and he reached for the crate.
Nothing.
Even when he gambled and opened the fridge—just a crack, to borrow some light—he couldn’t find a single scrap of the murderous paper. What a shock to walk back in then, and find it patched up, with sticky tape, on his bed.
Needless to say, Penelope never went to the eisteddfod; she never rehearsed, or walked the city of aqua rooftops. She remained at the Westbahnhof, on the platform, sitting on her suitcase, elbows on her knees. With her crisp, clean fingers, she played with the buttons on her blue woolen dress, and traded her return ticket for an earlier one home.
Hours later, when the train was set to leave, she rose to her feet. A conductor leaned from the train’s doorway, unshaven, overweight.
“Kommst einer?”
Penelope only looked at him, stricken with indecision, twirling one of those buttons, center-chest. Her suitcase stood in front of her. An anchor at her feet.
“Nah, kommst du jetzt, oder net?” There was something charming in his dishevelment. “You coming now or not?” Even his teeth were loosely stowed. He leaned like a schoolboy, and he didn’t blow a whistle but called to the front of the train. “Geht schon!”
And he smiled.
He smiled his jangle-toothed grin, and Penelope held the button now, in front of her, in the palm of her right hand.
* * *
—
As forecast by her father, though, she made it.
She was all suitcase and vulnerability, but exactly as Waldek predicted, she got through.
There was a camp in a place called Traiskirchen, which was an army of bunk beds and a wine-dark toilet floor. The first problem was finding the end of the line. Lucky she’d had plenty of practice; Eastern Europe had taught her to queue. The second problem, once inside, was negotiating the ankle-deep pool of refuse at your feet. Some watery wilderness, all right, it was a test of nerve and stamina.
People in line were blank-faced and tired, and each feared many outcomes, but one of them most of all. They could not, under any circumstances, be sent home.
When she’d arrived, she was questioned.
She was fingerprinted, she was interpreted.
Austria was essentially a holding ground, and in most cases, it took twenty-four hours to be processed and sent to a hostel. There you would wait for approval from another embassy.
Her father had thought of many things, but not that Friday was a bad day to arrive. It meant you had to last out the weekend at the camp, which was no picnic, but last it out she did. After all, in her own words, it wasn’t hell on earth, either. Not compared to what other people endured. The worst was the not-knowing.
* * *
—