I was breathing, trying not to.
My arms were awash with sweat.
Rory and Tommy kept a short distance, and Clay looked up at the girl. The good-green eyes. He said and slowly smiled it:
“War of the Roses?”
He saw her change from abject worry, to a smile all long and hopeful, like horses entering the straight.
“He okay?”
“I think so.”
“Just give me a minute and we’ll take him in.”
The small exchange was hard for him to hear, but he knew it was me and Carey, and soon the others were near. Rosy licked his face.
“Rosy!” I said. “Get out of there!”
Still no sign of Henry.
* * *
—
Finally, there was Rory:
He had to step in at some point.
He told everyone to get the hell out of his way, and picked Clay up and carried him. In his arms Clay hung like an arch.
“Oi, Matthew,” Rory called, “check this out—it’s all that letterbox practice!” Then to Clay, down at face and blood. “How’s this for a heart-to-heart?” And finally his happiest afterthought. “Hey—did you kick him in the coins, like I asked?”
“Twice. The first one wasn’t that good.”
And Rory laughed, right there on the steps, and it hurt the boy he was holding.
As promised and planned, I had killed him.
But true to his word as ever—Clay just wasn’t dead.
It felt good to be a Dunbar boy again.
They bought the place, of course they did, and things began to begin.
Job-wise, Michael still did his construction work, with his always-powdery hands, and Penny did her cleaning, and studied English till the time was near. She started wondering about a different career, and was pulled between two teaching strands: the first could only be music. Then English as a Second Language.
Maybe it was memory that did it:
The indoor tarmac.
The floor-to-ceiling heat.
“Passport?”
“Przepraszam?”
“Oh, Jesus…”