Bridge of Clay

We watched Rosy curl up near the oven.

There wasn’t room for all of us, so we laid down the seats in the station wagon, and Rory and I slept out there.

A few times, Clay went out back, to the shed, where Achilles stood guard, and saw more of the artworks in progress. A favorite was a loose-drawn sketch, of a boy in the legs of the eucalypts—until it happened, it came, on Sunday.

* * *

—

As always he woke in the dark.

Not long before dawn, I heard footsteps—they were running, they were splashing—and next I heard the car door open; and I felt the force of his hand.

“Matthew,” he whispered. “Matthew!”

Then, “Rory. Rory!”

And quickly, I came to realize.

It was there in Clay’s voice.

He was shaking.

* * *

—

The lights came on in the house, and Michael came out with a flashlight, and when he’d gone down toward the water, he soon came careering back. As I fought my way out of the car, he staggered but spoke to me clearly, his face shocked and disbelieving.

“Matthew, you have to come.”

Was the bridge gone?

Should we be making attempts to save it?

But before I could take a step further, first light had hit the paddocks. I looked in the distance and saw it.

“Oh, God,” I said, “Je-sus Christ.” Then, “Hey,” I said, “hey, Rory?”

* * *

—

By the time we were all assembled, on the concrete steps of the porch, Clay was down on the first of them, and heard himself speak, from the past.

I didn’t come here for you, he’d said to him—to the Murderer, Michael Dunbar—but standing here now he knew different. He’d come out here for all of us. He just couldn’t have known it would hurt this much, in the face of something miraculous.

For a second he watched the border collie, who was sitting, licking her lips—but abruptly he turned to Rory. It was years by then in the making—but he struck him back hard in the eyes:

“Shit, Tommy, does that dog have to pant so bloody loud?” and Rory, in turn, had smiled.

“Come on,” he said to Clay now. The gentlest I’d ever heard him. “Let’s go and we’ll see it together.”

Let’s go to the river and see it.

* * *

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