We did eight 400 meters.
Thirty seconds of rest.
“Again?” I asked.
Clay nodded.
That world in his stomach was gone from him, and the suffering a perfect beauty. At Bernborough, he switched back to barefoot, too, with the peg in the pocket of his shorts…and sometimes I think he planned it. Sometimes I think he knew:
We would run through the streets of the racing quarter.
He would search for him up from on the roof.
In the guise of looking for our father, I think Clay knew something was out there, and now I know it, too—because in there, out in the suburbs-world, we trained our way toward him:
We ran and we searched to a mule.
On the weekend that Cootamundra ran in the racing capital down south, Ennis McAndrew made a decision, a shrewd one:
Carey wouldn’t ride at all.
She’d been robbed of a ride in the Sunline-Northerly Stakes—her first Group One—and she was still just seventeen. He wouldn’t be here in the city for her, and he wouldn’t be taking her along. That surely would have killed her; watching the big bay horse hit the turn.
No, instead he told her simply.
“I think you’ve earned a weekend off.”
He wasn’t your average trainer.
* * *
—
Clay made a special point of coming back that Saturday, and there’d been talk in the week on the radio, of the horse and replacement rider.
On Friday night, when he left, Michael Dunbar surprised him.
He drove him into town, and they were their usual silent selves, but when they made it to the railway, he pulled an envelope from out of the glove box; he placed it on Clay’s lap. On top it said Carey Novac.
“What’s—”
“Just give it to her, okay? She’ll like it. I promise.”
There was no thought of think that one over, just a nod, just barely, across. The lights of the station felt miles away, and the town was mostly quiet. Only murmurs from a distant pub. He looked something like he once had, and Clay gave something back.
In plain sight, he pulled out The Quarryman.
He slid the envelope gently inside.
* * *
—
On Archer Street, next day, Ted and Catherine were both out working, so it was Carey and Clay in her kitchen.
They’d set up the scrappy black radio.
There was a nice small stereo in the lounge room, with digital and all the rest, but they chose to hear it on his. As he sat he realized quickly—this kitchen was amazingly clean.