Page 207 of Bridge of Clay

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“See his heels? And those hands? He’s on that horse like he’s not even riding him.”

The two kids were standard arrogance.

“He’s fat,” said one, and the other one laughed, and McAndrew slapped them hard. Twice to the chin and cheeks.

“Here,” he said, “he’s coming again.” He spoke like all trainers everywhere. Looking outwards. “And for the record, that guy’s ridden more winners than you two bastards’ll ride your whole life. He’ll have more wins at trackwork.”

Just then, Ted arrived on foot.

“McAndrew!”

And McAndrew grinned, quite broadly. “Hey, Ted.”

“How do I look?”

“I thought, what’s Pavarotti doin’ all the way out here bein’ a jockey?”

They hugged each other warmly, a few good hits, each back.

They thought about The Spaniard.

* * *


The second moment came a few years later, when the Novac boys were thirteen and twelve, and Carey, the girl, still eight. It would be Trackwork Ted’s last trackwork.

It was spring, school holidays, there’d been rain, and the grass was green and long (it’s always surprising how long the grass gets grown for Thoroughbreds), and the horse bucked, Ted was thrown, and everyone saw him fall. The trainers kept the boys away, but Carey somehow got there; she weaved her way through, she parted the legs—and first she saw the sweat, and the blood mixed up with skin, then his collarbone, snapped and bent.

When he saw her, he forced a grin.

“Hey, kid.”

That bone, so bony-white.

So raw and pure, like sunlight.

He was flat on his back, and men in overalls, men in boots, men of cigarettes, agreed that they shouldn’t move him. They formed a scrum and showed respect. At first he wondered if he’d broken his neck, for he couldn’t feel his legs.

“Carey,” he said.

The sweat.

A rising, wobbling sun.

It rolled down through the straight.

And still, she couldn’t stop looking, as she kneeled there, closely, next to him. She watched the blood and dirt, merged like traffic on his lips. It caked his jeans and flannel shirt. It caught the zipper down his vest. There was a wildness clawing out of him.

“Carey,” he said again, but this time he followed with something else. “Can you go down and scratch my toes?”

Yes, of course.

The delirium.

He thought he was back there, in the halcyon athlete’s foot days, and hoped he might distract her. “Never mind the collarbone…that itch is Goddamn killing me!”

When he smiled, though, he couldn’t hold it.


Tags: Markus Zusak Young Adult