He thought of the fifteen freckles.
The shapes and glimpse of sea glass.
A sixteenth one on her neck.
She’d talked to him; she knew him. She’d linked her arm through his. And sometimes she’d called him an idiot…and he remembered that slight smell of sweat, and the itch of her hair on his throat—her taste was still in his mouth. He knew that if he searched himself, down near the bone of his hip, her imprint was bitten, and visible; it remained as a hidden reminder, of someone, and something, outlived.
The clear-eyed Carey was dead.
* * *
—
As the air grew cool, and Clay felt cold, he prayed for rain and violence.
The drowning of the steep Amahnu.
But the dry and its quietness held him, and he kneeled like just more debris; like a boy washed up, upstream.
You had to give it to the young Carey Novac.
She had a healthy sense of resolve.
Despite her mum and dad resigning themselves to the fact that their sons would be jockeys, they denied the ambition in her. When she talked about it, they only said, “No.” In no uncertain terms.
In spite of this, when she was eleven years old, she started writing letters to a particular horse trainer, in the city, at least two or three times a month. At first she was asking for information
, on how best to become a jockey, even if she already knew. How could she start training up early? How could she better prepare? She signed the letters as Kelly from the Country, and waited patiently for answers, using the house of a friend in Carradale (a neighboring town) as the sender.
Soon enough, the phone rang, at Harvey Street, in Calamia.
About halfway through the call, Ted stopped and simply said, “What?” A moment later, he went on. “Yeah, it’s the next town over.” Then, “Really? Kelly from the Country? You’ve gotta be joking. Oh, it’s bloody her all right, I’m sure of it….”
Shit, thought the girl in the lounge room, listening in.
She was halfway down the hall, making her escape, when the voice came calling through her.
“Oi, Kelly,” he said, “not so fast.”
But she could tell her dad was smiling.
That meant she had a chance.
* * *
—
In the meantime, weeks became months and years.
She was a kid who knew what she wanted.
She was hopeful and perennial.
She ate work up at Gallery Road—a skinny-armed talented shit-shoveler—but she also looked good in the saddle.
“Good as any kid I’ve ever seen,” admitted Ted.
Catherine wasn’t overly impressed.