“Yeah, but I don’t know what street.”
Now the moment Clay was waiting for:
“Je-sus Christ!” He felt me seething, right through the wall, but then the practicality. “Okay, I don’t care what you do with it, but when I get back home later, I expect it gone, you got that?”
Later, when Clay went in, he discovered the whole conversation was had with Hector wrapped like a wrestler around Rory’s neck. The cat lay molting and purring, simultaneously. The purrs were hitting pigeon-pitch.
When he noticed a new presence in the doorway, Rory spoke, a muffled tone. “Clay? Is that you? Can you do me a favor and get this bloody cat off me?” after which he waited for the last two stubborn claws, and then, “Ahhhhhh!” He breathed a great, relieving breath. Cat hair floated up; it showered down. Rory’s phone alarm now bleating—he’d been lying on it, trapped by Hector.
“I guess you heard Matthew, the cranky bastard.” Despite his appalling headache, he gave the tired suggestion of a smile. “You wouldn’t mind throwing that letterbox over to The Surrounds for me, would you?”
Clay nodded.
“Thanks, kid, here, help us up, I better get to work.” First things first, though, he walked over and slapped Tommy, hard across the head. “And you—I told you to keep that cat of yours”—he found the extra strength—“OFF MY FUCKING BED!”
* * *
—
It was Thursday, and Clay went to school.
On Friday he left it for good.
That second morning he went to a teacher’s room, where there were posters fixed to the wall, and writing all over the board. The posters were both quite comical. Jane Austen in frilly dress, holding a barbell with weights overhead. The caption said BOOKS ARE FRIGHTFULLY TOUGH. The other one was more like a placard, saying MINERVA MCGONAGALL IS GOD.
She was twenty-three years old now, that teacher.
Her name was Claudia Kirkby.
Clay liked her because these days, when he went to see her, she broke ranks with proper politeness. The bell would ring and she’d look at him. “Go on, kid, get out of here…get your arse to class.” Claudia Kirkby was good with poetry.
She had dark brown hair and light brown eyes and a sunspot center-cheek. She had a smile for putting up with things, and calves, nice calves, and heels, and was quite tall and always well-dressed. For some reason, she’d liked us from the start; even Rory, who’d been nightmarish.
When Clay went in before school that Friday, she was standing over the desk.
“Hey there, Mr. Clay.”
She was going through some essays.
“I’m leaving.”
She stopped, abruptly, and looked up.
No get-your-arse-to-class on that day.
She sat down, looked worried, and said, “Hmm.”
* * *
—
By three o’clock I was sitting at the school, in Mrs. Holland’s office, the principal, and I’d been there a few times before—the lead-up to Rory’s expulsion (in waters still to come). She was one of those stylishly short-haired women, with streaks of grey and white, and crayoned-under eyes.
“How’s Rory going?” she asked.
“He’s got a good job, but he hasn’t really changed.”
“Well, um, say hi from us.”