Day Boy (32 page)

‘Bloody poets,' I hear Sarah mumble. Rob gives her a hard look and she laughs. I
don't.

Rob sighs and looks at me again. ‘From what I've heard, you got no one to say goodbye
to.'

‘A day's all I need,' I say.

Rob laughs this time. ‘A day, all that
you
can do in a day. A day's forever for you
and no time at all.'

‘I'll follow you, if you let me do this,' I say.

Rob nods, and he's grinning. ‘Some steel in you, then, boy. I can shape steel.'

He considers. ‘We've work in the town next to this. Don't
want you walking those
paths alone. Like I said, you backtrack if you need to, and I'll do that for you.
Two days, we'll be back. I hear you're staying at Mary's.'

‘Yes.'

‘We'll come for you the morning of the second day. You better be waiting.'

‘You've my word,' I say.

Which is how I join with those who, in a proper sort of world, I shouldn't. First
step to becoming something fearful.

CHAPTER
48

I SAY MY goodbyes. I visit the graveyard where the boys are buried, because that
is proper. There's no hard feelings that I can feel. We'd have all done the same.
But it's awful quiet.

I lay a handful of red flowers on poor Grove's tomb. Always thought he'd be the one
to do that for me. The world looked kinder on him, right up until the end. I breathe
in that silence surrounded by my boys, and I feel the grief of what I've done. But
it
is
done. They're dead, and I'm not. I could have run, but they would have caught
me. My life was forfeit.

I'll be thinking on this forever. But now, when it's raw, all I can do is stand amongst
those fresh-dug graves and whisper their names. I'll take them with me, those names.
Till someone whispers mine and I'm down in the earth with them.

Certain's waiting for me at the farm. Grainer too, the heat's kept them inside. And
I think about that, how I'll be all in it, out in the places where there is no inside
to hide from the
summer, or the winter, and the howling storms.

Certain goes to the cellar for cider.

‘When you heading out?' Grainer says, looking down at his hands (a good sight harder
than they were, those palms, thickened and cracked by serious work). I don't ask
how he knows I'm leaving. Everything's a surprise with Grainer, so nothing is.

‘Tomorrow, maybe the next day.'

Even here, amongst friends, it never does to be too specific.

Grainer nods.

We look out across the dusty yard. Petri's curled up at my feet. She lets me rub
between her ears, her tail thumpa thumpa thumping.

I squint up at Grainer. ‘You look after the old man.'

‘I will,' he says.

‘I might be back,' I say. ‘I might check up on you.'

Grainer shakes his head. ‘You won't be back. Someone else will: and I'll be here
to greet him.'

‘Fair enough,' I say.

Then Certain's there with the cider and we sit, and drink, and complain about the
damn heat.

Mary knows as well, and I wonder if I've written my intentions on my face. Never
thought I was so obvious. We cook dinner together and eat in silence. Mary looks
at me, from behind her plate, and her knife and her fork. Chewing polite, and slow.
And it could almost be any other night since she took me in. But it isn't.

‘You find Anne, you say hello,' she says. ‘If the trail takes you that way. And I
guess it will eventually.'

I take a few more bites, and swallow. ‘How did you know?'

‘Rob visited me. We were good friends once, and he asked if it were right to take
you.' Her lips thin, and then she smiles, and there's warmth in it. ‘He asked me.
Like you're mine.'

‘What did you say?'

‘I said it was your choice, that you're near enough a man.'

I look at her, and take another mouthful. When I swallow it, I nod. ‘I don't think
I'll get to the city any time soon.'

‘You'll get there eventually, and when you do, you say hello to my Anne, and tell
her that I miss her.'

I finish my meal; pack what little I have.

And then to bed and a sleep unexpected and deep. Me and the night turn oblivious
for a while.

There's a knock on the door before that last dawn, barely a soft touch, a whisper
of a knock, but I'm already awake. Sleeping light is not a habit I've broken. I pick
up my bag. Mary's not up, don't want to wake her, it's better if I don't, and I ease
my way to the door and open it.

Rob nods. I leave the house for the fading dark. Birds are already singing.

‘Good man,' he says.

The roads are long, but I'll follow them. Thom and Anne are out there in the belly
of the City in the Shadow of the Mountain. I've buried Grove, and Dain is gone.
This town is a shadow to me. Nothing more than echoes.

My Day Boys carved a G into my arm, they marked me as a ghost, and there was truth
in that; I've made ghosts of them all. I'm not a ghost myself. I am disembodied.
Untethered. But there's life in me yet, and hope.

Dain and this town made me what I am, taught me what I need to know, but now I have
to make my own mark in the world. Now, for better and for worse, the lessons ahead
are my own. I might not have chosen to be a Day Boy, but I choose this.

Sarah smiles at me, and it's as warm a smile as I've seen these last months. ‘Are
you ready?'

‘Yes,' I say, and I hear no hesitation in my voice.

Rob leads me to a horse. Grey coat, big eyes: they regard me with soft interest.
‘This is Kala. She's a sensible beast.'

I pat her broad back, and yes, she's steady. Start to put my foot in a stirrup, and
Rob settles a stilling hand on my shoulder. ‘We ain't riding today, boy. We're walking.
By day's end you and Kala will be best friends.'

He shows me how to strap up my stuff. And then it's time to go. Before the Sun rises
and the land grows too hot beneath its hard thumb.

Every story should end with another step, and another leading out past the words.

You get to know somewhere by walking it. Feet know it first and once they do, the
place opens like a flower. Its smells, its shapes, its shadows. I've walked this
town all my life, from that first walk, hand held by my Master. Can't believe that
it ever felt so huge.

It isn't: towns have edges. They cut against the world, and the world is big, and
the world likes to remind you. Sends its storms and its tumults.

Home's simply that: a brief respite. Home's the sense of safety, but only the sense
of it. Can't dig deep enough to be safe, and if you could you might as well stop
breathing.

We lead our horses to the edge of town, and that nub of road that goes nowhere.

And we keep walking.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Well, this book is yours now, lovely readers.

This book, like all books, is born of quiet and chatter, solitude and friendship,
generosity and jealousy, and all the grand and silly dichotomies that make up books
and people.

Thanks again to Sophie Hamley, who quietly and persistently insisted that I finish
it in a very troubled time. Thanks to Diana, who read it when it wasn't quite what
it is now, and told me true what she thought, and who loves me despite my prickles
and vacancies, and who I love not nearly as well as she deserves, but a fella can
keep trying.

Thanks to Text, and Mandy Brett in particular, for taking a chance on the weirdness,
and driving me to some sort of logic, and for editing the book with sensitivity,
poetry and patience.

Thanks to my family, none of whom are monsters.

Thanks to my friends, who have waited patiently for this book, through all the years
(and years) of me talking about
it—and refusing to let anyone read it. To Danni,
Jodi, Veronica, Jaqui, Alex and Paul here's the thing to read at last—hope you like
it (keep it quiet if you don't).

Thanks to my work family at The Avid Reader. Particularly to Helen Bernhagen, who
has worked with me for nearly five years' worth of Sundays, and to my boss Fiona
Stager, who makes the place a refuge and a grand redoubt of stories and storytellers,
who inspires us all, and provides a steady decent wage—nothing more important to
a writer. And to Krissy Kneen, who is always an inspiration.

I wrote a fair chunk of this while half my face was paralysed, so thanks to the
Bell's palsy as well.

And thanks to Terry Martin, who originally published a very different short story
called ‘Day Boy' in
Murky Depths 4
all those years ago. It still sits as the heart
of the book.

Finally, thanks to the town of Gunnedah, where I spent my boyhood, which is both
Midfield and not at all, as all fictional places are one thing and another: back
to dichotomies.