Clay Read Free Page B

pointed at a crude clay figure. Its body was crumbling away. An arm and a leg had fallen off. He poked it and another leg fell off.
    “See?” he said. “Clay’s the stuff I need. But there’s nowt decent here.”
    He reached out and quickly touched my cheek. I flinched.
    “This is what clay should turn out like,” he said. “Like living flesh. Like a living body. But look.”
    He punched the figure and it burst into fragments and dust.
    “See?” he said.
    He lifted one of the wooden figures and snapped it fast and easy between his hands.
    “See?” he said.
    He turned and stared at Crazy.
    “See?” he said to her. “I told you, Aunty Mary. There’s nowt that’s no good.”
    She walked back to the house and watched us through the kitchen window. He kicked the shed door shut.
    “She’s crackers,” he said. “They’re the apostles. He wants them for the school or something. They’re crap.”
    He stabbed the knife into the bench. He blew up into the falling dust and it danced and sparkled in the shaft of light all around him.
    “That’s what we’re made of,” he said. “Dust. That’s why clay’s best. Wood’s been alive already so it’s dead. And how can you get something that’s dead to turn into something that’s alive again?”
    “Dunno,” I said.
    “You can’t. You got to start from the start again, from something that’s never been nowt.”
    Geordie and I looked at each other.
    “Like God did,” said Stephen.
    He watched me. I tried to flick away the dust he’d left on my cheek.
    “You got a match?” he said.
    Geordie took a box out of his pocket and rattled it. Stephen took it. He kicked the door open again. He got a handful of shavings and put them on the ground outside. He struck a match and lit the shavings and put the apostles on top. Geordie and I stayed close together and we watched the fire burn. Stephen crouched down beside it and warmed his hands at the flames.
    “See,” he said. “You do it just like that.”
    “Bliddy Hell,” murmured Geordie.
    “Fire hardens clay,” said Stephen. “But wood…huh!”
    Crazy watched us and chewed her nails.
    Stephen shadowed his face from the sun with his hand. He peered at us.
    “What you after, anyway?” he said.
    I shook my head.
    “Nowt,” I said.
    He grinned at me.
    “Well, that’s easy enough,” he said. He pretended to throw something gently to me. “Here, Davie, have some nowt.” I couldn’t keep myself from cupping my hands to catch it. He smiled, and I clicked my tongue at my stupidity.
    Below us, the apostles spat and hissed and twisted as they burned.
    “We know where there’s some clay for you,” said Geordie. “Loads of it.”
    “Is that right?” said Stephen.
    “Aye,” I said.
    “We can take you to it,” said Geordie.
    “Take me, then,” said Stephen.
    He smiled at me.
    “Take me,” he said. “I’ll come with you.”
    So we walked away from the blazing apostles and back into Crazy Mary’s house. Crazy dithered around Stephen in the kitchen. She tried to put her arm around him, but he just told her, “Let me be. I’ve got things to do with me friends.”
    We went back through the hallway. I dipped my hand into the holy water and crossed myself again. Then we took Stephen out onto Watermill Lane and down to Braddock’s garden and we led him to the clay pond, where he pushed the spawn aside and reached down deep into the milky water and lifted out a dripping handful of pale clay.
    “Brilliant!” he breathed.
    He stood up and held it towards my face. It oozed and splashed down onto the ground between us.
    “This is it,” he said. “This is the real stuff.”
    He moved close to me.
    “Say hello to it,” he said. He laughed. “Just think what we could make with this.”

seven
    Saturday evening, the same week. I went to St. Patrick’s. I knelt in the dark confessional. I could see Father O’Mahoney’s face through the grille. I wondered if I should try to disguise my voice, but I