The Toll Bridge Page 14

  Jan didn’t tell me till long afterwards about Dad seeing us. Thank God for that. Dad’s never mentioned it but I realize now that it was about then that his attitude to me changed. For one thing, he became less physically affectionate. Before, he’d always been a hugger, liked to sit with his arm around me while watching telly. After, he became more distant, wasn’t so spontaneous in showing his feelings. At the time I put it down to the strain he was under at work, but the real cause must have been seeing me with Adam that night.

  The next day was the surprise party and that can’t have helped either. Dad has always said I have a wicked streak. ‘My little devil,’ he used to call me when I was small. When I got older, in my teens and not so cute any more, it irritated him, but by then it was too late, the mould had set. Parents should be careful which traits they coddle in their children. Cute can easily turn into crass. No one can ever escape all her-history. (A Jan-type joke and a truth he finds it hard to live with.)

  Not that having a surprise party and inviting Gill was only devilment. I really did think Jan needed to see her if he was to make up his mind about her. There were all sorts of things that made me think this.

  For example, there were a lot more letters from her than he’s mentioned. For a few weeks one came every day. At the beginning he read them all. But they upset him. He’s said nothing about that. I got to know about it because one day after he’d been at the bridge about three weeks I arrived on foot after my bike had conked out, so he didn’t hear me coming. I saw him through the living-room window, sitting at the table with a letter in his hands, tears streaming down his face. I rushed in of course and comforted him and eventually got out of him that the letters kept him feeling tied to everything he was trying to cut free of – his parents, his home, the school, the town. And what he felt were the demands Gill made – her wanting him so much, her clinging to him, which he said felt like being suffocated.

  Anyhow, after that he stopped reading the letters. Now and then he’d try one just to see if he felt any different about them, but he never did. Instead he pinned them, mostly unopened, to the back of the living-room door where they accumulated, always with the name and address right way up, Gill’s neat round schoolgirlish handwriting repeating Jan’s name and address again and again as if for a school punishment. Then one day I decided the joke had gone far enough and started taking them down. Jan flew into a rage, yelling at me to stop meddling and treating him like a kid, I wasn’t his mother, etc. etc. Very vicious and emotionally violent.

  After that we didn’t speak for two days.

  But I’ve side-tracked. Back to the day of the party.

  That morning I felt terrible. As soon as I woke it came over me what I’d done. For the rest of the day during school I reassessed my values in life, as only the self-condemned know how. I didn’t exactly pray that if God didn’t strike me down with everything from herpes to Aids I’d never do anything so foolish again, but nearly. Then, after school there was shopping for the party and the business of getting Jan out of the house and making everything ready, which took my mind off my worries. In fact, typical me, I went to the other extreme and over-compensated by throwing myself body and soul into the party.

  Which party, I admit, went over the top, as usual once word gets round, especially in an area like ours with a university in range. By the time Gill turned up the house resembled a scene in Caligula’s palace during one of his more ingenious periods.

  At any rate, Gill flipped into a kind of catatonic shock. After all those weeks of writing all those letters and not getting a kind word never mind a letter in return, and all the time being patient and understanding and making allowances, she arrives to find him apparently having his balls massaged by a black-haired hussy in the middle of a crowd of zonked spectators lolling about in various states of déshabillé and at various stages preparatory to coition, if not already at it.

  [– Laying it on a bit, aren’t you?

  – Enjoying it.

  – Wasn’t quite that colourful, though, was it?

  – Moderately hectic. Anyway, that’s how it’s come out, so however it was then, that’s how it is now.

  – So much for history.

  – History is only accepted fiction.

  – Hey-up! That’s not you!

  – You mean, you don’t think I’m clever enough.

  – Come on, be honest.

  – Caught you out for once! Read it somewhere. Can’t remember.

  – So much for memory.

  – While memory holds a seat

  In this distracted globe, remember thee!

  Yea, from the table of my memory

  I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records.

  – Oo, climb every mountain, chuck!]

  The row outside the house sets my nerves jangling and jogs my worries and brings me back to my senses. This isn’t my day, I think, wishing I’d never suggested the wretched party in the first place. Blame Jan, I tell myself, it’s his fault for dithering. (When in doubt, transfer the guilt.)

  I follow Gill inside after exchanging a few more ill-chosen words with Jan. But can’t find her. The party has reached the slow-(e)motion phase already. Heaven knows what’s been going the rounds. Adam isn’t there either.

  I begin not to care, nudge myself a space on the living-room floor near the fire beside a friend from school who is sitting alone staring at the glowing embers (no one has enough wits left to put a fresh log on) while morosely brooding. She immediately starts to tell me about the loss of her boyfriend and bursts into tears and says she’d better slope off home because she doesn’t want people seeing her like this, which she does, leaving moi on my sola again, not a happy girl, my turn to stare regretfully at the embers.

  What happened next happened very quickly and at the time was very confused, anyway confusing.

  After the row outside Gill had stomped back into the house, intending to grab her bag which she had dropped on the floor of the living room, and set off for home, or anywhere – she just wanted to get away. But her bag wasn’t there (somebody had shoved it into a corner). That’s when she saw her letters pinned up on the living-room door, and she flipped.

  She ran out through the back door, where the outside light showed her the steps down to the lawn. Dashing down them, she slipped on their frosty surface and grazed her knee (she didn’t even feel it at the time, we found out later). She then blundered onto the path that led her along the river bank and under the bridge.

  There she stopped, breathless from distress and sensing she had come the wrong way and should go back. But she didn’t want to go anywhere near the house again in case she met Jan or me. ‘I felt I’d be sick if I did,’ she told me later, ‘I was so weary and angry at what had happened.’

  So she paused while she caught her breath and tried to decide what to do. But after a while, as she stood there in the dank cold with the arch of the bridge curving low over her head like the roof of a dungeon, and echoing the full-spated river swirling at her feet ‘as if,’ she said, ‘it wanted to sweep me away,’ she felt so abandoned, humiliated, and churned up with rage that she burst into tears. ‘How could they!’ she kept spluttering. ‘How dare they!’ No one had ever treated her like that before. ‘It was the first time I’d ever really felt betrayed.’

  By this time she was in such a state that she wasn’t aware of anyone approaching until she heard a male voice right behind her asking, ‘Are you Gill?’, which so startled her that she screamed, swung round, slipped on the muddy path, and fell, slithering into the river up to her waist before she was grabbed and lifted upright, instinctively grasping at her rescuer, who clung onto her, holding her tightly against him.

  Relief turned to panic. She didn’t know who this man was. Now she was trapped in his arms. He kept saying, ‘It’s OK, it’s all right, it’s only me, Adam, it’s OK.’ But she didn’t know any Adam and it wasn’t OK. She struggled against him, screaming loudly again. ‘It’s all right,’ Adam shouted as she st
ruggled and kicked.

  ‘I’d always wondered what I’d do,’ Gill said later, ‘if someone tried to attack me, you know how you do, but when it starts happening, you just panic so much, you can’t think, you just don’t want to get hurt and you’re scared of doing anything that might make him more violent.’

  Her screams must have panicked Adam. At any rate, Gill said, he suddenly let go of one of her arms to squash a hand over her mouth while shouting, ‘Shut it, will you! Shut it!’ And that, she said, is when anger took over from everything else. She had an arm free so she grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back as hard as she could. At the same time, bracing herself against the wall, she brought her right knee up into his groin as hard as she could.

  The result was that Adam let go and did a kind of whiplash – back and then forward – as the pain in his groin doubled him up. Gill dodged to one side. Adam’s head smashed into the wall and he fell to the ground, where he lay curled up, squirming and moaning, with his hands clasping his crotch.

  Gill didn’t stay to watch after that but fled back towards the house, desperate for help. She and I collided with each other at the top of the back steps.

  ‘God, what’s happened?’ I said, taking her inside.

  ‘A man attacked me,’ she managed to get out. ‘A man. Under the bridge. It was awful.’

  She started shaking so violently she could hardly speak at all. The others crowded round, asking questions.

  ‘Look, shut up,’ I said to them. ‘She needs some calm.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we see if he’s still there?’ someone said.

  ‘Some of the boys should go.’

  ‘Get the police,’ someone said.

  ‘God, no – the police in here! Have some sense!’

  Gill was completely distraught.

  ‘I’ll make her a hot drink,’ someone said.

  The search party returned, unable to find anyone. They’d looked under the bridge, along the river path, around the house, on the bridge itself, and had even made a sortie to the other side just in case. But no one, except for people deserting the party double-quick. Jan wasn’t anywhere to be found, either. Nor Adam. Several of my friends offered to stay in case the guy was a psycho and might try again, but I’d had enough of everything to be honest, and just wanted to be on my own and sort things out with Gill and Jan (who I thought was probably sulking nearby and would come back once everybody had gone).

  So I made people clear off and went round picking up the mess while Gill huddled by the fire looking shattered. Jan’s little alarm clock said twelve forty-five. Less than an hour since Gill’s arrival! I’d thought it must be ages later.

  When I’d done as much clearing up as I could bear, I sat with Gill by the fire. I’d been putting off this moment.

  We stared at each other, strangers and not strangers, having to make a fresh start. I knew what had to be done but being me it took a big struggle inside myself before I could force myself to say, ‘Sorry – sorry, sorry, sorry – this is all my fault.’

  Gill looked away and shrugged.

  There was a long silence before she said, ‘I wish I knew what was going on.’

  She was near to tears again.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Let’s start at the beginning – what else have we got to do?’ And I tried to tell her what had happened since Jan arrived at the bridge. She hardly interrupted at all, just a question here and there, until Adam came into the story, when, for the first time, she suddenly startled.

  ‘Adam?!’ she said.

  ‘The boy who’s helping Jan. I mentioned him in my letter.’

  ‘Not his name. You didn’t mention his name.’

  ‘I didn’t? Thought I had. Why, though? What’s the matter?’

  ‘The man who attacked me. I remember now. He said his name was Adam. “It’s only me,” he said, “Adam – it’s OK”.’

  I stared at her. ‘Christ! – are you sure?’

  ‘Certain. I’d forgotten till you said his name.’ She shivered. ‘It was so awful,’ she added bleakly, no tears, just cold fear.

  ‘But it couldn’t have been – Just a bit taller than me. Well built. Black hair –’

  ‘I couldn’t see! How could I see, it was so dark and we were under the bridge, and I was so upset and so scared –’

  ‘Sorry, yes, sorry, ’course, wasn’t thinking –’

  Which wasn’t true at all, just one of those things we say at times like that. I was thinking hard. I was thinking that if it were Adam, where was he now? Why hadn’t he come back? Or was it obvious why he hadn’t? If he’d been trying to help, and Gill had misunderstood, not knowing him when he thought she did, and he’d hurt his head and had his goolies crushed, wouldn’t the natural thing be to come back inside and get help? Unless he hadn’t been trying to help at all. But I didn’t want to think about that. The night before came flooding back, exactly the night before: twenty-four hours ago in front of this same fire on this same floor in this same house with someone who might be – That didn’t bear thinking about either.

  Perhaps there’d been another Adam at the party? But if there were and he was the attacker, why would he say ‘it’s only me’? Only one Adam would have said that – our Adam. Our Adam! Dear God!

  And if it were ‘our’ Adam and he had attacked Gill, what did that mean about ‘our’ Adam? And might he even be a psycho and be hiding somewhere nearby, waiting his chance to come back to try again – I started to feel scared myself.

  Where the hell was Jan? Why didn’t he come back?

  It was nearly one thirty. Mum and Dad knew we were having a party – though they didn’t know it was the kind it had turned into or Dad would have been down sharpish and put a stop to it. They’d have gone to bed, but I knew Dad would be lying awake, waiting for me. And I desperately wanted to go home now. Wanted to feel safe and in my own room and out of all this mess. But I couldn’t leave Gill on her own. Apart from the toll-bridge psycho, there was the prospect of her having to face her beloved again: she wouldn’t want to do that on her own. And as I’d brought all this about, I did feel it was my fault, my responsibility, and I couldn’t just leave her to it.

  The only thing I could think of was to get Gill and myself out of there. In the morning things might look different. So I said,

  ‘Look, Gill, we can’t stay here all night. I mean, we’re both knocked out, and I doubt if you’d feel comfortable trying to sleep here. I’ve a motorbike. D’you think you could stand to ride pillion, just for ten minutes? I could take you home. My parents won’t mind, they’re OK, they’re used to me having friends overnight. We could get some sleep and think about what to do in the morning.’

  We looked each other straight in the eyes for a moment, neither of us needing to say anything more. And then the natural thing seemed to be to take her hands in mine. She gripped me tight, and nodded, and we hugged each other and had to swallow the tears.

  Gill’s jeans were still damp, but she pulled them on. I found her bag and tamped the fire down, switched off all but one of the lights, and we left, locking the door behind us and hiding the key in the usual place so Jan could get in, and drove off, me hoping there were no late-night bobbies cruising round the village on the hunt for teenage L-plate delinquents. L for life as well as driving, I thought.

  Coming To

  1

  INSIDE, THE BOAT was perishing cold. Trimmed for winter lay-up, no food, very little of anything pinchable left behind and what there was stowed away and locked. Had to force the cabin door. Guiltily. But desperation overrides everyday honesty. There was a Gaz lamp, found when feeling my way round the cabin in the glim of moonlight filtering through the little head-high windows. Matches in a drawer by the galley stove. I used the lamp for long enough to find a blanket in an unlocked locker under one of the bunks and lie down fully clothed, then doused it, fearing detection or attracting a curious boozer from the bridge. Party noises drifted to me, brittle on the frosty air, among them at one moment not l
ong after I’d lain down a girl’s screams that didn’t sound like party pretence or genuine delight, but I paid no attention, not wanting to know.

  Everything a violation. The Glums threatened.

  Maybe because of the drink, maybe because of the colic, or of Peeping Tom the night before, or of having had so little to eat all day, or the combination of cold damp in the cabin and warm damp in the wrap of the blanket – whatever it was, and against the odds, I somehow contrived to fall asleep. For how long I couldn’t tell when I was woken by the boat lurching as someone clambered aboard. Adrenalin pumped. I sat up and listened.

  Hands fumbled with the fasteners that secured the cockpit awning.

  I called out, ‘Who is it?’

  The fumbling stopped.

  Silence.

  ‘Hello?’

  Nothing.

  I pressed my face to a window but, the moon now hidden again, could see nothing except the darker darkness of the river bank. But as I peered into the dark an object suddenly fell onto the narrow walkway of deck that ran at window level immediately outside. It took a moment for me to realize that the object was a human head. And only after I’d scrambled off the bunk and lit the lamp and held it close to the window did I see that it was covered in blood, which was oozing from a gash in the forehead, that the eyes were closed with the sucked-in dead look of the unconscious, and that the head was Adam’s.

  What is it about the sight of unconsciousness that makes you desperate? Is it because unconsciousness is halfway to death, and your natural impulse is to save the victim from going all the way? Or maybe that instinct I so much hate in humanity – the instinct to try and keep everybody else in the same state as you’re in yourself, even when you know your own state is dangerous or hasn’t much to recommend it – as when druggies tice others to shoot up, just to take an obvious example. Deadly conformity, dire conservatism. I’m what’s called alive, so you must stay alive as well, even if your life is rotten and worse is likely to beset you, because life is always believed to be better than any kind of death (though how does anyone know, as no one has come back to tell us what it’s like?). So taking your own life goes by offensive names – suicide, self-slaughter, sin, crime, self-destruction – and people are pitied who attempt it, as are those who by accident are associated with anyone who succeeds in doing it. What fools these mortals be.