Ten Miles Out
“Hello... can I help?”
The voice pierced through the darkness. There was no answer, so the speaker tried again.
“Excuse me, my friend, can I help you?”
The words were insistent, their urgency sharpened by being the only sounds to be heard in the empty night. The man who was standing on the stone parapet of the bridge eventually replied, but without turning his face towards his questioner.
“Help me? Are you one of them nutters or summat?” he said, his voice heavy with disdain.
The stranger in the darkness smiled. “Now, that might be matter of perspective. I mean... look where you’re standing right now, my friend. How far is that drop? Twenty feet? Twenty-five?”
Underneath the moonless sky the faintest hum of electricity haunted the air. The outline of the man on the parapet was painted with an other-worldly orange glow. It ghosted up from somewhere below the bridge and stuck fast to the outer edges of his body. He showed no sign of acknowledging any irony in the words he had spoken.
“You look like you’ve got a decision to make,” the stranger continued, unperturbed.
“Is that right?”
“Well, if you’d already made it, you wouldn’t still be standing there would you?”
“Summat tells me you’re going to help me mek it anyway.”
“I just want to help if I can.”
“So you’ve said... good Samaritan are you? But what if that makes you an accomplice to my crime... have you thought about that?”
The stranger hesitated before answering.
“Then maybe that’s a risk worth taking.”
Eight miles out...
Icy rain began to spit around them. The stranger could see that the man standing on the wall was shivering.
“What’s your name, my friend?” he asked.
The other man’s stare remained focussed on the blackness in front of him, where only a single red light twinkled in the distance. After a suspicious silence he finally answered in a subdued, almost uninterested, tone.
“You’re no friend of mine, mate... but, if you’re that bothered, the name’s Frank.”
“Perhaps you ought to have worn a coat Frank,” suggested the stranger, “do you want to take mine?” He began to unzip his jacket.
“Are you for real? Do you really think a bloody coat will help me now?”
“It’s one less pain to feel isn’t it?”
“As you said before, that depends on your perspective dun’t it? Maybe the cold will tek my mind off the pain... ’ave you thought about that?” Frank felt in his pockets and pulled out a lighter and a cigarette, which he lit with shaking hands. “Anyway mate, you haven’t said why you’re out here, creeping about in the middle of night? Or is it the morning now? I’ve lost track.”
The stranger looked at his wristwatch.
“It’s morning, just. Me? I’m just walking home, you know... taking in a last bit of fresh air before I finish.”
“Night shift is it?”
The stranger didn’t answer the question and instead posed another of his own.
“What about you Frank? Why are you here... or more specifically, why are you standing there?”
Six miles out...
Frank dragged on his cigarette, momentarily brightening its orange-red tip.
“You don’t want to know the answer to that question mate, believe me.”
“Try me.”
“I murdered someone if you must know.”
The words hung in the air for a moment, stuck to the misted breath that delivered them until they were dissolved by the rain. The stranger recoiled into the shadows beyond the limits of the pale orange glow and Frank flashed his gaze momentarily towards the sound of the retreating footsteps.
“You see, you should have listened to me,” he rasped with venom, his words almost falling over each other, “you really didn’t want to know that did you?” The dark threw a veil over the solitary angry tear that had begun to trickle down his face.
“You killed somebody?”
“That’s right mate... a kid.”
“How?” asked the stranger, gently, from his dark place of safety.
“It’s easier than you’d think.” Frank took his time before continuing with well-rehearsed words. “I was driving the school bus, in the next village over there.” He gestured over to his left with his cigarette. “It was over before I knew it. In the blink of an eye. There was a little girl with an ice cream and I just didn’t see her... you can guess the rest.” As the words became more difficult to get out he paused to wrestle back some composure, then he shook his head. “Look, I don’t know why the hell I’m telling you this... a complete stranger an’ all that. I’ve not talked about it to anybody, apart from those useless bloody counsellors.”
“So you’ve been bottling it up then?”
“Bottling it up? I’ve not stopped thinking about that moment, every bloody second of it, for the last three years. It’s not that I believe in God, especially not now, but ever since that day I’ve literally been praying that the next time I think about it there’ll be a different ending. There never is.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re about to jump off a bridge though, does it?”
Four miles out...
“I think you need to work it out for yourself mate.” There was another rise of frustrated anger in Frank’s voice. “Look, I’ll help you out. You kill a kid, so your reward is that you lose your job. That’s after you’ve spent six months on gardening leave, when you’ve got nothing to do but beat yourself up every day for what you’ve done. That just adds a few more scars to the ones you’ve already got. Then the wife leaves you for someone who still has their sanity... and believe me there’s plenty of those bastards around when you’re losing your marbles. By that point you’re buggered anyway, because you’re too screwed up to get another job... you’re too screwed up to do anything much.”
“I’m sorry Frank, I really am.”
“When I killed that kid it ended my life too. Right there and then. Whatever happens tonight, it’ll mek no difference to anything or anybody. You tell me... what else can I do?”
“What was her name... the girl?”
Frank paused and when the words came they were said reverentially. “Petra... Petra Jane Carter.”
“I remember her.” The stranger edged out of the shadows and back into the glow from the pallid light. “I knew her parents a little... friends of friends, you know.”
Frank’s shivering halted in an instant and the burning tip of the cigarette swivelled round to point in the stranger’s direction. “Oh?”
The stranger sensed Frank’s wariness. “They forgave you didn’t they? From what I remember the coroner said you weren’t to blame... that there was nothing you could have done.”
Two miles out...
“They’re good people, I know that.” The cigarette rotated back to face away from the stranger. “The thing is, I also know that I was awake ’til three in the morning the night before, acting like a bloody idiot as usual. I’d been drinking too much for a week-night and me and the missus had had a stinking row. I remember that had been on my mind all day, even when I was driving the bus. Does that still mek me blameless?”
“It makes you human.”
“Human? You’ll have to remind me what that feels like, mate.” Frank wiped his eyes. “Do you want to know what my days are like now?”
“Tell me.”
“I get up in the morning, but I haven’t slept because she keeps me awake all night. Every time I close my eyes she’s there, right in my fat face. But the thing is, I see her standing at the end of my bed when my eyes are open too. When I go out, she’s playing wi’ the other kids in the park and outside the school... I see her whenever there’s a kid eating an ice cream”.
He screwed up his eyes.
“And to mek matters worse, she’s always so bloody beautiful, you know? Curled up, like... like she’s asleep... like a baby, just with that little bruise on her forehead. I bet she’s fucking well here now… on this bridge, somewhere.” Frank’s voice broke completely and his face fell into his hands as he fought back sobs to continue his confession. “Her mam and dad might have forgiven me... but she hasn’t.”
The stranger moved a little closer and seemed to be about to speak when Frank raised the hand that held the cigarette.
“I don’t want your sympathy mate. I don’t deserve it. Just be happy that she got her revenge in the end. She squeezed the life out of me. There’s no room for anythin’ else in here... nothin’. Zilch. No love, no joy, no pity, no feeling.”
One mile out...
A soft shuffling noise at the edge of the bridge caught the attention of both men and they rotated their heads in unison towards it. A fox skipped on tiptoes out of the darkness and into the orange hued halo which hung over the footpath across the bridge. It turned the animal a luminous, transcendental red. It checked when it saw that it wasn’t alone and pricked up its ears, then took a few more tentative steps forward and sniffed the air. For a brief moment the three figures sussed each other out in silence. Then the spell broke and the red apparition turned and, after stopping to look back one last time, scurried away into the gloom.
“You know, if you want to see things clearly, I’d advise you not to do it in the middle of the night. Everything’s so bloody dark,” said the stranger turning his head back towards Frank.
“Are you tekkin’ the piss now?”
“No, I’m deadly serious. Look at that fox... it was beautiful wasn’t it? Magical even? It’s a small thing, but you know you’ll remember that moment, like a painting committed to canvas inside your head. Every time I see something like that I feel so privileged. There is real magic out there Frank. You just have to give yourself the best chance of finding it.”
It was true. Frank had felt unexpectedly energised by the encounter with the animal. “I’ve never seen one of them before, for real I mean... at least not that close up,” he confessed, a hint of excitement in his voice. “I thought it might have been her at first”.
“Well it wasn’t her. I bet you’re never very far away from a fox around here. There’s probably badgers and all sorts if you look closely.”
“I couldn’t take my eyes off it... it were just like bein’ hypnotised,” he was surprised to find himself chuckling. The chuckle cracked into a phlegmy cough.
“Then, perhaps, there is room for other things in your life after all. Maybe Petra will let you share them with her. She might even leave you in peace altogether?”
Half-a-mile out...
The spitting rain transformed into the lightest of snowflakes, a sparse few at first, before becoming numerous enough to begin settling on the bridge. The breeze picked up so that the flakes spiralled in the orange air as they fell. Frank laughed again, examining each icy crystal as they landed and melted into his clothes and skin.
“It’s like that film, int it? You know the one with James Stewart and the angel? What’s it called...?”
“It’s a Wonderful Life?”
“That’s it!” Frank threw what was left of his cigarette excitedly to the floor. “It’s a Wonderful Life! I used to bloody love that film. I’ve not seen it in ages. This is so bloody weird... what with you coming out of nowhere, the snow, it’s just the same... it is!” He shook his head disbelievingly.
“Only it’s not Christmas.”
“No. It’s not.”
“Maybe you should go out and buy the DVD tomorrow.”
“Ha! I’m not falling for that one mate... who do you think I am? Jimmy Stewart?”
Frank shuffled and jumped on his perch. That was until his ears registered the faintest of mechanical sounds, metal on metal and the straining of an engine, drifting through the trees around them. His body stiffened as the sound grew steadily louder. He could feel the heavy vibration through the cold stone of the bridge. It told the story of the leviathan that was now hurtling towards them.
A smile crept across the face of the stranger.
“Decision time!” he announced with relish.
A quarter-mile out...
Headlamp beams flickered through the trees as the train negotiated a sharp bend in the track, before turning its face eagerly towards the bridge. Ahead of it, the rails, ignited by its light, reached out like thin, beckoning, arms towards the two men.
“It’s been good talking to you,” offered the stranger, “we really must do this again sometime.”
Frank could no longer speak, his heart was banging hard and painfully against the wall of his chest. Sweat ran down his back under his shirt. He swivelled his body around, following the beam of light from the train as it shone onto its target. The bright glare revealed his first clear view of the sodden stranger, but he could see no reassuring anxiety in the man’s calm expression. Instead, a satisfied half-smile was fixed behind the icy rainwater washing down his face.
“Who are you?” Frank finally found himself asking.
“Fancy you asking me that now... just when I have a train to catch.”
The still-smiling stranger took a couple of unsteady strides backwards and then turned and leaped up onto the parapet on the opposite side of the bridge. He stood upon it for a second or two arms outstretched, illuminated in the spotlight, the black material of his jacket sides flapping in the breeze. Then, in the instant before the engine rattled underneath the bridge, he took a step into the darkness.
The locomotive emitted a blood-chilling scream as its locked wheels dragged along the raw steel of the track, shaking the bridge like an earthquake. Inquisitive windows on the far side of the track lit up, one by one, until they were dotted around the hillside like Chinese lanterns. Frank jumped down and ran across to peer over the wall where the stranger had fallen. The train was rolling slowly to a standstill, its wheels still squealing in shrill protest. As his agitated breath drew freezing air into his lungs, pumping it back out in swirling clouds into the snowy night, he was conscious of the goosebumps rising on his arms. The icy breeze sharpened the cold wetness around his eyes and the dampness of his clothes. In between each crash of his heartbeat, his ears picked out the opening of a cabin door and the sound of raised voices converging on the scene from all around, as torchlight decorated the footways down to the track. A bell rang somewhere out in the darkness and he tasted the sharp, sticky, tang of the saltwater which had found its way into his mouth.
His brain had become overloaded with a chaos of old sensations that had become new again. There was no room left there for her. As his senses fell back into re-alignment, Frank knew, without doubt, that the last place he wanted to be was on that bridge.
