The Toll Bridge by Aidan Chambers
No, that’s just an excuse. The truth is more shaming. I was curious to know what would happen when Bob arrived.
Not that any of this was thought out. The second I heard Bob’s van approaching, I slipped across the road and vaulted over the bridge onto the bank just where it dropped steeply down to the river. Hidden there I could squint between the urn-shaped balusters.
The van drew up. Bob got out. Tried the house door. Locked. Stepped, without knocking, to the lighted window of the living room, raising his hand to rap on the glass, but, seeing in, never did, his hand arrested in a clenched-fist salute.
I could only see his back silhouetted against the window. For a moment he was a statue spelled by what he saw. Then, as if punched in the stomach, he slumped forward and turned away. I heard a groan as he paused a brief moment then came stumbling across the road directly towards me, reached the parapet, the edge of which he grasped, arms spread for support, right above me, where he struggled to control what were not groans, after all, but angry grieving sobs.
I had not seen a grown man weep before. Not like this – so unrestrained, so racked. A second first in basic emotions within moments of each other: I had wanted life stripped to the essentials and I was getting it. And again I was observing myself as I observed the other. The sight of Bob Norris possessed by such naked tears came as a shock, entangling my embarrassment with a sense of double betrayal. I cowered in my inadequate hiding place, head down, terrified that Bob would see me – yet, oh, if only he would see me! – and torn as well by an impulse somehow – but how? – to comfort him. Besides, his sobbing made me want to weep too, for suddenly I saw the scene in the house not with my own eyes but with his, and felt a confusing mix of shame, regret, anger, and worst of all of loss.
Just as I had never seen a grown man weeping, I do not think I had ever really known till that moment what compassion felt like. A third first.
Eventually Bob gained control of himself Snuffled back his tears. Swore. Spat over the parapet, a gob that landed like a rebuke on my bowed head. Breathed in and out deeply a few times. Returned to his van. But did not start the engine. Instead, letting off the brake, allowed the slight incline to carry the vehicle backwards down the road until a safe enough distance away to drive off without causing alarm in the house.
As soon as his tail lights were out of sight I climbed from my hiding place and set off after him, dregs of guilt stifling an impulse to steal a last glimpse through the toll-house window.
Walking through the village fifteen minutes later I spotted Bob’s van parked outside The Plough. Knowing he wasn’t a pub man, and even at home not much of a boozer, ‘drowning his sorrows’ came to mind.
He was sitting on a stool, slumped on his elbows against the bar nursing a large whisky, obviously not his first.
‘Saw your van,’ I said, half-perching on a stool beside him.
He gave me a sideways look through reddened eyes. ‘Had enough of mouldering in bed?’ And downed his whisky in one go.
‘Something like that.’
‘Want a drink?’
He ordered a glass of cider and another large Scotch.
When they had arrived he said, ‘The wife was telling me about your mother.’ He downed half his drink. ‘Sounds badly, poor woman.’
I said nothing, unwilling to talk about that subject.
He turned away, sat square to the bar, not looking at me, thinking, and after a moment said, ‘Hard job, being a parent.’
Attempting relief with a smile, I said, ‘Wouldn’t know.’
‘No.’ He downed the second half . ‘Just as well. If we knew the worst beforehand, maybe we’d never take it on.’
‘Is it that bad?’
He ordered another large Scotch.
‘If you ever have any –’ his words were slurring a little, ‘don’t have daughters.’
‘Didn’t know you could choose.’
He huffed ruefully. ‘Too true.’ Another half glass went down.
I said, chancing my arm, ‘Tess doesn’t seem so bad.’
‘Tess!’ he said, swivelling to me, ‘Tess! What d’you call her that for? Not her name. Katharine. Her name’s Katharine. You know that. Katey, if you like. Not Kathy, though, don’t like Kathy. But Tess! Dear God!’
‘Sorry. Private joke.’
‘Wonderful girl. Always was. Right from birth. Beautiful little thing. Nice-tempered. Lovely. Always loved her. Moment I saw her at the hospital.’
‘Well then?’
‘Another,’ he said to the barman.
‘Are you sure, Bob?’ the barman said. ‘Not like you.’
‘One more. That’ll be it.’
‘One more. But leave your van. Walk home, OK?’
He waited till the replenished glass was in front of him before looking at me with that close, slightly unfocused watery gaze of the not-quite-drunk intent on making a point too difficult to get words around. ‘What you think then? Of our . . . Tess?’
‘What do I think of her?’
‘What do you think of her?’
‘I like her.’
‘Come on, you can do better than that. How much?’
‘Dunno. A lot.’
‘Fancy her?’
‘Well –’
‘Go on. Don’t be shy. Man to man.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘But? Can’t be buts about fancying.’
‘She’s a friend, that’s all.’
‘Never done it. That what you mean?’
‘With her? No!’
He slurped from his glass.
‘Listen. Tell you something. It hurts. Know that, do you? Hurts like hell. Know what I’m talking about? Children – daughters – specially daughters – most specially . . . Tess. Katey . . . Lovely beautiful Katharine. Daddy’s girl. What her mother calls her. Daddy’s girl.’ He chuckled. ‘But they grow up, see? Love them. Want the best for them. Worry.’ He shot a glance at me. ‘Get jealous. Know that? Know what I’m talking about? Bet never thought that, eh? Fathers get jealous. Eh? Thought that? . . . I get jealous. Put it that way. Understand?’
Gripping the bar to steady himself, he slid uncertainly to his feet. Sweat glazed his face.
‘Let’s go. Too bloody hot here.’
He staggered. I caught his arm and guided him to the door. Outside, the cold December night slapped us. He braced himself against me, took two deep breaths, pulled his arm from my grip, and set off uncertainly towards his van. I skipped ahead, placing myself between him and the door.
‘Mr Norris, I don’t think you should drive. Let’s walk home.’
He stood scowling at me, swaying slightly. ‘Tess! Thought about her name careful, wife and me. Important – names. Yes? Important. You know – mean things. Don’t they? . . . Tell something else. Sometimes I feel – sometimes I want . . . Better not. Can’t hurt then. Member that.’
‘I will, Mr Norris, I will, but I think we ought to walk home now.’
I didn’t wake until after nine next morning. By the time I’d pacified Mrs Norris for going out the night before and returning with her husband drunk (a calamity she somehow seemed to blame on me) and argued her into letting me go back to the bridge it was ten thirty. When I arrived Adam was lolling by the blazing fire, supping coffee and looking smug, the room bright with fresh paint. Tess, it turned out, had been busy with Adam all day yesterday while I lay brooding between her mother’s flannelette sheets. She had skipped school and she and Adam had finished off glossing the woodwork and then titivated the entire place – living room, bedroom, kitchen area, even the basement lavatorywoodstore.
No longer was the house like the tidy squat Adam first took it to be. Now it was a newly decorated home. Not an especially well-off home, but still, a place where people lived. On the mantelpiece and windowsills winter berries and sprigs of evergreen sprouted from make-shift vases – bottles, old jugs. Stoneware cider flagons had been converted into table lamps to match the one I’d made for a bedside light, only th
‘Like it?’ Adam asked.
‘You mean, Tess was here all day?’
‘Wanted to make the place nice for you. I made the table for the telly though.’
‘Where did all the stuff come from?’
‘Dunno. Very resourceful is Tess. Knows a lot.’ He chuckled, double-meaning. ‘All finished. No more painting.’
‘Terrific,’ I said flatly. Was the place mine any longer?
‘Aren’t you pleased?’
‘Delirious. Had a good time, then?’
‘Great.’
‘I’m glad. Worked hard, eh?’
‘Want some coffee? There’s some letters by the telly.’
Letters
1
. . . UNLESS YOU SAY no I’ll come on the Friday and leave on the Monday . . .
2
. . . NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO . . .
3
. . . a friend of his. My dad is his boss. I expect he’s told you that he’s decorating the toll house because the owner is thinking of selling it (which we’re all against, I’m thinking of starting a Save The Toll House protest group). At first he was working on his own – well, I do help a bit when I can – but for the last couple of weeks another boy has been helping and they reckon they’ll be finished by the end of next week, which is great because it means they’ll be all done just in time for Christmas.
I thought it might be a good idea if we had a surprise party on Friday 13th (nothing like tempting fate!) to celebrate the end of the decorating. And I wondered if you’d like to come. He’s talked about you a lot, that’s how I know about you. I sneaked your address from a letter I saw lying on his table. I hope you don’t mind, but it was the only way of finding out where you live without him knowing.
It would be great if you could come, the best surprise of all. It would do him good after everything he’s been through and working so hard, and anyway I’m dying to meet you . . .
Surprise Party
1
MAYBE THE TROUBLE is thinking of days as clock time, regular mechanical measure, when, maybe, time isn’t like that at all. We just like to pretend it is because then we feel in control of it. When probably there is nothing to control. What we’re doing is confusing different kinds of words. You can measure length. You can’t really measure time. How do you measure the past or the future? And the present doesn’t have any length, being simply Now. If we try to measure ‘now’ we find it’s always gone, has become part of the past. We shouldn’t use measuring words about it, then we wouldn’t get so confused about what Time is.
Besides, it seems to me that everything we know of in the universe, everything from clocks to supernovas, everything is both a physical object and a shape of energy. Nothing exists, nothing happens without energy. Energy is things; things are energy. Life is energy. People are energy made flesh. Maybe Time is a form of energy as well?
Is that true? If it is, then it is also true that energy can be compressed into concentrated, powerful units (50 watt bulbs, 100 watt, 2000 watt: energy packaged as light). We know this. We experience it every day around us. So why not the same for human beings and for Time? Surely our lives – our lives as we live them during one day, and our lives as we live them during another day – are also packets of energy? And on some days we somehow concentrate more energy into the day and get more done in the same period of clock time than we did another day when our energy was on low wattage.
So time is not really like clockwork at all, but is a variable resulting from the interaction between energy and thought expressed as event. Energy + Thought = TimeEvent.
Which explains why sometimes we talk of filling time (meaning: being easy on ourselves by living our lives at low wattage). And of making time (meaning: not that we make more of it in quantity, but that we make more of it in quality – living life with as high wattage as we can). And of there being not enough time to do all we want to do (meaning: our ambitions for our lives can’t be satisfied and all our flooding energy can’t be used up). And of killing time (meaning: we wilfully squander the present moment). And of passing time, and wasting time, and saving time.
When I was a baby my mother hung a plaque above my bed, a sliver of varnished wood with these words literally burned into it:
Think big and your deed will grow,
Think small and you’ll fall behind,
Think that you can and you will,
It’s all in your state of mind.
When I was fourteen I took the plaque down and secretly burned it because I thought it embarrassingly corny. I mean, who wants to bring friends to his room and have them see that kind of kiddy kitsch hanging over the bed? Anyway, it was asking for ribald jokes. But the trouble with clichés is that they stick. I haven’t forgotten it because in its trite and twitchy way it is also true. Even time, and how much we can do in a set time, depends as much on our state of mind as it does on anything else. Because of my time at the toll bridge, and because of my time with Adam I know I want to be a user of time, not a filler of it, a maker of time not a killer of it, a compressor of energy not a so-whatter. Adam did not teach me this, but I learned it from being with him at the bridge.
But this part of the story is about a twenty-four-hour stretch into which we all crammed enough watts, gave each other enough surprises, and suffered enough shocks to last a lifetime.
Do we ever know our friends? Do we ever know ourselves?
2
Earlier that afternoon, Adam said, ‘Don’t half fancy a movie.’
‘Go!’ Tess said. ‘Both of you. I’ll guard the bridge. Go on! Don’t dither! Shop on the way back. Go!’
A stratagem, of course. Betrayal. Returning that evening the house is sardined, pulsing.
‘Surprise, surprise!’
Wild cheers.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
Shopping bag grabbed from my hand.
‘Who are all these people?’
Replaced by slopping glass.
More wild cheers.
Tess, beside me, blows one of those referee’s searing whistles.
‘Listen, everybody,’ she yells.
Hushings. Exaggerated party laughter.
‘This is a surprise party for Jan, my friend.’
‘Who certainly looks surprised.’ (Isn’t he one of the university cohort we saw that day with Adam at the Pike?)
Laughter.
‘With a bigger surprise still to come,’ Tess goes on.
‘Ooo – naughty, naughty!’
Cheers. Obscene fingers and fists.
‘Also, this is the first meeting of PATHS.’
‘Hear, hear!’
‘Which, for Jan’s benefit, as he doesn’t know yet, means Protest Against the Toll House Sale.’
‘Bravo!’
‘Encore!’
‘He doesn’t know yet because we’ve just decided it while he was out.’
‘Right on!’
‘Let’s hear it for the toll house. Hip, hip . . .’
‘Hooray.’
‘Henry.’
Laughter.
‘What we’re going to do for a start is collect names on a petition to stop the sale.’
‘Right on!’
‘Where do I put my cross?’
‘We’ll decide other things later. Now, everybody enjoy yourselves.’
The noise is blinding. Anger withers my mouth. I gulp from the drink. Tastes multicultural.
‘What is this?’
‘House warming. Come on, let your hair down.’
Tess makes me dance with her. Or what passes for dancing in a sardine tin. Mass squirming.
‘Who are they all?’ I have to shout, mouth to car.
‘Friends from school,’ she replies, her lips tickling my lobes. ‘A few from the village. One or two of the girls from Tesco’s. Don’t know the others. You know how it is. Word gets round.’
‘Could’ve warned me.’
‘Wouldn’t have been a surprise then, would it, idiot!’ The house throbs. If I go outside, will I see the river rippling in harmony, the bridge undulating in rhythm? My mind gives up. There’s no competing with a noise that pulsates your teeth.
3
Before long Adam has cast himself as a one-man repertory theatre: MC, sergeant major, DJ, mein host, pack leader, party clown, games master. That is, he becomes one of those people who get a kick out of powertooling everybody else. Embryo dictator.
He insists we play some games.
Game One. The Balloon Burst, otherwise known as the Pelvic Bang.
The boy holds a blown-up balloon in front of his crotch. Or stuffs it up his shirt or sweater, as preferred. The girl has to burst the balloon by thrusting her pelvis at it, front on. Close encounters of the pudic kind. Which end in giggles and, on the occasions when the balloon goes off, in exaggerated shrieks. Some cheat by using finger nails or other penetrants.
I opt out, not needing to pretend needing a leak.
On my way back I’m groped at the bottom of the steps by a cruising figure dressed entirely in black.
‘Sorry, not my line,’ I mutter.
‘Could give you a nice surprise. It is a surprise party after all, and you’re the party boy.’
‘Thanks for the offer.’
‘Don’t know what you’re missing.’
‘No, well, another time maybe.’