The Devil’s Bridge

I remember fragments. Vague to start with then detail emerging like a cobalt ink blot spreading across my sepia-stained mind. A night of falling snow, an alabaster sky, darkness dissected by the light of street lamps. Stars blanketed by pearlescent sheets. I am tramping past house windows, nearly all with curtains or blinds drawn. Deserted pavements and hidden alleyways. My breath is visible in the cold.

(I think I had rowed with Frankie and stormed out into a blizzard). 

I round a corner. There’s a midnight fox, eyes alive, prowling, body arched as I near. It runs away. The briefest of stand-offs. Watching it disappear into a half-lit housing estate then, turning, I realise I am on the railway bridge at the edge of Bleadon Hill.

Standing on asphalt, the chest-high wall cambers overlooking the railway tracks. The view is shrouded in shadow. Funereal. Trees and undergrowth climb both sides of a ravine, a red/green signal man-made evidence of the constant flow of trains, north and south, to Bristol and Plymouth.

I can’t be sure but I think I mount that section of wall and, fleetingly, stand towering over the scene below.

The last train to Bristol Temple Meads hammers along. It is 23:48.

And that’s where the memory ends. I know that there is so much more but I can’t quite bring it all back. It was a long time ago. Things were broken back then. Was it problems at work? Personal issues? Maybe there was no particular reason to be there. The winds of time blow and we are eroded like shimmering sand in a lost desert.

……The bridge has been waiting patiently. It has no favourites. Sometimes the quiet ones come looking for a better option. A way out…...

I am back in the present. A sonorous gale howls outside my window like a moribund banshee. Seeping through the bedroom walls is opprobrium from the television. Late night news. Frankie will be sitting there absorbing all the gloom and doom the world has to offer while I lie here in bed. Ruminating. Life slows to a crawl as we age.

There’s a rumbling noise that lasts only seconds. Another train passing by, clacking rhythmically; an ephemeral timpani of forged steel.

I haven’t considered it in years but my thoughts turn to the bridge – The Devil’s Bridge. I used to think it was cursed. Perhaps it is.

Minutes and seconds drag as I wait for Frankie to join me. She’s a terrible insomniac these days. I can sense the approach of the witching hour. Midnight summons a new day like a mystic witch. The early hours can be soulless; a gateway from dark to light that we can’t always successfully traverse.

Bed clothes are gently thrown off and I slowly rise. It’s a feat to get up and do anything other than rest. My doctor would not be happy.

I take off my pyjamas and get dressed. Woollen pullover, black slacks, socks, loafers. My navy nylon coat is hanging on a peg in the hallway.

There’s a strange compulsion to leave. I glide through the bungalow like an urban ghost. I suspect Frankie has fallen asleep again. The front door beckons, patterned glass staring back at me as I fumble with the lock. My liver-spotted hands are shaking but I am out into the streets once more.

An elderly woman rouses shakily from her slumber. She finds herself curled up on a settee, bombs going off onscreen a few feet away. She pops her slippers back on and shuffles towards the kitchen to make a hot drink. Late at night, at times, she feels all alone.

Drifting along the road there’s an incorporeal feeling I can’t shake. It’s as though I hardly exist. Translucent. Innately, I know where I am heading. It’s curiously effortless covering ground. It should be incredibly difficult given my poor health. There’s a feeling of euphoria. Before I know it, I am at the bridge once more.

I somehow clamber onto the top of the wall and glare down into the darkness. To my right are the black metal railings recently added to stop jumpers; this is a recognised suicide spot. The effort made by the council seems half-hearted as the new deterrent covers such a small part of the grade II listed facade. It would be so easy to circumvent. It is so easy to circumvent.

The skies are clear, stoic cloud long gone, moonlight casting a fairy-like glow over the land. It’s like something from a Shakespeare play. Like a dream.

I glance around at the desolate road and remember. A passing car, halogen headlamps blazing. A man getting out and gently coaxing me down. I see his kind features again, his worried expression. The door to his Audi is wide open, music from the radio cascading into the ether. Cold Play’s Fix You trails away. Seems apt.

He is not here this time.

I close my eyes…

…and…

…just…

…fall.

I expect to feel the unforgiving thud of the ground and suffer a painful messy demise. Instead, my eyes open, and I am inside a train carriage. Glancing all around, it seems I am the lone traveller. Shadows and silhouettes rush by outside the window.

Having made her bedtime drink, the old woman visits the bathroom to brush her teeth. She looks in the mirror and sees someone that she no longer knows. There’s a yearning to be young, something she will never experience again.  Putting the cap back on the half-squeezed tube of toothpaste, she clicks the light off and pads into the bedroom.

I have an inkling as to where the train is going.  There is peace with the destination and, in my mind’s eye, I see my wife. She looks anguished. I know she will join me one day. I don’t know how I know this but I do. I will wait. In the meantime there is the feel of ripped, worn material from the seat underneath me. Leaning forward, I lurch to the right allowing me to look up and down the gangway.

My eyes gradually adapt to the dim lighting. I squint trying to discern shapes occupying the next carriages along. Phantoms and spirits fidget and move in a way that I can’t clearly make out who or what they are. Outside there is an increasing luminosity, the fabric of the night being replaced by something else. Optimism seeps into the atmosphere. It’s contagious.

Now I see them; faces staring back at me. They seem pallid as though the life force has been drained from them. They are legion. The sum contents of a human span. I recognise some of them from my past. Fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles, older cousins and a young boy taken too soon. All here to escort me to the place beyond. I welcome and accept this. 

Crouching down, she looks into where her husband’s face should be. The bed clothes are crumpled and gathered on her side in an untidy heap. The half-light is revealing only part of a story. She flips the switch on the wall at the risk of waking him. There is nobody in the bed. The old woman searches everywhere but he has gone. She calls the police on the underused landline. As a distant voice asks for details, she stops momentarily and sees him in her mind. He seems happy, this mental apparition.

The light is so bright now and everywhere. The train is bathed in orange and white. It has left this plane and made the transition. Two people seemingly insignificant in the grandest of designs are now apart.  They may meet again somewhere in the cosmic realm. Time will decide. Time always decides.

It is 3:05am and the doorbell is ringing. Frankie shuffles towards it hoping to see a familiar face. She opens up and is caught in a swathe of swirling blue light. Two police officers standing bolt upright initially then lean in and peer in at her. The universe is playing tricks. She imagines her husband smiling at her as sympathetic words come in low tones from the doorway. Has he been found?

Meanwhile, The Devil’s Bridge bides its time once more.

Someone else will be along soon.

Image available @ wikimedia.org