THE BRIDGE KEEPER

‘Circa 2007, I wanted to see if I could write something dark, so wrote the Bridge Keeper. Once I realised I could go dark, I set out to write a crime novel. That manuscript became Men of Honour, which was shortlisted in a competition run by the ABC and NSW Writers Centre in 2008.

There are some parts of human existence for which there are no guidelines, irrespective of religious beliefs, relationships, wealth or any of the other myriad experiences that allow humans to differ. No one has written the guidelines for the solitary journey that everyone must take — the journey into death. Yet this is one of only two things that we all share. It represents the end of the normality of existence and begins the journey into the unknown’.

The bridge keeper whispered the remembered words as he watched the young girl head toward the centre of the bridge. Her return was expected. The previous evening, with her pale face pinched to a grimace, dressed in pale blue slacks, yellow blouse, fluorescent sneakers, she had hesitated as she climbed onto the handrail that protected pedestrians from the fifty foot drop to the chasm below. The winds of the updraft blew her blonde hair loose around her shoulders and her hands were pale in the streetlight as she clung on to one of the guy ropes. But that was last evening. Now, as she passed his house, she wore black jeans and a hooded jacket. Her stride was purposeful and her fists were clenched as she moved toward the centre of the bridge. This would be the night to end all nights.

He left his house and followed her to the centre of the bridge. ‘Excuse me,’ he called.

The girl turned, her eyes flashed, startled by words from the darkness. She looked around as if awoken from a dream. This was a good start, he thought. Her concentration was broken. Maybe an opening.

‘Sorry to startle you, miss,’ he said, as he reached her and gazed into her hooded eyes. They were a beautiful blue green colour, but otherwise as expected. They disclosed the slight daze of chemical stimulant. Something to settle the nerves? High? No, not high. Not doped to the eyeballs. Just enough. She had thought it through thoroughly. Last night he sensed that she had been crying. Tonight there were no tears.

‘What do you want?’ The girl scowled at him as she hissed through clenched teeth. The hiss wasn’t a scream but probably half an octave above her voice’s natural timbre.

He had hit the right chord. Speaking to her was an unwelcome disturbance, as expected. He held his hands up in supplication. ‘I just want to show you something…something that may interest you,’ he said.

The girl glowered. ‘Who are you?’ she spat

The question was incongruous. There was no interest in the answer. She just wanted him to disappear. He ignored her death stare. ‘I’m the bridge keeper,’ he said as he made positive eye contact and held his gaze. ‘I protect the bridge.’

She scrutinised him from head to foot and return. ‘You some sort of Council guy.’

‘As I said, I’m the bridge keeper.’

The girl shoved her hands into her jacket pocket and pulled the jacket tight. She stared at him. ‘You’ve got no right to stop me then.’

He’d heard the words before. They were part of any potential jumper’s arsenal. ‘I don’t want to stop you. I just want to show you something. Once that’s done, you can do whatever you want…your decision.’

The girl took a step backwards. ‘Why should I let you show me anything?’

He moved past her at distance and slowly walked to the centre of the bridge; to the spot where she had climbed onto the railing the previous night. He stopped and turned toward her. ‘It’s just something on the railing. You climbed onto it last night. Probably stood on what I want to show you…don’t worry. I’ll stand well back.’

He walked backward, with his palms facing up, for a few steps, beckoning the girl forward.

She stared through the darkness with eyes shadowed and solemn. He sensed profound sadness. She hesitated, not wanting to move forward but feeling a need to find out what he was talking about. For some inexplicable reason, she needed to be at the spot where his outstretched hand pointed.

'It's just the plaques,’ he said. Four together and one off to the right hand side. They all bear the names of jumpers and the date of the jump. The four together I don't know about but the fifth was my responsibility. That one I could have stopped but decided it was none of my business...so I let it happen. A mistake. What I didn't count on was the grief and trauma manifested on the bridge over the next few weeks. Flowers and toys...memories and longing...tears and wailing were all witnessed by the bridge over a short period.'

The girl glowered at him, her lips pulled hard against her teeth. He waited for her to explode but she didn't. Instead, she read the five plaques.

She looked into the man's eyes and held her gaze. 'These have nothing to do with me,' she said

He shook his head. 'You're wrong. You’re bound to them. Like you, they were selfish people.'

White fangs flashed, like the teeth of a rabid dog. Lave was nearing the surface. 'You don't know anything about me and I bet you didn't know any of the people on these tags,' she screamed. 'How can you say I'm selfish or that any of them were selfish?'

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled benignly. 'In many cases, suicide is a narcissistic act, carried out by someone at the centre of their own universe.'  He thought for moment and then decided to personalise his words a little. 'You look to me to be about eighteen or nineteen. Obviously, you have some sort of problem that requires a form of drastic action. But what could that be?  You don't look harrowed enough to have been traumatised as a child so there's probably no history of self-loathing or a desire to stop the pain. No...my guess is, you're at the end of a relationship, and can't live without the love of your life. Maybe you have an unwanted pregnancy, or someone wants you to do something that you don't want to do. Whatever it is, it can’t be life ending.’'

The girl snarled again. 'You're just full of shit. You don't know me or anything about me. You're just a religious nutter or some sort of do gooder who interferes in other people's lives.'

The man put his hands into his trouser pockets to indicate that he was no threat to the girl. 'Neither. I'm just the bridge keeper. I really don't care what your problem is. I just try to prevent people jumping from the bridge. If you really want to jump, I won't try to stop you. You look like a smart enough young lady, so I figure, by this stage, you have tried the various help lines…maybe talked through your problems with your parents. Some who don't do that and keep the problem bottled up. Then they isolate themselves and mistakenly think that they're all alone with their issues. You look too smart to be one of those.'

'I don't believe—' The girl stopped talking as the glare of car headlights highlighted silhouettes on the bridge.  The car reached the centre of the bridge and the passenger's side window rode down on its electric drive.

'The driver leaned across the seats and spoke to the girl. 'Jenny...are you okay?'

The girl kept her eyes on the bridge keeper as she answered. 'Yes, dad. I'm okay. I'm just out for a walk.'

'That's good. Deen and his family are at the house. Your mum was surprised to find you weren't in your room. You know this is an important night for our families.'

The bridge keeper watched tears form and glide down the girl's cheeks.

Moments passed before she spoke, she spoke. 'I know dad. I'll be back soon.'

The car door clicked open. 'Get in...It will save you the walk back. Deen's family is waiting.'

The girl leaned on the car door, took the door handle, clicked it open. She looked in to the recesses of the car. 'I'm eighteen, dad. I'm out for walk and will be home when I get there. I didn't invite Deen or his family over...you and mum did. Now go.'

The girl stood and returned her gaze to the bridge keeper, ignoring the fact the car hadn't moved, and the passenger door had been clicked off its latch again.

'As I was saying...I don't believe you can change an inevitable event by wishing it away or by some backhanded means trying to change someone's mind. I know what I'm doing.'

The bridge keeper gave a wan smile, said. 'I can live with that. You sound like an intelligent person and it appears you may be conflicted about life's direction...but that's not my business. With your father here, you're unlikely to jump, so my job is done for the night. I just hope I don't see you again.'

The girl walked to where the bridge keeper stood, leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. 'Thank you. If you weren't here, I would have gone by this.'

The man was taken aback by the gesture. He took a step backwards and smiled at the girl. 'If you get the urge again...just remember the six-month rule.'

The girl smiled for the first time that night. 'And what would that rule be?'

He joined her in smiling. 'It's one I learned a long time ago...whatever problem you have today, you won't remember in six months.'

The girl opened the car door and slipped into the seat beside her father.

Six months passed before the bridge keeper saw Jenny again. At least, he thought it was her. A cold winter’s night with a chill wind swirling from the chasm forming mist surrounding the streetlights. Hard to see anything but there was someone on the bridge. His heart jumped. He moved to his front door but then stopped and peered through the mist. Whoever it was laid something near the plaques and then walked toward his end of the bridge. The figure’s face was obscured by a fur hooded of a heavy raincoat but there was something about the way she stopped and looked toward his house that made him think.

The following day, her photo appeared in the seen about town pages of the local newspaper. Local car dealer images with her father and another man of age. She was sitting on the bonnet of a new BMW. Poorly posed, unnatural smiles. The next day, he saw her again. She was flirting with a young man at a café in a shopping mall. This time, the smiles were genuine.

It was the last time he saw her in person but not the last time he thought of her. He remembered something that she had said. I don't believe you can change an inevitable event by wishing it away.  Jenny's words were remembered as he read the headlines across the front page of the local newspaper. LOCAL COUPLE DIE IN HORROR SMASH. He didn't need to read the entire article; he had read the police report. A young woman was driving her fiancé’s new BMW for the first time. Witness statements read that the car accelerated before leaving the road, crashing through a barrier and smashing into the brick wall of a factory. The vehicle exploded on impact. The photo of the fiancé displayed the same synthetic smile as the photo from the car yard. Fiancé didn’t ring true. Deen was fifty-five years old.

The atmospherics of the incident made him think. Maybe he had been wrong in interfering with what Jenny wanted to do. At least her decision, on the bridge, didn't involve the death of another person. But then, he had no knowledge of what she meant by inevitable. Her death? That of Deen? He couldn't say.  The thing he pondered most was the time gap. It was six months between when he first spotted Jenny and the date of her death. Had she applied the six-month rule and found that the problem still existed? He hoped not but would never know. He put the paper aside, walked to his window and peered at the bridge’s road-lights through the fog. He may mourn the death of a young woman but there would be no new plaque for the bridge. He was the bridge keeper.