she said, trying to smile again. I didn’t like it when she did that. I wished she’d stop.
‘Mum, you’ve got to move,’ Naomi said at this point. She put her hand on Mum’s white fingers and tried to unwind them from the railing, but Mum started shaking her head and moved her other hand on top of the first one.
‘Can’t,’ she whispered, probably hoping I wouldn’t hear her. She was very fond of telling me there was no such word.
Naomi sighed and let go, then sat down on the ground next to Mum. ‘Might as well sit down, Dozy,’ she said. ‘We’re likely to be here for a while.’
‘Why? What’s going on? Why won’t you tell me?’
‘May I be of assistance, ladies?’ a male voice broke in at this point. The three of us all turned and looked up at a man in jeans and gleaming white trainers, standing above us. I remember that his jeans had a crisp crease running down the centre of each leg.
‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Mum half-whispered immediately, trying to give the impression of strength and capability. She was pretty convincing, in spite of a bloodless face and tremors in her voice.
‘You don’t look fine,’ he said, crouching down to mirror her pose. ‘Seriously, won’t you let me help you? You can’t live here – the council won’t allow it.’
‘Thank you,’ Naomi said at this point, standing up. ‘My name is Naomi, that’s my sister Dozy, and this is our mum, Anne.’
‘Nice to meet you all,’ he said, glancing briefly at me, then focusing back intently on Mum. ‘My name is Graham.’ He extended his hand to her. ‘Take hold of my arm; I’ll help you get across.’
Daisy Mack
Getting high. Not good.
Suzanne Allen Certainly sounds good. Although, of course, I would have absolutely no idea whether it’s good or not. It’s all a complete mystery to me. Unknown territory as it were.
Jenny Martin Suzy you’re protesting far too much lol!
I’m at the footbridge now. Actually I’ve already been standing here for a few minutes, trying to get up the courage to go over it. My stomach is churning and my heart is thudding as if I’ve just bumped into Hugh Grant. I don’t know how Mum even began to cross that bridge in London back then, when she had two children with her. I feel nervous enough carrying my iPod across. For some reason it feels like everything I’m holding is in danger of going over the side.
OK, there’s nothing to be done other than put one foot in front of the other until I reach the other side. I’ve discovered that if I sing that old song ‘Help’, it really does help.
‘Why don’t you close your eyes?’ Abby said to me, the first time she walked over it with me.
‘How will that help?’
‘Well, you won’t be able to see how high up you are.’
‘Again, how will that help?’
Right, I’m on the bridge. I am not going to look anywhere except straight ahead. I am not paying any attention to the cars and lorries speeding past below me.
‘Afternoon,’ says a voice unexpectedly, and I suddenly realise that under the whoosh of the blood rushing in my ears I’ve just heard some light footsteps approach behind me.
‘Hi,’ I say weakly, as a man in tight black Lycra shorts and a clingy vest top jogs easily past me. As he passes, he turns slightly, makes eye contact and gives a little smile. His blond hair is falling beautifully across his forehead in a floppy curl, and the eyes that meet mine are clear and crystal blue. My knees, already dangerously weak, practically give out at this point. ‘Come on then,’ he says, and makes a forward sweeping gesture with his arm, as if he’s moving over to allow me to go past.
I shake my head. ‘N’th’nks,’ I manage to croak out, the combination of the footbridge and his thighs making me virtually unintelligible. Oh God, I used to be good at this. And I don’t mean walking.
‘Come on!’ he repeats, turning again and grinning more broadly. Then, to my utter horror, he actually runs backwards on the bridge for a few steps and I almost vomit. I have to look away as my heart stops dead in my chest and even though I’ve turned away, I squeeze my eyes shut too. He’s going over, he’s so going over, he’s definitely going over. I cringe and tense, clenching my fists and my jaw, my whole body a taut muscle waiting for the trip, the shout of terror, the scream; and after two or three seconds of heavy anxious breathing, I don’t hear it. I crack one eye open. Sunny day; bridge; man jogging lightly away. Now I’m just a very tense woman watching a fit man jogging. With effort I relax my shoulders and loosen my fists, turning to face forwards again and straightening up a little. Thank God he didn’t see that.
He’s almost at the other end of the bridge now. If I’d been jogging like him, I might have reached the other side too. I might also have caused a deep, ancient fault in the concrete finally to splinter under the thud of my feet, and have tumbled to my death in a sickening avalanche of twisted metal and rock. I shake my head and accidentally catch sight of a couple of cars and a lorry speeding past below me, which makes me gasp and wobble. I have to stop and grab hold of the handrail quickly and bend my knees. Somehow getting my centre of gravity six inches nearer the ground seems to help, even a million feet up in the air.
‘See you again!’ the runner calls back to me from the safety of the path on the other side. I’m frozen here, thanks to him, and I realise as his beautiful buttocks bounce out of sight that I had been kind of hoping he would come back and rescue me, like Graham did for Mum more than twenty years ago.
‘I don’t need any help.’ Her voice between gritted teeth sounds in my head, and I remember that once Graham offered to help her, she managed to stand up and get moving without once taking his arm. She was such an inspiration to me: so incredibly strong and capable. Even when sheer, undiluted terror had her in its grip and reduced her to a gibbering jelly, she was still able to make herself get up and get moving because she had had to learn to rely on no one but herself.
I’m nothing like that. It is totally unnatural for this bridge and this path to be up here in the air. It defies gravity and surely can’t hold out much longer. I feel so exposed and unstable up here, as if the whole thing is about to disintegrate beneath my feet and send me plummeting the two hundred thousand feet to the motorway below, where I will be smashed and broken before being pulped under the wheels of a ninety-ton lorry, five cars and a camper van. I curl my fingers more tightly around the railing and lower my body further towards the path. I’m rigid with fear now, completely unable to think about moving, or think at all, and there’s only one thing I can do. I reach round behind me very slowly and pull my phone out of my pocket; then, keeping my entire body absolutely still apart from my left hand, I write a text.
Abs, I need help
Seconds later, the phone vibrates in my hand as the reply arrives.
Daze, I’m wrking. Client in 15. You gotta get yrself across on yr own.
I can’t.
NO SUCH WRD. Just do it.
Am paralysed. There is no ‘just do it’.
Nikes sake, stfu. NOT paralysed. Get
