go away. I want to be on my own. I didn’t want any of this, I didn’t want a scene, I just want to do this. On my own. I just … I didn’t think it would take so long.’ He swallowed again.
‘Look, nobody is going to come near you unless I say so. So there’s no panic, no rush, you don’t need to do anything without thinking it through. We have a lot of time. All I ask is for you to talk to me.’
He was silent. More gentle questions led to no answers. I was ready to listen, ready to say all the right things, but my questions were being met by silence. On the other hand, he hadn’t jumped yet, at least there was that.
‘I’d like to know your name,’ I said.
There was nothing from him.
I pictured Simon’s face as he looked me in the eye and pulled the trigger. A wave of emotion rushed through me and I wanted to cry, I wanted to break down and cry. I wasn’t able for this. Panic welled inside me. I was on the verge of giving up and returning to the small crowd of spectators to tell them I couldn’t do it, that I didn’t want to be responsible for another victim, when he spoke.
‘Adam.’
‘Okay,’ I said, relieved he was engaging with me. I remembered a line in one of the books that said the person attempting suicide needed to be reminded that there were others thinking of him, loving him, whether he felt it or not, but I was afraid it would send him in the opposite direction. What if he was here because of them or because he felt he was a burden on them? My mind raced as I tried to figure out what to do; there were so many rules, and all I wanted was to help.
‘I want to help you, Adam,’ I said finally.
‘There’s no point.’
‘I’d like to hear what you have to say,’ I told him, remaining positive. Listen thoughtfully, don’t say ‘don’t’, don’t say ‘can’t’. I ran through everything I’d read. I couldn’t get it wrong. Not one single word.
‘You can’t talk me out of it.’
‘Give me a chance to show you that even though it may feel like this is the only option, there are many more. Your mind is so tired now – let me help you down. Then we can look at the choices. They may be hard to see at the moment, but they do exist. For the time being though, let’s get off the bridge, let me help you to safety.’
He didn’t answer. Instead he looked up at me. I knew that look, that familiar look. Simon had worn that expression too. ‘Sorry.’ His fingers loosened on the iron bars, his body leaned forward, away from the railings.
‘Adam!’ I dashed forward, pushed my arms through the wide railings and wrapped them tight around his chest, pulling him back so hard that he slammed into the railings. My body was pressed so close to the railings that his back was tight against my front. I buried my face in his woolly hat, squeezed my eyes shut and held on tight. I waited for him to pull away, wondered how I would keep my grip on him, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to for long if he used his strength to resist me. I waited for a spectator to come running and take over, hoped that the gardaí were nearby so that the professionals could step in. I was out of my depth – what did I think I was doing? I squeezed my eyes shut, rested my head on the back of his head; he smelled of aftershave, clean, like he’d just taken a shower. He smelled alive, like someone who was on his way somewhere, not someone who had been planning to jump off a bridge. He felt strong and full of life too; I could barely wrap my arms around his chest he was so broad. I held on to him, determined never to let go.
‘What are you doing?’ he panted, his chest heaving up and down.
I finally looked up and checked on the crowd behind me. There was no sign of garda lights, no sign of anyone coming to help me. My legs were trembling as if it was me that was staring down at the depths of the Liffey’s darkness.
‘Don’t do it,’ I whispered, starting to cry. ‘Please don’t do it.’
He tried to turn around and see me, but I was directly behind and he couldn’t see my face.
‘Are you … are you crying?’
‘Yes,’ I sniffed. ‘Please don’t do it.’
‘Jesus,’ he tried again to turn and look at me.
I was crying harder now, sobbing uncontrollably, my shoulders jumping up and down, my arms still wrapped around his chest, holding on for dear life.
‘What the hell?’ He moved some more, shuffled his feet along the edge of the ledge so he could turn his head and see my face.
Our eyes locked together.
‘Are you … are you okay?’ He softened a little, coming out of whatever trance-like state he had been in.
‘No.’ I tried to stop crying. I wanted to dry my nose, which was running like a tap, but I was afraid to let go of him.
‘Do I know you?’ he asked, confused, searching my face, wondering why I cared so much.
‘No,’ I said, sniffing again. I squeezed him tighter, hugging him like I hadn’t hugged anyone for years, not since I was a child, not since my mother held me.
He was looking at me like I was crazy, like he was the sane one and I had lost it. We were practically nose-to-nose as he studied my face, as if looking for far more than what he could see.
The spell between us was broken when some idiot watching from the quays shouted ‘Jump!’ The man in black started trying to wriggle out of my grip with a renewed anger.
‘Get your hands off me,’ he said, struggling to shake me off.
‘No,’ I shook my head. ‘Please, listen …’ I tried to compose myself before continuing: ‘It’s not what you think it’s going to be in there,’ I said, looking down and imagining how it would feel for him, staring into that darkness, wanting to end it all; how bad things must be for him to want that. He was studying me intently again. ‘You don’t want to end your life, you want to end your pain, the pain you’re feeling right now, the pain that I’m sure you wake up with and go to bed at night with. Maybe no one around you understands that, but I do, believe me.’ I saw that his eyes were filling, I was getting through to him. ‘But you don’t want to end it all the time, do you? Just sometimes it passes through your mind, probably more often lately than before. It’s like a habit, trying to think of different ways to end it all. But it passes, doesn’t it?’
He looked at me carefully, taking every word in.
‘It’s a moment, that’s all. And moments pass. If you hang in there, this moment will pass and you won’t want to end your life. You probably think that no one cares, or that they’ll get over you. Maybe you think they want you to do this. They don’t. No one wants this for anyone. It might feel as if there are no options, but there are – you can come through this. Get down and let’s talk about it. Whatever is going on, you can get through it. It’s a moment, that’s all,’ I whispered, tears running down my cheeks.
I took a sidelong glance at him. He swallowed hard. He was looking down now, thinking about it, weighing up his options. Live or die. Surreptitiously I scanned the bridge entrances on Bachelors Walk and Wellington Quay; still no gardaí, still no members of the public to help me. I was glad of that at
