The Broken Bridge

by Philip Pullman

  “You didn’t mention him. Has he just appeared?”

  “That’s him down there, in the boat with my dad. Dad’s the one with the beard.”

  Stuart looked across the water to the edge of the jetty, two hundred yards away, where the apparent owner of the boat was demonstrating how to do something nautical with the sail. Dad was looking brisk and keen, and Robert was sitting in the stern, staring down into the water.

  “He doesn’t look very happy,” said Stuart.

  “No. Well, he’s probably not….How are you, then?”

  “Roasting. I thought it was supposed to rain all the time here.”

  “Well, it’s the end of the world. Everything’s going strange. What’s this thing you’ve got for me?”

  “A magazine. It’s downstairs on the table.”

  “What is it? What magazine?”

  “Well, you’re interested in art; I thought you’d like it. Read it carefully. Oh, and I want to see some of your pictures. Is she any good?” he asked Rhiannon.

  “Yeah, brilliant,” said Rhiannon. She was shy, Ginny thought gleefully.

  “D’you ever go to the Yacht Club?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’ve been several times. Why?”

  “Well, next Saturday, you’ve got to go three times. They want to do the ton—that’s a hundred dinners. They got up to ninety-eight last Saturday, so if you have three meals, they might make it next time.”

  “Or bring two friends,” said Stuart.

  “Yeah, that’d do….”

  They stayed on his roof for half an hour, watching Dad and Robert in the little boat, gossiping, joking. Rhiannon hardly spoke, but Ginny was completely at her ease, laughing and flirting in a way she knew she could never have done with a boy her own age, or someone who wasn’t gay. She found herself thinking that it would be an ideal relationship, all easy, all happy, all surface. All sun, all skin. But that wasn’t enough now.

  “Don’t forget that magazine,” Stuart called as they left. “Come and see me again.”

  “Yeah, we will,” said Ginny.

  The magazine on the table was thick and glossy and called Modern Painters. Well, that’s nice, she thought. I’ll read it tonight.

  —

  And so she did; but it wasn’t until some days later that she saw why he’d given it to her. There was just so much of it—articles on painters she’d never heard of, articles on painters she had heard of, an article by an English painter explaining why an American painter wasn’t as good as everyone had thought, an article by a Scottish painter explaining why a Spanish painter was better than anyone had thought, articles by critics attacking other critics—pages and pages of it, and Ginny read it all avidly, because this was her world now, these were her people. And the illustrations were beautiful.

  But she hadn’t seen Andy since the barbecue, and something was weighing on her mind. Should she pretend nothing had happened? Should they talk about it? In the end, it was easy. She was sitting moodily on the beach on Tuesday afternoon, and suddenly there he was, beside her, holding out an ice cream.

  “What’s the matter? You wanted chocolate? Tough. You got this.”

  She took it, and he stroked the back of her neck for an awkward second. It was the only awkward action she’d ever known him to perform, and she knew exactly what it meant: it was an acknowledgment, and a consolation, and an apology, and she realized with a little rush of relief that the ideal relationship she’d imagined while talking to Stuart already existed between her and Andy.

  “Listen,” she said, “you know Joe Chicago?”

  “What about him?”

  “Where did he get that jacket from? His leather jacket.”

  “Oh, you heard that story, have you?”

  Her skin prickled. “What story?”

  “He nicked it. That’s what I heard. There was a plane that crashed in the hills, and he went up and took it off the dead pilot. That’s what he likes to tell people. Wants to make himself sound really hard. Big pillock.”

  “A plane…Wow. How things change. You know he’s friendly with Rhiannon’s sister’s husband?”

  “Has she got a sister? God, the whole world’s coming out in siblings. Tell me more….”

  It felt good to have him back. No, it felt better, because now both of them knew what their relationship was, and if she had to put a name to it, it would have been the one he’d just used: they were siblings, kindred, blood relatives.

  She felt far more his sister than Robert’s. It wasn’t getting any easier at home; Dad tried to get them to talk at mealtimes, but since the things they had in common were the things that neither Dad nor Robert wanted to talk about, conversation faltered. They couldn’t even talk about school. Robert had just finished his GCSEs, as she’d done, but she had no idea what he was intending to study next. She didn’t even know if he was smart. What he seemed mostly was grim and angry.

  And Ginny understood, or tried to, but she could find nothing to say to him; and so while she hung around with Rhiannon or with Andy and Dafydd, and worked in the Dragon and the Yacht Club, Robert drifted about alone on long walks in the hills; and while he sat silently with Dad in front of the TV, she spent the evenings at her drawing table, penciling the story picture of the broken bridge.

  On Thursday night she’d got it laid out as she wanted it, ready to be inked. It was midnight when she finished, and she was tempted to go on, to ink just the first frame, to lay the pure Indian black on the crisp white bristol board; but she knew that her eyes were tired and her hand was cramped, and she didn’t want to risk spoiling it. Instead she had a shower and went to bed. The window was open; it was too hot for pajamas, and even her bedside lamp, shining on Modern Painters, was uncomfortably warm. Eyelids drooping, she lay flicking through the magazine before falling asleep.

  And suddenly she found herself frozen. A shiver, a chill, made her skin crawl, and she realized her heart was racing as she tried to work out what had caused it: someone prowling outside? a ghost? what?

  It was the magazine. She sat up and looked.

  A gallery in Liverpool was advertising an exhibition called “Les Mystères: Haitian Painting of the Past Twenty Years,” and one of the painters was Anielle Baptiste.

  She clenched her fists, alive with triumph. So the pictures had survived! And that was why Stuart had given her the magazine! When was it opening, this exhibition? On Tuesday next, for a month, at L’Ouverture Gallery in Sandeman Street…

  She couldn’t lie still; she was far too excited to sleep now. Wide awake, grinning helplessly, she switched on the work light over her drawing table, uncapped the ink, and choosing her finest brush, began to work on The Broken Bridge.

  BY THIS TIME, Ginny was in a strange state of mind, with three things pressing equally on her attention: her painting of the broken bridge; her mother’s pictures, and wondering what they’d be like, and keeping the news of them secret; and the crazy quest to get the truth out of Joe Chicago. She looked haunted, absentminded, obsessed, anything but happy—though if anyone had asked her whether she was unhappy, she wouldn’t have known what they were talking about. She was only aware that she was busy. And this, she dimly realized, was a state of mind as much hers as art, as seeing in the dark. It was the place where she was at home.

  —

  On Saturday at the Dragon, Rhiannon said (quietly, because Mr. Calvert was just outside the door), “Helen rang this morning with a message for you. She said she couldn’t ring your house in case your dad found out. Hey, is she having an affair with him? I bet she is. I would, if I was married to Benny. But she won’t say—”

  “What’s the message?” Ginny said.

  “Oh. Right. Yeah. She said Joe Chicago will be there tonight. Ginny, what’s going on? Why’s she telling you that?”

  “It’s a secret code. It means something different.”

  “Oh, all right then, don’t tell me. I just won’t tell you about Robert.”

  “What about Robert?” said
Ginny, though she didn’t care. It wouldn’t have surprised her at all if Rhiannon was interested in him. In fact, the only person who would have been surprised was Peter.

  But to satisfy Rhiannon’s curiosity, she said, “I’m having a bet with Andy, that’s all. I want to find out something from Joe Chicago. And I told Helen, and she’s going to help me.”

  “He’ll kill you,” said Rhiannon pleasurably. “With his bare hands. He’s a sadist, you know. He indulges in unspeakable atrocities. You’re taking your life in your hands, girl….”

  —

  The biggest problem was how to get back. If she left the Yacht Club exactly on time, she’d just catch the one bus that went that way on Saturdays, but there was no bus back, and no trains, either.

  Well, ask, she told herself, and went down to the trailer to look for Dafydd.

  He groaned. “I’m not getting involved with Joe Chicago,” he said. “Nor should you. Is this Andy’s idea?”

  “No. It’s all mine. You wouldn’t have to get involved anyway, just be somewhere I can find you. And then drive me home. I’ll pay for the gas.”

  “Forget the gas. I can fill the tank anytime. Well, I suppose so. All right. I reckon you’re going round the bend, I really do. What time d’you reckon you’ll want to come home?”

  —

  Dad suggested optimistically at teatime that maybe they could all go out and see a film and have a pizza that evening. Ginny wasn’t aware of the look of contempt that passed over her face and would have been horrified if she realized he’d noticed; but they were communicating so little these days that she’d lost the habit of looking for his response to things. She told him that she was going out, and that she’d be back at eleven, and then forgot about him.

  The Yacht Club was gearing up to do the ton. Angie Lime had made sure the suppliers had delivered all the vegetables they were likely to need; the bar was freshly stocked; all the staff were concentrating, flexing their muscles, thinking ahead. It was a heady atmosphere, and Ginny half wished she could stay and be part of it.

  But she hurried away, wishing them luck, and then ran up to the main road so as not to miss the bus. When it came, she sat in the front seat, the evening sun full in her face, and felt an agreeable tension prickling its way along her nerves, like stage fright. In her jeans and sneakers and dark T-shirt, she felt light, athletic, ready to run and fight.

  At Porthafon she got out by the harbor and wandered along past Davy Jones’s Locker, wondering whether to go in and have some coffee, but the place was full of vacationers eating hamburgers. She moved on. The harbor was lively, with its cafés and pubs and the amusement arcade, but the rest of the town was very quiet. It was beginning to get dark as she turned into Jubilee Terrace. The light was on in the front room of Helen’s house, but Ginny couldn’t see anyone. Helen opened the door at once when she rang the bell.

  “Come in, quick,” she said, “before they see you….”

  Ginny hastened into the hall, and Helen shut the door quickly.

  “They’ve gone to the pub to get some beer,” she said. “Him and Benny. They’re going to play cards or something. You haven’t seen him close to, have you. He’s frightening. You can’t imagine.”

  “I have seen him,” Ginny said. “You don’t have to do anything. Just leave it to me.”

  “But what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know! I’ll think of something. I just want to talk to him on his own….”

  They were standing in the tidy little hall, talking urgently, the light shining directly down on them. Suddenly Helen seized Ginny’s arm.

  “They’re here!” she whispered, and Ginny heard voices outside. “Get upstairs! Go on—quick!”

  Ginny ran up the narrow stairs as a key turned in the lock. She hesitated on the landing, crouching low in the dark to peer down at Benny and Joe and two other men, all crowding in. They were speaking Welsh; Helen said something sharp to Benny, and Joe said something back that made the other men laugh. Ginny could see Benny’s face, and saw that it was more important to him to seem good to these men than to stick up for Helen, and then she understood all Helen’s contempt.

  The men shoved their way into the front room. Ginny heard the snapping of aluminum can pulls, the sudden blare of the TV, quickly turned down. Then Helen was on her way upstairs.

  “Come in here,” she whispered to Ginny, pushing open a door at the top of the stairs that led into a stuffy little spare bedroom overlooking the garden. She didn’t turn the light on. They sat on the bed and spoke quietly.

  “What are they doing?” Ginny asked.

  “Drinking. They’ll play cards till they think I’ve gone to bed, and then they’ll watch a dirty video. Benny gets them from someone downtown—I saw it in his shopping bag. God, he thinks I’m a fool.”

  “What does Joe do? Does he sleep here?”

  “I wouldn’t dare sleep with him in the house. No, he’s got a council house somewhere; he always goes home. Listen, why don’t you give up the idea, for God’s sake? You don’t know what he might do….”

  “I’ll just wait here. Sooner or later he’ll come up to the bathroom or something. Is the front door locked?”

  “Well, it’s on the latch—a Yale lock. What d’you mean?”

  “Can you fix the latch so I just have to pull it open? You know, instead of having to turn the handle, if I want to run out in a hurry?”

  “I could, but listen, I’m frightened now. I’m worried what he’ll do to me if—”

  She stopped. Heavy footsteps came up the stairs; a man pissed loudly into the lavatory bowl and didn’t flush it or wash his hands before going down again. Fastidious Helen made a face.

  “Was that him, d’you think?” Ginny said.

  “Might have been. They’re all horrible, ach y fi, and the worst is Benny….”

  “I saw him when Joe said that to you.”

  “I can’t stay with him, Ginny; there’s no reason to. He treats me like shit; he spends all his time sucking up to thugs like Joe…”

  She was crying, silently but passionately, and then she turned to throw herself on the pillow, her sobs heaving her shoulders. Ginny felt helpless. She put her hand on Helen’s back, but Helen didn’t seem to feel it. Ginny had never seen a grown woman cry before; it was like a force of nature, Erzulie again: here on this narrow bed in this dark and stuffy room, the goddess was weeping. Ginny was awed by the power and intensity of it, and simultaneously she imagined painting the scene: the two of them in the light coming from the crack under the door, the dim room, Helen’s cloud of dark hair, her own face baffled and anxious, her tentative hand. She found herself sketching it in her mind and moved her right leg to improve the balance of the composition—and then cursed her own selfishness. Art was a disease, to make you more concerned about pictorial values than about someone else’s unhappiness.

  Presently Helen sat up slowly and dried her eyes. She wouldn’t look at Ginny.

  “I’ll go and put the door on the latch,” she said. “Then I’m going to bed.”

  With a deep, trembling sigh, she stood up and went out. Ginny heard her descend the stairs, heard the kitchen door open and close, heard laughter from the front room, heard Helen coming up the stairs again, heard her bedroom door close.

  Then, for the first time, with part of her mind she wondered what she was doing. If she had any sense she’d go quietly downstairs and leave the house, and wait for Dafydd, and forget all about the broken bridge.

  But another part of her mind said: Stick to it, I’m right, this is desperately important, I’ve got to find out the truth….

  And the second voice won.

  She opened the bedroom door a crack, so that she could just see the top of the stairs, and sat down on the floor to wait.

  The sound of voices and the music from some TV show came from the front room. Occasionally a car drove past, its headlights sweeping across the ceiling of the landing. There was nothing from Helen’s room but silenc
e. Ginny had the feeling that she’d locked her door.

  She sat back more comfortably, so that her legs wouldn’t get cramped. A long time went by. Benny came up and went to the bathroom, tried Helen’s door, made a face, and went down again. A little later, another man came up to visit the bathroom. Ginny could smell the beer as he went past the door. Drink more, she thought. Go on, drink lots.

  And finally Joe Chicago himself came up the stairs. She heard his voice in the downstairs hall and kept pressed against the wall in the dark as the heavy steps came up the staircase and along the landing, as the thunderous splashing came from the bathroom.

  Ginny stood up slowly. Her heart was thumping so hard it hurt. She heard him come out of the bathroom and pulled open the bedroom door to face him.

  He stopped in surprise.

  He was only a yard or so away. She’d forgotten how big he was, that monstrous bull-like mass, that bloated head. His red-rimmed eyes glared at her hotly.

  Before he could speak she put a finger to her lips and stood aside, beckoning him into the dark bedroom. Slowly, like a wary animal, he walked in, and then she shut the door, committing herself to the dark with him.

  “What d’you want?” he said after a second.

  She could sense him beside her. She could smell him, the gross bulk of him, and into her mind came a picture of the broken bridge, the car, the abandoned baby.

  Then something happened to Ginny.

  She felt a blow inside her head, and then she was thrust aside, and there was someone in there with her. She struggled briefly against it, feeling dizzy and terrified, but it was no good: he was stronger by far. He was deadly and powerful and godlike: dark glasses, a top hat, a ragged coat: skeletons, corpses: Baron Samedi…She’d boasted that he’d help her, and here he was, and the room was drenched with fear, terrible panic fear.