Strangers on a Bridge

by Louise Mangos

  He saw my shocked face as he talked so unsentimentally.

  ‘By the time I was eighteen, my father had been through some bad times. He once tried to cut himself, saying it would be better for everyone if he took his life, left us alone. The neighbour I mentioned? She found him, talked him out of it.’

  ‘Has your father been treated? Has he seen a doctor?’ I asked.

  ‘He had psychoanalysis, and the family was brought in to try and help. I became involved only when I had reached the age of eighteen. His doctor said he should continue to take the medications he had recommended. It seemed to be the only solution, but my father was very erratic and undisciplined in taking his pills, and reverted to his unpredictable behaviour. He could not hold on to a job. It became very frustrating for my mother, for me too. He would not listen to us during the happy times. They sometimes lasted months. It was as though he didn’t remember he had been having those opposite moments, those moments of despair.’

  Gerry paused, looking towards the road, as if he sensed his father might wander into our conversation at some point.

  ‘During an argument, my mother told my father she wanted to leave him. It was the first time I saw him really angry, rather than simply very depressed. He broke some things and shouted at my mother. Waved our bread knife around like a sword. He wasn’t sure how to talk to me, although he was lucid enough to see that it wasn’t my fault. I think he loved me very much, and didn’t know how to react. Still doesn’t know how to react. So he left, and my mother never wants to hear his name mentioned again. She helped him through so many of his painful up-and-down years. She is happy not to have to work like that again, not to be tied to him.’

  Gerry’s eyes glazed over.

  ‘He mentioned the knife to me,’ I said. ‘Do you think he intended to hurt you?’

  ‘No… I don’t know. He would probably use it on himself before one of us.’

  ‘Do you pity your father?’

  ‘Of course I do, but if he doesn’t want to heal himself, then he cannot be healed.’

  I didn’t want to close the door on the possibility that Gerry could somehow stop Manfred stalking me.

  ‘Did it make a difference when he took his medication?’

  ‘Of course, but if he refuses, you cannot force it on him.’

  ‘Do you still have any here, any of his prescriptions?’

  ‘I can look, maybe in the bathroom cabinet.’

  ‘Perhaps I can persuade him to take it again.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ he snorted, but stood up anyway and walked into the house.

  I pulled my T-shirt away from my chest, flapping it to move some air. The porch was a suntrap and I suddenly felt very hot. Gerry returned, holding a box of pills out to me. I took them from him.

  ‘Your father can be healed, Gerry. Many things between you could be healed. Things might change forever, but people are quick to forgive. There is always room to build a family again.’

  I was grabbing at straws.

  ‘Really, there is no point. You have seen my father only over the past few months. He lost his latest job in spring, one of many. I have lived with him all my life until the last few months. I’m sorry he is bothering you, but I know what you are asking. We’ve tried to help him, many times. I cannot see that he will change. And we are all very tired. We no longer want to be dragged down into his world. It is better that he has gone. Not for you, of course, but for us. Now we can lead normal lives. I know you must think I am callous saying this, but my mother smiles again, she has made a better life for herself, and although I admire her for having stayed with him for so long, I think she was unfairly trapped. I want to see her happy. He must not come back into our lives. He is not welcome.’

  My throat closed with the memory of the warm relationship I had had with my own father prior to his death from a sudden heart attack ten years earlier. It wasn’t long before my mother went to join him after being diagnosed with liver cancer, and it was a small consolation to think she hadn’t been able to live without him. I went cold at the inconceivability of my own children ever speaking Gerry’s words about me one day.

  We had been sitting on the step for over an hour. I pushed the packet of pills into my handbag and glanced at my watch. I wanted to be home when Simon and the boys arrived. They’d said they would take the train and bus back from Zürich. I took my keys out and fiddled with them in my hand.

  ‘Do you think he would have jumped from the Tobel Bridge?’ I asked.

  I needed to know if my presence had saved his life.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Wahrscheinlich. Probably.’

  A breeze brought a welcome respite from the warmth.

  ‘I’d have thought he would be too weak to do something like that,’ he continued. ‘Like his attempt at cutting himself. But he made it to the bridge, and that itself is quite a journey.’

  Gerry suddenly seemed unsure of himself. Perhaps I was reawakening an emotion he didn’t want to feel. I looked at my watch again.

  ‘I had better go. I’m sorry to have bothered you,’ I said, unaccountably querulous that this boy would no longer help his father, forgetting I was not the one who had lived with this for years.

  ‘I’m sorry that I cannot help you, Mrs Reed. I am happy you have your picture back,’ Gerry said as he shook my hand. And, as an afterthought: ‘You know, it might have been better for everyone if you had not been running in the Lorze Gorge that day.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  AUGUST

  We decided not to go away during the school summer holidays. We already lived in a holiday paradise. And with Simon travelling so much, it was hard to find the right moment. Much as I would have loved to get away for a fortnight, get away from him, we agreed to take a trip abroad later in the autumn, during the boys’ half-term break, when the climate in Switzerland was cooler and my training schedule would have eased up before the big race.

  My afternoons were devoted to spending time with the boys. While Simon had to work, the three of us often went to the local lido, a grassy park on the shores of Lake Aegeri, boasting a small shingle beach, a jetty and a diving platform. Arming ourselves almost daily with a picnic, blow-up pool toys for the boys and reading matter for me, we spent the days lazing in the sun and the water. The boys were happy to meet their school friends there, and I saw some of the women from the village.

  And then he arrived.

  This was my public domain, a communal space. I found it hard to believe he would risk exposure on a regular basis. But he made no attempt to conceal his presence. The first time I saw him, I pointed him out to Esther. He sat near a hedgerow at the back of the lawn, wearing a baseball cap and a pair of red-and-blue board shorts. He leaned on his elbows, exposing a tanned torso. I blushed; it was the first time I had seen his body and I glanced away as though I had seen him naked. I thought he might turn his head, look away, embarrassed. But he just stared at us.

  ‘He is not as I expected,’ said Esther, and I knew immediately she found him attractive. ‘Ignore him,’ she continued. ‘Don’t give him the satisfaction of showing him that he annoys us.’

  I kept a wary eye on Manfred, making sure he didn’t go into the water when my kids were there. I couldn’t relax. This was no longer the school-holiday atmosphere I’d been hoping for. Esther saw that I was preoccupied.

  ‘Do you not think you are mistaken about this man?’ she asked. ‘He does not look harmful. He looks at us very little. I think maybe you are overreacting to this situation.’

  I swallowed and remained silent. I didn’t want to lose the one ally I thought I had in the community.

  Sometime towards the end of the afternoon Manfred left. This was the one place in the village I thought I would be free from his scrutiny. But now he was making his intentions public.

  He appeared again a few days later. I was on my own with the boys. Simon was away again. Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London. I could no longer remember. I might have joked that he ha
d a lover in every city. But with the current emotional climate at home, I knew with absolute certainty this sentiment should never be voiced.

  Manfred had the audacity to raise his hand and wave from his place in the park, fingers slowly undulating as though placed on the keys of a piano. I shuddered at his boldness. The boys had run straight to the water, and were already swimming out to the diving platform. I hadn’t yet unpacked the beach bag. Shaking with anger, I marched over to where he sat.

  ‘You have got to leave us alone,’ I yelled, hands on hips.

  I stared down at him sitting on his towel, my determination to remain passive and not engage completely forgotten. People around stopped talking and looked over to where I stood.

  ‘This stalking is freaking us out. It’s too much, and now you’re here, at our lido. You have got to STOP!’

  In the silence that followed, people whispered to each other on the grass around us. One girl dragged her towel further away from where I stood. Perhaps if I raged enough, he would approach me physically, do something to justify police intervention. Yes! Someone call the police!

  I looked around at the people gaping at me.

  ‘Er ist ein Stalker! He follows me everywhere!’ Eyes wild, I addressed the staring onlookers, arm stretched out towards Manfred.

  But they weren’t looking at Manfred. They were staring at me, wondering about this crazy lady speaking bad German. One woman turned to her colleague and said ‘Der Arme!’ Poor man! With a sinking feeling I recognised her. The electrician’s wife. I could see it in all their eyes. They thought I was the crazy one. Manfred’s elbows rested on his bent knees. I realised he looked horrifyingly normal. A harmless, innocent fellow trying to enjoy some lakeside sunshine. I walked back to our bags, and one of the women in the Chat Club averted her eyes as I passed. My face reddened as my anger subsided, replaced by embarrassment.

  The boys came out of the water laughing, demanding towels, ignorant of what had just happened. They complained when I said we had to leave.

  ‘But we only just got here,’ moaned Oliver, as I dried him vigorously with the towel. ‘Mum, stop it. I can do that. Why do we have to go now?’

  I gave them some lame excuse, something I had forgotten to do in the office at home. We had to leave the lido.

  Later that night, the phone rang. I suspected it would be Simon, calling to check in on us. I was in the kitchen, and picked up the handset at exactly the same moment Leon picked up the extension in the bedroom. At first worried it might be Manfred, I smiled as I listened to Simon and Leon talking about summer-holiday activities, reflecting briefly that my eldest son found it so much easier to communicate with his father than with me. After several minutes, I heard Leon say:

  ‘I’d better get ready for bed, Dad. I’ve been up late a few nights in a row, and you know Mum will be on my case if I start to get moody. Do you want to talk to her? I think she’s downstairs.’

  I was about to interrupt when Simon spoke.

  ‘No, it’s okay, Leon, I’ve still got some work to do. I’ll call again in a couple of days. Give my love to Oli. Enjoy the summer while it lasts. Love you.’

  ‘Love you too, Dad. Bye.’

  There were two gentle clicks as each of them put their handsets down, and I stood holding the kitchen phone to my ear, listening to the hiss. My throat tightened, and I felt a desolate sadness. Of course he didn’t want to talk to me, his distant, indifferent wife. Just like Leon didn’t want to talk to me, his distant, confused mother.

  What was happening to us?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  SEPTEMBER

  Kathy and I met at the running track in the Zug Stadium for our weekly interval training session. This involved a set of sprint sessions designed to try and increase our overall speed on our longer runs.

  We were sitting in the covered stands at the edge of the track. I had a notebook open on the plastic seat between us, drawing out our pyramid schedule for the afternoon’s session.

  ‘Okay, we’ll do three times four hundred metres, three times six hundred, three times eight hundred, back to six and then to four, all with a slow jog once round in between to warm down.’

  ‘Jesus, Al, that’s huge,’ said Kath. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to do them all, and I’ll be slower than you. You’re a hard taskmaster. We won’t even be seeing each other at the beginning of this race we’re doing. You’ll be in a different start block to me.’

  ‘It’s not so bad. It’s surprising how much this is helping both our individual goals. You’ll see. And as for the race, I’ll be there at the end with a bottle of fizz for you.’ I laughed.

  We began a gentle warm-up lap, and as we rounded the western end of the track together, Kathy nudged my arm.

  ‘Bit of a rugged dish spotted at eleven o’clock,’ she said.

  I turned to see a man sitting on the grassy bank beyond the chain-link fence. I drew in my breath sharply.

  ‘Well, I didn’t expect that reaction!’ Kathy laughed, then dropped her smile when she saw my face. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘It’s him,’ I hissed.

  ‘You mean Manfred the bridge guy? Oh, Jesus, what are you going to do? Can you call the police?’ she asked. ‘He doesn’t look particularly disturbed. I thought he’d be creepier somehow.’

  I looked at him surreptitiously as we rounded the bend and ran away from him down the home straight. He was wearing a pair of jeans and some kind of wind jacket. His hair was unkempt, and his jaw displayed at least a week’s growth of beard. To me he looked like he’d let himself go. But I could see why Kathy thought he was handsome.

  If I’d been on my own, I would probably have given up and gone home. But Kathy wanted to continue regardless of his presence.

  ‘Don’t let a curious stranger put you off, girl. We’ve got a job to do.’

  How the hell had he known I was here?

  I felt his eyes burning into my back every time I rounded the end of the track and ran away from him, and the more the sight of him set me on edge, the more I panicked about how he’d known I would be here today, twenty minutes’ drive from my home in a different town. It was bad enough he had access to my phone numbers. Had he followed me here in a car, or had he known I was going to be here by some other means, like my diary?

  The thought made my head hot, and a burst of adrenalin increased my speed. I pulled ahead of Kathy and finished the next session well ahead of her. As I walked over to the water fountain to quench my thirst, I saw Kathy’s head turn back towards Manfred. He had said something to her. As she pulled up beside me, I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘He asked if I could make sure not to wear you out. As if! It’s obvious you can run faster than me. Do you think he was trying to wind me up? Doesn’t he know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?’

  ‘I can’t stay here with him watching us. I’m going to have to call it a day.’

  ‘Oh, Al. This is our last chance to do this before your holiday next week, and after that it won’t be long before the race.’

  ‘I can’t, Kath, I’m sorry. He’s making me feel sick, just standing there watching. I can’t. We’ll have at least one more session before the race. After I get back from our holiday we can choose a different day.’

  ‘Okay, hon. I’d stay on and do the rest of the splits by myself, but to be honest I’m not very motivated now.’

  ‘He seems to know my routine too well,’ I reflected. ‘This thing is starting to get out of hand.’

  ‘Maybe he’s been following your moves more than you know.’

  As we said goodbye and I drove away in the opposite direction to Kathy, I wondered just how much access he had to my life.

  Chapter Thirty

  Walking down the aisle to my seat, my gaze slid over the passengers, subconsciously scanning the 737 from port to starboard. I was sure I had covered my tracks in booking this holiday by keeping my movements, negotiations and payments secret. But there was no knowing when my glance might fall on that dreaded
face, no knowing to what lengths Manfred might go to infiltrate the next two weeks of our lives.

  Finding the boys and Simon already in the three seats on the right, I sank into my seat across the aisle from them and closed my eyes. The usual procedures were announced over the intercom in several languages and I fastened my seatbelt without opening my eyes.

  As the plane taxied, roared and took off, I turned my head to look at my family. The aisle suddenly seemed very wide, the three men in my life cocooned in a row of dusty grey upholstery and static antimacassars. Leon stared out of the window. From the middle seat Simon craned around him to share the mesmerising image of the city of Zürich sinking away below us. Oliver watched me, and I smiled, happy I had my family to myself for a while. He reached across the aisle and, in an unusually adult gesture, squeezed my hand.

  ‘We’re going to have fun, Mum. I’m really excited. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, darling, I’m so ready for this holiday,’ I reassured him in return.

  Seven hundred metres long and four hundred wide, it took all of fifteen minutes to circumnavigate our Maldivian atoll on foot, along powdery silver beaches surrounding lush vegetation. Bungalows sat among the palm trees above the shoreline. The barefoot policy throughout the island needed no enforcing for the boys. Having spent so much time on the shores of an alpine lake, they were both strong swimmers. They adored the balmy turquoise waters, and the fascinating subaquatic world of the reef surrounding the atoll. A perfect contrast to the misty autumnal conditions of our alpine home.

  As I buried my toes deep into the soft white beach, the cooler sand underneath refreshed and softened the soles of my feet like a balm. The sound of the sea gently tipping its waves onto the shore and the children’s screeches of pleasure mingled to provide a feeling of blissful contentedness long missing. The palm leaves clattering in the ocean breeze sounded like rain, although not a cloud could be seen in the cornflower-blue sky. I lay back on the sunbed, the brightness of the sun burnished orange against my closed eyelids. The coiling tension I hadn’t realised was a permanent part of my life began to slowly unwind inside me.