The Man on the Bridge

by Stephen Benatar

  All set.

  No need to think about it.

  The work of an instant.

  Why hesitate?

  Nothing to stay on for.

  Now!

  Part Three

  37

  But I couldn’t do it.

  I turned and swung my legs back onto solid ground, stumbling, feeling ashamed, feeling guilty.

  Hating myself.

  Yet it hadn’t been my fault. Not altogether. Such an act would have needed the courage of a really deafening desperation. Twelve months ago I would have had that; but now the pain had grown supportable. More or less. I’d learned to live with it.

  Or, anyhow, exist with it.

  And—unlike Oliver—nobody had betrayed me.

  Now I had simply the quiet kind of desperation they said so many of us had.

  I returned along the bridge feeling flat, feeling doubly treacherous (I had betrayed me), but also in some way purged. A little remote from everything, on the outside of things, curiously calm.

  I caught a bus part of the way back.

  I was alive. It was a weird sensation. Tomorrow evening, if I wanted, I could go to join that queue outside the Classic.

  Maybe I would. One thing I’d learned. It was time to turn my back on any thoughts of an afterlife, self-deluding, sentimental, cheap. There was only one life and I had to start living it again—now. It was time to turn my back on any thoughts of what might have been. Forget the past year. Forget the past eighteen months. Exorcise. Exorcise.

  Perhaps the worst was over.

  Perhaps it was. What I considered an excellent augury was the way I re-entered the flat. The main door was always locked after five-thirty but a woman whom I had once or twice said good morning to was now standing on the threshold searching in her handbag and she heard my shout as I came running down the street.

  She then lent me a strong chisel which I was able, whilst standing on an upturned pail in the yard, to slide beneath my kitchen window—also, she not only supplied me with a powerful torch but came and directed its beam. After which, the window was so easy to open that from the moment I’d arrived on the doorstep to the moment I had wished her a grateful good night barely ten minutes had elapsed.

  It was all remarkably simple.

  So simple I made up my mind that on the following day I should take a long overdue precaution. I had no wish to be burgled.

  Except that, on the following day, something happened which thrust window bolts entirely out of my head. I received a note from Mrs Cambourne.

  With it were two enclosures. The first was a cheque for five thousand pounds.

  “I’m not sure why—I’ve had you in my thoughts a great deal recently. I still feel it will be best if we should never meet again. Put not your trust in princes, etc. Especially when it’s for the second time! But I want you to accept this money, gracefully and without argument. Don’t even thank me. It’s a small amount compared to what you might have had. Yet it’s not a question of my having to placate my conscience. It’s more a feeling that Oliver has been prompting me to send it. In any case, I want you to have it. Leave it at that.

  “I’m also sending something else, which I think requires no explanation. I do not do this lightly but have been feeling more and more of late that I ought to let you see it. I don’t ask to have it back. It is yours. I know that you will treasure it.”

  And for a long time I simply sat and gazed at this second enclosure.

  It was a letter from Oliver.

  In the handwriting which was so achingly familiar, and in the Royal Blue ink he’d favoured even then, it was dated December 29th 1939—and was addressed from an RAF station in Suffolk.

  “My darling Maman,

  “Thank you for our leave. It was superb. I know that Edmund’s also dropping you a line—odd fellow, for some reason he seemed quite to like you. But seriously, I was awfully glad the two of you got on so well.

  “Yet this didn’t stop me from being in a slight quandary at the time—a quandary, as it happened, that was only resolved in London on our way back to camp.

  “You see, I’d been thinking over Christmas how I ought to make my will. Even at twenty, ‘when the blast of war blows in our ears’, a man should have the comfort of knowing that his affairs are all in order.

  “As it stands, of course, everything would come to you. But I should also like to leave a largish sum to Edmund. I thought something of the order of twenty thousand pounds. Naturally I shall get this seen to as quickly as I can but in the meantime—and for obvious reasons—I wanted you to know.

  “I hope the strength of my feeling for him won’t cause you any hurt. For otherwise I can in no way regret it—indeed the contrary—I feel proud. Well, you saw the fine type of person he is, need one say more? I love him, love him second only to yourself. And were it possible to make another kind of bequest I should then want to leave him what I consider one of the best gifts imaginable: a place alongside my own in the affections of a truly wonderful woman. For if anything did happen to me I’d like to feel the two of you still had each other. That would be my dearest wish.

  “I want you to know I have never been happier in my life. The only thing I need to complete a happiness as nearly perfect as I feel conceivable in wartime would be some sign of your understanding of it.

  “However, after all you’ve just read, you may be surprised to hear that Edmund isn’t the only reason for this present euphoria!

  “On our way back through London yesterday we had an hour between trains. We were wandering around in search of a pub when we came to a small church—surprisingly it wasn’t locked—and Edmund suggested we go in for a short time. Well, as you know, this is probably the last thing which would ever have occurred to me but E seemed quite eager about it and therefore it was what I wanted too.

  “The church was absolutely empty. We sat at the back and didn’t talk and I can’t think at all why it happened (I should have said I was the least likely candidate you could possibly imagine) or what I started off with in my mind, but I was suddenly aware of a great stillness, which had nothing to do with the outer stillness which existed in the church—and then I found myself at Calvary, wrapped about in that same stillness, sitting at the foot of the cross. And he was looking down at me. But it wasn’t your usual white-skinned Jesus, fine-featured, frail—oh, no. This was a strong broad-shouldered Arab type with the sweat pouring down his face and his beard all matted and every line of his body expressing the agony he was being forced to endure as he went to meet his death. But his eyes were what held me. Those eyes that seemed to be gazing straight down into mine with a look which if I live to be ancient I shall never forget, and which I’m not even going to attempt to describe, beyond saying it was utterly all-seeing and utterly all-forgiving. ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ (Mr Hanbury’s favourite text—I’m afraid it never meant a whole lot to me in the past!) And I did know. Suddenly I did.

  “I’m not sure how long it lasted. Only a minute, perhaps. Yet when it finished, one of the convictions which gradually settled on me—amongst so many others!—was of my need to be in every way straightforward. With everyone … but especially with you. Hence—the dramatic resolving of a dilemma.

  “But why should it have happened to me? Why should I have been singled out for such a blessing? E says that probably more people have visions than you’d expect, yet feel chary about revealing them. Would that be your opinion? Already, from time to time, Satan sneaks in to make me wonder if it might not have been imagination—‘a brief moment of sleep in conducive surroundings,’ he’ll slyly whisper. But mostly it seems so real and is still so vivid I can simply laugh and say to myself quite calmly: Oh, don’t let him fool you! Beat the Devil!

  “Anyway—enough. All that remains now is to say again how much I love you and how greatly we enjoyed the leave you did so much to make a special one. I wish you the very happiest New Year that Herr Hitler will allow. And give big hugs to Tommy and Rita—te
ll them we’ll have more ‘spooky hauntings’ and treasure hunts etc, just as soon as I (and E?) come home again. Write soon. God bless.

  “Oliver.”

  Oh God, I thought. Oh God!

  Oh, fuck you, Oliver Cambourne!

  38

  That same day I decided to quit Selfridge’s again. With money in the bank I could perhaps spend the summer trying my hand at some further writing—working title: ‘On Leaving Drury Lane’—or, if that didn’t succeed, at least looking round for a better paid and more demanding form of employment. Annoyingly, though, my timing in one respect couldn’t have been worse: I’d arranged to go down to Folkestone on the same Friday evening my notice expired and I remembered with foreboding my mother’s views about leaving even the most menial of jobs before you had found yourself another. Inherited of course from my father, they were virtually the same as Mr Sheldon’s.

  When my train got in she was standing at the ticket barrier to meet it. I was surprised; she hadn’t met my train in ages. Clearly she had a hot line to Mr Chauncey.

  She kissed me, almost perfunctorily.

  “What a crowd! Did you get a seat?”

  But she scarcely waited for my answer.

  “I wanted to warn you. Clara’s behaving very oddly. She keeps thinking we’ve got a maid; Violet, she calls her. I believe there used to be a maid called Violet when your father was a child. She gets so cross with me for doing all the work. ‘Violet will do it!’ she keeps saying. ‘Violet will do it!’ This morning she lectured me on not forfeiting the respect of the servants!”

  “What did you say to her? What do you say to her?”

  “At first I simply told her she was mistaken. People didn’t often have maids any more. But she grew so annoyed when I said this—and, anyhow, it didn’t seem to register—that I’ve taken to saying it’s the maid’s day off. That’s easier.”

  “Have you seen Dr Hall about it?”

  “Not yet. I don’t suppose there’s much he can do.”

  I hesitated. “He may suggest a home.”

  “Clara can’t afford a home. Not a private one. And all the council ones have waiting lists. Besides, I don’t think she’d be happy in a council home. No, I don’t know what we’re meant to do. It’s driving me crazy.”

  “We can’t have the pair of you going crazy.”

  In no way did she acknowledge I had tried to make a joke. “I’m even reluctant to go to work these days, for fear of what she might get up to.”

  “Get up to?”

  “Set the house on fire. Something like that.”

  “Then you really do see her as a danger?”

  “Oh, perhaps I’m exaggerating. But I’m so worried. Do you know what she was doing last night? She was counting up all the Christmas and birthday presents she had ever given you over the years; calculating how much it had cost her.”

  “Poor old soul … It all seems rather sudden, doesn’t it?”

  “It may seem sudden to you,” she said. “I assure you it doesn’t to me. Do you realize it’s been over three months since you were here?”

  “Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”

  “It would have helped to have you home occasionally.”

  “But if I’d only had some inkling…”

  “Besides, nowadays you hardly ever write or telephone.” By this time we had nearly reached the house. “And sometimes I even wonder if you bother to read the letters which I write.”

  “Of course I do,” I returned, uncomfortably.

  “Anyway, I was glad when you rang last Sunday.”

  “To tell the truth I’ve been feeling rather depressed since Christmas.”

  “And that’s another thing I wanted to say. I think Elizabeth’s behaving very strangely. Is she ever coming back to you?”

  “No.” I hadn’t meant to deliver it so baldly. But, even so, it was a relief finally to have made the admission.

  “I thought as much. No girl spends months away from her husband just because her mother’s ill.” She appeared to judge it necessary to raise a warning finger. “Don’t mention it to Clara, though. We’ll talk about it later.”

  I’d been alarmed by what I’d heard but in fact my aunt seemed no different to usual. Not to begin with. She greeted me effusively; said how handsome I was looking and asked how many fresh hearts I had broken in the past few weeks. “When the cat’s away…,” she smiled. “Yes, I know all about it, my dear! Mice were never to be trusted!”

  We sat down to supper and she inquired, tongue-in-cheek, if I intended to swim the following day.

  “Of course I do. As long as you’ll swim with me.”

  “April fooling,” my mother reminded us, “finished at twelve o’clock!” Her pretence at sternness mightn’t have been entirely a pretence but at least she was more relaxed now. Much more relaxed.

  Aunt Clara chuckled. “The last time I went swimming I took in a mouthful of water—spluttered—and let out a mouthful of false teeth! You remember that, don’t you, Norma?”

  “Shall I ever forget?” To my infinite pleasure my mother laughed too. She turned to me and said, “At the next low tide we all became beachcombers! Clara, myself, your father and you. Oh—and the Baedeckers from next door!”

  “Yes,” I said, “I think I can remember.”

  “Well, you’d have been about nine. And the rubbish we found! Old boots, bottles, tins. But no false teeth.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered whose!” cried Aunt Clara. “I was desperate!”

  “Yes,” I exclaimed, “you couldn’t have been the first it had happened to, not by a long chalk! Old men who looked like Popeye and old women who—”

  “No, stop it, you two! You’re putting me off my soup.”

  “Oh, really, Norma, you are fussy! They’d all have been well washed! Only wait, my girl, till one day it happens to you!”

  It was one of those occasions which—if you had been recounting it to someone—would hardly have seemed funny at all; but which at the time had a sort of hysterical appeal to it.

  “Whatever became of the Baedeckers?” asked Aunt Clara at last. She was having to wipe her eyes.

  “They went to live in Devon and we lost touch.” My mother collected up the soup bowls. “We’ll starve for the rest of the weekend but tonight we’ve got the fatted calf. Roast mutton.”

  The kitchen adjoined the dining room. I called out: “Can I help?”

  “Oh, she won’t let you,” said Aunt Clara. “Norma isn’t happy unless she’s the one doing everything. Working all day long, then coming home to cook a meal like this!”

  “But it’s a celebration meal!” cried out my mother. “Darling, do tell us about yourself. I’m just coming in. How’s Selfridge’s?”

  “Selfridge’s?” I hesitated. This time I’d intended not to lie.

  “Violet ought to be the one doing everything—the cooking and the serving and the washing up!”

  “I thought I told you: it’s her evening off.”

  “Actually,” I said, “there is something I’ve been wanting to explain, about Selfridge’s.”

  “Something special?” My mother had by now returned and was setting down the plates and the vegetable dishes.

  “But wasn’t it her evening off yesterday?”

  “No. Today. That’s not important now. Let’s hear what John has to tell us.”

  “I’ve left Selfridge’s,” I said.

  “You’ve what!” exclaimed my mother.

  “Servants so easily get out of hand; even the very best of them.”

  “Be quiet, Clara! Oh, for heaven’s sake, be quiet! John, did you say you’d left?”

  Two minutes later both the women were in tears; had hurried separately out of the room. I alone remained at table, not eating, watching the joint grow cold on the carving dish and the gravy form a skin in the sauceboat.

  Next morning I sat at the old desk in my bedroom with both elbows resting on the deeply scored lid and my face propped heavily between my han
ds. My window overlooked a small park where I could see a foursome playing tennis. The house was very quiet. I’d gone downstairs late, after my mother had left for work, and had made myself a cup of coffee to take back to my room. (I’d found a burnt pie dish soaking in the sink; what had been in it had been scraped into the bin.) My aunt, I imagined, was still in bed. Normally we’d have been sitting together in a café at about this time, or strolling along the Leas, and I remembered I had been looking forward to this first day of my renewed freedom. Ironic.

  It was part of the same irony that ever since the arrival of Mrs Cambourne’s letter—and despite my initial reaction to much that had been in Oliver’s—I’d been feeling what was for me these days a rare sense of wellbeing; and that something else I’d been looking forward to was making myself a better companion than I knew I had been for over a year. My mother and aunt had always seemed so touchingly pleased to see me and I’d invariably come away feeling I’d shortchanged them. (Elizabeth, though, had usually been particularly cheerful at Folkestone.) Now, this weekend, meaning to move forward on my endless trip of penance, all I’d accomplished was to reduce them both to tears. Life was certainly a comedy.

  But to think that way was unhelpful and I had recently made a vow to myself—something no doubt engendered by that atypical period of wellbeing: vowed that henceforth I would tell only the truth, honour my commitments, become in every way as decent a person as I could. In short I had experienced a renewal of that sense of purpose which had visited me by Oliver’s graveside, instantly withered, but flowered again more strongly in July. No further lies, laziness, negativity. So far as possible I had to grow to be worthy of him.

  Yet now … this! From my window I saw my aunt picking her way unsurely along the road which bordered the park; I hadn’t even noted the closing of the front door. It was unheard of for Aunt Clara to go walking on her own when she knew that I was home. But today she must have deliberately avoided me; gone out through the kitchen. What a bloody mess it all was. If only I could have waved a wand … I felt so powerless.

  Useless.