The Toll Bridge

by Aidan Chambers

  ‘I suppose that means we’ll be graced with the presence of the adorable Adam again just when we’re having such a deliriously cosy chat.’

  Another prolonged roar.

  Tess said, ‘You know it can only be friends between us? I mean, I like you a lot. But in the sort of way sex would spoil somehow.’

  ‘Spoil!’

  ‘Honest . . . Janus!’

  ‘D’you have to call me that?’

  ‘Yes, let me, go on, I like it!’ She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

  I was supposed to smile. ‘All right, have it your own way.’

  ‘Good. I win.’

  ‘Was it a competition?’

  Another, more drunken roar.

  ‘There’s a lot of it about.’

  Followed by screams and shouts and then a sudden silence.

  I recited,

  ‘Almighty Mammon, make me rich!

  Make me rich quickly, with never a hitch

  in my fine prosperity! Kick all those in the ditch

  who hinder me, Mammon, great son of a bitch!’

  ‘One of yours?’

  ‘D.H. Lawrence.’

  ‘How do you do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Remember all that stuff.’

  ‘Don’t know. Always have. A gift, I suppose.’

  ‘What teachers call clever, you mean.’

  ‘Having a good memory?’

  ‘For facts and figures and quotations and stuff like that. Not for people. Not for things that matter. No wonder they put you a year ahead. But get back to money.’

  ‘Doesn’t everything always.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with filthy lucre. Depends how you use it.’

  ‘And how you get it maybe? Just think – they were like us once, that lot in there. Ordinary, normal, sane, poverty-stricken schoolkids.’

  ‘Is that how you feel, like an et cetera schoolkid?’

  ‘Yes and no. Yes up to the last few weeks, and no, not since The Glums started to clear. Don’t know what I feel, to be honest, except empty. Haven’t a clue what I want, either. Not whatever is supposed to come next though. Grown up or adult or whatever. Do you?’

  She was feeding snips from her sandwiches to a family of mallards cadging on the water at our feet, who gobbled, cackled, and paddled off, as if they knew there was nothing more to be had from us.

  ‘Don’t think about it too much.’

  ‘You’re all now, you! Do you want to be, though? Adult and all that.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Not if it means being lumbered with some endless job and a family and a mortgage and a house to do odd jobs on every weekend or any of that sort of garbage.’

  ‘All that responsibility is what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, OK, all that responsibility. I don’t want it, thanks. But I don’t want to go on being a schoolkid, either. Had enough of that.’

  ‘Stuck in limboland, then, aren’t you? Don’t know whether you’re coming or going. Like I said – facing both ways again.’

  The barman who’d served us came across the grass with the forced nonchalance of someone on an urgent mission who at the same time is trying not to frighten the paying customers and, crouching down between us, said, ‘Weren’t you with the young guy in the grotty blue sweater?’

  We nodded, sensing trouble.

  ‘Well, he’s stirred up a bit of aggro in the bar.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Tess asked.

  ‘Wanted to have a go with the yard-of-ale but the others wouldn’t let him – they were having a competition, you see. Your friend insisted, and there was a bit of a row. Someone grabbed the yard, but it broke and, well – your friend cut himself. There’s blood spilt and beer and not a happy reaction from the others. Could you come and help sort him out?’

  ‘The idiot,’ I said.

  ‘Come on,’ Tess said. ‘We can’t just leave him.’

  ‘Yes, we can. We’re not responsible.’

  ‘We brought him.’

  ‘So? We don’t have to take him back, do we? He’s a sponger. He’ll just upset everything. Let him take care of himself.’

  But I followed her into the pub.

  6

  Inside there is the kind of unnatural quiet with dark mutterings, and resentful glances, and one or two people determinedly ignoring what’s going on that you only get in the aftermath of an unpleasant scene in a public place where people are supposed to be enjoying themselves.

  The yuppies and undergrads have separated to either side of the disaster area, their undisguised belligerence directed at Adam, who is slumped in a chair in the middle of the deserted arena, wild-eyed and sullen. A brisk middle-aged woman, whom I take to be the landlady, is bandaging his left hand while a young barmaid mops the floor round their feet.

  Tess and I edge our way through the throng, me trying to pretend we’re nothing to do with this and are invisible anyhow, and take up stations on either side of the wounded public enemy.

  ‘You all right?’ Tess mutters.

  ‘Yeah, I’m OK,’ he says and suddenly turns on that surprising vulpine grin. It’s as though he’s a character in a play whose reactions are remotely controlled by a mischievous dramatist.

  ‘Look,’ says the landlady, ‘it would be a good idea if you got him out of here.’

  ‘Haven’t had my go yet,’ Adam says and stares nuke-eyed at the yard boys.

  Tess says, ‘We’ll take you home.’

  ‘Home?’ I mutter.

  ‘Shut up and help,’ she mutters back, and, taking Adam by his good arm, says firmly, ‘Come on, we’re leaving.’

  Irresistible Tess. Adam allows her to lead him away without another word, me following, a reluctant rearguard.

  7

  How easily circumstances change people, their moods, their feelings, their attitudes to themselves and the world around them. An hour earlier as we rowed upriver, relaxed, happy in the sun, I’d felt part of the landscape – at one with the world. Now, everything is reversed, Adam broodily nursing his hand, sitting where I had sat, in the stem cosied up to Tess, me tense as I row us downstream, sweating in what now seems an unfriendly sun, and feeling awkward, like an alien.

  For a while I take out my simmering anger on the river, sculling through the water with as much force as I can. But soon my strength weakens; then only words will do.

  I say, glaring at Adam, ‘You’re a pain in the arse, you know that, don’t you!’

  He refuses to look, his head turned away.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Tess says. ‘I’d have thought you’d be on his side, not on theirs.’

  ‘I’m not on their side and I’m not on his, I’m on my own.’

  ‘Selfish prig! You don’t deserve any friends.’

  ‘He’s nothing but trouble.’

  ‘And you’re a jerk.’

  ‘Oh, get stuffed!’

  8

  For the rest of the trip we all have lockjaw. At the bridge Tess coddles Adam into the house while I remain sitting in the boat tethered to the bank and sulk.

  Quarter of an hour later Tess came out.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Didn’t mean it.’

  I won’t speak.

  ‘Are you really going to turn him out?’

  Glowering silence.

  ‘Seems to me people are always turning him out of somewhere. Can’t he stay the night?’

  ‘No.’

  I felt a heel, which is exactly what she wanted me to feel.

  ‘He’s gone very quiet. I think he’s a bit shocked. I’ve given him some sweet tea and made him lie down.’

  ‘It’s all an act. There’s nothing the matter, really. He made a fool of himself and cut his hand, that’s all.’ I felt invaded, taken over. And jealous of all this pampering.

  Tess said, ‘Let him stay, just for tonight.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Listen, I’ll make us a meal. Mum’ll give us some extra stuff. I’ll say you’ve got
a guest, unexpected. Which is true anyway. And I’ll cadge some cans of lager off Dad. We’ll have a nice time. It’ll be a party. A house warming! You haven’t had one yet. How about it? You’ll enjoy it, honest . . . Come on, let yourself go for once, it won’t hurt!’

  Never able to resist Tess when she’s determined, then or now, I gave in. ‘All right,’ I said, feigning unwilling agreement, the art of the spoilt boy (he who’d sworn he’d never pretend any more). I was on a loser, I knew. And that desire in me to be liked took over, a failing I hate but have never quite been able to shake off. ‘But no passes at him while I’m around.’

  ‘Cheek! I’ll treat you both the same.’

  ‘Great, a threesome. Now that could be fun.’

  ‘You’ve got sex on the brain.’

  ‘Not to mention other parts, and who hasn’t?’ I was brightening up again. Another of the virtues of Tess – something about her that dispels The Glums. One of life’s natural healers, just as some people are natural destroyers.

  Depression, of which a gloomy mood is a miniature version, is like being filled with iron filings all zinging about inside you, going every which way, pricking and stinging. And Tess is like the magnet that magics all the filings into a beautiful pattern, a force field, in which they act as one, harmoniously.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said, ‘while Prince Charming lies on my bed of his pain, let’s you and me go blackberrying. Then we’ll make a pud.’

  ‘It’s after Michaelmas.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Ignorant yob. September twenty ninth. It’s well known in these here parts that you shouldn’t eat blackberries after Michaelmas because the Devil pees on them that night.’

  ‘You’re full of odd info today. Roman gods. Urinating devils.’

  ‘I get it from Dad. He loves that sort of thing – country customs, folklore.’

  ‘I’ll chance it if you will. We can sweeten them with honey.’

  We found a plastic bag and set off, Tess knowing the best bushes in the hedges between the bridge and the village. Blackberries big as the balls of my thumb. Not really. Long past their best, but we weren’t to be put off. Doing together was what mattered.

  As we picked, our fingers soon violet-red from juice and itchy-smarting from the pin-sharp thorns, Tess said, ‘Why do you go on so much about responsibility?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Mon dieu, you should hear yourself.’

  ‘I don’t like people expecting things of me.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Parents. Teachers. Relatives. Don’t yours?’

  ‘Never bother to think about it. Wouldn’t pay much attention anyway.’

  ‘You’re more easy-going than me. You just accept things. I envy that.’

  ‘You are a bit heavy, that’s for sure. I thought it was The Glums.’

  ‘No, I was born that way. In most of the photos of me as a kid I’m frowning, like I’m worried to death.’

  We stood back from the bushes and looked at each other. A new understanding.

  ‘Mum calls you old-fashioned. I suppose that’s what she means.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you take such a serious view of life.’

  ‘Does it matter? To you, I mean.’

  ‘It’s how you are. I like you as you are.’

  ‘Stodgy? Prematurely middle-aged?’

  ‘I didn’t say that! You do have your lighter side. Now and then!’

  ‘Which is what you like.’

  ‘If you really must know, Jan dear . . .’

  ‘God, not that again!’

  ‘. . . what I like most about you is your mind.’

  ‘Not my lovely body?’

  ‘No, not your lovely body. You make me think in a way nobody else has. I enjoy that, surprise surprise. And,’ she added quickly, ‘don’t say another word about it now because you’ll only go and spoil things by saying too much.’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Sacré bleu!’ she said, but she was laughing. ‘Haven’t you learned nothing yet!’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Oh – I dunno – how can anybody who’s read so much be so – naïve!’

  There was a sharpening of the air as the autumn sun went down. Our breath steamed. Tess’s lips were purple. We started picking berries again.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘if we’re going to live off the land instead of out of your mum’s freezer, what about us making cauliflower cheese for a main course? We can pinch a cauliflower out of your garden, there’s about fifty more than your family will ever eat. I’ve plenty of cheese and milk. You just brought some butter. We’ll have to cadge some flour though, I haven’t any of that.’

  ‘Haven’t cooked it before.’

  ‘I have. I’ll show you. What you do is wash the cauliflower and divide it into florets. Cook in salted boiling water for ten minutes. Make a sauce by melting an ounce of butter in a pan. Blend in a couple of tablespoons of flour. Cook for about a minute, stirring all the time because it bums easily.’

  ‘Do I want to know all this?’

  ‘Take off the heat. Slowly stir in half a pint of milk. Put on the heat again. Keep stirring. Bring to the boil. Add about three ounces of cheese, and salt and pepper to taste. Put the cauliflower into a casserole dish, pour on the sauce, sprinkle a couple of ounces of grated cheese on top, put the casserole into the oven and bake for fifteen to twenty minutes. Olay! Bon appétit, et cetera.’

  ‘Lawks a-mercy, mon ami, hidden talents! Where’d you learn that?’

  ‘Haven’t wasted all my time the last few weeks. What else do we housebound men have to do all day but learn to cook?’

  ‘You’ve such a hard life. How about some spuds?’

  ‘We’ll bake them in the fire.’

  ‘Great!’

  On our way back from the garden, where we’d endured much teasing from the Norris tribe (father, mother, two sons, plus Tess, the youngest), Tess said, ‘Don’t you think this is a lovely chuckle? And we wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for Adam.’

  ‘Careful. Proof of the pud. Might turn out like Christmas.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Better in the anticipation than the event.’

  ‘Pessimist.’

  ‘Romantic.’

  ‘Cynic.’

  ‘Estragonist.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Sewer-rat, curate, cretin, crrritic.’

  ‘What are you on about now?’

  ‘Samuel Beckett . . . Waiting for Godot . . . the play?’

  ‘I make a point of never knowing anything other people quote at me. It lets them feel superior.’

  ‘Touché! Will you have it in a basket or on a plate?’

  ‘This is all too heady for me.’

  ‘Must be the Devil’s pee on those blackberries you ate. I expect his piddle is pretty intoxicating.’

  ‘Intoxicating perhaps, pretty not. Glad you’re feeling perky again.’

  9

  When we arrived back at the house Adam had gone. Again. Along with some food – all my bread, a bag of fruit Tess had brought that day, and half the cake my mother had sent in her weekly parcel.

  ‘This is getting to be a habit,’ I said.

  ‘I suppose you’re pleased,’ Tess said, not hiding her disappointment.

  ‘Yes,’ I said to irritate her. ‘But he’ll be back. He knows when he’s on to a good thing.’

  Not until later, when we took our blackberry pud out into the night frost to eat by the river, did we discover that the boat had gone as well.

  Letters

  1

  . . . BUT, SWEETHEART, THERE was no need to be bad-tempered. Your father says boys of your age don’t like to be questioned about their doings and having their parents interfere, he says he was like that himself. Well, he might have been but that doesn’t mean you have to be, does it, and I wasn’t interfering but only wanting to be helpful. After all, as I have to keep reminding him, you’re on your own for t
he first time in your life, with no one to look out for your wellbeing, and I am your mother, darling, aren’t I, it’s only natural, isn’t it, that I should want to know how you are and how you spend your time. You’ve never been secretive before. And I don’t think your father is right anyhow. Your Uncle Bill was always full of himself when he was your age and told us about everything he did, and Mrs Fletcher’s Brian doesn’t hold back either, I know because she tells me in great detail all his news when we have our Friday coffee, he seems to be doing very well at college, just as you will next year, I’m sure, and probably a lot better because you were always much cleverer than Brian Fletcher, that I do know.

  I can only think you’re so reserved about your doings because you aren’t really happy and don’t want to say so in case it upsets your father and me. I know you, when you go quiet that means trouble. I expect something’s going on that doesn’t suit. You were always like that. But when you were a child you were a sweet-natured good little boy who always tried to please, and I could soon make you smile again, I knew the trick, as I still could if you were here. Well, it won’t be long before Christmas when you’ll be home again and we can have a good old heart-to-heart. Would you like us to drive down and pick you up? Your father says the car could do with a good long run, and there’s no need for you to take the bus, even if it is supposed to be express, the car would be far more comfortable, and save on expense, and we’d be together for that bit longer. Your father and I do think it admirable of you to want to survive without taking money from us or depending on us at all, but things can go too far in this respect and fetching you home would give us great pleasure. So just let’s take this as settled, shall we?

  Gill is looking forward to seeing you then too. She was here on Sunday after you phoned as usual and told us funny but awful stories about the dreadful behaviour of customers at the bookshop. I must say I thank goodness your father and I never had to deal with members of the public in the service industries, there do seem to be some very strange people about and courtesy has gone out of the window, which I notice myself when shopping, as I said to Mrs Fletcher only last Friday after an embarrassing altercation at the cosmetics counter in Binns. Though it is bad enough for Gill it can’t be any fun at all for you taking money in all weathers from people in cars, which, as I’ve said to your father many a time, seem to bring out the worst in people. They certainly do in him. He almost ran down a man in a Vauxhall the other day, you know how prejudiced he is against Vauxhalls. At least Gill is in the warm and dry, and working in a bookshop is quite respectable, if you have to work in a shop at all, besides being, as Mrs Fletcher remarked after we’d given Gill a wave on our way past, probably educational as well. She brought your father a very nice book on pruning roses which, as she admitted, she got cheap being an employee, but never mind, it was thoughtful of her.