The Bridge

by Iain Banks

  'Certainly not,' I say as she hands it to me. I feel as though I have just been presented with a diploma. 'I'll have it framed and hung in my apartment. Already I like it a great deal more, knowing that it was drawn for me.'

  Abberlaine Arrol's exits amuse me. This time she is picked up by a track engineer's car; a quaint, elegantly glassed and panelled carriage full of complicated but archaic instruments, all bright brass, clinking balances, and drums of paper flowing past scribbling pens. It hisses and rattles to a stop, a door concertinas open and a young guard salutes Miss Arrol, who is on her way to lunch with her father. I hold her easel, having been instructed to replace it in the shed. Her satchel bulges with rolled line drawings: the commissioned work she really came here to do and which she has been busy with - while still talking to me - since completing my sketch. She puts one boot on the high step up to the carriage and holds out her hand to me.

  'Thank you for your help, Mr Orr.'

  'Thank you for my drawing.' I take her hand. Between Miss Arrol's boot top and skirt hem her stocking is revealed for the first time; a fine but unmistakable black fishnet.

  I concentrate on her eyes. They look amused. 'I hope I'll see you again.' I glance at those pretty bags beneath the grey-green eyes. Fishnet, indeed; I am netted again. She squeezes my hand; I feel faint with an absurd euphoria.

  'Well, Mr Orr, if I can summon up the courage, I may let you take me out to dinner.'

  'That would be ... most pleasant. I do hope you discover quite inexhaustible reserves of bravery in the near future.' I bow a little and am rewarded with another glimpse of that besottingly lovely leg.

  'Goodbye then, Mr Orr. Keep in touch.'

  'I will. Goodbye.'

  The door closes, the carriage clanks and hisses off; steam from its passing curls round me like mist, making my eyes water. I take out my handkerchief.

  It has been monogrammed. Miss Arrol has had a finely sewn O added to one corner, in blue silk.

  Such grace; I am captivated. And those few inches of delectable, dark stockinged leg!

  Brooke and I sit, after lunch, drinking mulled wine in Dissy Pitton's Sea View Lounge, lounging on suspended couches watching a depleted fishing fleet setting out to sea far below; the departing trawlers sound their horns as they pass their stationary sister-ships on barrage balloon-anchoring duties.

  'Can't say I blame you,' Brooke says gruffly, 'I never did think the fellow would do you much good.' I have told Mr Brooke about my decision not to let Dr Joyce hypnotise me. We both look out to sea. 'Damn balloons.' My friend glares at the offending blimps. They shine almost silver in the sunlight, their shadows speckling the blue waters of the firth; another pattern.

  'I thought you'd approve ...' I begin, then stop, frowning, listening. Brooke looks at me.

  'Not up to me to approve or - Orr?'

  'Shh,' I say quietly. I listen to the distant noise, then open one of the lounge windows. Brooke gets to his feet. The drone of the approaching aero engines is quite distinct now.

  'Don't say those bloody things are coming back!' Brooke shouts behind me.

  'Indeed they are.' The planes come into view. They are lower then before, the middle one almost level with Dissy Pitton's. They are flying Kingdomward in the same vertical formation as before. Once again, each trails pulses of oily smoke, leaving a giant ribbon of dark smudges hanging in the sky behind them. The planes' silver-grey fuselages have no markings. The silvered-over cockpit canopies glint in the sunlight. The combined wires of the barrage balloons seem to provide only the most rudimentary of obstacles to the planes' progress; the aircraft are flying about a quarter of a mile from the bridge, where the wires are probably at their most dense, yet as we watch they have to make only one brief turn to avoid a cable. The flight drones away into the distance, leaving smoke.

  Brooke smacks one fist into the other palm. 'Cheeky beggars!'

  The hanging wall of smoky smudges drifts slowly towards the bridge in the steady breeze.

  After a couple of energetic games at the rackets club I call at the picture-framer's. Miss Arrol's drawing has been mounted on wood and covered in non-reflective glass during the afternoon.

  I hang it where it will catch the morning light, above a bookcase to one side of my now-repaired front door. The television switches itself on while I am straightening the drawing on the wall.

  The man still lies there, surrounded by his machines. His face is expressionless. The light has altered a little; the room looks darker. His drip will need changing soon. I watch his pale, slack face. I want to tap the glass of the screen, to wake the fellow... I switch the set off instead. Is there any point in testing the telephone? I pick it up; the same calm beeps still sound.

  I decide to dine at the rackets club bar.

  According to the television in the club bar, the official line on the rogue planes is that they are an expensive prank perpetrated by somebody from another part of the bridge. Following today's latest outrage, the barrage balloon 'defences' are to be strengthened (there is no mention of why only one side of the bridge is ballooned). The culprits responsible for these unauthorised flights are being sought. The Administration asks us all to be vigilant. I seek out the journalist I talked to before.

  'Can't really add anything to that," he confesses.

  'What about the Third City Library?'

  Couldn't find it in our records. There was some sort of fire or explosion up on those levels: some time ago, though. You sure this was only a couple of days ago?'

  'Positive.'

  'Well, probably still trying to bring it under control.' He snaps his fingers. 'Oh, tell you something they haven't mentioned on the broadcasts.'

  'What?'

  'They've found out what language the planes are writing m.'

  'Yes?'

  'Braille.'

  'What?'

  'Braille. The blind language; still complete nonsense, even when you do decipher it, but that's what it is, all right.'

  I sit back in my seat, utterly dumbfounded for the second time today.

  Two

  I am standing on a moor, a sloped plain of tundra leading up towards a ridge and the grey, featureless sky. This place is cold, and scoured by a gusting wind which tugs and plucks at my clothes, and flattens the rough, stunted grasses and heathers of the heath.

  The moor continues downhill, vanishing into the grey distance as the slope steepens. All that breaks the monotony of this dull waste of grass is a thin straight stretch of water, like a canal, its surface roughened by the cold wind.

  From the ridge uphill comes a thin, siren sound.

  Grey smoke, driven and made ragged by the tearing wind, moves along the skyline. A train appears over the distant ridge. As it comes closer, the siren sounds again; a harsh, angry noise. The black engine and few, dark carriages make a dull line pointing directly at me.

  I look down; I am standing between the rails of the track two thin lines of metal head straight from me to the approaching train. I step to one side, then look down again. I am still standing between the tracks. I step aside again. The tracks follow me.

  They flow like quicksilver, moving as I move. I am still inbetween the rails. The train's siren shrieks once more.

  I take another step to the side; the rails move again, seeming to slide over the surface of the moor without resistance or cause. The train is closer.

  I start to run, but the tracks keep pace, one always just ahead, one always just at my heel. I try to stop, and fall, rolling, still between the rails. I get up and run in the other direction, running into the wind, my breath like fire. The tracks glide in front and behind. The train, very close now, screams again; it easily negotiates the corners and kinks in the rails my stumbling, twisting progress has produced. I keep running; sweating, panicking, unbelieving, but the rails flow smoothly with me, gauge constant, before and behind, perfectly attuned to my desperate, pounding gait. The train bears down on me, siren bellowing.

  The ground shakes. The rail
s whine. I scream, and find the canal at my side; just before the engine reaches me, I throw myself into the choppy waters.

  Under the surface of the water there is air; I float down through its thick warmth, turning slowly, seeing the under-surface of the water above, glistening like an oily mirror. I land, softly, on the mossy surface of the canal's floor. It is quiet, and very warm. Nothing passes overhead.

  The walls are grey, smooth stone, and close; at full stretch I could almost touch both sides. The walls curve slightly, fading away in either direction under the dim light falling from above. I put my hand on one of the smooth walls and stub my toe on something hard under the moss, near the wall.

  Clearing some of the moss away reveals a piece of shining metal. I brush more of the moss away on either side; it is long, like a pipe, and fastened to the floor of the channel. In cross-section it has the shape of a bloated-looking I. Closer inspection proves that it runs under the moss to each side, raising the green-brown surface in a continuous, hardly-noticeable ridge. On the other side of the tunnel there is a similar raised line of moss, near the wall.

  I jump up, hurriedly brushing the moss back over the section of rail I have uncovered.

  As I do so, the thick, warm air starts to move slowly past me, and from far down the tunnel's narrow curve there comes the faint, thin sound of a siren, coming closer.

  Slightly hungover, waiting for my kippers in the Inches breakfast bar, I wonder whether I ought to take that drawing by Miss Arrol down from my wall.

  The dream disturbed me; I woke up sweating, and lay tossing and turning in my bed, still wet with sweat, until finally I had to get up. I had a bath, fell asleep in the warm water and woke up, freezing cold, terrified, jarred as though electrocuted, suddenly certain in my immediate confusion that I was trapped in some constricting tunnel: the bath a tunnel-canal, its cold waters my own sweat.

  I read the morning paper and sip my coffee. The Administration is being criticised for not having prevented yesterday's flypast. Unspecified new measures are under evaluation with a view to preventing further violation of the bridge's airspace.

  My kippers arrive; their filleted bones have left a pattern on the pale brown flesh. I recall my thoughts on the general topography of the bridge. I try to ignore my hangover.

  There are three possibilities:

  The bridge is just that, a link between two landmasses. They are very far apart, and the bridge leads an existence independent of them, but traffic crosses the bridge from one to the other.

  The bridge is, effectively, a pier; there is land at one end but not the other.

  The bridge has no connection with land whatsoever, save for the small islands beneath every third section.

  In cases 2 and 3, it might be still under construction. It may only be a pier because it has not yet reached the farther landmass, or if it has no connection with land, it might still be being built not just at one end, but two.

  There is one interesting sub-possibility in case 3. The bridge appears to be straight, but there is a horizon, and the sun rises, arcs, falls. So the bridge might eventually meet itself, form a closed circuit; a circle, vertically, ringing the globe; topographically closed.

  Visiting the library on the way here to look at a braille book reminded me of the still-lost Third City Library. I feel quite recovered after my breakfast and decide to walk to the section which houses both Dr Joyce's office and the fabled library. I'll have another crack at finding the damn thing.

  It is another fine day; a soft warm wind blows up-river, slanting the wires of the barrage balloons as the grey blimps try to drift towards the bridge. Extra balloons are being floated into the sky; large barges support the half-inflated shapes of even more balloons, and some of the trawlers have already been equipped with two balloons, producing a giant V of cables in the sky above them. Some of the balloons have been painted black.

  I walk whistling across the linking span from one section to the next, swinging my stick. A plush but conventional elevator bears me up to the highest available floor, still a few levels down from the actual summit of the section. The dark, tall, musty-smelling corridors up here seem familiar now, in their general character at least; the exact lay-out remains a mystery.

  I walk beneath the ancient, age-grimed flags, between the niches occupied by stone-remembered officials, past rooms full of whispering, smartly uniformed clerks. I cross dim, white-tiled lightwells on rickety cross-corridors, peer through keyholes into locked, dark, deserted passages whose floors are inches deep in dust and debris. I test the doors, but the hinges have rusted.

  Finally, I come to a familiar corridor. A large round patch of light glows on the carpet ahead, where the corridor broadens out. The air smells damp; I'd swear the thick, dark carpet squelches with each footfall. I can see tall pot-plants now, and a length of wall which ought to hold the entrance to the L-shaped lift. The patch of light on the floor has a shadow in the centre of it which I don't recall. The shadow moves.

  I reach the light. The great round window is there, still staring down-river like a huge handless clock-face. The shadow is cast by Mr Johnson, Dr Joyce's patient who refuses to leave the cradle. He is cleaning the window, polishing the glass at its centre with a rag, an expression of rapt concentration on his face.

  Behind and a little below him, in mid air, well over a thousand feet above sea-level, floats a small trawler.

  It is suspended on three cables, it is black-brown in colour, rust-streaked above the waterline and barnacle-encrusted below it. It floats slowly towards the bridge, rising as it nears.

  I walk towards the window. High above the drifting trawler are three black barrage balloons. I look up at the still-polishing Mr Johnson. I knock on the glass. He takes no notice.

  The trawler, still rising, heads directly for the great round window. I bang on the glass as high as I can reach; I wave my stick and hat and shout as loudly as I can, 'Mr Johnson! Look out! Behind you!' He stops polishing, but only to lean forward, still smiling beatifically, breathe on the glass, and then start polishing again. I hammer on the glass near Mr Johnson's knees; as far as I can reach, even with my stick. The trawler is twenty feet away. Mr Johnson polishes happily on. I beat on the thick glass with the brass knob on the tip of the stick. The glass chips, cracks. Fifteen feet; the trawler is level with Mr Johnson's feet. 'Mr Johnson!' I thrash at the cracking pane of glass; it finally smashes, spraying shards. I stagger back from the hail of fragments. Mr Johnson is scowling furiously in at me. Ten feet.

  'Behind you!' I scream, thrusting my stick out to point, then running for cover.

  Mr Johnson watches me run, and turns round. The trawler is a fathom-length away. He dives to the deck of his cradle as the trawler crunches into the centre of the great round window, its keel scraping the rail of Mr Johnson's cradle and showering him with barnacles. Panes shatter, glass showers down onto the broad landing; the sound of breaking glass competes with that of creaking, fracturing metal. The trawler's stem grinds through the centre of the window, its metal frame bends like a huge spider's web, making a terrible groaning, screaming sound. The structure around me shakes.

  Then it stops. The trawler appears to bounce back a little, then scrapes and grates its way up over the top part of the great mandala, breaking more glass as it goes; barnacles and fragments of the shattered panes fall together onto the carpet, beating at the broad leaves of the nearby pot-plants like some hard, fierce rain.

  Then, incredibly, it is gone. The trawler disappears from view. Glass stops falling. The sounds of the boat's scraping progress up the side of the remaining floors of the upper bridge quiver through the air.

  Mr Johnson's cradle swings to and fro, gradually slowing. He stirs, looks about him, and stands up slowly, spears of fallen glass sloughing from his back like glittering snakeskin. He licks at a couple of cuts he has sustained on the backs of his hands, carefully brushes his shoulders free of some dusty grains of glass, then walks along his still slightly swaying platform and
picks up a short-handled broom. He starts to brush the fragments of window-pane off the cradle, whistling to himself. Every now and again, as he sweeps, he looks, with an expression of sad concern, at the bowed-in shattered mess of the great circular window.

  I stand and watch. He cleans up his cradle, checks his supporting cables, then bandages his still-bleeding hands, finally he takes a good look at the wrecked window and finds some bits which are both unbroken and not yet washed; he starts cleaning these.

  Ten minutes have passed since the trawler impacted; I am still alone here. Noboby has come to investigate, no alarms or warning signals have sounded. Mr Johnson carries on washing and polishing. A warm breeze blows through the smashed window, ruffling the torn leaves of the pot-plants. Where the doors to the L-shaped elevator were, there is now a blank wall, with niches for statues.

  I leave, my quest for the Third City Library again abandoned.

  I return to my apartment, and an even greater disaster.

  Men in grey overalls are moving in and out of the doorway, loading all my clothes onto a trolley. As I watch, another man appears, straining under a load of paintings and drawings; he piles them onto another trolley and returns inside.

  'Hoy! You! You there! What do you think you're doing?' The men stop and look at me, perplexed. I try to tear some of my shirts from one tall fellow's arms, but he is too strong, and simply stands, blinking with surprise and holding stiffly onto the clothes he has taken from my room. His mate shrugs and walks back inside my apartment. 'You there; stop! Come out of there!'

  I leave the oaf with my shirts and dash into my rooms; they are in turmoil; grey-overalled men moving everywhere, putting white cloths over furniture, carrying other pieces outside, taking books from my bookcases and putting them in boxes, removing pictures from walls and ornaments from tables. I gaze round; stunned, aghast.