The Bridge

by Iain Banks

  Cars are spilled across the tracks here, where the network of points leads the tracks within the main section of the bridge towards the funnel-neck of the linking span, where only a few lines cross to the next section. The heat on this side of the crashed train is quite fierce; jets of water from the emergency train on the far side of the wreck arc over the burning freight cars, hissing on their stoved-in wood and metal frames. Railmen with extinguishers move to and fro, others are unrolling canvas hoses and connecting them up to hydrants. The flames roll and shudder; the fires hiss as the water hits. I keep on, walking faster to get away from the heat of the flames. Water runs in the wheel troughs and draining channels of the deck, steaming as it goes beneath the pounding heat of the flames, adding its own vapour to the fog and the rising black smoke. Something has caught light above where the train burns, and drips molten fire onto the furnace of smashed cars below.

  I have to put my hands to my ears when I pass one of the sirens, wailing away into the fog from a post by the track side. More railmen scatter past me, shouting. The fire is at my back now, roaring into the cluttered girder space. In front, the smashed train lies on its side, crumpled and askew, thrown across the tracks like something dropped from above, like a dead snake, the frames of the broken cars its fractured ribs.

  Beyond that another train, larger and with long, windowed carriages rather than low slab-sided freight cars. Men swarm over its torn surfaces where they merge with the long, still solid shape of a freight locomotive, its snout buried in one of the tall carriages. I see people being pulled from the wreckage. Stretchers lie by the track; more klaxons and horns sound nearby, obliterating the foghorns below. I am halted by the sheer manic energy of this desperate scene, watching the rescue operation. More people are brought, moaning and bloody, out of the passenger train. An explosion bursts from the wreckage behind me; men run towards this new scene of catastrophe. The wounded are being taken away on stretchers.

  'You!' One of the men shouts at me; he is kneeling by a stretcher, holding a woman's bloody arm while another man ties a tourniquet higher up. 'Give us a hand; take one end of a stretcher, can't you?'

  There are ten or twelve stretchers by the side of the tracks; men run up and ferry them away, but many people are left lying, waiting their turn. I step over the rail, from walkway to trackside, go over to the stretchers, and help a railman carry one. We take the first stretcher to the emergency train, where medical orderlies take it from us.

  There is another explosion in the wrecked freight train. When we come back with the next casualty, the emergency train has been moved back up the track, away from the danger of explosions; we have to carry the stretcher with a moaning, bleeding man on it two hundred yards to the end of the freight train, where orderlies relieve us. We run back to the passenger train.

  The next casualty may well be dead already; he pours blood as soon as we lift him. We are directed by a railway official, told to take him not to the emergency train but to another train further down the track, in the opposite direction.

  It is an express, held up by the crash and taking some of the victims on board before ferrying them to the nearest hospital. We take the stretcher on board. In what looks like a soft-class dining-car, a doctor is going from victim to victim. We put our bloody charge down over a white tablecloth, splattering blood, as the doctor reaches us. He presses down on the man's neck, holding it; I had not even noticed that was where the blood was coming from. The doctor looks at me; a young man. He looks frightened.

  'Hold this,' he tells me, and I have to put my hand to the man's neck while the doctor goes away for a while. My fellow stretcher-bearer runs off. I am left holding the faint pulse of the man on the dinner-table, his blood flowing over my hands when I relax or try to get a better purchase on the ragged patch of skin torn from his neck. I grip, I press, I do what I am told, and I look at the face of the man, pale with blood loss, unconscious but still suffering, free from whatever mask he ever chose to meet the world with, reduced to something pathetic and animal in his agony. 'OK, thanks.' The doctor comes back with a nurse; they have bandages, a drip, bottles and needles. They take over.

  I walk away, through the whimpering wounded. I find myself in a passenger carriage, deserted and unlit. I feel faint and sit down for a moment, then when I get up can only stagger as far as the toilet at the end of the carriage. I sit down there, head pounding, lights in my eyes. I wash my hands while I wait for my heart to catch up with the demands my body is making on it. By the time I feel ready to stand again, the train is moving.

  I go back to the dining-car as the train slows; nurses and auxiliaries from the hospital crowd in, taking the stretchers. I am told to get out of the way by three nurses and two auxiliaries clustering round a stretcher being taken towards the nearest door; an injured woman giving birth. I have to head back for the toilet.

  And I sit there, thinking.

  No one comes to disturb me. The whole train becomes very quiet. It shakes and jerks a couple of times, and I hear shouts outside the translucent window, but the interior is silent. I walk down to the dining-car; it is a different one, fresh and clean and smelling of polish. The lights go out. The white tables look ghostly in the light shed by the bridge outside, still wrapped in fog.

  Should I get off now? The good doctor would want me to, Brooke would; so - I hope - would Abberlaine Arrol.

  But for what? All I do is play games; games with the doctor, with Brooke, with the bridge, with Abberlaine. All very well, and with her quite sublime, save for that echoing horror ...

  Do I go then? I could. Why not?

  Here I am in a thing become place, the link become location, the means become end and route become destination ... and in this long, articulated symbol, phallic and poised between the limbs of our great iron icon. How tempting just to stay and so to go, to voyage out bravely leaving the woman at home. Place and thing and thing and place. Is it really so simple? Is a woman a place and a man just a thing?

  Good heavens young-fellow-me-lad, of course not! Ho ho ho what a preposterous idea! It's all much more civilised than that ... Still, just because it seems so offensive to my taste, I suspect there might be something in it. So what do I represent then, sitting here, inside the train, within the symbol? Good question, I tell myself. Good question. Then the train moves again.

  I sit at a table, watching the stream of carriages alongside; slowly we gain speed, leave the other train behind in its siding. We slow again, and I watch as we pass the place where the wreck took place. Jumbled freight cars litter the side of the track, twisted rails rear from the scored deck like so much bent wire, and smoking debris gutters in the drifting fog under bright arc lights. The emergency train lies a little way up the track, lights bright. The carriage shakes gently around me as the train gathers speed.

  Lights flare through the fog; we flash through the main station of the section, past other trains, past local trams, through the lights of the streets and thoroughfares and their surrounding buildings. We are still gathering speed. Quickly the lights start to thin as we approach the section's far end. I watch the lights for a moment longer, then go to the end of the carriage, where the door is. I open the window and look out into the fog, tearing past the window with a roar itself patterned by the unseen structure of the bridge, echoing the train's headlong progress according to the density of girder work and added-on buildings around the track. The last few building lights fall astern; I work my hospital identity tag loose, pulling it slowly and painfully from my wrist, licking it when it sticks, finally hauling it off regardless, cutting myself.

  Across the linking span. Still well within the range my identity bracelet allows me, of course. A little circlet of plastic with my name on it. My wrist feels odd without it, after all this time. Naked.

  I throw it out of the window, into the fog; it is lost the instant it leaves my hand.

  I close the window and go back to the carriage to rest, and see how far I'll get.

  Eocene


  ... is the microphone on?

  Ah! There you are! Yes, well then... nothing to worry about, not really confused here at all, no way, honestly. Everything totally fine and wonderful, completely under control. Absolutely wunnerful, total command; all aspects. Knew the thing was on all the time. Just quoting the immortal - what's that? OK, OK - sorry, the mortal Jimi Hendrix there, honest. Now then, where was I? Oh yes.

  Well, the patient's condition is stable; he's dead. Can't get much more fucking stable than that, can you? Yeah, all right, decomposition and so on; I was only kidding anyway; just my little joke. Christ some people have no sense of humour; calm down at the back there.

  Mobile again, chaps. From where to where? Damn good question.

  Glad you asked me that. Anybody know the answer? No?

  Shhhit. Oh well.

  Where are they taking me? What did I do to deserve all this? Who asked me, you bastards? Anybody ask me? Eh? Anybody think to say 'Mind if we move you, what's-your-name?' Hmm? No. Maybe I was happy where I was, ever think of that?

  Well you can move my bowels and turn me over like an omelette and reach inside me and muck about and repair bits and pump God knows what into me and press bits and tweak bits and all the rest of it, but you can't catch me, you can't find me, you can't get through to me. I'm up here; in charge, in command, invulnerable.

  And what a filthy trick, what a typically dirty piece of underhand undercover underclothed misunderstanding by the evil queen herself. How could she stoop so low? (Well, yer just bends over like this -) Rousing the goddamn barbarians against me; ha! Was that the best she could think of?

  Probably. Never did have much imagination. Well, except in bed (or wherever) I guess. No, that's not true. I am being petulant; fair's fair (often with a slight, just a tinge, just a wee hint of red, usually, I've found ... but never mind that).

  What a caddess, though, raising a rebellion like that. No chance, of course but there

  you go. Now what? Good grief can't a fellow have a little talk with himself without

  being - again!

  What the fucking hell's going on here? What do you think I am you clumsy bastards? This part of the

  - will you stop that! No more bumping! It hurts! This part of the treatment, is it? If I really wanted to I'd get up and give you cads a jolly good biffing, let me tell you! Butt! Get that stitched, Jimmy.

  Thank God, stopped at last, just a little lateral motion here, nothing to worry about; could be in a boat or something maybe. Hard to tell.

  No, not a boat, the rocking's damped; something with suspension, shock-absorbers. Squeaking? Do I hear voices? (All the time, doc. They told me to do it. Not my fault. Perfect alibi, impregnable defence.)

  Raped! What a bloody nerve! I'll sue (so, get that stitched Jemima; sue? I'll stitch her up. No, sorry, that's not funny, but I mean! What a dia-fucking-bollockal liberty, eh?)

  Never meant a thing to me. Or her, probably. She was a woman of letters, you know. Oh yes. I told her once and she laughed and we worked it all out. Not just letters either; signs, I'll show you.

  Behind each knee an H, from behind her behind a +, her nostrils were ,s (hope this isn't getting too confusing for you), her waist was )(, and pride of place went to V (in plan, prone), and ! (front elevation). Then of course she digested all this and pointed out she also had a : and regular .s (though these were puns, not signs - like I say, she was a woman of letters). Never mind; at that ! I went i (she went O).

  Oh well, here we go. Moving. Vroom vroom, part of the machine again, all hooked up and somewhere to go (Me-maw me-maw? Never sell ice-cream at that speed, Jimmy. Jam Sandwich please. Plenty of raspberry). Laugh if we crash. Not via the bridge I hope (Gee Charon, sorry about this, but what with the increased traffic flow recently ...). I don't know, maybe I'm dead already, or maybe they think I am. Hard to tell (no it isn't); kinda lost ma bearings round here. All a bit traumatic this (traum? Trauma? Just more letters; rev reve lation rse rence reiver o'lution bla bla bla ...

  (what's he saying?

  'bla bla bla'

  o good an improvement)

  Shoulda seen me before. I was impressive. Well, I thought so. Revs la reve; the docking's ramped you know; had two is too; I mean not one i but two: i i. Or ii (well come on you can have a roman nose why not roman eyes don't give me a hard time here I'm not a well man). Aye-aye. Just like that.

  Damn it the thing squeaks. Might have known. Story of my fucking life. No bloody justice in the world (well, there is, but it falleth like the hard rain from the nimbostrata of the world; erratically, with occasional floods and droughts that last decades).

  Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, here we are in the machine, nicely contained an all that, wafting along. Let us hope not via you-know-what. Reminds me of a story, dontcheknow. Just an ordinary-like story; nothing special you understand; no shooting in it or exciting car chases or anything like that (sorry). Hardy even a real story in fact, if you want my honest opinion; more of a history really; a biography ... but anyway, that's -

  She got

  haud on, son; just doin the intro here; give us a break, eh? Cheese-us, canny even finish what yer sayin without -

  She got her

  you'll get yours in a minute Jimmy if ye don't shut

  She got her degree

  is it me, eh? Is it? Does ma voice no carry or something?

  She -

  yeah, she got her degree; we know. Well on you go, bash on; be my guest. Christ some people are just so fucking im

  She got her degree and letters after her name; he made gentle fun of her new qualification, and found other symbols to describe her. He had given up the room in Sciennes Road and was renting a small flat in Canonmills. Andrea more or less moved in, though she kept on the flat in Comely Bank. A cousin of hers from Inverness, called Shona, stayed there while she went to the PE college in Cramond, the place where Andrea's family had originated.

  He still had to work in his vacations, and she still spent hers abroad with family and friends, which made him both jealous and envious, but each time they met again it was as it had been before, and at some point - he could never pin down just when - he started to think of their relationship as being something that might last longer than just the next term. He even thought of suggesting they get married, but a sort of pride in him would not tolerate the idea of the state - far less the church - being appeased in this way. What mattered lay in their hearts (or rather in their brains), not in any register. Besides, he admitted to himself, she would probably have said No.

  They were ex-hippies now, he supposed; if they'd every really been hippies in the first place. Flower power had ... well, people chose their own phrases; withered, gone to seed, blossomed and died - he once suggested the problem was petal fatigue.

  She'd worked hard for a good degree, and after graduation took a year off, while he finished his own studies. She went on short holidays to visit people in other parts of Scotland and England, and in Paris, and on longer trips to the States, the rest of Europe, and the Soviet Union. She renewed acquaintance with her Edinburgh friends, would cook for him while he studied, visit her mother, sometimes play golf with her father - who, to his amazement, he found he could talk to quite easily - and read novels in French.

  When she came back from the SU it was with a determination to learn Russian. He would arrive back at the flat sometimes to find her poring over novels and textbooks filled with the odd-looking half-familiar Cyrillic alphabet, brows creased, pencil poised over a notebook. She would look up, gaze incredulously at her watch and apologise for not having cooked him something; he'd tell her not to be daft, and do the cooking himself.

  He missed his own graduation day, lying in the Royal Infirmary recovering from an appendectomy. His mother and father went to the ceremony anyway, just to hear his name read out. Andrea looked after them; they all got on fine. Even when the parents met he was amazed that they all seemed to chat like old friends; he was ashamed of himself for ever being ash
amed of his own mother and father.

  Stewart Mackie met Shona, the cousin from Inverness; they got married during Stewart's first post-grad year. He was Stewart's best man, Andrea was Shona's maid of honour. They both made speeches at the reception; his was the better planned, but hers was the best delivered. He sat watching as she stood speaking, and realised then how much he loved her and admired her. He also felt vaguely proud of her, though he felt that was wrong. She sat down to enthusiastic applause. He raised his glass to her. She winked back.

  A few weeks later she told him she was thinking of going to Paris to study Russian. He thought she was joking at first. He was still looking for a job. He had vague ideas of going with her - perhaps he could do a crash course in French and look for a job over there - then he was offered a good position in a firm working on power station design; he had to take it. Three years, she told him. It'll only be three years. Only? he said. She tried to tempt him with the idea of holidays in Paris with her, but he found it difficult to be supportive.

  He was anyway powerless, and she determined.

  He wasn't going to see her to the airport. They went out instead, on the evening before she left, across the road bridge and into Fife, along the shore to a small restaurant in Culross. They took his car; he had bought a small new BMW on credit, on the strength of his new-found wealth as an employed man. It was an awkward meal and he drank too much wine; she was staying sober for the flight the following day - she loved flying, she would always have a window seat - so she drove back. He fell asleep in the car.

  When he woke up he assumed they were back outside the flat in Canonmills, or her old place at Comely Bank; but lights shimmered far away, across a mile of dark water in front of them. Before she switched off the headlights he caught a glimpse of something vast towering over them, at once massive and airy.