The Other Side of the Bridge

by Mary Lawson

  “Since when is a damn-fool play so important?” Arthur’s father said sharply, stung by guilt and his wife’s reproach. Arthur couldn’t remember her ever reproaching his father before. “Farming’s important. Work’s important. Time he knew what matters and what doesn’t.”

  January and February passed, and were easier to get through than usual because the weather was so bad that the school was closed more often than it was open. At the beginning of March there was a blizzard that blew for ten straight days, and doing the most basic farm chores was so difficult and so unendurably cold that Arthur almost—though not quite—thought that being at school might be a nice rest. Snow piled up against the north side of the house and barns until it reached the roofs, which at least gave them some protection against the howling and demented wind. It buried the pig shed altogether, not once but again and again. Every morning they had to dig down to find it, as if the pigs were victims of an avalanche. It felt like an avalanche, felt as if the entire North Pole was sliding down to bury them.

  They were prisoners in their own home and their jailers were the wind and the snow. A couple of times a day they shoveled out a trench from the house to the barn and stable, and another trench to the woodpile, and that was as far as anyone dared to go. Arthur’s mother was anxious about Gertie Luntz, who had had her appendix out on her own kitchen table at the end of February, but it was too dangerous to snowshoe over to check that she was all right. The blizzard would swallow you up within seconds. You could be walking in circles for hours and never know it.

  They spent the days huddled around the kitchen stove, mending everything in sight, all except Jake, who spent most of his time in his bedroom, doing whatever it was that Jake did. It was freezing up there—Arthur put off going to bed as long as possible—but still that was where Jake chose to be. The company of his family bored him—that was plain as day. Even his mother seemed to bore him. And it was true that their conversation wasn’t all that stimulating.

  “Better get up on that roof.” (This from their father after a groan from the roof timbers.) “Take a shovel. Too much weight on it.”

  “Okay.” (From Arthur.)

  That would be it for an hour.

  “Would anyone like some tea?” (Their mother, cheerfully.)

  “Sure.”

  Another hour.

  Just once, Jake seemed to liven up a bit. It was right after supper—a whole evening of doing nothing lay ahead—and Jake suddenly said, “We should play cards! I’ll go get my pack of cards, okay?”

  “I got better things to do with my time than play cards,” their father said.

  “You do?” Jake said, looking around the room. They’d run out of things to mend days ago.

  “Biggest damned time-waster ever invented,” his father said sharply, suspecting impudence. Jake got up and went to his room.

  Near the end of that week one of the horses took sick. They had four shire horses—huge animals, intelligent and willing, whose forebears had been shipped over from the old country by a farmer in New Liskeard twenty years previously and bred by him ever since. This one was a two-year-old gelding called Moses. They had had him nearly a year and he was working out well. But on this dark, snow-driven, subzero morning, when Arthur and his father battled their way out to the barns, they found him restlessly knocking about in his stall. He was off his feed, couldn’t seem to stand still. There was a vet in New Liskeard but he might as well have been on the moon. The nearest phone was in Struan, and even if they got through to him all the roads were blocked. By the afternoon, the blizzard still screaming around the sides of the barn, the horse was worse. By evening he was frantic with pain, throwing himself at the sides of the stall, eyes rolling, froth flying from his mouth.

  “Colic,” Arthur’s father said. Arthur wanted to ask, Is he going to die? but couldn’t bring himself to say the words. There was nothing they could do to make things easier for him: he was so crazy with pain they couldn’t even get into the stall to try to quiet him with their hands. One ton of horse, like a freight train out of control. They stood by his stall, stamping their frozen feet, wretchedly keeping him company, until finally, about eight o’clock, they couldn’t stand it anymore, and Arthur’s father went back to the house and got the rifle and shot him.

  Jake was in the kitchen when they finally went in, curled up in a chair by the stove, reading a book. He looked up and raised his eyebrows at the sight of the rifle. “You guys hunting in this weather?” he said.

  Their father paused. Stood in the middle of the room, head down, studying the floor. Then he went and hung the rifle on its rack over the door, and left the room.

  “What did I say wrong now?” Jake asked. Suddenly he was furious, close to tears with rage. “What did I say wrong now?”

  Arthur, his mind filled with the image of that great still body on the frozen floor, could think of nothing to say.

  April. The wind turned around and blew from the south and like magic the snow sagged, collapsed on itself, and melted away. The air smelled of damp earth and things trying to grow, trying to force their way up out of the still-frozen ground.

  “Those two there,” Arthur’s father said, nodding at two heifers over by the fence. “Told Otto I’d send ’em over this morning. Simplest thing is, you two take ’em over. Just walk ’em around.”

  Arthur nodded. It was Saturday, the best day of the week. Sunday would have been just as good if it weren’t for the fact that it was followed by Monday.

  Jake said, “When?”

  “Now,” their father said.

  “Can’t Art take them?” Jake said. “I have to go into town.”

  Their father was in the middle of harnessing the team. He turned slowly and looked at Jake. Arthur felt a prickle of apprehension, and also of annoyance. Sometimes he got the feeling that Jake was trying to provoke their father. Yesterday he had forgotten to feed the pigs. How could you forget to feed the pigs—something that had to be done every day, something that was always done? It was as if he wanted to see just how far he could push their father before he snapped. Arthur couldn’t understand it; it was like deciding to stir up a nest of rattlesnakes or prod a hive of bees: maybe you didn’t know the exact details of what would follow but you did know that it wasn’t going to be nice. So why do it? Why didn’t Jake just shut up and do what he was told?

  Their father looked at Jake in silence; Jake shrugged and turned away. Arthur relaxed. He went over to the cows and took their tethers and handed one to Jake. The two of them set off down the track between the fields, leading a cow apiece.

  There was still snow lying in the furrows, streaking the fields black and white like giant lengths of corduroy. The road was muddy and slippery with patches of ice hidden under the slush, and the heifers were slow.

  “I don’t know why it takes two of us,” Jake said when they were out of sight and earshot of the farm. “Can’t you manage two cows by yourself?”

  “No,” said Arthur.

  “Why not? You’re so good with cows.”

  “’Cause of the bridge.”

  “What about it?”

  “They don’t like it. Scares ’em. Moves too much. We’ll have to take ’em across one at a time.”

  “Okay, but once we get them across the bridge, will you take them on? ’Cause I’ve got to get into town. I’m meeting someone.”

  Arthur shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Great!” Jake said. “Don’t tell Dad, all right?”

  Arthur shrugged again. They slogged on, Jake trying to speed things up, eager to be gone, pulling the reluctant heifer behind him. She swung her head unhappily. “Come on, come on, come on!” Jake said.

  “Slow down,” Arthur said. He felt as if it was him Jake was yanking at.

  “She can go faster than this when she wants to,” Jake said.

  “She doesn’t want to.”

  “Maybe you’ve got all the time in the world,” Jake said, “but I’ve got things to do.”

  �
�The bridge is just up there.”

  Farther into town there was a proper bridge across the river that separated the Dunns’ and the Luntzes’ farms but this one was a shortcut and saved more than a mile. It was roughly made with poles and ropes and wooden planks, sturdy enough, but the poles were long and had a fair bit of spring in them. Fifteen feet below, Crow River boiled its way over the rocks. It was a pale icy green, swollen with runoff. Arthur’s father and Otto Luntz between them kept the bridge in good order but the cows didn’t know that and Arthur didn’t blame them for their unease.

  “Jeez, it’s really raging,” Jake said, peering down into the foaming water.

  Arthur tied his heifer to the handrail of the bridge. “We’ll take yours first,” he said.

  It needed two people all right. Arthur pushed from one end and Jake pulled from the other, Arthur saying, “Okay, girl, okay. It’s okay,” Jake saying, “Come on, you stupid cow!” They got her over in the end and tied her to the rail, then started back across the bridge. Jake stopped in the middle and bounced experimentally. The bridge replied in slow motion, heaving under their feet. Arthur grabbed the handrail.

  “What you doin’?” he said. Mostly he just ignored Jake’s behavior—it wasn’t worth getting worked up about—but today Jake really did seem to be hell-bent on getting whacked.

  “I forgot this was so good,” Jake said, letting the motion subside and then leaning over the rail. “It really dances.” He leaned over further, trying to see the underside of the bridge. Arthur reached the other end and stepped onto firm ground.

  “See that pole?” Jake said. “The one underneath? Bet you couldn’t go hand over hand—you know, hanging from it. All the way across.”

  Arthur didn’t bother replying.

  “Bet you couldn’t,” Jake said, grinning at him.

  “Let’s get the cow across,” Arthur said. “You got things to do, you said.”

  “Bet I could go across, if you’re scared to,” Jake said. “Bet you.”

  “Bet you.” His favorite phrase since the day he was born. He turned everything—everything—into a competition. It seemed so pointless, since he was better than Arthur at everything anyway. But he just had to keep proving it. “Bet you.”

  “Yeah,” Arthur said. “Bet you could. Let’s get the cow across. I gotta get back to the farm. Thought you were in a hurry, anyway.”

  “Bet it wouldn’t take me two minutes,” Jake said, peering over the side again. “Maybe five. Five minutes.”

  He ran to the end of the bridge and scrambled down until he could grab hold of the pole. The sides of the gorge were steep; once you left the edge they fell away into a sheer drop—not all that far, but at the bottom were great slabs of granite with water foaming over them. In places the water was deep, maybe deep enough to provide a cushion, but in other places the rocks broke through the surface, glistening, pink as salmon in the sunlight.

  “Should I do it?” Jake said, grinning up at Arthur.

  Arthur untied the second cow, wondering if he could get her across by himself. She wasn’t happy about it. She put one foot on the bridge, then took it off again and looked longingly over her shoulder, back at the farm.

  “I’m going to do it,” Jake said. The bridge gave a little shudder as he grabbed the pole with both hands and swung himself out. “It’s easy,” he shouted from under the bridge. “You’re so yellow. Yellow-bellied. Chicken-livered.”

  “Come on,” Arthur said to the heifer. “It’s okay. Just wobbles a bit.” He pulled gently and she tried again, one foot, then the other. “’Atta girl,” he said. She stepped forward, all four feet on the bridge now, and Arthur kept moving, walking slowly backward, encouraging her. “See? It’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “This is great!” Jake said from underneath them. His voice broke up each time he moved his hands. “I’m nearly…in the middle…already. I told you…I could do it…. It’s great!”

  Arthur and the cow were nearly in the middle too, but the motion was worse now, and Jake’s hand-over-hand movements were adding to it. The cow staggered. The bridge swung sharply in response and she staggered again. Arthur cursed his brother. “Damn you!” he said. “Damn you!”

  “Art!” Jake said, his voice suddenly different. “Don’t shake the bridge. It’s slippery. It’s wet here!” Arthur ignored him. The cow was really scared now, pulling back against the rope, her eyes rolling.

  “Come on now,” Arthur said, gently as he could. “Nearly there. Come on.” She tried another step, managed it, took another. They were right in the middle now.

  Jake didn’t seem to be moving at all. They were ahead of him, the bridge at its maximum swing.

  “Art! Stop walking! I can’t hang on!”

  He must think there was no limit to Arthur’s gullibility. “Come on, girl,” Arthur said. “Come on.”

  “Art!”—panic in his voice—“I mean it! I can’t hang on!”

  Arthur stopped. He hated his brother. At that moment, he truly did hate him. This love he had for getting himself into situations that might or might not be dangerous and yelling for Arthur to rescue him, and Arthur never knowing whether to believe him or not, and finally having to believe him for their mother’s sake, only to find that Jake had been kidding once again. Jake loved that. Loved proving to Arthur and the world just how stupid Arthur was. How gullible. He never got tired of proving it.

  “Art!”—his voice a shriek—“I’m going to fall!”

  “Good,” Arthur said. A word that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  He felt Jake fall. Felt his weight leave the bridge. Just like that.

  For a moment he was paralyzed. Disbelieving. He couldn’t even draw a breath. He stood in the middle of the bridge, staring at the cow, his eyes wide. Then his breath came in with a rush and he grabbed the rail and looked over. For a moment he couldn’t see Jake because he expected him to have been washed downstream, whereas in fact he was almost directly under the bridge. He was face up, wedged between two rocks. Water was streaming around and over him. Over his face.

  Arthur didn’t remember afterward how he got down to the river bed. He must have slid down the bank or jumped. He waded out into the icy surge of the river, the breath shocked out of him by the cold. He grabbed Jake under the arms and dragged him to the shore. For one ridiculous moment he wondered if this could be another trick, if Jake could have planned the fall and was playing dead or unconscious for fun—one further, final, joke. But Jake’s head lolled to the side, and the water streamed out of his nose and mouth in a way that made Arthur cry out with fear.

  He couldn’t get up the bank the way he had come down. It was too steep to climb unencumbered, let alone carrying a body. He waded along the edge of the river, sometimes thigh deep, the water boiling around him, stumbling over the rocks, feet and legs numb and unresponsive as tree trunks, looking for a way up. He carried Jake in his arms at first, and then, once he found a way up, slung him over his shoulder, panting with fear. He thought Jake was alive, was pretty sure he’d felt him cough, but he couldn’t stop, there in the middle of the river, to be sure. And who knew what injuries he might have or what further damage he, Arthur, might be doing by heaving him up and over his shoulder. But what else could he do? He could not carry him in his arms up the bank, and he could not leave him in the water.

  At the top he lowered Jake carefully to the ground to check that he was breathing, and he was, so he picked him up again and ran. All the way across the fields he could see nothing but his mother’s face. How could he walk into the house like this, carrying his brother’s body? How could he face her? It was impossible to just walk in on her, unannounced. She would die from the shock of it. He prayed that his father would be in the farmyard or in one of the nearest fields. Please God. Please. Sobbing the words as he staggered along.

  His prayer was answered. His father saw him coming—Arthur saw him straighten up and stand for a minute, wondering what it was that was heading toward him over the fiel
ds, and then start toward them, slowly, and then abruptly at a run.

  “Tell Mum,” Arthur shouted when his father was close enough. He was crying and found it hard to get the words out. “Tell Mum. Get the doctor.”

  In nightmares, in years to come, scenes from that day came back to haunt him. Jake’s face, under water. That image most of all. But also Jake laid out on the kitchen table, his legs at an angle no legs could possibly assume, and their mother bending over him, literally wringing her hands, her worst nightmares come true. She kept sobbing, “What happened? Oh, Arthur, what happened?” He should have told her then—told her everything—but he couldn’t do it, so he said, “He slipped, he just slipped,” and kept saying it, every time she asked, trying to make it true.

  Just before his father arrived with the doctor—followed by the hearse, which doubled as an ambulance—Jake opened his eyes. Arthur could see him trying to focus on the ceiling. Then, with a huge effort, he turned his head a fraction and his eyes moved slowly around the room, taking in his mother, and then settling on Arthur. After a moment his lips moved, as if he wanted to say something. To damn Arthur, without a doubt. To accuse him. To tell the truth.

  Tell her, Arthur thought, suddenly wishing he would. Tell her what happened. He deserved it, he just wanted it over with.

  But Jake said nothing. Maybe he couldn’t get the words out. He closed his eyes again, and shortly after that Dr. Christopherson arrived, and examined him briefly—Arthur’s father standing flat against the wall as if pinned there by shock—and then with the help of Mr. Leroy, the undertaker, carefully shifted Jake onto a stretcher and took him away.

  Arthur was still standing in the middle of the room, going over and over those final seconds on the bridge, trying to change them: trying to replace what happened with what should have happened, what he should have done. Worse still, going over and over what he had said, that one unbearable, unforgivable word. Trying to unsay it. Desperate to find a way around the unalterable fact that once you have said something, it is said. Once it has left your lips, you cannot take it back.