Terror Illusion

by James R Conway

As they approached the end of the platform, it sloped down to the ground and a path ran northwards along the left side of the tracks. The path was just wide enough for them to walk side by side. Leaving the station, the tracks curved to the right through a narrow, steep-sided valley. Jonathan and Karen walked on together in silence and as they followed the curve of the path, Karen could see the tracks straightening out again and the valley falling away. The tracks pushed on straight ahead onto a stone viaduct across a wide valley.

  “Is that the actual Ravensgill Bridge?” said Karen.

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Wow! It looks high!”

  “Two hundred and fifty feet above the valley right in the middle.”

  “Can we walk across it?”

  “Sure, there’s a path down to the village on the far side.”

  “What if a train comes?”

  “There are no trains due for a couple of hours, but even if an unscheduled goods train comes through, there’s enough space for it to pass.”

  As they walked up onto the bridge, the wind picked up slightly and the clouds skimmed across the hills around them. Karen thrust her hands into her overcoat pocket to keep them warm. She looked at Jonathan and smiled.

  “It’s great to get out of the city for a while,” she said.

  Jonathan smiled and nodded.

  As they got to the centre of the bridge, Jonathan paused and pointed down the valley to their left. There below, a stream flowed quickly over rocks and boulders down the centre of the valley. Gently rising moorland rose on either side of the stream then steep crags rose up, enclosing the valley on either side. However, only a few hundred feet high, the crags gave the impression of great mountains.

  “That’s Raven’s Gill,” said Jonathan. “Gill is an old word meaning ‘ravine’. It’s pronounced with a hard G as in ‘girl’ rather than a soft G as in ‘generous’.”

  “Well, thank you for expanding my vocabulary this morning,” said Karen, and they both laughed.

  At the far end of the valley, Karen could see a small village, occasionally obscured by patches of cloud being blown up the valley and beneath the bridge.

  “Is that where we are going for lunch?” she said.

  “Yes. The path at the other end of the bridge runs right into the village. Or we could walk back to the station and walk along the road to the village.”

  “Let’s walk along the path. We can come back along the road.”

  They continued on across the bridge. Karen really wanted to continue her interrupted conversation with Jonathan but the cold wind across the bridge made serious conversation difficult and Jonathan did not seem to be particularly anxious to engage in conversation. Karen decided to wait for a better opportunity and they walked on in silence.

  As they reached the far end of the bridge, the path became sheltered by the crags on the north side of the valley as the tracks entered a rocky cutting, and the wind died down. Karen could not immediately see how she and Jonathan were going to get down to the valley floor from the high bridge.

  “This way!” said Jonathan as he opened a gate in the bridge parapet and Karen saw a long steep flight of stone steps going down the outside wall of the bridge to the valley. Karen thought it all looked rather dangerous but she did not want to show her nervousness to Jonathan and there was a fairly solid-looking handrail on the outside edge of the steps. So she looked at Jonathan, smiled weakly, and started down.

  There was a landing on the steps about every thirty feet down and Karen stopped at the first landing to let Jonathan catch up. She had been concentrating hard on keeping her footing as she came down the steps but now she felt a bit more secure and she looked around. Ahead to her left she now saw the great bulk of the bridge, made of stone blocks that must be very old because they were covered in moss and lichen. Now that she was below the top of the bridge she could look up and see that it was built in a series of tall narrow arches, each arch taller as the ground sloped down towards the centre of the valley then the arches getting shorter as the ground sloped up towards the station on the far side of the valley.

  Jonathan joined Karen on the landing and paused.

  “Pretty dramatic, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It looks very old,” said Karen.

  “Built in 1870, I think.”

  “Very solid looking.”

  “It’s had to stand against the wind blowing up this valley for more than a hundred years!”

  A gust of wind tugged at Karen’s overcoat and she laughed.

  “I see what you mean!”

  With that, she started off down the steps again. When they reached the bottom of the steps, Jonathan and Karen turned right and began to follow the path as it ran just below the crags on the north side of the valley. Karen stopped and looked up at the bridge where she could now see the whole span across the valley.

  “How much further to the village?” said Karen.

  “About ten minutes walk.”

  “Let’s go then! I’m getting hungry!”

  The path ran alongside a grassy field, where cows were grazing then joined a paved road. Walking was much easier now and Karen thought that she could perhaps continue the conversation that she and Jonathan had started earlier back in his living room at the station. She decided that it was time to throw caution to the wind and dive right in.

  “So Jonathan, you were going to tell me the reasons that you came back from California,” she said. “I think I can see one of the reasons,” she added as she swept her arm across the view of the valley climbing up toward the bridge in the distance.

  “I have a sense of belonging here,” said Jonathan.

  “Here in Ravensgill Bridge?”

  “Here in England. But Ravensgill Bridge is also a very special place to me that encapsulates a lot of what is good about England.”

  “Did you have that sense of belonging when you lived in California?”

  “Not really. I was happy enough, especially when my career was going well. But after the accident…”

  Jonathan paused. Karen waited for a few moments to see if he would continue but he seemed to have stalled again.

  “The accident?” said Karen. She noticed that Jonathan’s eyes were getting moist.

  “Yes,” he said. “It was a car crash. Jill and I had taken a weekend trip up the California coast north of Los Angeles and we were on our way home. It was just getting dark, on the Sunday evening. The coast highway is just a two-lane road with a lot of bends. A beautiful drive, really.”

  Jonathan paused again.

  “Jill was driving. As we came round a bend, a car coming the other way took the bend too fast and swung out toward us. Jill couldn’t really avoid the other car because the edge of the road drops away a hundred feet down a cliff to the ocean.”

  Karen was about to ask who Jill was but she felt that it would interrupt Jonathan’s account so she just looked at Jonathan and waited for him to start again.

  Jonathan cleared his throat.

  “The other car hit us on Jill’s side, you know, driver to driver. The next thing I remember was waking up in a Los Angeles hospital three months later.”

  “Oh my God!” was about all that Karen could manage. She could tell that she had not yet heard the worst of the story.

  “Tell you what, Jonathan, it looks like we’re nearly at the village now. Why don’t we get inside out of this cold wind and get warm and perhaps we can talk about this some more.”

  “Yes,” said Jonathan. “The Ravensgill Arms pub is just down the road. Let’s get in there and get warm.”

  Karen smiled and picked up the pace. In a few minutes, they were in the middle of the village. Three roads came together and there was a small grassy area in the middle of the intersection with a war memorial on it. There were still several wreaths of poppies around the base of the memorial from the Armistice Day service that had been held there a few weeks ago. One of the streets was lined with shops and curved away to the left. Anothe
r street was mostly houses and cottages and the road they had walked in on stretched out behind them, mostly bounded by fields.

  On one side of the green stood a very old church with a square tower. On the other side stood a magnificent building, built of the local stone with small windows looking in through thick walls. Outside a sign swung in the wind with a coat of arms painted on it and across the front wall of the pub in large wrought iron letters, was the name Ravensgill Arms.

  Jonathan pointed to the front door of the pub and said “Behold! Lunch!”

  “It’s lovely!” said Karen. “Let’s go in.”

  Jonathan led the way, up a couple of stone steps and in through a heavy wooden door. Inside there was a patterned carpet on the floor and the ceiling had wooden beams running across the width of the room. Most of the back of the room was taken up with the bar along which several bar stools stood. On the right hand wall was a huge fireplace in which a log fire was burning brightly. There were bench seats along the walls with wooden tables in front of them. The walls were stone blocks and they were adorned with pictures of the village from years gone by including pictures of the bridge when it was under construction. To the left of the bar was a separate area, which appeared to be a restaurant with tables set for lunch. A couple of the tables were occupied and a couple of people were sitting in the bar area.

  The gentleman behind the bar was a middle-aged fellow, balding with a round face.

  “Good morning, Jonathan!” he said as Jonathan and Karen walked in.

  “Good morning, John!” said Jonathan, then he turned to Karen. “This is Karen Wilson, a friend of mine from Leeds.”

  John reached across the bar to shake hands with Karen. “Very pleased to meet you, miss.”

  “You’ve got a beautiful place here,” said Karen, returning John’s handshake.

  “What would you like to drink, Karen?” said John.

  “A glass of white wine, please.”

  “Usual for you, Jonathan?”

  “Thanks, John.”

  John poured a glass of white wine and handed it to Karen, then drew a pint of Best Bitter and handed it to Jonathan who pulled out his wallet to pay for the drinks but John said “No, Jonathan. First one’s on me today!”

  “Thank you, John,” said Jonathan. “We’re planning to have lunch today but we would like to have a quiet drink and chat first, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course, I’ll just put a sign on the table by the window to reserve it and you just let me know when you’re ready to order.”

  Jonathan and Karen walked over to the corner beside the fire and sat on the bench seat, placing their drinks on the table in front of them.

  Karen looked around the room,

  “This is a lovely place,” she said, “especially with the nice warm fire on a cold grey day like today.”

  Jonathan took a sip of his beer and smiled. “Yes, this is what I missed about England during my twenty years away. There really is nothing else in the world quite that same as a traditional English country pub.”

  Karen was anxious to steer the conversation back to the car accident so after a short pause while she sipped some of her wine she turned to Jonathan and said “You said that after the car crash the next thing you remember was waking up in the hospital three months later.”

  Jonathan took a sip of his beer and waited for a few moments before responding. “I’m told the crash was pretty bad. When they pulled me out, I had hit my head on something and I was unconscious. I also broke a few bones but they mostly fixed those before I woke up. I was pretty much torn up, so they tell me. It was just as well that I was out cold!”

  “And Jill?” Karen knew what the answer was going to be even as the words left her mouth. Jonathan paused again, his eyes moist. He cleared his throat and looked down, avoiding eye contact.

  “She…she didn’t make it”

  This time it was Karen who tried to avoid eye contact

  “The police said that she was killed instantly. Most of the damage was on her side of the car, see. They were surprised that I made it out alive.”

  “I am so sorry,” said Karen quietly. It seemed a very weak thing to say in the circumstances.

  “You never really get over things like that,” said Jonathan, “but time does soften things and it was nearly three years ago now.”

  Karen could not think of anything to say and they sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Finally, Jonathan spoke.

  “It really changed my life, losing Jill like that. And my disability. I had some brain damage in the accident. We were both wearing seat belts but the car was so badly damaged. I was in hospital for about five months, altogether. For the first three months I was in a coma, then a couple of months of rehab, learning to walk again, learning to look after myself.”

  Jonathan paused and sipped his beer. Karen felt that he was glad to be able to talk about this to someone.

  “I suppose they told you about Jill when you came out of the coma,” said Karen.

  “Actually no, not straight away. I suspected something when Jill wasn’t there at the hospital. At first, they said that she was very badly injured in the accident and was unable to visit, but after a few days, Jill’s parents came to visit me and they told me the real story. That must have been very difficult for them.”

  Jonathan paused again.

  “Well, anyway, I gradually got better and started to try to put my life back together again.”

  “Isn’t medical care expensive in America?” said Karen.

  “Yes it is, but I had medical insurance from my job and Jill had life insurance so money was never really an issue.”

  “Were you and Jill married?”

  “Yes. We’d met while we were both working on a movie where I’d been doing the special effects. She was an assistant director. We’d been married about two years. We had a small flat in Santa Monica, out near the coast.”

  Karen wanted to ask about where they had lived but she needed to keep the conversation on track. “Did you manage to go back to your old job?” she said.

  “I did for a while. The company was very good to me. I couldn’t drive for the first few months, so the company sent a car for me every day to take me into work and they let me work part time. But eventually I had to quit. You see, the problem with brain damage is that it slows you down. You can’t think as fast and you get tired very easily. I was really lucky that I could function at all. You see, a lot of people who have brain injuries or strokes do actually look and behave quite normally. Because we’re not in wheelchairs or lying in bed unable to move or speak, folks don’t realise how much damage there is on the inside.” There was certain sharpness in Jonathan’s voice as he said this.

  “I think I understand your difficulties, Jonathan,” said Karen, “and I would truly like to understand more. It must take a great deal of effort to try to live a normal life.”

  “Well, the problem that I have is that, although I move and think more slowly, and I get tired easily, the brain damage did not affect my cognitive ability.”

  “Cognitive ability?”

  “Yes, my intellect if you like. I may think a bit more slowly than I used to, but my actual intelligence is not damaged. The problem is that I cannot compete in the big bad world out there. It makes me feel a bit like I am on the scrap heap and I still have so much to offer the world.”

  “Idle retirement is not for you?”

  “”No way!” Jonathan laughed. “And that is why I wanted to talk to you, see if we can come up with some ideas. Do you want another drink?”

  “Yes please, and then perhaps we can order some lunch.”

  Chapter 5