The Old Man and the Bridge

He stirred to consciousness, covered in cold sweat again. Taking a minute to steady his racing heart with deep breaths, he tried to block out the familiar intrusive thoughts. One last breath, in for eight and out for - oh forget it, this never works anyway. He let the last bit of air out in one loud cough and rolled over onto his left side, trying to blink the memory of his dream from his mind. He was wide awake now.

The clock displayed the usual time, 2.15am. The unclosed curtains let in a scattering of light from the street, illuminating the mess. Ignoring the pale skin and pretty splattering of auburn hair fanning his pillow and the sheet-less mattress beside him, Jack climbed out of bed. A momentary smile crept onto his cracked lips as he stepped over their Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald costumes that had been such a hit at the party. There was something so enchanting about the Jazz Age.

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Jack liked running at this time; the deserted streets on his customary route offered an uncritical, blank parchment for his catharsis. The cacophony of daytime traffic, the morning rush past pristine but identical gardens and his pompous neighbours’ painfully pitying smiles always irked him. Deep down he knew he was as judgemental of them as they were of him, but he didn’t care. Jack increased his pace, the cold slap of night air invigorating against his face. In the distance he saw a speeding car’s headlights fade as a lone fox, alarmed by the disturbance, scrambled urgently away, past the dilapidated bus stop that the Council installed all those years ago. “As if anyone in this street will use the bus,” he remembered laughing, when his mum told him their plans. His mother... The confrontation of having her fall mundanely into his thoughts like that jolted him, like lightning bolting through his veins and he immediately felt guilty, shaking his head to rid his mind of such a meaningless recollection.

The fox took one last look over its shoulder, frozen and alert in the gloomy, orange glow, ears pricked and listening; then scurried away under a hedgerow. That’s right, little fella, I like being alone too. He had always liked that Sartre quote etched on the wall of Mrs Norris’s Blackwell Grammar School form room: ‘If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.’ The broken streetlight at the end of Picton Street flickered once more and finally went out; one last feeble attempt at life before succumbing to comfortable nothingness.

Raindrops now littered the darkness around him, his skin iridescent in the moonlight. Jack ran until he could no longer feel his legs, the physical pain a welcome relief from his thoughts. Desperately gulping in air and bent over double he allowed himself a brief but wonderful moment where he forgot what had happened; then he straightened up and walked on, his feet taking him to his frequented spot. The stone bridge was eerie in the darkness, looming tall and strong above the silent water.

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He stirred to consciousness, covered in cold sweat again. He was alone this time: Cassandra had gone to see a play with friends in the city. The curtains were now closed and it was an usually hot night for May. Searching with his hand for water whilst his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Jack’s fingers found the rounded corners of the little black notebook that he had retrieved from the bridge the previous night and he recoiled, as though burnt by the shock of its uninvited touch. Who had put it there? He could not understand it. The 20,000 pounds lay untouched under his - still sheet-less - mattress.

He ran down the street again, taking turns at random this time, as though a different route would pave a different outcome to his tragic tale. Jack’s thoughts were whirring. Nobody knew his real name or how he had come to be in Little Hampton. Nobody knew he was her son, so how had this notebook come to be with him? Who knew he visited the spot underneath the bridge each night? Jack’s only happy memories of his mother were there in that very spot. He had been just 13 years old when his father had taken him back to Italy to live in Milan and he had never seen his mother again. Since the news of her death, Jack had not been sleeping well and tonight was no exception. He thought coming to spend the summer back in the village he had loved as a child would help, but it hadn’t. Five months ago his mother's lawyer had been in touch to break the awful news. According to the will she had left him 20,000 pounds exactly, yet his mother had no bank account or assets to speak of when she passed away; which made the discovery of the notebook and money all the more curious.

Despite his arbitrary route, Jack found his feet had led him to the bridge again, as they invariably did. Happy but unwelcome memories of playing under it as a child flooded his mind; dashing with his mum down the hill to race their sticks down the current, laughing when she tumbled and he tumbled onto her. Other times they would lie on their backs in the long grass, finding animals amongst the clouds as she made up adventure stories about him, chuckling down at him when he got too excited and took over the storytelling. Somebody knows who I am and that I have been coming here, Jack thought to himself. How else would they know to leave the mysterious notebook on the ledge beneath the balusters, the hidden one where he had kept his best rocks and trinkets? Across the glossy water the old man smiled to himself, unseen by Jack.

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Jack and Cassandra sat under the Beech tree, the last of its proud, rusty plumage reminiscent of an Indian summer. They watched their daughter, Maria, eagerly run and kick up a wet pile of leaves with her favourite dinosaur wellington boots, laughing at her delighted face. She had insisted on wearing her tutu with the boots. They had taken her to see a Degas exhibition the previous summer and she had been obsessed with ballerinas ever since. No doubt a new obsession will take her fancy by next year, Jack smiled.

It had been eight years since that special night in Little Hampton and Jack was excited to be back and to show Maria exactly where he had found the lovely little notebook.

“Dad tell me the story of Jack and the steam train, no wait, the one where Jack visits Paris and the Eiffel Tower. No no, Jack and the steam train, please!”

“I’m sure if you ask Tom nicely, he will read it to you, Patatina”, he beamed.

The old man chuckled to himself as she ran off to see the Dachshund that had wandered up.

“She looks exactly like you as a boy, Jack. I’m so very pleased to meet her. Your mother and I were friends for a long time, and I know she would be very happy to know she has a beautiful granddaughter named after her. Now where were we with that adventure story.”

Jack smiled, handing over the black book as Maria bounded back, but not before he opened its cover to read the flowing handwriting on the first ivory page:

To my darling son Jack. Every adventure story we ever imagined together is found in this book. Love always, Mum.