I remember thinking in the seconds after I’d scared her off that she hadn’t really threatened me at all. She was pathetic, not dangerous. She must have wanted something, because she left behind an achy feeling about herself, some powerlessness. I felt almost guilty. I never saw her face clearly, but if I had seen her eyes, I think they would have been saturated with want. But I thought these things only after enough time had passed for me to be sure she wasn’t coming back. I felt calmer, even though I was weary and confused. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning, and I was wide awake.
I found the number of the hospital in Inverness and called it again and again. When I got through, I was given another number for inquiries about the bridge victims. I kept calling that number until finally somebody answered. I asked, quite calmly, because it was of course foolish to worry, if any buses had been on the bridge. No, the man said. Or, I asked, were there people killed or injured who had been crossing the bridge on foot? He asked for names, and although I was taking a risk I gave them, your real ones, vowing to myself that I would never, ever tell you I did this. I had to wait a long time. Then he came back and said they did not have those names on any lists. I could hardly speak, I was crying so hard. But then, I thought, how stupid of me. Of course you would have given false names. So I asked was there any man of about twenty-five with a little girl-any man and child at all-injured or, I whispered, lost? He told me that three adult cyclists were in hospital and two had been killed, and all the other casualties had been in vehicles. So far. There were cars still unrecovered, he told me, gently, and I should call back in the morning.
I didn’t sleep again. But before daybreak I knew even more certainly you were coming back. It was foolish to worry. Something had happened to keep you from getting home, but you hadn’t been on the bridge when it collapsed. You were safe, somewhere. You’d had to stay the night somewhere where there was no telephone signal, and you were coming back.
I went down to the river edge as soon as it was light, with half the bedding wrapped around me. From downstream, echoey metallic sounds dented the air above the water. In the distance the arms of the bridge reached through the haze toward each other, apart and still. I hunkered down and picked up a handful of stones and started chucking them, sending them with short flicks of my wrist one by one into the river and humming some old tuneless thing along with the rhythm of their little splashes.
It was very cold but I kept sitting there, hugging the blankets and humming and tossing stones and remembering what the man in the hospital had told me about the casualties. I was also keeping a tight grip on something else I knew. You had never taken Anna near the bridge, not ever. It was over a mile along the busy road from here to the start of it, too far for her to walk, and anyway, yesterday had been much too cold. Oh, you did get sudden ideas, but even if you’d had the thought of taking her along the bridge to stand and look at the river and out to the sea, you would have been turning it into a plan for a summer day. You would have come to me with your eyes shining and the whole thing worked out. We would wait for fine weather and get the bus as far as the southern end of the bridge. We could walk all the way across because Anna would be a few months older and a bit more able to manage. It would be windy whatever the time of year, but never mind. We would find a way down through the pine trees on the opposite bank and have a picnic at the water’s edge, almost under the bridge. We’d be able to see our trailer way over on the other side! You would fish, and Anna would splash in the water, and I would doze in the sun. I chucked more and more stones in the river and thought of this, and as I gazed, the bridge ends began to soften and float against a watery yellow sky and the far bank wavered and sparkled with light. I could see us, little figures in summer clothes clambering down through the dark pine trees to the shore, our shoulders skinny and bare and warmed by the sun. I could hear Anna playing in the water and squealing, our voices calling out to her. I could hardly tell if I was imagining it or remembering a day we’d actually spent. But we certainly would spend a day like that, I decided, when the summer came. I smiled, thinking that such a day was now my idea, not yours.
There was a sudden sound behind me, a low, human bellowing. I turned and saw the mad woman from last night throwing up on the ground, staggering away from the trailer. By the time I reached her, her stomach was empty and she was gasping, watching me through scared eyes. Her hat had slipped off, and she was using it to clean vomit out of her hair and wipe her steaming mouth. The poor thing looked terrified and half out of her mind, staring and dribbling and moaning apologies. I couldn’t make out what she was trying to say. I didn’t know what she wanted. Maybe she had people to find, too.
“Are you looking for somebody?” I said. “Have you lost somebody?”
She shook her head, then she nodded. “I think so…”
She didn’t say any more because the nodding of her head had started up a violent shuddering in her whole body. I thought she was going to fall, so I took hold of her by the elbow. Her hand clutched my forearm and sent a shiver through me. Her fingers were hard and fleshless. She raised her other hand toward the trailer and tried to speak again, but all she could manage was I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
I understood. She was saying sorry for last night. Maybe she had needed somewhere to take shelter and thought the trailer was empty. But she hadn’t come back just to say sorry. She still needed a place to stay. Whatever had happened to her, she was in a worse state than I was. If I scared her off again, she’d never make it back to the road.
“Are you lost? Have you nowhere to go?”
She swallowed and gulped and looked me in the face, and nodded. She had sweet, frightened eyes. Suddenly I didn’t want to watch her go. I didn’t want to be left here alone again, maybe into another night. You would come back soon, you could come back at any moment, but until then we’d be safer together, this wretched woman and me. She looked too weak and ill to do me any harm, and by now I could see she didn’t mean me any. My mind began to work properly at last. She was English, and she was surely a nice person underneath all that roughness. In a few hours, when she felt better, she’d be able to talk to the police for me. She could find things out without me taking the risk of being caught. If you weren’t already back-and you could come back at any moment-she would help me find you. If I helped her now, she would owe me that much.
“You’re sick. You can stay and rest here for a while, if you want.”
Her eyes darted over to the trailer.
“You can stay here for a while,” I repeated. “I’m Silva.”
She clutched my arm tighter. “Thank you.”
“What’s your name?”
I pulled the blanket away from my own shoulders and drew it around hers as well, and led her to the trailer.
“I’m… My name is Annabel.”
The next day dragged me to its surface early, pricking my eyes open with a rush of chill air and making them water. The sky was white with dense, icy cloud, and full of noises; the sirens had stopped, but the drumming and clanking of engines and heavy machinery had started up at the bridge and the road was already loud with traffic. It hadn’t rained in the night but the ground was damp and my clothes were sodden. I checked I still had my money, then I peeled the cardboard back and unwound myself from the plastic. Instantly the night’s sweat froze on my body, and I felt the wind slipping between my bones as if there were nothing under my skin but cold flowing air. All my joints and limbs hurt, and I started to shiver. The fires had died out but for a reed of smoke rising from one or two. A man was peeing into the scrub over at the far edge of the concrete, but nobody else had stirred. My stomach felt empty yet queasy; I had to get my body moving and I had to get warm.