Kitabı oku: «Strangers on a Bridge: A gripping debut psychological thriller!», sayfa 2

Chapter Six

I was still drying my hair as they came piling through the door, and the boisterous presence of cherished humanity made me smile. My family was home. I could sense their body heat spreading to various rooms; smells, noises and movements as familiar as my own. I headed downstairs and wandered into the kitchen where Oliver was making himself a jam sandwich.

‘Hey, sorry, guys, I know I haven’t been here all day, but I’ve had quite an experience,’ I said, kissing the top of Oliver’s head.

‘This better be good,’ Simon said, not unkindly, as he came through from the sitting room still in his bike gear. He reached into the fridge for a beer. ‘Saracens are beating Sale. I missed the first half, and they’re just about to restart.’

Simon’s Sunday afternoons watching cable, his reward for the morning’s workout, were only satisfying if a rugby match was airing.

‘I stopped a man jumping off the Tobel Bridge this morning,’ I said. ‘He was about to commit suicide.’

Oliver gaped at me with his eyebrows raised, and a dollop of strawberry jam dropped onto the kitchen counter.

‘Wow, that’s a pretty impressive excuse,’ said Simon. ‘Where’s the guy now? Floating down the Lorze?’

Behind Simon, Oliver giggled.

‘Come on, I’m serious. This isn’t a joke,’ I said. ‘It was scary. I kind of took him under my wing. Eventually took him to the hospital.’

I was about to say more, indignation fading at the lightness of Simon’s comment. I could see in his eyes that he didn’t want to discuss suicide in front of the children, but his words only emphasised how confused I felt at that moment. Had I done all I could to help?

Simon placed his beer bottle on the kitchen counter and put his arms around me.

‘Are you okay, Al? I guess that messed up your Sunday,’ he said quietly.

I nodded silently and leaned my head against his shoulder as he rubbed my back. I closed my eyes and breathed in his familiar musky smell.

‘I’ll put the kettle on, a nice cuppa will do it,’ said Simon, sounding vaguely like my late mother. ‘We wondered where you’d gone with the car,’ he continued, taking a mug out of the cupboard and snapping open the caddy for a teabag. And then, as an afterthought: ‘If you were at the Tobel Bridge, how come you came all the way back here to drive him to the hospital? How come you didn’t just get on a bus down to town?’

Of course, this is what I should have done – I realised that now. My initial joy at regrouping with the family had turned from annoyance that Simon had no idea of the situation I’d found myself in, to a pang of guilt for the anguish I might cause him if he knew how much Manfred had latched on to me. I glanced at Oliver. It certainly wasn’t a conversation to be had in front of the boys.

‘I don’t know really. All I could think about was keeping warm, getting some dry clothes, but not leaving the poor sod alone,’ I said, watching Simon pour boiling water into my mug. ‘I made him wait outside in the porch.’

‘The usual good Samaritan,’ chirped Leon as he joined us in the kitchen, the main reason I’d been on the bridge already forgotten. ‘We had to walk back from the Freys, Mum. You had the car,’ he continued with a pubescent whine.

‘Which doesn’t happen often, young man. It wouldn’t hurt you to walk home more – it’s hardly a Himalayan expedition,’ I replied in mock anger, ruffling his hair and lightly squeezing his shoulder.

We had reverted to the usual family banter. Simon would undoubtedly ask me later to elaborate, but for now I needed a little time to work out why I didn’t feel good about the afternoon’s outcome.

After dinner, I stood at the sink absently washing a pan. The kitchen at the rear of the house offered a view across the garden to the barn and a track to the farm on the right. I could see the car parked in the garage, engine ticking away after its day of labour. I remembered I’d left my mobile phone sitting on the dashboard.

Someone coming along the hallway broke into my thoughts. Seconds later, Oliver came in, cupping a handful of pencil shavings for the bin. I slid the cupboard under the sink open with my foot, my hands immersed in suds. Oliver attempted to deposit his stash, most of it fluttering to the floor. His fingers were dangerously smudged with pencil graphite.

I pointed to his hands ‘Wash, please!’

Oliver dipped his hands into the sink, and before I could protest ‘Not here’ he asked, ‘Mum, why would someone want to kill themselves? What happened to that man that he wanted to die? Do you think he lost a pet or something?’

I smiled. My youngest child was growing up, but I still clung with maternal pleasure to his naivety.

Oliver had always been my little saviour. The family all knew how important my running was to me. I wasn’t winning county competitions any more, but it was a part of my life not even motherhood could diminish. They could forgive a few dust balls under the furniture for the peace of mind my sport brought me. It’s my drug, I used to say. I need my fix. Physically, it certainly was a fix, the feelgood effect of endorphins kicking in as I arrived home sweaty and pleasantly spent. After heated and fruitless discussions about homework, school problems, weekend activities or helping around the house, Oliver would occasionally bring my running shoes wordlessly to the kitchen, breaking the tension. The supplier bringing my elixir in a syringe.

At eleven years old, Oliver was too young to have experienced heartbreak, or the hormone imbalances that could lead to dark despondency. And a depression that made someone question the worth of their own life? Hard to explain to a child that it was probably all to do with chemicals. Despite the textbooks, I had a hard time understanding it myself.

‘People who want to kill themselves have a sickness in their heads, in their minds,’ I said, drying a pan and clattering it into a cupboard. ‘It’s like a terrible sadness, and often there’s no explanation, which makes the sadness harder to understand.’

Oliver cocked his head to one side, thinking. As he was about to ask another question, the phone rang. He left the kitchen distractedly, returning to his room. I answered the phone. A friend of Leon’s needed to check up on a homework assignment due at school after the weekend. Exasperating teenagers! It’s a bit late to be rushing through it now.

‘Leon!’ I shouted up the stairs, flipping the tea towel over my shoulder. ‘Ben’s on the phone!’

‘I’ll take it up here!’ he shouted faintly.

I waited until I heard their voices connect in Swiss German on the bedroom extension before placing the kitchen phone back in its cradle. I hoped at least he had remembered the assignment.

I suddenly felt very tired. I gathered a bag of rubbish to take out to the communal bins and fetched my mobile phone from the dash of the car. I closed the garage door and walked slowly back to the house, continuing up the stairs of our duplex to start my evening ritual. Simon was at the computer in the office, fine-tuning some last-minute details of the presentation he was to give in London the following week. I could see my eldest son hunched over his messy desk, scratching his head with confused irritation. This gave away the fact that he had indeed forgotten the assignment.

‘Just as well Ben called,’ I said, leaning against his doorway. ‘And turn on your desk light or you’ll go blind, my love.’

As Leon mouthed the oft-spoken words in synch with me, I glanced around at the teenage chaos in the room. The usual end-of-weekend clear-up hadn’t yet taken place. In the morning when the two boys deigned to get out of their pyjamas, every available article of clothing was hauled from their cupboards with dissatisfaction, the chosen uniform generally the one at the bottom of the pile. The scene resembled a jumble sale recently hit by a tornado. The phone rang again. I pointed silently but meaningfully at the disarray of clothes and backed out of Leon’s room.

‘No peace for the wicked.’

I sighed loudly as I headed towards our bedroom, leaving Leon twirling a pencil between his fingers and swivelling in his chair.

‘It’s probably Ben again, Mum. Can you tell him I’ll call back in a few minutes? I just need to get my ideas down on paper.’

‘Ideas?’ I called back over my shoulder. ‘I thought this thing was supposed to be finished by tomorrow.’

I reached for the phone.

‘Hallo, Reed,’ I announced, the upward intonation at the end of my surname really implying: Speak now, Ben. I’m tired and it’s late to be calling.

Silence. A static crackle. Silence.

‘Hello?’ I asked, with a more polite and distinctly English accent. Sounded somehow long-distance. Perhaps it was my aunt who lived in the States.

‘Hellooo,’ I said persistently. Still nothing. I had no time for this. I put the phone down.

My contentedness at being home now transitioned to an aching head and dragging need to sleep. I went to the office and stood behind Simon, then put my arms over his shoulders and around his chest, smelling the musty bike-helmet aroma of his hair.

‘Phew. Haven’t you showered yet? Honey, I’m so pooped. I could never have imagined today’s events would take so much out of me,’ I said.

‘Are you okay?’ Simon asked kindly. ‘Why don’t you just go straight to bed? I’ll see to the boys. Tell me all about it tomorrow, okay?’

I gratefully mumbled my thanks, having known he would suggest it, and went to brush my teeth.

Exhausted, I lay down in bed, closed my eyes and begged for the escape of sleep. It wouldn’t come easily. When I heard Simon come in, shed his clothes and go through the usual nightly routine, my throat closed with the heat of gratefulness for this simple familiarity. As he shuffled under the covers, he laid his hand on my head and gently kissed my shoulder.

‘I love you, Al,’ he whispered.

And the lump in my throat finally gave way to tears. I let out great sobs, simultaneously attempting to suppress them to avoid being heard by the boys. As I turned onto my side, Simon gathered me to him, shushing me like a baby, pressing into my back in our usual spooning position.

‘Crikey, Al. Hey. It’s okay. It’s okay now. It’s the shock. That’s it, get it all out. My poor baby.’

He crooned these soothing words as I cried, until my tears were spent, and my breath returned raggedly to normality. My eyelids were hot and gritty.

And as sleep finally grabbed me, I reflected on the irrationality of the emotions I was now experiencing. I couldn’t stop wondering where Manfred was now. Who was looking after him? My tears were for him, for his despair, and for the relieved gratitude I felt at having been able to stop him from jumping.