The Broken Bridge Read online

  She felt Joe Chicago take a step backward: he was afraid too.

  She whispered, “Give me your jacket.”

  And it wasn’t her voice. It was nasal, mocking, horrible; it spoke out of graves and cemeteries, out of the land of death.

  “Give me your jacket,” it said again.

  The jacket? Ginny was helpless. What did Baron Samedi want the jacket for? There was nothing she could do except hold on faintly and watch; he was out of control. She’d never been so frightened in her life.

  Joe was cowering against the wall. “What for? Who are you? What the bloody hell d’you want with me?”

  In the dim light through the window, she could see the glitter of his red-rimmed eyes in a bulk of shadow.

  “You’ve got to give it to me,” she found herself saying. “You know why? You know what’ll happen if you don’t?” The fear was constricting her throat. She was losing altogether any sense of who she was. Ginny, that little identity so permanent and important a minute ago, was fading and vanishing, and there was the god in her place, the loa, Baron Samedi, mighty and terrible. “You know what’ll happen if you don’t?” said his voice, a singsong of death. “The spirits will get you, Joe. The ghosts will get you. The baby’s ghost. The baby in the car. You remember that, Joe? The little baby freezing in the car? She wants the jacket back. She’s been waiting long enough. Her ghost is here in the room with us. She’s only an arm’s length away from your heart, she’s going to reach for it with her icy hands and take hold of it and squeeze hard, and you’ll feel a pain in all your limbs, you’ll feel the ice crushing your heart, you’ll feel everything freezing inside you—”

  “Shut up!” he bellowed. “Shut your bloody mouth, bitch!” and then she was Ginny again and she thought: Oh, thank God he’s broken the spell. What was I doing, what was happening?

  And then he tore off the jacket and flung it at her feet and turned away. “Go on! Go on! Take it! You want it, take the bloody thing! Leave me alone!”

  And in the stale darkness of the little room she stooped and picked it up, and then she was out of the room and down the stairs and away, breathing the clean air of the night, tears running down her cheeks.

  —

  She didn’t stop till she reached the parking lot by the harbor, where she was going to meet Dafydd. The lights in Davy Jones’s Locker, the voices from the pub, music from one of the boats in the harbor where they were having a party—it was all real, and she didn’t believe any of it.

  Clutching the bulky jacket to her chest, she sat on the low wall and tried to work out what had happened, trembling in the mist of fear that still clung around her. Out of nowhere a god had come into her head. It was what happened in voodoo, Stuart had said; the gods came down and possessed the worshippers. It was her fault: she’d asked for it. I’ll make him. Me and Baron Samedi, we’ll make him….He’d heard, and he’d come.

  And she was still half in his world, half in a moonlit cemetery, shivering as the ragged top-hatted figure in the dark glasses grinned and jested with her. He’d come to help her. But did she want help like that? What price would she have to pay?

  And the jacket—that had been the loa’s idea. She hadn’t had the slightest notion about that; she’d been as surprised as Joe. What on earth was she going to do with it?

  She heard the familiar rattle of Dafydd’s car and saw it stopping on the far side. She stood up and waved, and then stepped over the wall and made her way across.

  “Okay?” he said. “What you got there? You nicked his jacket?”

  She nodded and got in beside him. He had the top down, and his greasy hair was all swept back by the wind. He moved off quickly; a left turn, another left, a traffic circle, and then there was nothing but the railroad crossing and the toll bridge and then the long flat road home under the bright moon.

  “You happy now?” said Dafydd after a mile.

  “What?” She hadn’t heard him. It was cold in the open-topped car, with only her T-shirt on and the sweat drying on her arms and breast. She pulled the jacket around her shoulders and shrugged herself into its warmth.

  THE JACKET was dark brown, cracked and stained, with a heavy zipper and a high collar and a thick sheepskin lining. A greasy, barely legible label over the inside breast pocket said that it had been made by Schwartz Brothers of Chicago. It could have been a flying jacket, as Andy’s version of the story said; it would certainly have been the ideal thing to wrap a baby in to keep it warm on a winter’s night.

  On Sunday morning, Ginny pored over it for hours. She wrapped it around her pillow and drew it from every angle; she turned the pockets inside out, finding nothing but a couple of old bus tickets; and she wondered what on earth she was going to do with it. What did Baron Samedi want it for? The idea came to her of burning it, taking it up to Gwynant on a winter’s night and setting fire to it, as a sacrifice to propitiate the spirit of the lost dead child.

  It was all confused in her mind with the slip she’d made when she was talking to Helen: He wrapped me up in it. If she was the baby, what did that make the jacket? Her mother?

  And in the meantime, she must keep away from Joe Chicago. She still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened in the spare room at Jubilee Terrace; it had been terrifying to feel her own personality shrinking and disappearing, brushed aside so easily by something stronger and far more ancient. Now she couldn’t think which would be worse: to face Joe Chicago on her own, or to face him with that god in her head. Either way would be horrible. Like Andy, she’d just have to keep away from him.

  —

  Later that day, she quarreled with Robert.

  It was Dad who was the cause of it, because Ginny and Robert would never have spoken to each other if he hadn’t suggested that they all go out in the boat he’d just bought. The two of them had reached a silent accommodation by this time; half-unconsciously they’d maneuvered themselves into a position where the first one to make a friendly approach would have admitted being the weaker, so now they ignored each other as much as possible, which was at least a way of getting by.

  But when, after lunch, Dad, sounding a little desperate, suggested a trip in the boat, Robert rolled his eyes and groaned. Ginny noticed, and a savage instinct made her want to attack him at once; but she held back, and said, “No, thanks, Dad. I was going to see Rhiannon this afternoon. She’ll be expecting me.”

  “Bring her too,” he said.

  “Not this time. She’ll be seasick or something stupid. Next time, I promise.”

  So he went off alone, leaving Ginny and Robert together. As soon as Dad had left, she turned on Robert like a tiger.

  “You don’t have to be so bloody rude, rolling your eyes like that. He’s only doing it for you—don’t you realize that?”

  They were in the garden, he in the hammock as usual, she standing tensely nearby. He looked up from his book—a cold look, direct, fully awake, charged.

  “What about you last night?”

  “What about me?” Ginny didn’t know what he could mean. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about him and what he’s trying to do.”

  “Oh, he’s a saint, is he? He’s like you, is he? He’s perfect?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means stop bloody patronizing me and telling me how to behave.”

  “Someone needs to.”

  “Why? You think I’ve got worse manners than you, you snooty bitch? You’ve been looking down your nose at me ever since I came.”

  “I have not!”

  “You don’t think you have, no, probably not. It’s unconscious. You’re so sure of how superior you are, it comes off you like a stink, you know that?”

  If she hadn’t been holding herself in, tense and quivering, she’d have gasped. Instead she flared back, “So lying about in the hammock expecting people to wait on you hand and foot, so never lifting a finger to help get the food or wash the dishes, that makes you a democrat or something, does it? And as fo
r being superior, you’re so bloody superior we’re not even allowed to know about your mother; she’s hidden in mystery; we’re all supposed to bow or something—”

  “My mother?” He was sitting up now, his feet on the ground on either side keeping the hammock still. “You want to know something about my mother? All right, I’ll tell you this: she was clean, she was proud, you could come into our house and never find dirty cups and plates lying about, dust all over everything, dirty windows, a filthy kitchen—God, I hate eating what comes out of the oven in there, it’s so thick with filth and grease. She was strong, my mother, she had principles, that’s why she wouldn’t have anything to do with him after he went sniffing round your mother. I bet she was a—”

  “Don’t you dare say anything about her! You don’t know anything! Cleaning the oven? Washing the windows? Christ, is that all you think women are for? You do, don’t you! She probably brought you up like that! She probably waited on you like a servant, just because you were a boy; she probably had nothing else in her head but running round after you, picking up your dirty socks, being a slave….Pathetic. At least my mother was an artist. At least she thought about things. She had a talent, she had a gift—”

  “That’s just what I mean, isn’t it? There you go again, looking down on people! Your mum the great artist—so bloody what? Does that make anyone a better person, being a pissy artist? Does it? If you go about thinking that…well, Christ, it’s no wonder everyone thinks you’re such a snob, talking down to them—”

  “What? What? Who thinks I’m a snob?”

  “All your friends. Can’t you tell? No, you probably can’t; you’re too high and mighty. Everyone else just looks small to you, probably, they’re amusing in their little way, or picturesque, or pitiful, so you patronize them or give them a little bit of your attention, as if you’ve got something else more important to do but you’re so wonderful you manage to fit them in anyway and give them the benefit of your wonderfulness—”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Robert? Are you mad or something? This is just—I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not me you’re thinking about at all. I just don’t recognize—”

  “Well, bad luck, you better learn to. Probably no one’s told you; they probably feel sorry for you for being so pathetic,” he spat.

  Ginny felt as if she were going to break in half.

  “I don’t know why he took you in,” she said. “I’ll never know why. You’re just poison. You’ve got nothing to do with me, you don’t want anything to do with him, and you don’t know him—God, you don’t know the effort he’s making because he feels responsible to you. Okay, so you’re not interested in the bloody boat, but you ought to pretend….You know what you are? You’re—”

  “I don’t need you to tell me who I am! At least he married my mother!”

  “And left her, and I’m not surprised, if she spent all her time cleaning and polishing. God, how stupid! You know what you are? I’m going to tell you even if you don’t want to hear—you’re nothing. You’re negative. You’re a blank space full of hate, that’s all you are. You don’t do anything. So really I don’t care a shit what you say about me, because at the end of the day at least I…at least I…At least I’m trying, I’m not just negative—”

  “How do you know what I do, what I don’t do?” he flared at her. “You just assume that no one else but you’s got any talent for anything. You know what? You’ve got a total contempt for anyone who isn’t like you, d’you know that?”

  “Contempt? What are you talking about, for God’s sake?”

  “You. I’m telling you what you’re like. Everything’s got to be on your terms. You’re the most arrogant person I’ve ever met. You never show the slightest interest—”

  “Yeah, and what happens when I do? You remember when I tried to talk to you, when you first came? All you did was lose your temper. I tried to make conversation, and you just got angry. Turning on me like a bloody pit bull or something. How long is a person supposed to go on trying? Or maybe I’m supposed to know all about you by telepathy, is that it? You give out waves or something—we’re all supposed to pick them up without you having to soil yourself by talking? You make me sick, Robert. You and your mother, you both…”

  She stopped. They were only a yard or so apart, she with her fists clenched, he still straddling the hammock. His face was tight with misery, his eyes glittering, and the tension in his shoulders was making his whole body shake. Suddenly she found, to her consternation and embarrassment, that her eyes were full of tears and that all the fury that had welled up from nowhere had drained away.

  “This is stupid,” she muttered.

  “You started it.”

  “You did, actually. If you hadn’t…”

  The words ran out. She shrugged.

  He looked down, ran his fingers through his hair. Then he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “I don’t understand you,” she said.

  “Nothing to understand. You said it.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t mean that. I meant…Oh, I just meant…” She sighed, terribly weary suddenly, and speaking the next words with a great effort: “I just meant I can’t understand you. Because…I don’t know anything about you or your mother; I didn’t even know you existed. It’s no good asking Dad. If he’s kept you secret from me all this time, and me from you…well, I can’t trust him anymore. Can’t you see?”

  He was still looking down. He bit savagely at a thumbnail and spat it out.

  “She didn’t tell me, either,” he said. “I don’t know any more than you do. I don’t reckon there’s any point in talking. It’s a waste of breath. We’ve got nothing in common, we never will have. I’m not sure I want anything in common with you anyway.”

  He swung his leg over the hammock and walked away. She watched him go, stifling the words that came to mind, words of appeal. She hadn’t meant this to happen, she thought, but then she shook her head angrily at her own dishonesty: she’d meant something to happen, hadn’t she? She’d wanted a fight, and she’d got one, and been hurt. Tough. Put up with it.

  —

  She brooded all the rest of the day over what he’d said, worrying at it like a dog for the scraps of truth that clung to it; because it couldn’t all be true, she thought, surely. The idea of herself as a smug, patronizing snob was too painful to be borne. And it didn’t matter that the house wasn’t brilliantly clean, did it? Only to people with tiny minds who thought housework was important; or was that an example of her snobbery?

  She was horribly confused and horribly unhappy, and the only thing that made it slightly better than it might have been was the realization that both she and Robert had held back from the final words that would have meant death, war, destruction, eternal hatred. The fact that she was black and he was white had no bearing on what they’d been quarreling about, but it might have come up, and it hadn’t.

  As she went to bed she found another disagreeable feeling slink in and join all the others, and that was fear. If the loa—the gods of voodoo—could come so abruptly and fiercely as Baron Samedi had done the night before, what was to stop them from coming again? Had she opened some channel for them to use whenever they felt like it? What had she done? Was she entirely crazy?

  —

  Early next morning, just after Dad had gone to work, Ginny was in the kitchen fixing breakfast when the phone rang. She jumped with fright. Eventually, reluctantly, she picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Ginny. Hello. It’s Wendy Stevens. Are you alone? Can we talk?”

  “Yeah…Yeah! Fine! Dad’s at work, and…Yeah.”

  “How’s Robert?”

  Ginny paused. Robert was still in bed; they hadn’t spoken since the quarrel. “All right,” she said.

  “I see. Well, listen, I’ve got some news for you. I’m not sure if I should be doing this—actually, I am sure, and I shouldn’t. Did you know you’d been fostered?”

 
; “What? Fostered? When? D’you mean I’m not—d’you mean that Dad’s—”

  “No, no, you’re not fostered now. It was a long time ago—twelve, fourteen years or so. You don’t remember?”

  “No! God, no!”

  “Well, never mind. You might remember, and that’s my excuse. You know you told me about a trailer? And a woman called Maeve? And some woods where someone had been murdered?”

  “Yes…go on….”

  “Well, that reminded me of something, and I looked it up. There’s a place not far from here called Staunton Chase, a wild sort of wood, and there was a big murder hunt there, oh, fifteen years ago. I thought it might have been there. So I asked a friend who works in the Social Services Department there. He’s been there for a long time, knows everyone….Anyway, I told him about Maeve, and he recognized her at once. Her name’s Mrs. Sullivan. Apparently she does a lot of short-term fostering, especially for a Catholic home in the area; she’s done it for years. He gave me her phone number, and I rang her up.”

  “And…what did she say?”

  “Well, she must’ve looked after hundreds of kids over the years. She didn’t remember you at first, but then it came back. She said you were a difficult child.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “She said you used to scribble over everything. And there was something about makeup; I couldn’t understand it….”

  “I know what she means! I found it in the trailer and…But where was Dad? Why was I being fostered in the first place?”

  “She didn’t remember. She might not have known. There’d be no reason for her to.”

  “Fostered…I don’t believe it. Well, I do believe it, but why hasn’t he told me?”

  “I don’t know, love. There’s no way you’re going to find out unless you ask him.”

  Ginny said nothing. There was another way, and she’d just thought of it, but she didn’t want to tell Wendy.

  “Well,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “You’ve got my number if you want to get in touch?”