The Toll Bridge Read Free Page A

underclothes and shirt. But though this helped me feel physically better, the thought that already I had laundry to do and no one to do it for me and no washing machine to throw it into, finally made me face what I had brought upon myself.
    All night long I’d told myself I was bound to feel strange at first, I’d soon settle down, get used to the place, make myself comfortable. But the sight of dirty clothes lying on the crushed old armchair in that bleak slummy room zapped any remaining particles of confidence and I wondered what the hell I was doing there.
    Which was the moment when Tess walked in, carrying a bulging plastic bag and a blanket. Not, this first time, on the way to school, it being a Saturday, nor dressed in her biking leathers but in a loose white shirt and baggy washworn jeans and tennis shoes, a mane of lush jet-black hair framing the firm outlines of her face.
    â€˜Is it all right to come in?’ she said, dumping the blanket on top of my laundry. ‘Dad asked me to bring you this stuff.’ She unpacked her plastic bag onto the muck-stained once-white pine table. Half-used packet of cornflakes, quarter of home-made brown loaf, jar of marmalade, bottle of milk, three eggs in a carton, quarter pound of farm butter, knife, fork, teaspoon, plate and mug, roll of paper towel. ‘Should see you through till you can shop.’ She looked me over as I stood gawping across the table. ‘I’ll give you a hand, if you like. You won’t know your way around yet.’
    All I could think was: Shut up, go away, I don’t want any help, I’m going home, this is all a stupid mistake. What I managed to say was, ‘Thanks, sure, yes, I could do with some help.’
    [– What you didn’t know at the time was that I was thinking: Why can’t this creep look after himself? What’s wrong with him? Why didn’t he sort himself out yesterday? Why should I spend my Saturday morning booby-sitting him? I’d planned to play tennis but Dad asked me to help because he was worried you might be disheartened and leave. Then he’d have trouble manning the bridge again. Did he ever tell you that you were the only applicant willing to take the job?]
    So there I was that first Saturday morning, cold, hungry, aching, bog-eyed, wanting only, longing, to bolt back home at whatever cost of derision, but my way out blocked by this high-energy girl standing between me and escape like a jailer (which she was, after all, as she was only there to help keep me there).
    This is how my friendship with Tess began, the first true friendship of my life. My closest friendship still.
    8
    I don’t think I believe in fate. Not if ‘fate’ means your future is planned, every detail, before you’re born. Nor do I feel singled out, not like some people say they do, not in any special way, not destined to be anything but ordinary, muddling through life, as most people seem to.
    But that morning with Adam, three months after first meeting Tess, as she throttled away, disappearing over the bridge, I suddenly felt I’d been here and done all this before. I know what is going to happen next, but am not able to do anything to stop it – a weird sensation of having had, sometime in the past, a glimpse into this future, of having forgotten, and only remembering now in the very second when the future becomes the present.
    I hadn’t experienced
déjà-vu
before. I’d heard people talk about it. But no one had said that it felt like a revelation. Suddenly the day seemed more alive, the air sharper, the light brighter, colours more colourful, objects more noticeable, more solid, more
there.
To tell the truth, as well as startled by it, I was a little frightened.
    I turn towards the house, knowing I will turn in just this way. And walk inside, catching my hand on the doorknob as I pass, knowing I will catch it so but unable to prevent it. And find Adam, knowing I will,