Across the Bridge by Morag Joss

and bedding, never mind wash off the mud, and I didn’t know
how you were going to manage that if the rain poured down all day,
and with only soaked wood to burn. There was the propane heater to
keep Anna a bit warmer but it cost so much, and the cartridge was
low and I wouldn’t be able to get back with a new one until the
evening. How would you manage? You’d need hot food. It took nearly
an hour to get up to the service station for hot chocolate and
muffins, soup maybe, and nearly an hour back, probably longer if it
was muddy, and you’d get so wet coming and going it might not be
worth it.
    I was glad you were asleep.
    I did manage to doze off towards dawn. When I woke again a soft
pale light was replacing the grey inside the trailer. I was aware
of an absence, but for a moment couldn’t work out what it was. You
and Anna were still beside me; Anna had a few strands of my hair
clutched in her hand and had pulled them into her mouth, and you
were just beginning to wake but in that eyes-shut way of yours,
convincing yourself you were still asleep. You turned and draped
your arm across me. I started to prepare in my mind how I would
tell you about the weather and the leaking trailer and the horrible
day ahead. That was when I realized what was missing. It was quiet,
because the rain had stopped. All I could hear was the traffic on
the bridge. I drew my hair gently out of Anna’s grip and raised
myself on my elbows. The trailer was set too far back from the bank
of the river for me to see the horizon at the end of the estuary,
but from that direction, over from the east, a few fringes of
sunlight were beginning to sparkle on the pewtery, dark reaches of
the water. That meant there was about to be a proper, unclouded
sunrise, and if the sun shone bright for even a few hours today,
we’d have a chance.
    You would be awake in a minute, and soon you’d be outside
clapping your hands at the geese and laughing at me for worrying.
You’d fix the trailer, you always managed to fix it. By tonight we
would be all right again. Maybe if the mini-mart wasn’t too busy or
I got a minute when Vi went to lunch or dozed off, I might be able
to raid the freezer and bring back some steaks for us. I’d seen
some lying in the bottom nobody would want to buy, anyway. I could
lift a bag of charcoal from round the back on my way home, and if
the rain stayed off we could cook on the old barbecue you picked up
that time from the verge at the top of the track.
    But when we were awake and up and dressed, you didn’t say
anything to that idea. You swore a few times and stared at the
trailer and then didn’t seem to care about it any more. You set
your mouth in a grim, thin line, and I didn’t get a happy word or a
smile from you before I had to leave for work. You had been that
way before, impatient to make it all different, angry about things
you couldn’t change, furious with yourself for not giving us a
regular life. But you had been getting angry more and more often,
and for longer, and it was harder each time to bring you round. I
didn’t really see that that was because what made you angry had
changed. By then it was me you were angry with.
    That day you wouldn’t walk me even part of the way up to the
bus. You didn’t take Anna to say good morning to the geese, though
they were lovely with the sun on their wings and they landed so
beautifully on the black rock in the river, hooting that low,
rounded noise over and over like a thousand wheezy old organs in a
fairground, so funny and also so sad a sound it was, like home, and
sweet and faraway.

∨ Across the Bridge ∧
Eight
    I slept badly and got
up long before Col was awake. I didn’t want to speak to him, about
the baby or anything else, so I left quietly and drove east from
the hotel, as I had done the day before. That early in the morning
there was frost on the ground and the grip of ice in the air, as if
during the night winter had crept down from the mountains,