And there are things scurrying about the floor. I’m sure it’s rats.’
I slid back the bolt to release the door, and felt the cold night air rush in as I opened it. There was a real smell of winter on its leading edge, and I could see stars, like pinholes in the black sheet that was the sky, revealing an imagined light that lay behind it. A light that was reflected in the frost that glistened all across the black of the tarmac. Heaven perfectly mirrored on earth. Or hell perfectly reflected above.
By the time we got down into the village we could hear a clock somewhere striking midnight. It pealed through the cold, clear night air, like a bell ringing for the dead, sonorous and deep and filled with a dreadful prescience. The hike up Bell’s Brae in the dark, past the silent mews houses, was slow and treacherous. Snow had fallen, then melted where the sun had touched it, then frozen. By the time we reached Kirkbrae House at the top of the hill we were, all three of us, sweating from the effort. They had told us at school that the turreted and step- gabled Kirkbrae House, half of which disappeared down below the bridge, had been a tavern in the seventeenth century. I’d have given anything right then for a glass of the fine fizzing ale they had drunk back in those days. Something to stop my tongue from sticking to the roof of my mouth, and restore the courage I felt deserting me as the bridge approached.
The Kelly boys were waiting for us where the first arch of the bridge began, huddled in the shadow of Kirkbrae House. The town was deserted and as silent as Dean Cemetery. There wasn’t a car on the road, or a light in any of the windows of the stone terraces that marched up Queensferry Street towards the west-end. But the moon reflected off every snow-covered surface of the village below. Only the black waters of the river itself were completely lost in darkness.
‘You’re late!’ Patrick Kelly hissed from the shadows. ‘We’ve been waiting here for ages. And it’s fucking freezing!’
I could hear him stamping and clapping his gloved hands together, trying to keep warm, and I wished I had gloves, too.
‘Well, we’re here now,’ I said. ‘And we might as well get started. Me first.’ I moved towards the parapet, but felt Patrick’s big open hand pushing into my chest.
‘No. Me first. I’ve been hanging around here long enough. Who’s going to time it?’
‘I am.’ Catherine stepped forward into the pale yellow glow of an electric street lamp and opened her hand to reveal an engraved silver stopwatch with a pink ribbon attached to it.
One of the other Kelly boys grabbed her wrist to get a better look, and you could hear the envy in his voice. ‘Where’d you steal that?’
Catherine pulled her wrist free and closed protective fingers around it again. ‘I didn’t steal it. My dad gave me it.’
Patrick said, ‘Okay, Danny, you check she disnae cheat.’ And he reached up to grasp the wrought-iron spikes that ran along the curve of the parapet, to pull himself up and over, feet sliding and scraping on the ice, till he had lowered himself down to the ledge below.
I had crossed the bridge on many occasions, but it was the first time I had really examined the parapet. I learned later that they had raised it about fifty years before to stop people throwing themselves off. What is it about bridges that lures folk to kill themselves by jumping off them? Whatever it is, the only thing that concerned me then was not falling off.
The bridge was carried on four arches from Kirkbrae House at the south end to the towering Gothic presence of the Holy Trinity Church at the other. It was one hundred and six feet above the river at its highest point, and maybe one hundred and fifty yards across. The ledge was wide enough to walk on. Just. If you didn’t look down, or think too much about it. The problem came when it circumvented each of the vertical supports for the three columns. These were angled, and took you away from the safety of the parapet, where it was always possible to grab on to one of the spikes.
I felt my stomach flip over. It was madness. What in God’s name was I doing here? I could hardly breathe.
I could see from Patrick’s face that he was scared, too. But he was doing his best to hide it. ‘Okay, start the watch,’ he called, and we all leaned over as Catherine depressed the starter button, and Patrick Kelly set off across the bridge.
I was amazed at how quickly he moved, spreading himself wide, facing the parapet and moving sideways along the ledge, leaning in to let his hands guide him. He embraced each arch support, almost lying across the top of it, as he shuffled his feet around the ledge. Danny stayed at the Kirkbrae end, watching the stopwatch with Catherine, and me and Peter and Patrick’s other brother, Tam, followed him from the safety of the pavement.
I could hear Patrick’s breathing, laboured, from fear and effort. His breath exploded around him in the moonlight. I could just see the top of his head, and the concentration in his eyes. Peter hung on to my arm, absolutely focused on Patrick’s progress. Even though this was the boy who was threatening to give away the secret of his Elvis tattoo, Peter genuinely feared for his safety. Such was his empathy. Tam called out constant encouragement to his brother, and when finally Patrick reached the church and hauled himself back on to the road side with trembling arms, he let out loud whoops of triumphant joy.
Catherine and Danny came running across to join us.
‘Well?’ Patrick said, his face positively glowing now with jubilation.
‘Two minutes, twenty-three seconds,’ Danny said. ‘Straight up, Paddy.’
Patrick turned his jubilation on me. ‘Your turn.’
I glanced at Catherine and could see apprehension burning in her dark eyes. ‘How’s the ice on that side?’ I said to Patrick.
He grinned. ‘Slippy as fuck.’
I felt my heart sinking into my boots. Two minutes, twenty-three seconds seemed very fast. And I knew that if I couldn’t beat that time, then I would have to do it again. And Patrick’s whole demeanour oozed confidence. He didn’t believe for one moment that I would be faster than him. And, to be honest, neither did I. But there was no point in dwelling on it, to be defeated by my own fear.
I climbed up on to the parapet, and holding on to the top spikes, slid my feet down the other side of it until they reached the ledge. The iron of the spikes was icy cold, biting into already frozen hands. But I held on to them, testing the frosted snow beneath my feet. To my surprise, my rubber soles provided an amazing amount of grip. And I finally let go to find myself balanced on the curve of the ledge, with almost four hundred feet of it stretching ahead of me. If I crossed it using the same technique as Patrick, then whether or not I bettered his time was in the lap of the gods. But if I used my outstretched arms for balance and walked straight, as along a line of kerbstones, I was sure I could do it faster. As long as I didn’t slip. Only when I reached the arch supports would I have to resort to Patrick’s method of getting around them.
I drew a deep breath, resisting the temptation to look down, and called out, ‘All right, start the watch.’ And I set off with my eyes firmly fixed on Kirkbrae House at the other end. I could feel the frozen snow creaking beneath my feet, my left arm raised higher than my right to avoid touching the parapet. The slightest miscalculation, even the smallest nudge of the parapet wall, would likely send me spinning off into space.
I reached the first arch support and flung my arms around it, sliding my feet sideways along the ledge, as I had seen Patrick do. Then steadied myself at the far side of it for the next length. I was filled with a strange sense of elation, feeling as if I could almost break into a run. Of course, that would have been impossible, but confidence surged through me now and I increased my speed, one careful foot in front of the other. From the far side of the parapet I could hear Tam’s voice. ‘Jesus, Paddy, he’s fast!’
And Peter. ‘Go, Johnny, go!’
By the time I reached Kirkbrae House, and pulled myself over the parapet to safety, I knew I’d done it faster. Patrick knew it too, and I could already see his apprehension growing as we waited for Catherine and Danny to run across the bridge to join us.
Danny’s face was a mask of trepidation. Catherine’s split by a triumphant smile.
‘Two minutes, five seconds,’ Danny said, his voice barely a whisper.
I didn’t care any more. I’d won the dare. And if Patrick Kelly was a boy of his word, then Peter’s secret was safe, at least for a while. ‘Let’s call it quits.’
Patrick’s mouth tightened into a bleak line. He shook his head. ‘No fucking way. Whoever was slower had to do it again. That was the deal.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.
