Among the Missing aka Across the Bridge

Ron laughed and chucked the broken oar on the ground. It would make a few sticks of kindling. “You can’t go out in a thing that size, not even with two oars,” he told her. “It’s going nowhere, not without a motor. Look at it. It’d be just about all right on a duck pond.”

“But someone here before us must have gone out in it. Fishing, maybe.”

Ron shrugged. “Probably brought it down here and realized it was useless in more than a breath of wind. Anyway, look at your arms. You couldn’t row three feet with Annabel on board. You’d never make it down to the bridge.”

“I can row a boat all right,” Silva said. “I want it ready, just in case.”

He shook his head. “You wouldn’t be safe,” he said and started back to the cabin, away from her objections. “There’s no need, anyway. I’ll be straight up in the launch when the time comes. It’s all arranged.”

In September, suddenly the weather turned colder. The cabin floors were damp all the time, and Ron began to wonder how he could put in a decent layer of insulation that wouldn’t involve hours of disruption and threaten Annabel’s calm. He thought carefully about her calm, and how to keep her cheerful. Lately, though she hadn’t the will to withstand Silva, she was often impatient with her. She complained of being bossed about, and being uncomfortable and bored. Silva was, by turns, irritable and morose, and she was also constantly watchful, like an investor with a stake in a dumb but valuable animal. Ron was struck by the simplicity of his function in it all, which was to move between the two women as a force dedicated to both of them equally, no matter how wayward or unaccountable either of them became.

Drafts whistled in through the windows and walls, and they had to keep the stove alight all day. He set to work on getting in a log supply for the months to come, but pinewood burned up fast, and he was having to go farther and farther into the forest to find dead trunks he could drag back for cutting. But it occurred to him over and over that secretly he was delighted all these obstacles had presented themselves, otherwise where else would he be now, what would he be doing?

More and more was being required of him, and it was exhausting, but also exhilarating. He loved how the land was sodden and chill and how the sky lowered; he hoped for a dramatic, freezing winter. All day long he walked around trying to keep his gratitude hidden.

The cranes and concrete pourers were at work; dull cranking sounds vibrated around the small group assembled on the jetty. Even after several months, the bridge talk was still an ordeal in public speaking for Mr. Sturrock. He could not look at even familiar faces as if he had seen them before; he stared over his audience’s heads for fear of making eye contact, and called above the noise.

“As you can see, the last segment has been brought along the new roadbed, and the crane will lift it into position within the next forty-eight hours. This represents”-a gull streaked past him, shrieking-“a significant achievement, and not a little way ahead of schedule. Thank you for your attention, ladies and gentlemen,” he added with a formal smile as he folded his speech back into his pocket.

The tiny group nodded. They had been expecting all this because they had been on several bridge walks already. This was the very last one and numbers had tailed off to just three; the bridge would be reopening in a few weeks. Ron recognized every face, and so did Rhona and Mr. Sturrock. Two of the three were a couple whose interest had become for some reason obsessive. Each time they made a day of it: after the tour they would drive up to Netherloch for lunch and in the afternoon walk through the forest to the top of the Netherloch Falls. There they would take photographs of the river snaking from the far end of the loch and widening into the distance as far as the bridge, and on the next walk, after Mr. Sturrock had finished, they would pass the new pictures around in a way that seemed to Ron strangely agitated and boastful, as if the gap between the broken bridge ends were being closed under their personal supervision. Today as usual the woman produced some new photographs, but apart from himself, Mr. Sturrock, and Rhona (who all saw the bridge every day), there was only Colin, the third member of the audience, to show them to. He took them reluctantly. The woman could not permit his indifference; she pointed out this and that detail, eager for him to show more pleasure. Not that she didn’t understand that the restored bridge was no compensation for his loss, of course not, but still, a new bridge. That was something positive, wasn’t it, something that would help everybody move on? Colin’s big face worked away with an expression of polite interest. Handing back the last of the photographs, he sighed.

Rhona stepped forward. As this was the final bridge talk, she said, she was sure the group would want to take this opportunity to join her in thanking Mr. Sturrock. A thin, clacking round of applause rose and died. One by one the three shook Rhona’s and Mr. Sturrock’s hands and then one another’s, and began to drift away, pulling off their hard hats and depositing them on the ground at Rhona’s feet. Colin lingered. It was four weeks since his tribute to the victims and his dead wife. Since then, he had been quieter than ever. He looked as if he might have wanted to speak but instead nodded to Ron and turned away.

Rhona was applying something glittery to her lips and shaking out her hair. She grinned at Ron, who knew what was about to happen; she’d let him in on it two weeks before, apologizing that she couldn’t include him, too.

“And now, John,” she said playfully, turning to Sturrock. “I am spiriting you away. I’m taking you for lunch at the Royal Highland Hotel. I hope you’re hungry?”

“What? Steady on, now. Lunch? The Royal Highland?” Sturrock said. “There’s no need for that.”

“Away you go, it’s on us. Just a wee thank-you from Forward Voice PR. Your talks have helped us deliver a key campaign objective, rolling out the message to our community stakeholders.”

He stared at her. “Fuck me. I can’t just go off having lunch. I need to get back over the other side.” He turned to Ron. “You need to get back over yourself, eh?”

“I’ll be here when you’re ready,” Ron said, smiling.

“It’s all arranged,” Rhona said. “Our managing director Malcolm’s going to join us, and so is Mrs. Sturrock. So there you go. Table’s booked. See you later, Ron. Thanks a lot for waiting.”

Mr. Sturrock was now pleasantly bewildered. “Christ, you in on it, too?” he said to Ron. “Well, thanks a bunch, son.”

After they left, Ron picked up the hats and packed them in the boat, then walked over to get his own lunch at the service station. There were at least two hours to kill, and when he caught sight of Colin there, hunched at the same table as last time, for a moment he considered slipping away. But Colin looked up and saw him, so he bought sandwiches and tea and joined him at the table. From Colin’s face, it was obvious there was no right thing Ron could say, but it wasn’t possible to say nothing at all.

“So. That’s the last of the bridge walks. That’s it, now,” he offered, hoping Colin would pick up on the idea of their finality. What else could the man do? It was the last; there was nothing more to be said or done. Ron knew he was being lazy about Colin’s suffering, but he couldn’t enter into it. He didn’t really like him. While Colin certainly had ample cause to suffer, Ron suspected he was in any case inclined to be sorry for himself.

“If you’re about to say something about moving on, don’t bother,” Colin said. He pulled his pudgy fingers across his face before he spoke again. “That woman with her fucking photos.”

Ron shrugged. “Yeah, sorry, mate. It’s still tough going, is it?”

“Her, everybody. People at work. The number of people that say it. Moving on. They say maybe it’s a blessing I didn’t know her that long, like that makes it better.”

“Aren’t they just trying to help?”

“They think I should be getting over it. Some people tell me I’m lucky, I should be glad I wasn’t in the car with her.”

He blew his nose into a rag of used paper handkerchief with an embarrassing, piteous honk that blasted little wisps of tissue across his chin and cheeks.

“So, anyway, that’s the last of the bridge walks,” Ron said. “No more trailing up and down from Huddersfield. You’ll be getting your weekends back, a bit of time to yourself. Any plans?”

Colin glared at him. “I’ll still be coming. Why would I not still come? She’s still here.”

“Oh. Okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“You know the worst thing people say? They say be glad we weren’t married long enough to have kids. Because imagine what that’d be like, they’d have lost their mother and I’d be left to cope on my own.”

Ron knew how this line of thinking went: grief for loss of what you did have, beside grief for loss of what you did not but might have had, is a lesser grief. He also knew this thinking for what it was, the well-meaning, ill-