Strangers on a Bridge. Louise Mangos

of it fluttering to the floor. His fingers were dangerously smudged with pencil graphite.

      I pointed to his hands ‘Wash, please!’

      Oliver dipped his hands into the sink, and before I could protest ‘Not here’ he asked, ‘Mum, why would someone want to kill themselves? What happened to that man that he wanted to die? Do you think he lost a pet or something?’

      I smiled. My youngest child was growing up, but I still clung with maternal pleasure to his naivety.

      Oliver had always been my little saviour. The family all knew how important my running was to me. I wasn’t winning county competitions any more, but it was a part of my life not even motherhood could diminish. They could forgive a few dust balls under the furniture for the peace of mind my sport brought me. It’s my drug, I used to say. I need my fix. Physically, it certainly was a fix, the feelgood effect of endorphins kicking in as I arrived home sweaty and pleasantly spent. After heated and fruitless discussions about homework, school problems, weekend activities or helping around the house, Oliver would occasionally bring my running shoes wordlessly to the kitchen, breaking the tension. The supplier bringing my elixir in a syringe.

      At eleven years old, Oliver was too young to have experienced heartbreak, or the hormone imbalances that could lead to dark despondency. And a depression that made someone question the worth of their own life? Hard to explain to a child that it was probably all to do with chemicals. Despite the textbooks, I had a hard time understanding it myself.

      ‘People who want to kill themselves have a sickness in their heads, in their minds,’ I said, drying a pan and clattering it into a cupboard. ‘It’s like a terrible sadness, and often there’s no explanation, which makes the sadness harder to understand.’

      Oliver cocked his head to one side, thinking. As he was about to ask another question, the phone rang. He left the kitchen distractedly, returning to his room. I answered the phone. A friend of Leon’s needed to check up on a homework assignment due at school after the weekend. Exasperating teenagers! It’s a bit late to be rushing through it now.

      ‘Leon!’ I shouted up the stairs, flipping the tea towel over my shoulder. ‘Ben’s on the phone!’

      ‘I’ll take it up here!’ he shouted faintly.

      I waited until I heard their voices connect in Swiss German on the bedroom extension before placing the kitchen phone back in its cradle. I hoped at least he had remembered the assignment.

      I suddenly felt very tired. I gathered a bag of rubbish to take out to the communal bins and fetched my mobile phone from the dash of the car. I closed the garage door and walked slowly back to the house, continuing up the stairs of our duplex to start my evening ritual. Simon was at the computer in the office, fine-tuning some last-minute details of the presentation he was to give in London the following week. I could see my eldest son hunched over his messy desk, scratching his head with confused irritation. This gave away the fact that he had indeed forgotten the assignment.

      ‘Just as well Ben called,’ I said, leaning against his doorway. ‘And turn on your desk light or you’ll go blind, my love.’

      As Leon mouthed the oft-spoken words in synch with me, I glanced around at the teenage chaos in the room. The usual end-of-weekend clear-up hadn’t yet taken place. In the morning when the two boys deigned to get out of their pyjamas, every available article of clothing was hauled from their cupboards with dissatisfaction, the chosen uniform generally the one at the bottom of the pile. The scene resembled a jumble sale recently hit by a tornado. The phone rang again. I pointed silently but meaningfully at the disarray of clothes and backed out of Leon’s room.

      ‘No peace for the wicked.’

      I sighed loudly as I headed towards our bedroom, leaving Leon twirling a pencil between his fingers and swivelling in his chair.

      ‘It’s probably Ben again, Mum. Can you tell him I’ll call back in a few minutes? I just need to get my ideas down on paper.’

      ‘Ideas?’ I called back over my shoulder. ‘I thought this thing was supposed to be finished by tomorrow.’

      I reached for the phone.

      ‘Hallo, Reed,’ I announced, the upward intonation at the end of my surname really implying: Speak now, Ben. I’m tired and it’s late to be calling.

      Silence. A static crackle. Silence.

      ‘Hello?’ I asked, with a more polite and distinctly English accent. Sounded somehow long-distance. Perhaps it was my aunt who lived in the States.

      ‘Hellooo,’ I said persistently. Still nothing. I had no time for this. I put the phone down.

      My contentedness at being home now transitioned to an aching head and dragging need to sleep. I went to the office and stood behind Simon, then put my arms over his shoulders and around his chest, smelling the musty bike-helmet aroma of his hair.

      ‘Phew. Haven’t you showered yet? Honey, I’m so pooped. I could never have imagined today’s events would take so much out of me,’ I said.

      ‘Are you okay?’ Simon asked kindly. ‘Why don’t you just go straight to bed? I’ll see to the boys. Tell me all about it tomorrow, okay?’

      I gratefully mumbled my thanks, having known he would suggest it, and went to brush my teeth.

      Exhausted, I lay down in bed, closed my eyes and begged for the escape of sleep. It wouldn’t come easily. When I heard Simon come in, shed his clothes and go through the usual nightly routine, my throat closed with the heat of gratefulness for this simple familiarity. As he shuffled under the covers, he laid his hand on my head and gently kissed my shoulder.

      ‘I love you, Al,’ he whispered.

      And the lump in my throat finally gave way to tears. I let out great sobs, simultaneously attempting to suppress them to avoid being heard by the boys. As I turned onto my side, Simon gathered me to him, shushing me like a baby, pressing into my back in our usual spooning position.

      ‘Crikey, Al. Hey. It’s okay. It’s okay now. It’s the shock. That’s it, get it all out. My poor baby.’

      He crooned these soothing words as I cried, until my tears were spent, and my breath returned raggedly to normality. My eyelids were hot and gritty.

      And as sleep finally grabbed me, I reflected on the irrationality of the emotions I was now experiencing. I couldn’t stop wondering where Manfred was now. Who was looking after him? My tears were for him, for his despair, and for the relieved gratitude I felt at having been able to stop him from jumping.

       Chapter Seven

      ‘The irony is, when Kathy and I have run there before, we’ve often wondered about finding a body under the bridge.’

      It was early the following day, and I hadn’t slept well. I’d had a recurring dream about a body falling from the Tobel Bridge. The first time it bounced like a ragdoll on the ground, and I woke with a start. The second time the body stretched into a marvellous swan dive and swept up through the forest like Superman, disappearing over the ridge of the canyon. The third time the falling image repeated itself over and over, never quite reaching the ground. After that I dared not go back to sleep.

      Simon and I dodged each other through our breakfast routine like some ritual dance. He kissed my head and patted my backside as I paused to take the milk out of the fridge. A memory of how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other at the beginning of our relationship sprang to mind, and I trailed my hand across his shoulder as he passed. His butter knife clattered into the sink, and the coffee machine whirred, clicked and trickled his morning pick-me-up into a minuscule cup. The kitchen filled with the delicious aroma of a rich Arabica blend, and my thoughts returned to the bridge.

      ‘Kathy read about a woman who