Iain Banks - The Bridge

'My priorities?' I ask.

'Yes. Which is more important; regaining your position as one of Dr Joyce's favoured patients, or rediscovering your lost memories?'

'Well,' I say, only now really thinking about it. 'Certainly it's been rather uncomfortable and painful, coming down in the bridge, but I suppose I could eventually learn to live with my reduced rank, if the worst comes to the worst.' I sip my whisky. Miss Arrol's expression is neutral. 'However, my inability to remember who I am is not something ...' I give a small laugh, 'that I can ever forget. I'll always know there was something in my life before this, so I imagine I'll always be looking for it. It's like a sealed, forgotten chamber in me; I shan't feel complete until I've discovered its entrance.'

'Sounds like a tomb. Aren't you afraid of what you'll find in there?'

'It's a library; only the stupid and the evil are afraid of those.'

'So you'd rather find your library than regain your apartment?' Abberlaine Arrol smiles. I nod, watching her. She took off her hat as she came in, but her hair is still up; her head and neck look very fine. Those beguiling crinkles under her eyes fascinate me still; they are like a tiny guard she has put up; a line of sandbags beneath those amused, grey-green eyes; confident, secure, unaffected.

Abberlaine Arrol stares into her glass. I am about to comment on a small line that has just formed on her brow, when the lights go out.

We are left with our candle; other tables glow and flicker with their own small flames. Dim emergency lights come on. There is a dull background of muttering. Outside, the lights on the trawlers start to disappear. The balloons are no longer visible in the reflected light of the bridge; the whole structure must be dark. The planes: they come without lights, droning through the night, from the direction of the City. Miss Arrol and I stand up, looking out of the window; various other diners gather alongside us, peering out into the night, shading the weak emergency lights and candles with their hands, noses pressed against the cool glass like schoolboys outside a sweetshop. Somebody opens a window.

The planes sound almost alongside us. 'Can you see them?' Abberlaine Arrol asks.

'No,' I admit. The droning engines sound very close. The planes are quite invisible, without navigation lights. There is no moon, and the stars are not bright enough to show them.

They pass, seemingly unaffected by the lack of light.

'Think they did it?' Miss Arrol says, still peering into the night. Her breath mists the glass.

'I don't know,' I confess. 'I wouldn't be surprised.' She is biting her lower lip; her fists are clenched against the dark window, an expression of excited anticipation on her face. She looks very young.

The lights come back on.

The planes have left their pointless messages; the clouds of smoke are just visible, darkness upon darkness. Miss Arrol sits down and takes up her glass. As I raise mine, she leans con-spiratorially across the table and says quietly. 'To our intrepid aviators, wherever they may come from.'

'And whoever they may be,' I touch her glass with my own.

When we leave, a faint odour of oily smoke is just detectable over the more palatable smells of the restaurant itself; the equivocal signal of the vanished aircraft merging with and blown through the structural grammar of the bridge, like criticism.

We wait for a train. Miss Arrol smokes a cigar. Music plays in the soft-class waiting room. She stretches in her chair and stifles a little yawn. 'I beg your pardon,' she says. Then, 'Mr - oh look; if I can call you John, will you call me Abberlaine, never "Abby"?'

'Certainly, Abberlaine.'

'Right then ... John. I take it you are less than totally delighted with your new accommodation.'

'It's better than nothing at all.'

'Yes, of course, but ...'

'Not that much though. And without Mr Lynch I'd be even more at a loss than I am already.'

'Hmmm. I thought so.' She looks preoccupied, and stares hard at one of her shiny black high-heels. She rubs one finger over her lips, looks seriously at her cigar. 'Ah.' The finger caressing her lips is lifted into the air. 'I have an idea.' Her grin is mischievous now.

'My paternal great-grandfather had it built. Just a minute; I'll find the lights. I think -' There is a dull thud. '-Bastard!' Miss Arrol giggles. I hear a rapid rubbing sound; rough silk between smooth flesh, I suspect.

'Are you all right?'

'Fine. Just bumped my shin. Now then, those lights. I think they're ... no. Damn this, I can't see a thing. You don't have a light do you John? I used my last match on the cigar.'

'I'm sorry, no.'

'I know; could you give me your stick?'

'Certainly. Here. Is that ...? Have you ...?'

'Yes, thank you; got it.' I hear her tap and scrape her way through the darkness. I put my suitcase down on the floor, waiting to see whether my eyes will adjust sufficiently or not. I can see vague hints of light over to one corner, but the interior of this place is quite black. From further away, Abberlaine Arrol's voice comes back, 'It was to be near the marina. That was why he had it built. Then they built the sports centre on top. He was too proud to accept the compensation buy-out, so it stayed in the family. My father is always talking about selling it, but we wouldn't get much for it; we just use it for storage. There was some damp on the ceiling, but it's been repaired.'

'I see,' I listen for the girl, but all I can hear is the sounds of the sea; waves brush the rocks or the piers nearby. I can smell the sea, too; something of its fresh dampness pervades the air.

'About bloody time,' Abberlaine Arrol says, her voice muffled. A click, and all is revealed. I am standing near the door of a large apartment, mostly open-plan and split-level and full of old furniture and packing cases. From a high, damp-stained ceiling an assortment of complicated light clusters hang; varnish peels from old, panelled walls. There are white sheets everywhere, half covering ancient, heavy-looking sideboards, wardrobes, couches, chairs, tables and chests of drawers. Other pieces are still totally covered, wrapped and trussed like huge, dusty white presents. Where there were vague areas of light before, there is now a single long screen of blackness where unshuttered windows look out into the night. Abberlaine Arrol appears, flat, broad hat still in place, clapping her hands together, rubbing dust off them, from a side room.

'There, that's a bit better.' She looks around. 'Bit dusty and deserted, but it's quiet, and a bit more private than your room on U7 or wherever.' She hands me back my stick, then starts pacing through the assembled furniture, whipping back sheets and covers, glacing underneath, raising a storm of dust as she investigates the contents of the huge room. She sneezes. 'Should be a bed around here somewhere.' She nods to the windows. 'Might be an idea to close the shutters. It never gets very light in here, but you might be woken in the morning.'

I make my way down to the tall windows, a length of obsidian framed in crackled white paint. The heavy shutters creak as they swing across the dust-dimmed panes. Outside and below I can see a broken line of white surf, and a few lights in the distance, mosdy navigation and harbour beacons. Above, where I would expect to see the bridge, there is only darkness, starless and complete. The waves glitter like a million dull knives.

'Here,' Abberlaine Arrol has found a bed. 'It might be a bit damp, but I'll find some more sheets. Should be some in these cases.' The bed is huge, with a headboard carved from oak to resemble a pair of immense, outspread wings. Abberlaine stamps off through the clouds of dust to rummage through stacked chests and packing cases. I test the bed.