Bridge Conversations

Soft rain on the window is all that breaks the silence - maybe some shallow breathing is audible to others but my damaged ears do not pick it up. The day started out bright and dry but the darkening sky drove us indoors to this quiet place, a place with no need for activity to fill it and we lie, just thinking. I have no need of it but I have hidden my face under the gauzy sheet to block out the harsh light of the room and this makes all I see ghostly and white, blurred into some sort of distant idea of the room. The window is the brightest thing, the dark grey contrast of a violent sky turned to gentle undulations, further distorted by the rolling of raindrops down the glass. The room smells clean, not feminine or masculine - just of neutral and natural chemicals. I speculate about how this is the most comfortable I have felt this summer; all the various nervous thoughts about the future or the present of place retreating to regions of the earth where they are more rational.

This morning we were sitting on the parapet of the railway bridge out by the radar station. The rolling countryside with its child's idea of England, all trees and steam trains, is punctured by these strange, weathered golf balls - the fibre-glass shields to the spinning domes inside them. From here, the motors that drive the invisible electronic ears can be heard whirring, the gears grating, all this mixed in with the sound of birds and a distant hum of traffic from some hidden A Road. Our bikes lean up against the wall where the lichen grows and sometimes we find lizards basking. We have no reason to be here other than the excitement of our proximity to military things though we know from Mary's parents that the soldiers here are simply to assist the civilian scientists. For every stiff-backed uniform at the gates or marching between huts, there are many others who treat this station like a normal office, a place for a desk and a pad - for ideas and for searches out to the horizon. They won the war here or at least part of it. This time-locked piece of history was missed by the Luftwaffe, never gave away its importance as the early radar span under camouflage netting and tested itself on low-flying aircraft. And people would complain about the deep drone of merlins that kept them awake. But of course it was "our boys" out there, up in the air risking their lives for the rest of us and so dissent was stifled and the secret kept - no careless talk here, no confidences leaking out in drink - just a distant buzz of EMF and now we can see in the dark. That is the secret.

Conversations on the bridge.

How secret is this place? I mean what are we supposed to not know about it that we cannot work out from being up here? There is nothing we cannot find out - it can't be that secret though I would hope the drawers and doors are at least kept locked and guarded by those grunts. They look more than your average soldier to me - a bit more polished, like they were all officers. No way! That one has a forage cap - can't be an officer dressed like that. Ok - a bit more educated than your average Marine. My Grandad was a Marine - in the war and everything, doesn't like to talk about it but then again I'm only a girl - it's really the sort of thing you use to bond with Grandsons. Why don't you ask him? You're boyish enough. Thanks for that!

(....long silence .... boy speaks and girl smiles again. Girl is eyeing up young soldiers at the gate though she does not want to appear uncool enough to wave at them.)

One of them could hit us up here with his rifle. Why would he want to? I hope he wouldn't - I'm just saying he could if he thought you were a spy or something. Do I look like one at all? Maybe with a Soviet hat but then again why would a spy wear a Soviet hat - would be a bit silly I suppose. You're rabbiting now. I know - just tell me to stop but don't think I've forgotten the crack about being boyish. Come on - you have boots on ... and trousers. I have long hair. That means nothing does it? S'pose not. Why do we spend so much time trying to look good when deep down everyone knows that very few of us have anything but pointless rubbish floating around in our heads? I like looking like this - I hate school uniform even if I am wussy enough not to bother rebelling, but the teachers all know what we think like inside 'cos half of them are only a few years older than we are. What is the point of this? (silence for a few moments) Answer please ... anytime soon. Dunno really. But you knew I was going to say this. There is no reason for us being here despite what the vicar says - though sometimes I'm not sure about him actually believing any of it. I read a book the other day - well part of it anyway - one of Mum's books from the sixties. There was a chapter about how so many Catholic priests don't believe and just keep going through the motions to keep their jobs. If that's Catholics then how many of your side are like that? My side? Which side are you on? The vicar thinks you are one of his. I'm in the middle, a neutral observer of boys' games. You never are! I don't believe any of it. That doesn't mean you are neutral - that means you are at an extreme. It's not extremity, I'm not amoral or immoral or whatever it is - I'm not an anarchist or anything. Not sure that has anything to do with it - you are at the extreme end of belief it that's actually how you feel - the vicar, or one that believes wholeheartedly in all that he preaches, is at the opposite end. That's rubbish - anywway I am right and you are wrong. I didn't say I believed any different from you. But you do though don't you? There are still fairies at the bottom of your garden and a core of rightness in the prayers you hear every sunday. Maybe (low voice - staring at my feet). More than maybe you liar. Not sure anymore anyway you haven't actually said anything about why you are right in your lack of belief. That's because I just know. It is my faith like a true believer has his faith to convince himself that what he thinks is true - none of it constitutes proof but I'll admit that none of it constitutes lack of proof - I just choose to believe in the simplest explanation. So that is that we came from nothing and go back to nothing right? Yes and the Vicar even says it doesn't he when he buries someone - don't remember the exact words but he says something about from dust and to dust - seemingly an admission don't you think? That only means the body - there is the soul as well. Prove it! I can't! You prove it isn't so. I can't either!

Is this an argument or a discussion?

Both of us smile and see together that the sky is darkening in the distance. Without speaking we are both calculating when we need to leave to get home before the rain and we both stand up at the same time. Mary waves to the guards at the gate and smiles when one waves back. We cycle home in indian file - the roads are narrow - but we see not one car. We pass an old tinker sitting outside his tent on a verge under some trees. We stare as we go by and he stares back but we do not speak to him. He carries on with his mending and the parish is silent again. We are back by the church. Some of the other local kids are hanging round in the porch maye waiting to shelter from the rain as we do occsasionally. We wave and they wave back but still no one speaks.

And now the rain is heavy, blurring the outside as it washes the window and splashes up from the ground to make a plimsoll line of mud round the house. We lie not quite asleep, untroubled, forming our beliefs, each taking on the other's ideas.