THE BRIDGE by Iain Banks

Author:Iain Banks [Banks, Iain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan UK
Published: 1986-07-25T21:00:00+00:00

“So, what are your priorities now, Mr Orr?” Abberlaine Arrol rolls her whisky glass around between her hands, gazing through the blue lead glass and the light amber liquid at the flame of a candle. I watch her malt-wetted lips glisten in the same soft light.

Miss Arrol has insisted on buying me dinner. We sit at a window table in the High Girders restaurant. The food has been superb, the service discreetly efficient, we have space, fine wine, and an excellent view (lights twinkle all over the sea where the trawlers anchor the barrage balloons; the blimps themselves are vaguely visible, almost level with us, dull presences in the night reflecting the bridge’s massed lights like clouds. A few of the brighter stars are also visible).

“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.

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