The Toll Bridge (22 page)

. . . NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO . . .

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. . . a friend of his. My dad is his boss. I expect he's told you that he's decorating the toll house because the owner is thinking of selling it (which we're all against, I'm thinking of starting a Save The Toll House protest group). At first he was working on his own – well, I do help a bit when I can – but for the last couple of weeks another boy has been helping and they reckon they'll be finished by the end of next week, which is great because it means they'll be all done just in time for Christmas.

I thought it might be a good idea if we had a surprise party on Friday 13th (nothing like tempting fate!) to celebrate the end of the decorating. And I wondered if you'd like to come. He's talked about you a lot, that's how I know about you. I sneaked your address from a letter I saw lying on his table. I hope you don't mind, but it was the only way of finding out where you live without him knowing.

It would be great if you could come, the best surprise of all. It would do him good after everything he's been through and working so hard, and anyway I'm dying to meet you . . .

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MAYBE THE TROUBLE
is thinking of days as clock time, regular mechanical measure, when, maybe, time isn't like that at all. We just like to pretend it is because then we feel in control of it. When probably there is nothing to control. What we're doing is confusing different kinds of words. You can measure length. You can't really measure time. How do you measure the past or the future? And the present doesn't have any length, being simply Now. If we try to measure ‘now' we find it's always gone, has become part of the past. We shouldn't use measuring words about it, then we wouldn't get so confused about what Time is.

Besides, it seems to me that everything we know of in the universe, everything from clocks to supernovas, every
thing
is both a physical object
and
a shape of energy. Nothing exists, nothing happens without energy. Energy
is
things; things
are
energy. Life is energy. People are energy made flesh. Maybe Time is a form of energy as well?

Is that true? If it is, then it is also true that energy can be compressed into concentrated, powerful units (50 watt bulbs, 100 watt, 2000 watt: energy packaged as light). We know this. We experience it every day around us. So why not the same for human beings and for Time? Surely our lives – our lives as we live them during one day, and our lives as we live them during another day – are also packets of energy? And on some days we somehow concentrate more energy into the day and get more done in the same period of clock time than we did another day when our energy was on low wattage.

So time is not really like clockwork at all, but is a variable resulting from the interaction between energy and thought expressed as event. Energy + Thought = TimeEvent.

Which explains why sometimes we talk of
filling time
(meaning: being easy on ourselves by living our lives at low wattage). And of
making time
(meaning: not that we make more of it in quantity, but that we make more of it in quality – living life with as high wattage as we can). And of there being
not enough time
to do all we want to do (meaning: our ambitions for our lives can't be satisfied and all our flooding energy can't be used up). And of
killing time
(meaning: we wilfully squander the present moment). And of
passing time
, and
wasting time
, and
saving time.

When I was a baby my mother hung a plaque above my bed, a sliver of varnished wood with these words literally burned into it:

When I was fourteen I took the plaque down and secretly burned it because I thought it embarrassingly corny. I mean, who wants to bring friends to his room and have them see that kind of kiddy kitsch hanging over the bed? Anyway, it was asking for ribald jokes. But the trouble with clichés is that they stick. I haven't forgotten it because in its trite and twitchy way it is also true. Even time, and how much we can do in a set time, depends as much on our state of mind as it does on anything else. Because of my time at the toll bridge, and because of my time with Adam I know I want to be a user of time, not a filler of it, a maker of time not a killer of it, a compressor of energy not a so-whatter. Adam did not teach me this, but I learned it from being with him at the bridge.

But this part of the story is about a twenty-four-hour stretch into which we all crammed enough watts, gave each other enough surprises, and suffered enough shocks to last a lifetime.

Do we ever know our friends? Do we ever know ourselves?

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Earlier that afternoon, Adam said, ‘Don't half fancy a movie.'

‘Go!' Tess said. ‘Both of you. I'll guard the bridge. Go on! Don't dither! Shop on the way back. Go!'

A stratagem, of course. Betrayal. Returning that evening the house is sardined, pulsing.

‘Surprise, surprise!'

Wild cheers.

‘What the hell's going on?'

Shopping bag grabbed from my hand.

‘Who are all these people?'

Replaced by slopping glass.

More wild cheers.

Tess, beside me, blows one of those referee's searing whistles.

‘Listen, everybody,' she yells.

Hushings. Exaggerated party laughter.

‘This is a surprise party for Jan, my friend.'

‘Who certainly looks surprised.' (Isn't he one of the university cohort we saw that day with Adam at the Pike?)

Laughter.

‘With a bigger surprise still to come,' Tess goes on.

‘Ooo – naughty, naughty!'

Cheers. Obscene fingers and fists.

‘Also, this is the first meeting of
PATHS
.'

‘Hear, hear!'

‘Which, for Jan's benefit, as he doesn't know yet, means Protest Against the Toll House Sale.'

‘Bravo!'

‘Encore!'

‘He doesn't know yet because we've just decided it while he was out.'

‘Right on!'

‘Let's hear it for the toll house. Hip, hip . . .'

‘Hooray.'

‘Henry.'

Laughter.

‘What we're going to do for a start is collect names on a petition to stop the sale.'

‘Right on!'

‘Where do I put my cross?'

‘We'll decide other things later. Now, everybody enjoy yourselves.'

Someone – Adam – sets taped rock rolling. The sardines writhe.

The noise is blinding. Anger withers my mouth. I gulp from the drink. Tastes multicultural.

‘What is this?'

‘House warming. Come on, let your hair down.'

Tess makes me dance with her. Or what passes for dancing in a sardine tin. Mass squirming.

‘Who are they all?' I have to shout, mouth to car.

‘Friends from school,' she replies, her lips tickling my lobes. ‘A few from the village. One or two of the girls from Tesco's. Don't know the others. You know how it is. Word gets round.'

‘Could've warned me.'

‘Wouldn't have been a surprise then, would it, idiot!' The house throbs. If I go outside, will I see the river rippling in harmony, the bridge undulating in rhythm? My mind gives up. There's no competing with a noise that pulsates your teeth.

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