The End of a Perfect Day

End of a Perfect Day.

I glanced down at my watch and hoped she wouldn’t see. I’d timed it right; she was looking into the far distance and struggling to come to terms with the horizon. There was only eight minutes left before my shift was supposed to be over. Back at the station, I had been getting ready to go home, packing my stuff in my handbag, thinking about dinner… then the call had come in and I had come here.

I needed to distract her.

‘I used to live over there,’ I pointed. She looked up. Good, I had her attention. I waited to see if she’d speak, but no. I continued, ‘In the hills, just below where the trees are darkest. Lovely place. You should go there, it’s a nice day trip.’ She glanced my way, but her eyes spoke volumes of indifference. I carried on talking as if I hadn’t noticed.

‘I thought I’d live there forever. You know, one day they’d carry me out after long, long, years of sitting on the veranda in my rocking chair, watching the world from my front door, knowing everybody’s business. Maybe ten grandkiddies to play with…’ my voice drifted away across the sky and we both looked out, as if we could see the little words tailing like a kite, towards the hills.

The day had been perfect up until now. I looked up; cirrus clouds scratched across the blue enamel sky. She looked down at the river rushing below the bridge and her lank hair fell across her face. She leaned out further and my heart skipped a beat. My words froze in my throat, but I noticed that her right hand firmly gripped the guard rail.

‘But then everything changed,’ I continued, casually. ‘I hated it at first. I thought that nothing would be good enough, ever again. That it wasn’t fair. I never deserved what happened…’

For the first time she looked at me and saw me. My heart beat with a hope that I had made a connection. Her lip curled and she turned away. I tried again.

‘I moved here. It was hard at first. There was no one. Every night, no one here for me. Middle of a big city can be the loneliest place on earth. Everyone else had someone. Silence can deafen you. But it gets better. Give it time.’

She looked down at the river. ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

I looked at my watch, openly. ‘Six minutes to five.’

‘Friday. Nearly time for you to knock off work. You doing anything this weekend?’

‘No,’ I replied, without thinking.

‘Then what’s the point?’

It wasn’t really a question. She had made a statement. And she was right, what was the point? I asked it of myself. What the hell was the point? Another sunrise, another sunset, another rainy day, another perfect day, like this one should have been. I looked out towards the line of dark trees where I’d once lived and loved and been happy and expected my future to keep its promises. The old depression suddenly rolled over me; my stomach cramped and I leaned into the guard rail, dizzy, nauseous. Perhaps I should end it all? Perhaps I, too, should climb over the guard rail, perch on the tiny ledge, hang on tight and perhaps she and I could both drown our pain in the river below…?

‘Don’t you jump too!’ she cautioned.

My head jerked up. This time she looked directly into my eyes. ‘It was all down to everyone else,’ she said in a voice that dragged itself out of her throat. ‘It was always them. They knew best, they told me. I never did anything for myself. They made all the choices and they were wrong and everything went to shit. Well now I’m choosing.’

‘You can walk away from this. You can start again.’ I sounded desperate even to myself.

‘Did you?’ She looked at me curiously. A half smile turned her lips.

‘Yes.’

‘And did it follow you, your past? Did it wrap its cold clammy hands around your heart in the middle of the night? Did it trickle like a cold shower and wrack your bones?’ Her lips set hard into an uncompromising line.

I didn’t answer. Those cold clammy hands were even now wrapping themselves around my heart. She knew. She saw it in my face.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want that. I want to be free. This time, I’m deciding.’ She let go of the guard rail and stepped into the air.

I watched her dive like a cormorant, deep into the water. There was hardly a ripple. She never came up. The waves of depression rolled over me, churned me up, pulled me down, down, deep. I was supposed to have talked her out of jumping. I was supposed to bring her down safely. There was supposed to have been a perfect end, the end of a perfect Friday. But she’d jumped.

A police dinghy sped out from behind a bridge strut and circled, hoping to find her, cutting the waves with trailing rings of white spume. I leaned over the guard rail, watching them, watching the raging river. I wondered if I should make their job worthwhile? Give them two for the price of one. What would I decide…?

I looked at my watch. I had five minutes left.