A Bridge to the Stars

8

The following day Joel found out what had happened.
When he woke up his dad was sitting on his bed, and through the door he could see Mrs Westman busy with a saucepan in the kitchen. Even before his dad rolled up the blinds Joel knew that spring was on the way at last.
He could tell from the birds chirruping outside the window.
He no longer felt cold when he woke up, but his knees were sore and when he felt under the covers he found he had scabs on both his legs.
Samuel hadn't gone to work in the forest that day. He'd stayed at home, sat on Joel's bed and talked to him.
It was Ture who had realised that Joel would never be able to get down from the arch. He'd run towards the streetlights and before long Simon Windstorm had come trundling up in his lorry. Ture had stood in the middle of the road, waving with both hands. Simon Windstorm had barely been able to understand what Ture said, partly because he was so agitated and out of breath, and partly because of his odd dialect.
But Simon had understood enough to grasp that an accident had taken place, or perhaps was about to take place.
They'd driven to the railway bridge and he'd seen what looked like a bundle of clothes clinging on to the top of the arch. When he asked who it was up there, Ture said it was Joel Gustafson, and Simon gathered it was the boy who had been with him to Four Winds Lake. He'd left Ture on the railway bridge in case anything were to happen, then driven to the house where he'd dropped Joel a few days previously.
As he didn't know which was Joel's door, he'd knocked on all of them. Old Mrs Westman had been scared to death and hardly dared to open up. She'd just peeped out hesitantly through a narrow crack. Samuel had answered the door, full of cold and with a temperature. When he heard that Joel was stuck on top of one of the arches on the railway bridge, he'd barely paused to get dressed. He'd pulled on his trousers over his pyjamas, and forgotten to put a sock on one foot. Joel could remember the rest, more or less, himself.
His dad had climbed up behind him and helped him down. Then Simon Windstorm had driven them home in his lorry.
Now it was morning.
Mrs Westman had knocked on the door as early as five o'clock to see if she could help them with anything. She'd lit the stove, and sighed and tutted at the terrible accident that had very nearly taken place.
But Joel was asleep.
He'd shouted out in his sleep several times, as if he'd been climbing up the arch again.
His dad carried the worn-out old armchair into Joel's room and stayed there all night, wrapped in a blanket.
Simon Windstorm had stayed for a coffee, but as Joel was asleep and it was clear that he didn't seem to be ill, he'd driven home in his lorry. That was at about four o'clock.
Before leaving he'd told Samuel that he and Joel had been to the little lake they called Four Winds Lake. He also told Samuel some of the things Joel had told him about.
They had no idea where Ture had disappeared to, with his shears. They didn't even know who he was.
But why had he been on the bridge in the middle of the night with a pair of shears? There are a lot of things that Samuel wants to ask Joel about, but he decides to wait a bit. Just now the most important thing is for Joel to understand that he's not still stuck on the top of that arch. He has to grasp that it's only a memory. Something that's over and done with. Something he might not be able to forget. Nor should forget. But it's in the past now.
Joel listens to what his father has to say.
But even as he does so, he's thinking about something entirely different. He's thinking about the dog he saw that night.
The dog that had stopped, sniffed the air and looked all around, as if it were scared of something.
Without knowing why, Joel suspects everything that's happened has to do with that dog.
He has to find the dog.
Maybe his dad could help him to look for it if he explains how important it is for him to find it?
His knees hurt and he'd rather not think about what had happened during the night.
It's something important that he can't understand.
What happened up there when the arch flattened out at the top? What happened when he was beaten by the bridge?
'A penny for your thoughts,' says his dad.
Joel shakes his head.
'I'm not thinking about anything,' he says.
That's a silly answer. Nobody can think about nothing. But he doesn't want to share the thoughts that are buzzing around in his mind with anybody.
His dad looks tired.
Joel wonders why he isn't angry. He ought to be. Joel could have fallen off the arch and killed himself.
'You could have killed yourself, you know,' says his dad, as if he'd been reading Joel's thoughts. 'I'd never have got over that.'
Those were his exact words.
I'd never have got over that.
At that moment Joel realises that his dad will never abandon him. He'll never do what his mum did.
Even if he does go with Sara and sleeps in her bed, he'll never run away.
Joel is absolutely certain of that now.
If he hadn't tried to climb over the arch he might never have got to know that.
It does occur to him that he ought to have realised even so.
He ought to have brushed aside the nasty thoughts. Ignored them.
In the afternoon Samuel goes to Svenson's grocery shop to buy a few things.
Mrs Westman has gone back to her embroidery. The whole house is silent.
Joel gets up and puts on his dad's dressing gown. It's so long that it trails behind him.
Who came out on top? he wonders. Was it the bridge that won, or was it me? I didn't climb over the arch, but I didn't fall off and kill myself.
Maybe nobody won. Who's the winner if nobody wins?
He fetches the logbook from under Celestine and starts writing. 'During yesterday's violent storm Captain Samuel Gustafson climbed up a mast to rescue an injured lookout. Once again Captain Samuel Gustafson carried out yet another heroic deed . . . '
Joel reads through what he's written, and it occurs to him that he ought to go back to the railway bridge. He must establish how high up he was. He has to do that in order to work out what really happened . . .
His dad makes pancakes for dinner. He burns himself on the stove and the pancakes turn black and stick to the pan. He'd also forgotten to buy any jam.
'I made a bit of a mess of this,' he says apologetically. 'There was a time when I could make perfect pancakes on a ship at the height of a storm. Now they're all black and burnt.'
'No problem,' says Joel. 'Burnt pancakes are pretty good as well.'
When they've finished eating Joel announces that he intends to go out.
His dad frowns.
'Where are you going?'
'I'm not going to climb over the arch. I'll soon be back.'
'You ought to stay in tonight.'
But Joel was already lacing up his boots.
'I'll soon be back,' he says.
When he comes out into the street, he finds that it's still thawing. Perhaps winter is coming to an end at last.
Samuel is watching him from a window. Joel waves.
He arrives at the bridge just as the evening's last train is thundering past. It's a passenger train heading for the northern forests and whatever lies beyond. Joel stops to count the carriages. The engine puffs away as it clatters over the bridge. He watches it disappearing into the darkness.
Then he walks out onto the bridge and gazes up at the gigantic arches.
He was lying up there.
He got that far.
So far that he panicked and peed himself.
When he pictures himself up there at the top of the arch, a terrified frog clinging on for dear life, he is overcome by fear.
Only now does it register what he's done.
If he'd continued he'd have been bound to lose his grip and fall onto the frozen river.
He'd have ceased to exist. It would have been as if he'd never lived.
He sees somebody walking over the bridge, and recognises Ture. Ture von Swallow with his shears.
They stand face to face, without speaking.
Then Ture holds out the shears.
'You didn't complete the climb,' he says. 'And you didn't pee on my head.'
Joel sees red.
'I can do it again,' he says.
'If I hadn't run for help, you'd still be up there,' says Ture.
Then Joel thumps him.
His fist hits Ture in the face. Ture is so surprised that he falls over backwards and drops the shears. It dawns on Joel that Ture is even worse than Otto. He can argue and fight with Otto, but all the time he knows why. Ture is different. Ture makes it seem as if The Secret Society is his, and that Joel is a servant who has to do as he's told.
The worst thing about Ture is that it's so hard not to do what he tells you. It's so easy to think that what he says is right.
In fact it's the shears that make Joel so angry. When he sees them he realises that Ture still thinks he should cut back Gertrud's climbing plants.
Ture has got to his feet again, but the shears are still lying between the rails.
Now he'll hit me back, Joel thinks. But Ture just stares at him.
Joel can see that he's frightened, and that gives Joel the upper hand.
'You come here and claim you're something special,' he says. 'Special and stuck-up . . . '
Now he'll thump me, Joel thinks.
But Ture just keeps on staring at him. That's when Joel realises that what Ture has said about running away isn't true. He doesn't know why he is sure of that, but he's certain even so.
'You're no longer a member of my Secret Society,' he says. 'You'll have to start a society of your own.'
It seems to Joel that Ture looks so small.
He comes here and plays the Big Man, Joel thinks. Speaks in a funny way and thinks he's somebody special just because his father's a judge and he has a room of his own with lots of fancy machines.
There are stewards on board ship. Servants. His dad has told him about them. But Joel has no intention of being Ture's steward.
'If we're going to be friends, you'll have to act like a civilised human being,' says Joel.
That's something he's heard his dad say. You can't have friends who don't act like civilised human beings. But Ture is no doubt incapable of that. He wants servants, not friends. He wants people to feel frightened by him, and then do whatever he tells them to do.
Joel walks away. He doesn't turn round to look. He's pleased with himself because he ended up on top. But at the same time he thinks of Ture's room and all the things he could have done there. Being the only member of his Secret Society isn't very good either. But he decides that it's necessary. And perhaps Ture will change for the better?
It seems to Joel that life consists of far too many perhapses.
And there's far too little you can know for certain.
Samuel is in the window looking out for him when Joel comes home. Joel waves, then tries to reach the top of the stairs in three jumps. He nearly manages it. Soon he'll be successful.
The following day he goes to school as usual. Nobody seems to know about what happened at the bridge. Not even Otto, who's back at school again, and marches towards him over the playground with his sneering smile.
Joel realises he is the bearer of a big secret . . .
That evening, when they've finished eating, he starts getting ready to go out.
'Going out again?' asks his dad. 'What are you going to do this time?'
Joel would prefer to tell him the truth. That he's going to see if the girl without a nose is at home.
But he doesn't mention that. His dad might start asking awkward questions about why his son is going to visit somebody who nobody but the ladies in the Pentecostal church mixes with.
Certain questions have to be avoided. If you don't want to tell lies, there's only one possible answer.
'I'll see,' says Joel. 'I haven't made up my mind yet, but I won't be long.'
That's a good answer. It's so vague that it can mean anything at all.
When he runs over the bridge he can't help but stop and gaze up at the arches soaring up above his head. A pity he hadn't scratched his name into the iron at the very top. If anybody else climbed up they would discover that they weren't the first to conquer the bridge.
When Joel gets to No-Nose's house, he notices that she's been trying to scrape the varnish off her currant bushes. And she's used shears to cut off the branches that had been completely choked by the varnish.
He pauses at the gate and tries to make up his mind what to say. He can't very well say they tipped the ants through her window because it was funny. That's a bad answer. An answer fit to make anybody angry.
Create fear, was what Ture had said. But he doesn't want to use Ture's words. He's not even sure he really understands what Ture meant. There's only one answer he can give. It's an answer that's both good and bad.
He can say that he doesn't know why he did it.
And even if he wasn't there when Ture smeared the currant bushes with varnish, he's not going to say so.
Ture doesn't exist.
He knocks on the door.
After a while, he knocks again.
Still nobody answers. There are lights in several windows, so she must be at home. Why doesn't she answer the door? He knocks one more time, belting the door quite hard now. Then he hears the gate squeaking.
He thinks it's Ture who's been following him, but when he turns to look he sees that it's No-Nose. She has a big parcel under one arm.
'You've come at just the right time,' she says. 'Hold this parcel while I open the door. Make sure you don't drop it.'
She produces a large bunch of keys and picks one out. Joel thinks there must be at least fifty keys on the ring. She unlocks the door, and when they get into the hall he hands back the parcel.
'Joel,' she says. 'I thought you would come.'
Joel doesn't like it when other people know in advance what he's going to do. It's as if they can read his thoughts. They invade his most secret hiding place. His head.
'I just happened to be passing,' he says, and regrets it before he's even finished saying it. Nobody just happens to be passing in a cul-de-sac.
He decides to come straight to the point, and give her his explanation.
'I don't know why I did it,' he mumbles.
He'd really meant to say it in a loud, firm voice, but something gives way in his throat. His voice breaks.
'That's all right,' she says. 'I know you won't do it again. Let's not speak any more about it. Take your shoes off and I'll show you what I've got inside this parcel.
She sneezes.
She puts her hand over her face and sneezes twice, three times.
How can you sneeze when you don't have a nose? Joel wonders. Does she sneeze through her mouth?
He follows her into the kitchen, which smells of heat. She carefully unwraps the parcel. It contains a globe.
'I found this in the attic at church,' she says. 'Nobody knows how it got there. Just look at this, though.'
She points at something on the surface of the globe.
Somewhere in Africa, Joel sees. Somebody has made a little hole in Africa.
'I think that whoever made that hole used to live there,' she says. 'Maybe a missionary, a long, long time ago.'
Joel runs a finger over the globe, tracing seas and sounds and coasts.
'Samuel has been to all these places,' he says. 'I'm going there as well when I grow up. Samuel is my dad.'
'Do you know what it smells like there?' she asks.
She stands on a chair and unhooks a little leather pouch hanging over the cooker. She holds it under his nose, and he can smell the pungent aroma.
'Caraway seeds,' she says. 'They come from Zanzibar.'
She points at the globe, an island off the east coast of Africa.
Something suddenly occurs to him. How can she know what it smells like? She hasn't got a nose.
Once again she reads his thoughts.
'I can't smell anything any longer,' she says. 'But I can remember the smell of caraway seeds from when I was a child. Every time I see that pouch I remember the smell. You can smell things even if you don't have a nose.'
She lifts up the globe.
They both hear at the same time that there's something inside it.
A gold coin, Joel thinks. Or a pearl. Or a lion's tooth . . .
The globe can be unscrewed into two halves.
'What do you think it is?' asks Gertrud.
Joel shakes his head. He doesn't know. But he hopes it's something exciting.
When Gertrude divides the two halves they find something that looks like a grain of sand. She picks it up and examines it under the kitchen light.
'A seed,' says Gertrud.
Joel is disappointed, but he doesn't show it. Gertrud laughs, as if she'd discovered the loveliest of pearls.
'It might be a seed from an orange tree,' she says.
'Or a tiny little flower . . . '
On the kitchen window ledge, the window through which they'd tipped in the ants, she has a flower pot. She pushes the seed gingerly into the soil.
'Perhaps it's still alive,' she says. 'Perhaps it will grow up and become a ginormous tree that eventually grows through the roof and spreads out its crown way above all the wooded hillsides . . . '
Joel starts telling her about his dad and all his travels. He tells the story of the water lilies on Mauritius, and the never-ending Congo River.
He wishes he could tell the stories as well as his dad can, but he can't find all the words he needs. Even so, he can see that she's listening intently, as if it had been Joel himself who'd experienced all the things he was talking about. Last of all he tells her about Celestine.
'You must show her to me one of these days,' she says.
Joel is surprised. How come that she seems to have forgotten all about the ants that he and Ture had tipped in through her kitchen window? Or the varnish that had ruined so many of her currant bushes? How was this possible?
And then he thinks that maybe he understands after all.
She's lonely. Everybody she meets in the street looks the other way. All she has is the women who go to the Pentecostal church.
How many people have ever sat in her kitchen in the evening and talked to her about seas and rivers that are far, far away?
It's hard to look at her face. The handkerchief she's stuffed into the hole where her nose ought to be is like a magnet. An eye magnet.
Even though he tries to look at her eyes or her forehead, all he seems to be able to see is the white handkerchief.
'It's OK, you can look,' she says. Then she stands up and goes to another room.
When she comes back she's taken the handkerchief away and replaced it with a red clown's nose. She's holding a lighted cigar.
'The only living steam engine in the world,' she says, taking a drag from the cigar.
When she exhales the smoke pours out of her red nose with a hissing sound.
Joel is astonished. Then he bursts out laughing. He can't help it.
She pulls a face and looks so funny that he has to laugh. It's the best kind of laughter there is. Laughter that simply has to burst out.
When he prepares to leave, she asks him if he'd like to come again.
He nods. He thinks she's like The Old Bricklayer. Different. Somebody who does the unexpected.
Now he knows two people like that, he thinks as he walks home. And now that Ture is no longer around, he'll let them become members of The Secret Society.
When he gets home he finds Celestine standing on the kitchen table.
The logbook, he thinks. Now his dad has discovered the logbook! But Samuel just smiles at him.
'I know what you're thinking,' he says. 'I lifted her down because I thought she needed a good dusting. Then I saw that there was a book underneath her. I gathered it must be yours. It's still there. I promise you that I haven't opened it. We all have our secrets. If you take your boots off and sit down, I'll tell you one of my secrets. You should only reveal secrets when you really want to.'
He stretches out on the kitchen bench.
Joel unlaces his boots and sits down on his chair. 'That night when I was woken up and you were stuck on top of the bridge arch,' he says, 'it set me thinking about what it was like when I was eleven years old. That's a long time ago, many, many years ago. It took me some time to remember, but the memories came back in the end. When I was eleven my father, your grandad, was already dead. I've told you about that, how he drowned in a severe storm when his fishing boat capsized and sank. When I had my eleventh birthday, in December, it was terrible weather. There was a gale blowing, nearly a hurricane. When everybody had gone to bed I got dressed and sneaked out. We lived by the sea. The wind was howling and I was nearly blown over as I clambered over the rocks in the darkness. I remember thinking there was something very special about that night. Something was quite certainly going to happen. I climbed out onto the rocks nearest the sea. I lay down in a crevice and waited for something special to happen. I hadn't the slightest idea what it would be. Nor whether it would come from the sea or from the land or from the stars. I remember shivering with cold. And the only thing that happened was that I got colder and colder. In the end I had to stand up and go home. I recall being very disappointed. But when I snuggled down into bed I realised that something very special had happened, in fact. The special thing was that I'd ventured out onto the rocks in a hurricane. I'd done something I would never forget. I'd been lying in a crevice with a hurricane blowing, waiting for something special to happen. That was a big secret. I remember it now. And I've never mentioned it to a soul.'
'Not even to my mum?' asks Joel.
'Not even to Jenny.'
It seems to Joel that he's never talked to his dad like this before. Something has happened.
Something great, something important. Something that grows and burns inside him, and makes him so excited that his face turns bright red.
Something that he can't note down in his logbook. Something that has nothing to do with words.
He knows now that he can ask awkward questions about Jenny, his mum. Or about Sara.
He's also certain that he can tell his dad that he doesn't want any sisters with Sara as their mother. He knows that difficult questions might not be quite so difficult any more. That doesn't mean that all the answers he gets will be what he wants to hear. But even so, maybe none of the answers will necessarily be awful. Bad perhaps, but not the kind of answers that turn his stomach over.
Today is a day he'll never forget. A special day. His and his dad's day.
'What do you reckon?' his dad asks. 'Is spring really on the way?'
'We must move to somewhere where we don't have snow all the time,' says Joel.
'We'll do that,' says his dad. 'We'll move to somewhere where the sea never ices over . . . '
Joel checks the thermometer fixed outside the window. Minus one. That means spring can't be too far away. Another month and the first cowslips will be adding a touch of yellow to a dirty ditch. Only one more month . . .

And spring duly arrives. At long last.
One day Joel sees his first cowslip beside a ditch where the meltwater is bubbling downstream. The days get longer, and the black waters of the river start slowly forcing their way up through the thick covering of ice. Cracks appear in the white lid, and the floes start working their way free. Before long all the snow will have disappeared from the streets. The yellow local council lorries will sweep up the remains of the sand and gravel, and one day the first copious rains of spring will arrive. It will rain non-stop for at least twenty-four hours, and afterwards, the only remnants will be the remains of the piles at crossroads, and up against the cemetery wall.
One day the kitchen is lit up by the glow from an electric cooker.
The old wood-burning stove has been dumped in the garden, and Joel almost feels sorry for it. It's now surplus to requirements. If nobody finds a use for it, it will disappear under a covering of grass, and slowly disappear into the ground.
One day in the middle of April they go to the cycle shop, and The Flying Horse is still there in the window.
Joel sees that his dad is put out when he discovers the price; but he doesn't say a word, just takes out his wallet and pays up. Joel cycles home as proud as Punch.
That night when he rode the bike into a snowdrift and was rescued by The Old Bricklayer seems a very long way in the past.
As the nights get lighter, all the memories of winter fade away. Sometimes, in his dreams, Joel returns to the arch over the bridge. But when he wakes up and sees the faint light of dawn seeping in under the blinds, he's in no doubt that he's lying in bed and not clinging on to the arch.
He sometimes bumps into Ture.
They say hello, but they don't have a lot to talk about.
On one occasion Ture asks Joel if he wants to come and play in his big attic room. Joel says he'll come, but never gets round to it.
Joel and his friends have started playing at the deserted old brickworks again. They split up into Goodies and Baddies, and chase each other through the underground tunnels and The World of the Rusty Machines.
One of these days, Joel thinks. One of these days I might go round to Ture's again.
He's not going to run away. He'll stay here. He'll start school come autumn. Then, maybe. But not now. . .
In a month. In two. In three years.
In three years' time they'll be on their way, Joel and his dad.
Away from the house by the river that will never take them to the sea. Somewhere out there, perhaps, is Jenny, Joel's mum.
Samuel tells Joel how it was.
'Maybe she was too young,' he says. 'I'd like to think so. Maybe when she had you, when she had a child, she was still a child herself? And maybe now, when she's no longer a child, maybe she regrets having run away? But she doesn't dare to come back, can't face looking her abandoned son in the eye.
'It's up to you,' he says. 'If you want to meet her, you have a right to do so, of course. If things are as I suspect they are, you are the only one who can help her to overcome her guilty conscience.'
'What about you?' asks Joel.
'It's different for me,' says his dad. 'It was so long ago. And now I have Sara.'
Sara with the red hat!
It's easier now, when his dad doesn't keep disappearing. Not least when Joel goes to the bar and sells newspapers. She tells the drinkers they ought to buy, and they do as they're told. Joel soon finds that he's saved up fifty kronor. He's never had as much money as that before.
Sara is fat, her breasts are too big and she has eczema. But she's a good cook and knows when Joel doesn't want to be patted on the cheek.
He can't understand why his dad is in such a good mood whenever he meets Sara – but then, he's realised that grown-ups are hard to fathom. Only the grown-ups who think like children and act differently are understandable.
Like Simon Windstorm and No-Nose Gertrud. Simon is old and Gertrud's a grown-up.
He can understand them, and enjoys being with them.
One evening when his dad is with Sara, Gertrud comes to visit Joel and he shows her Celestine. They examine her closely, and Joel tells Gertrud which are the most dangerous passages in all the seven seas . . .

Before he knows where he is, term comes to an end. It comes so quickly that it hasn't really registered until he wakes up one morning and realises that he doesn't have to go to school again until the autumn.
Then he leaps out of bed, gets dressed at top speed and cycles away on The Flying Horse.
Summer is boundless . . .
And the dog.
The dog that's heading for a star.
He never sees it again.
He thinks it might have been running so fast that it's already reached its star.
But then he thinks that this is a childish thought. Not something a nearly twelve-year-old ought to be thinking. But still.
He picks out a star shining brightly the other side of The Plough.
That's where his dog is.
He can't be childish for much longer, he knows that. Then his dog will vanish.
But it's still OK for now. He can still stop his bike and look up at the sky. And be confident that the dog got to where it was heading.
He likes that thought. It's a thought he'll never be able to share with anybody else. It's a thought that makes him who he is, and nobody else.
I'm me, he thinks. And I can still spare a moment for a dog heading for a star. And getting there.
Then he rides off.
There's so much he has to do this summer . . .