Over the Bridge

Peering through the bush, I see a couple soaking in the watery sunshine falling against a broken house. The bridge is near invisible from the road, but I’m reluctant to intrude. I walk back along the road to try and gain a better view.

“Jump the fence if y’want.” A man’s voice drifts up to me. “You wanna see the bridge don’t ya?”

Bravely, I pick my way through ancient machinery, past a dust-coated mongrel, to the house. The man’s bare wiry chest and sharp eyes give him the appearance of a terrier, healthy but worn. His wife smiles vacantly toward the sky, singlet sagging over rounded belly, bare feet planted wide on the sandy soil.

“You been before? People don’t stop ‘less they know what’s here.”

“My grandmother use to live in Utiku. She was here when the bridge collapsed.”

The man chews his lip and looks me up and down. Then he sticks out his hand, accepting my explanation and my presence. “Geoff. This’s Marlene.” He nods sideways.

“No one stops any more. My son doesn’t even come back. He’s atta meat works in Australia.” Pride spills from his smile. “Sucks the spines outta cows. Good job, eh?” The grin spreads as he registers my shock. “So, you wanna see the bridge?”

Leaving Marlene to her silent examination of the clouds, he leads the way, skipping over rusted sheet metal and wire that thrusts up through the soil. I follow, alternating my careful observation between the wired ground, the slope and the approaching cliff.

“That’s where we found Dot Watson.” Geoff indicates the bottom of the gorge. “Didn’t make it all the way down. Wind caught ‘er. Hit the rocks. Lived here all her life. Family were gonna put her in a home. That flat bit? That’s where we found Jo from the freezing works. They closed down in June and we found him in July. Pigs, people, sheep. They all end up here.”

I teeter near the edge, holding tight to the one firm rail. We are joined by the dog who picks his way over to sit at Geoff’s feet and gaze up at him adoringly.

“Happiest dog in the world, eh.” He looks toward me, considering my tight grip on the railing. “Best way to be happy. Have no brain to think.”

That evening, on flat ground at the motel bar, I kill a few brain cells of my own as I reflect on Geoff’s theory of happiness with a beer. I did not tell Geoff that my grandmother saw the bridge fall and take a bullock drover with it into the gorge. My own family folklore, the reason for my being at the bridge, is insignificant next to the lives lost in his backyard.