When she said that we should go the bridge, I just laughed.

            ‘You’re crazy,’ I said.

            ‘I know.’

            We were both right. She was fucking crazy.

            ‘What’s so great about bridges?’ I said. ‘Let’s just stay her and get drunk. I’m having a good time. Aren’t you having a good time?’

            It was just me and her. We were round at her flat smoking pot and drinking vodka. She looked like a mocca frappacino and thought I was falling in love with her. I know they say it’s a bad thing to do during your first year at university, but there you have it.

            ‘I want to go to the bridge,’ she said.

            ‘Does it have to be tonight?’

            ‘Yes. Tonight the wind is right. Tonight is perfect.’

            I looked outside. From her house at the top of the crescent we could see the bridge. A great big bridge. Built by some Victorian guy with a long name and a big hat.

            ‘Here,’ I said, passing her the bong. ‘Have a hit on this instead. It’s too windy to be thinking about bridges.’

            But she pushed the bong away, spilling water and grass all over the carpet, making a greyish stain.

            ‘Jesus,’ I said.

            ‘I’m going to the bridge,’ she said. ‘Are you coming?’

*

We got in her car and I drove as close to the bridge as I could, parking up right next to the toll booths. It was the middle of the night in February and it was blowing one hell of a gale. She had on a long black trench coat, and as soon as I stopped the car she got out and started walking.

            I hesitated by the car, and she turned around and yelled above the wind:

            ‘Are you coming?’

            ‘What about the security?’

            ‘There’s no security this time of night.’

I locked the car door and jogged across to join her.

            ‘Come on,’ she said, taking me by the arm.

As we were clambering over the high fence, a passing car caught us in its headlights. We were suddenly illuminated, our faces sheet white, all hair and suicide. The car passed and I thought I heard it slow, but if it did then it didn’t stop. You can’t stop for every crazy person that you see, I suppose. Not if you make this journey on a regular basis.

            ‘Shit,’ I said, as I lifted her up and pulled her over my jacket that was stretched across the top of the fence.

            She leaned towards me and kissed me hard on the lips. I felt her tongue pulse briefly against my back teeth. She bit my bottom lip, softly.

            ‘Come on,’ she said, grabbing my hand as we shimmied along the ledge.

*

Over on the other side of the rail and in the middle of the bridge, the wind was a hundred times worse. The wind doesn’t whistle when you’re this high. It welts and it pounds up here. It hammers into your cheeks like ringed fists.

            I had heard some of the stories, and now the fear began to really get me. The wind and the cold had taken the edge off the vodka and the pot, and I was really feeling it, the fear. We were both back from the ledge, holding onto the railings with our hands behind our backs and leaning into the wind that was full in our faces.

            ‘You see,’ she yelled, and I nodded. My God, you’re crazy and I love you, I thought, as I shut my eyes and I felt the wind whacking against my body.

            I opened my eyes and looked across at her. Her black overcoat was streaming at the sides and her long, loose hair was ribboning behind her outstretched arms. I watched as she inclined her head upwards, allowing the wind to ride beneath her chin, moving her neck slightly side to side so that it should touch all the angles of her face.

            And then she let out a loud scream, which was carried quickly away on the wind, and her hands removed themselves from the frosty metal designed to keep the cars in and the jumpers out. She leaned forward, daring the wind to stop and call her bluff, her arms spread wide like an eagle and the weight of her body floating above the air and the water like somebody had hit Pause.

            And I was going to reach across and grab her, I was, but she looked so beautiful, resting there against the wind, which seemed to acknowledge her and blow stronger in return. She leaned in further and I did not want to touch her, I did not want to break the spell. I wanted to say ‘I love you’, but I knew the words would be lost in the gale.

*

Below, to the right of the bridge, I saw the cars that scurried along the line of the river. As they dotted past, tiny and beneath, I looked over at her again. She was poised to slip and swoop at any moment, like some terrible bird of prey. I looked back at the cars, and I was struck by the distance between us that made them seem so small; and then I thought about my own speckish significance in the Grand Scheme of Things.

            The wind was still flaying my cheeks, but now there was no pain as I looked once more across the ledge. Calmly, I released my fingers one by one, spreading my fingers and my hands and my arms. The wind held me there as the tips of our fingers touched. I inhaled sharply, holding the breath, not wanting any part to move, afraid that we might suddenly become unfrozen.

            I shut my eyes, feeling all five of her fingers against mine. The bit on my head where hair meets scalp; the bulge of my eyes beneath their lids.

And then I felt myself start to drift, and the scream of the wind became tuneful as my chest and legs began to lose their weight. I felt the pull of the murky brown below; and wondered how it would be to fall; how it would be to tumble and roll and flip and just disappear. And then the lightness took a firmer gip and I thought that now, were I to let myself go, the path of my flight might be up, not down, and I would be carried away on the wind, up and away, and the wind was melodic as I felt my body incline, swaying on the brink.

I felt her arms around my waist, holding me tight. She rested her hands on my shoulders and whispered, ‘No, not tonight.’ She stoked my face and told me it was okay, it was over now, it was okay.

            I began to breath fast, realising how close I had come to THE END.

            As we shuffled the fifty yards to safety, she kept her eyes on mine the whole way to prevent me from looking down.

‘I love you,’ I said, when we got back to the land.

And she knew, all right.

            She knew what I meant by this.