When one is given the time to, you can begin to put things in order. With hindsight you can think about how you make the choices that bring you to a certain moment.
Why I went to that play. Why I decided to walk rather than take the nightbus. How I spotted her because her red hair glowed in the streetlamp.

Before I am aware of quite what I am doing I am over the side rail and standing next to the woman.

She looks at me shocked.

“What the hell are you doing?” she grunts.

I want to ask what the hell she thinks she’s doing at 2AM standing shoeless on the side of a London bridge staring into the Thames below.

Instead I gulp and go “Oh. That’s very deep.”

“Well, yeah” she responds “that’s the point. You CAN go back. Don’t need a companion right now.”

“No,” I shake my head “Made my choice and here I stand. Shaking. It’s really cold.”

She is warm. Large man’s coat. She is disappearing in it.  Drowning even.

“So what are you? Some form of hero?” Utter disgust.

“Oh. No. Just a man on a bridge.” I am slightly drunk. Not so drunk as to be brave but not sober enough to watch my words. A strange honesty coming out.

She looks out into the darkness and states “I’m going to jump.”

And all I can think to say is “Please don’t.”

I suppose she was expecting me to tell her that life was worth it. The people who would miss her. That it gets better. All I can do is ask her nicely.

And she looks at me and I think “You have very green eyes.”

Seems I said that aloud because she thanks me. So here we are. Jumpers holding onto the balustrade and staring into the ink below.

“In China,” I shut my eyes and begin and I am not sure why I am speaking but I am. “In China they hand out pamphlets on how to kill yourself. What poisons to take and what knots to tie. To cut down and not across. All to stop people jumping under the trains. Cause things to snarl and great anguish to the drivers.”

So I expect the splash. That this would be that shove. That my caviller, panicked attitude will result in terrible loss and pain.  Maybe she will grab me as she goes.

What would they tell my parents?

“You’re strange,” she says and eyes opening reveals she climbed back over. Leaning on the banister looking at me.

I ungainly topple back over the balustrade. I gasp panting on the side of the road. All the swearwords I can think off vomit out and I shake.

A police officer suddenly appears next to us. Lots of questions and she’s smiling. Nothing here officer. Of course I’d never climb the barrier. That would be stupid. Oh him. He’s wasted. On cheap whiskey. No, he’d never climb. He’s a coward.

So we are left alone and I am really scared I’ve peed in front of the policeman and the redhead but it’s a puddle and I’m okay and think I should email home and my sister and just say hello and-

 “Penny,” she says and she has a hand out. A perfect halo of light and her hair is a-flame.

“Tom,” I reply and take that dainty little hand.  She smiles and I smiles despite everything.

Not a hero.

Just a man on a bridge.

“How did you meet?” the friends will ask. And she will grin “Oh we met on a bridge.” And she sings in a band and cooks and has a dirty laugh and has tattoos and it’s all very fucking manic pixie dream girl.

I gave her another three months. That was something.

Now her blood is quite literally on my hands.

They’re going to say I hit her. The six foot two man with the angry eyes. The artist couldn’t control himself and struck her. Probably on that meow-meow you hear the kids are all doing. Why does she have bruises on her neck? Why does he have scratches? Why does he have bites?

A hotel in Chelsea. “Oh it should be New York, T. We should be doing this in New York. Giving you head on the unmade bed. Bless me. The young sir is blushing.”

I had stayed behind. I had to be at a reading of one of my works. To sit in the back of the room and have the director scream “Ignore him. He’s not here.”

So why rush? Why not lie in the sheets and sleep? And hold her? And let her bite and growl and laugh? Oh God that laugh.

She had been drinking. We had been drinking.  She had a gig that evening. We were good.  She had it planned. Going to sleep through the afternoon, grab supper and then swing and scream and shake in front of all those men and women late into morning. Then she will take their drinks and slip her hand into mine.

“Yeah. I like handsome men.”

“For me she makes an exception.”

But that is the future. Right now she needs to and I quote ‘take a slash’. Rolls groggily from the covers.

Her coordination was always rubbish. Had a bad eye so depth was a struggle.

Suffice to say there is a thump and what followed I can only explain as keening.

Keening of pain.

Keening of loss.

A woman who has fallen and struck the side of the bedside cabinet.

A woman whose teeth had cut through swiftly with the impact.

A woman who has lost her lip and now has flesh, meat, gristle, hanging from her face. 

And I hold her as she wails her loss. Whose great joy was to sing. Who won’t tell me why she was on that bridge. That was before me. Pre-T as she says.

And I hold her as her blood pours down my chest and she screams and I tell to stop and not to touch it and yes I know it hurts, of course it hurts and don’t touch it Penny and I’ll call for an ambulance and I’m not leaving I’m just here.

Please don’t cry Penny.

The paramedics come and they can’t withhold their grimaces as she pulls the towel back.

And they tell me quietly “We can’t stich into gum. Too hard.”

Will she lose the lip? She needs that. It can’t be gone. She was supposed to be singing tonight. Supposed to make a room want to be me so very badly.

They are going to put her in the ambulance. I can ride with her. And she puts out her blood-soaked hand to me and she begs. “Tommy” and it sounds guttural and wet and I am sickened.

That unspoken moment as I pull away and her eyes understand. Yet I do not. I think then it is just the blood and the sleep-deprivation. All these things I should have done. Mention to the paramedics how we met. Tell them to watch her. Tell them I didn’t hit her.

The memory blinds me. Us sitting on the balcony of her flat looking at the river and her running her finger across my wrist. “Across to the hospital and down off the bridge.” And she giggles and I kiss her because hush it’s not funny Penn.

I should ride with her. Hold her hand. Tell her she is going to be fine. That they can do wonders with surgery these days. She’ll be breaking hearts before the week was out.

It is right. What a lover does, what a friend does, what a hero does.

But I am not a hero.

“No,” I say “You go ahead.” So away Penny is wheeled. A halo of blood leaking onto the pillow through the gauze.  She’s not looking at me. Neither are the paramedics.

So I shower and use her violet scented shampoo and then I throw my bloody shirt in the garbage. I slip her coat on and pull out her wallet and go and pay up. Yes, I had heard about the poor girl. Awful. Cash. Thank you.

I arrive late to the read-through. It’s like I don’t even WANT my show produced. Now sit there and be quiet.

I gave her three more months. That was something. Never went to see her in the hospital.

I don’t know until the show’s techie puts a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, you remember Penny don’t you?”

No. Not really.

The entire bar raises a glass to her. Stories upon stories and I walk away before they can ask me to add something.

So I go to the bridge and look into the ink. Hands in her coat’s pockets. But I would never climb. I am a coward.

I am not a hero. You can all see that. I am just a man on a bridge.

I don’t think of her that often.