No fog. On the Tyne. Fog on the Tyne all gone, all gone. Clear as a bell ... tolling the knell of a departing day. The river. Black, powerful, sinister and for some a means of escape.
Jolly, the man in the white suit, white as a ghost, strolling along onto the landmark bridge, oblivious of the traffic. In the middle he stopped to take in the view, looking east towards the sturdy bulk of the Baltic centre for contemporary art. Next to it the Gateshead Millennium Bridge like a graceful bow, like a harp, like an eye, a closed eye. Soon to open, to open the escape hatch from this dead world.
The Sage, overseeing all from the southern river bank like a giant eyeball, mourning its lost Princess.
Jolly stepped over a heap of newspapers, a pile of print blown by the wind against the railings. Yesterday's papers. He thought of the millions of papers he had prepared as chief sub of the Gee Gee, the Gateshead Guardian. All that effort, all that pointless energy. A waste of words the years behind, the years ahead a waste of words.
The Millennium Bridge had been cleared and was ready to tilt. The throngs would stand and gawp, a puny boat with a few punters who had paid for this dubious pleasure would chug under it, turn and go back. But Jolly would make his own journey, his last on this blighted planet. And he would exit with style, dive like a swooping bird, past the Sage, into the depths and through the open eye to heaven.
He clambered onto the railings and poised...
The papers below parted and a face appeared.
'I thought I heard voices,' it said.
'I said nothing,' said Jolly.
'That's what you say.' A blackened hand waved a crumpled magazine. 'Big Issue?'
Jolly swayed and almost fell.
'It's my last copy. You can have it for a pound and a bit. Actually I shouldn't be here by rights. It's not my patch. Not anyone's patch to be honest. But a little birdie...'
Jolly turned angrily and glared at the shabby figure who had emerged from his bed of newsprint.
'What the hell you on about? Can't you see I'm doing something important?'
'Well with due respect sir, so am I. Aiming to rehabilitate. Trying to scratch a living.'
'And I'm trying to organise a death.'
'Yes I thought as much. Get a lot of that round here. Considered it myself once, but it all went pear shaped. Well each man to his own gout. Actually I was trying to get to sleep under these papers, but it's too blasted noisy here. But I digress. Yes, we must all learn to respect each other's hopes and dreams. But if you could just empty your pockets, just lighten your load by casting off your loose change. It would mean more to me than to you, sir.'
Jolly had turned to face the intruder and the traffic. He'd have to be quick or some busybodies would try to intervene. He fished in his pocket and found some coins.
'Here, take this. It's all I've got.'
'Ah thank you kindly sir. And here's your slightly crumpled copy of the magazine. It has some interesting articles in it. Though this may not be ....'
'Just fuck off will you and let me do what I have to.'
'Certainly sir, I will indeed fuck off as requested. Indeed I am quite good at fucking off, having been instructed to do so so many times in my rather stumbling life. Good luck to you sir.'
The magazine seller watched as Jolly returned to his undertaking, straightening his body, legs together, shoulders back like a regimental soldier, arms stretched above his head.
'You look very dignified. You remind me of a picture I once saw of a man on a mountain top. In the Alps it was. There was snow. He had a red cape about his shoulders. You know you won't be needing a jacket where you're off to will you? And when you jump it will only flap in the wind and make you look ungainly.'
Jolly swayed precariously as he tore his jacket off and flung it in the rough direction of the irritating intruder.
'Just leave me alone will you?' he screamed.
'You are a scholar and a gentleman. You have doubled my wardrobe at a stroke. But what I would really appreciate is a replacement for these old shoes of mine, which like their owner have seen better days. If you could make this one last act of human kindness before you go I'm sure it would count for something in the life hereafter and your two soles would help one poor soul and save another soul as it were.'
Jolly did his best to take off his shoes while keeping his composure, but managed only one before he tumbled backwards, falling and flailing, frantically, and sadly failing to finish it all in the style he had envisaged.
'I fly in the blink of an eye to salvation,' he cried mysteriously as he toppled into the darkness, but the words were blown away by a gust of wind.
The Big Issue man held one shoe in his hand as he watched his benefactor's demise and heard a distant splash.
'Diddle diddle dumpling my son John..... one shoe off and one shoe on,' said the tramp. And then he heard strange, soft, siren voices wafting on the breeze singing:
'Take up his mantle
Lace up his shoe
The burden of conversion
Lies heavy on you.'
Yes, he was sure he'd heard voices.
The burden of conversion would have to wait though. He had a few quid now, so he skittled off to the Market Lane pub for a few jars and the rehab could wait.
Meanwhile some people on the pleasure boat, which was about to start its return journey downstream, thought they saw a bundle of clothes floating past them and underneath the raised Millennium Bridge. They debated at length about whether it could properly be called flotsam or jetsam or neither. Flotsam, someone maintained, was debris that floated on the water and could be anything from uprooted trees to bottles with messages inside them from sailors stranded on a desert island. Jetsam, however, was anything which had been deliberately discarded from a seagoing vessel, such as empty containers or unwanted cargo.
No, no, no, said another, flotsam has to come from the wreck of a ship, whereas jetsam means goods thrown from a ship that has not been wrecked. Yet another thought that flotsam was floating wreckage, while jetsam was debris that had been washed ashore.
A smart arse kid said flotsam was the spawn from an oyster, but no one took any notice of a know-all. In actual fact said the father of the smart arse, flotsam and jetsam are basically the same things and either term could be applied to any wreckage or discarded cargo whether afloat or ashore. Other passengers dismissed this idea when they realised that the guy was a lawyer and thus untrustworthy. You're all wrong said an octogenarian. Flotsam and Jetsam were a music hall act before the second world war.
Actually, said a young girl, I thought it was a body in the river, but people thought she was just being silly.
(c) John N Price 2008