The swing bridge carries a lane over the canal and is worked by the boater with a key, and it logs every swing, because the road is closed while it is open and the council wants to know for how long. Every night at ten past twelve it swings. The barrier comes down on the lane, the lights go red, the bridge opens, and on the road camera a car is waiting at the barrier, an old one, with its lights on, and it waits the six minutes the bridge is open, and when the bridge closes and the barrier lifts the car does not move, and is not there.
I am the bridge keeper on a canal, which is a title for a man with a key and a cottage, and the swing bridge by my cottage works itself at ten past twelve.
The bridge.
A lane over the canal on a bridge that swings. The boater puts a key in the pedestal, the barrier comes down on the road, the lights go red, the bridge swings open, the boat goes through, the bridge swings back, the barrier lifts. It logs every swing, with the time and the duration, for the council, because the lane is closed while the bridge is open and the council has had complaints.
At ten past twelve every night the bridge swings.
The swing.
No key in the pedestal. The barrier comes down. The lights go red. The bridge opens, the full swing, and holds, for six minutes, which is the time a boat takes, and swings back, and the barrier lifts, and the lights go green.
The canal camera shows the cut, and the bridge open, and no boat. The water is flat. Nothing goes through the gap.
The road camera shows the barrier down and the lights red and a car. At the barrier. On the lane, facing the bridge, with its headlights on, an old car, a saloon of the kind that was on the roads in the seventies, and it waits, for the six minutes, with its lights on the barrier, and when the barrier lifts the car does not go through, and the next frame it is not there.
What has been checked.
The pedestal and the controller, replaced. The bridge swings.
The lane, at ten past twelve, by me, at the barrier. It came down. The lights went red. The bridge began to swing. And behind me, on the lane, a car pulled up. I heard it. The engine, an old one, idling rough, and the lights came on my back, and I turned, and there was the lane, dark, and the lights on me were from nothing, two headlights' worth of light on my coat from a car that was not there, and the idle went on, and I could hear, from inside it, a radio, a station that closed years ago, and two people, talking, low, the way people talk in a car at a barrier, waiting, and one of them laughed, and the bridge swung back, and the barrier lifted, and the lights on my coat went out, and the idle stopped, and the lane was empty.
Who.
The bridge has a plaque on the pedestal. Small. A date in 1978 and two names. The canal society put it up. The story, which the society's history has, is that the bridge had been opened for a boat one night in 1978, and the car had come along the lane, and the barrier had not come down, because the barrier was new and had failed, and the lights had not gone red, and the car had gone onto a bridge that was not there.
Two people. The radio, the history says, was still playing when they got the car out.
They are waiting at the barrier. Every night. For the bridge to close. Because the barrier is down now, and the lights are red, and they are doing what you do, which is wait, and the bridge swings back and the barrier lifts and they do not go through, because they already did.
What is done about it.
The swing is on the council's log every night as an unauthorised operation and the council has asked me to stop the bridge opening at night, and I have said I cannot, and they have asked why, and I have said, because the barrier has to come down.
What I do.
I keep the bridge.
The barrier did not come down and the lights did not go red and a car went into the cut. That is the whole of it. The bridge has been putting the barrier down for them every night since, and the lights red, and they wait, and that is the bridge doing what it should have done, forty eight years late, every night, and it is not enough, because a barrier and a red light are not what they needed. What they needed was a man with a lamp, which is what a bridge keeper was, before pedestals, and there was no man with a lamp in 1978.
So I am the man with the lamp. At ten past twelve I am at the barrier, on the road side, with the big lamp, the red one, the one the keepers had, lit, and when the bridge swings I stand in the lane with the lamp up, the way a keeper stood, and when the car comes, and the lights come on my coat, I walk to it, to where the driver's window would be, and I say what the keeper said, which is, bridge is open for a boat, sir, six minutes, and I stand by the car with my lamp for the six minutes, and I hear the radio, and the two of them, and the laugh, and when the bridge swings back and the barrier lifts I step aside and I say, all clear, safe journey, and I wave them on, with the lamp.
The car goes through now. On the road camera, since the first night I did it, the car goes over the bridge when the barrier lifts, and its lights go along the lane on the far side, and round the bend, and are gone, and the bridge logs a swing and the council logs a complaint and I log, in the keeper's book, which I have started, one car passed, safe, and I think that one night the bridge will not swing, because they will be home, and the council will be pleased, and I will miss the radio.