We left York in the late afternoon - the park and ride bus was full of benign Northerners - raindrops beaded the windows - clouds thickened over the story filled city - I imagined Vikings, prodigal with gold, boarding the bus - perhaps George Hudson was keeping his head down at the back -
I'd looked at our route to the Humber earlier in the day - I'd been confident that the drive would pose no problems - I'd traced my finger over the bright maps in the big AA road atlas -
But soon I was driving around the ring road, at the height of rush hour - both lanes of the dual carriageway were the habitat of merciless drivers - turning onto the A 1079 required the mad confidence of an early balloonist -
It started to rain heavily - the rear screen wiper malfunctioned - we drove south, through growing darkness - I felt as though we were entering a desolate zone - we passed tiny secretive villages - I became aware of huge fields - I sensed an empty, ambiguous, countryside -
Then we saw the bridge - this immense structure rose up before us, brilliantly lit, the portal to some flawless Alphaville - far below us was a wide estuary, lost in rain and mist - slender towers marked the limits of the span -
The next morning, I gazed at the bridge from the banks of the estuary - in the pale, uncertain, light it still drew my eye -
I felt that, any moment, I would experience something miraculous - angels might alight upon those sweeping cables - silver trumpets would sound within the clouds -
No comments:
Post a Comment