6 FEBRUARY 1970
ANNA ROSEN STARED UP AT THE BRIDGE, into the high mass of steel girders tinged green under the floodlights. The tall figure next to her was silent, waiting for her to take it all in. Suspension cables as thick as tree trunks reached down from the arch to the roadway. The rest of it was an incomprehensible cross-hatching of steel spans. She felt the weight of the great structure, the pull of gravity and the tension in the cabling.
Even now, at 2 am, a constant flow of vehicles droned past and vibrations rang through the metal structure beneath her feet. These sensations were amplified by the drug, which gave her an icy clarity.
Anna jumped when Marin Katich touched her bare shoulder.
‘You ready?’ he asked.
‘Not until you explain to me how,’ she said.
‘Come here, then.’
Marin led her further along the empty pedestrian pathway until they were standing adjacent to the base of the nearest arch.
‘This is where we’ll go across.’
He pointed to the top of the high corrugated iron fence that ran the length of the bridge in order to separate walkers and cyclists from the two sets of train tracks going to and from the city.
‘I’ll climb up. Hoist you over and down. Stay low and wait until I join you. Then we go quickly across the tracks together.’
‘Aren’t they electrified?’
‘That’s just in American movies. Power’s in the overhead wires.’
Marin was standing behind her, so close that she felt the heat of his body. He put a hand on her shoulder and pointed to the base of the arch.
‘See that steel ladder? That’s where we’re headed. We go up the ladder, then on—right up the north face.’
Anna went up on her toes to see over the fencing. She saw a twenty-five-foot ladder that ended at a closed metal trapdoor. Above the trapdoor, she made out a narrow staircase ascending into the superstructure. This, she presumed, was ‘the north face’. She found this Everest terminology irritating.
‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
Marin raised an eyebrow. ‘You know I didn’t mean it like that.’
Anna didn’t respond. She was looking at the top of the ladder and she could now see an obvious flaw in his plan. Long metal spikes protruded from the frame of the trapdoor, precisely to stop intruders climbing around it so as to reach the staircase.
‘Have you got a way of opening that trapdoor?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Marin, clambering up onto the high fence. Straddling it, he reached down to her, but Anna hesitated.
‘You’ll have to trust me,’ he said, and she took his hand reluctantly, allowing herself to be hauled over the fence before jumping down onto the gravel beside the train tracks. A moment later, Marin dropped down into a crouch beside her.
‘C’mon, quick.’ He grabbed her hand again and they flitted across the tracks. ‘Follow me,’ he called and sprang up the ladder with the assurance of a monkey.
Anna stayed rooted to the ground.
Halfway up, Marin leant back and called out: ‘Quick, before someone sees us.’
‘This is insane,’ she muttered. Then she drew a deep breath and began climbing hand over hand, with great deliberation. She looked up as she reached Marin’s feet and saw him stretching out to the metal spikes around the trapdoor.
‘This is the only hard part, but I’ll be there to pull you up. You take the spike like this …’
Marin wrapped both hands around one of them, took his feet off the ladder and swung out over the train tracks. He dangled there for a moment, face to face with Anna, who had edged up the last rungs of the ladder. He was grinning.
‘Then you swing your legs up and over,’ he said, executing the manoeuvre like an acrobat, pulling his legs above his body and throwing them over one of the spikes before, in a single fluid movement, dragging himself up to sit astride the obstacle.
Frozen at the top of the ladder, Anna looked up at him.
‘You’ve got to be joking!’ It was an absurd risk to be taking. ‘This is a stupid boys’ game.’
‘Come on! I won’t let you fall. You won’t forgive yourself if you have to climb back down.’
Anna eyes flashed with anger.
‘Oh, fuck off.’
‘Go on,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I dare you.’
‘Stop laughing, you bastard!’ Anna yelled before she lunged out and grabbed a metal spike with both hands. Gravity pulled her body into space. As she hung there, both of them heard the sound of a train. It was quickly getting louder.
‘Hold on tight!’ called Marin and he grabbed her wrists. ‘Don’t look down!’
But she did and panicked at the sight of her feet dangling over the electrified wires.
‘I’ve got you! I’ve got you! I’ve … got … you!’
Marin repeated the words as the noise of the approaching train became a clattering roar and its headlights flooded the track with light. Anna saw sparks jumping on the wires. She pictured herself electrocuted, crushed and dismembered on the tracks. She felt his grip tighten.
‘Hold on!’ he yelled.
Hurtling beneath her, the train seemed to tear the atoms out of the air. Her feet scrabbled against nothing as the carriages rattled past in a long blur. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone—rocketing on to Milsons Point station.
Marin strained and pulled her up and over until they tumbled back into the enclosed staircase, collapsing together in a heap. Anna was on top of him and he held her tightly. She pulled herself free.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—’
‘Are you—’
‘Fuck, faaarck!’
‘—okay?’
‘No, I’m not okay!’ she shouted into his face. ‘You nearly got me killed!’
‘You didn’t have to do it.’
‘You dared me. I hate that.’
‘Sorry, but it worked.’
Marin pulled something from his pocket. A steel flask. He unscrewed the cap and passed it over. Anna took a long pull and felt the harsh liquor burn its way to her core.
‘Ahhh.’ She wiped her hand across her mouth. ‘What is that?’
‘Rakija.’
‘What?’
‘Plum brandy. My dad makes it.’
She took another long swig, holding onto the flask when he tried to take it back.
‘Steady, it’s pretty strong.’
‘Bloody train.’
‘That never happened before.’
‘“Trust me,” you said.’
‘Sorry.’
She felt the calming effect of the liquor and handed him the flask.
‘Thanks for not letting me fall.’
Marin jumped to his feet and pulled her up.
‘C’mon then, let’s go. It’s quite a way to the top.’
After they climbed the first staircase, Anna found they were inside the superstructure on a steep zigzag route to the top of the arch. She could see the long line of suspension cables extending off into the distance. Now, above the floodlights, Marin cast a Nosferatu shadow ahead of them, and her own spindly darkness was soon entwined with it as she hauled herself up after him. Eventually he paused on a landing, and she was grateful to take a moment to her get her breath.
‘This is a maintenance route,’ he explained.
‘Phew, steep.’ She was breathing heavily, in no hurry to move on. ‘How on earth did you find out about it?’
‘I’ve been coming up since I was a boy. My dad works here.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘He’s in charge of the maintenance crew.’
‘Okay. What’s his name?’
‘It’s Ivo, but on the bridge they call him Steve.’
‘Does he know you come up here?’
‘Christ no!’ said Marin, his face moving into shadow. ‘He’d wring my neck.’
‘Let’s get going then before he catches us.’
‘There’s no one here at night. He’s not the bogey man.’
Marin led her up a series of steep staircases. Through gaps in the metalwork, she glimpsed odd corners of the harbour and random lit windows in otherwise dark buildings. She began to imagine the bridge as a living organism. The maintenance stairs and passageways were the venous system, and way down below her were the arteries—traffic lanes, along which tiny vehicles moved, metal cocoons pushing twin cones of light ahead of them.
‘Nearly at the top,’ Marin said at last, pointing up to another steep ascent. Beyond his silhouette, Anna glimpsed the sky. She pushed on as fast as she could manage until she emerged breathless from the hatch into a night swarming with stars.
In spite of herself, she gasped, as rapt as a child who had climbed to the top of the world. ‘It’s beautiful.’
They had come out at the low end of the arch, close to the two hulking granite pylons flanking the northern end of the bridge. Down below, on the eastern harbour, the first signs of a breeze ruffled the black surface. The winking fore and aft lights of slow-moving watercraft crisscrossed it. On the western side was an array of massive petrochemical tanks and also docks, where the prehistoric outlines of cranes overhung the sleeping ships waiting for their cargo.
Marin came up behind Anna and wrapped her in his arms, breathing lightly into the nape of her neck. Surprised by his tenderness, she leant into his body. After a moment, he pulled away, and Anna found herself oddly moved by his unfamiliar touch but also puzzled by it.
‘Come on then,’ he murmured. ‘We’re only halfway there.’
The physical attraction was no surprise. She knew they had both felt it the moment they met. Such things happened—not often, but sometimes. Anna looked at him and wondered if she could possibly fall for such a man. They weren’t just strangers; they were ideological enemies, here together tonight, in this strangest of places, because of an unspoken truce that she could have barely imagined possible after the furious days she had just lived through.