A Surveyors’ Triptych:
Doggerland
…so, I became a Bridge Inspector. Not to tinker with engineering feats; no, no, I was trained to weigh up souls. Assignment number 69 in a rising, functioning career: the Bridge of Breadth between Britain and France. Officially called the Channel Bridge, initially named Bridgey McBridgeface by a winking British public, the umbilical cordiale became known as The Bridge of Breadth because of its unusual wideness and expansive sea views. Up North, some called it the Bridge o’ Bread, or even the semi-xenophobic Le Baguette, but thankfully the Bridge of Breadth stuck, proving that A. the truest poetry is colloquial and B. some colloquial truths are more poetic than others. What does a Bridge Inspector know about poetry? Assessing bridges’ souls is an art and a science and it extends to the structures’ very names. I gave the “Bridge of Breadth” douze points.
The bridge had stood without incident for six years, structurally, and soulfully, sound. This was to be a routine inspection though, as I unpacked my soul surveying kit that morning, I admit to being a little star-struck – it was the most famous bridge I’d ever worked on and I had never met it before, preferring to holiday in Ireland myself. Like all celebrities, the Bridge of Breadth was wider in person – and the curves! Well, I’m sure you’ve seen that voluptuous steel for yourself (I’ve always been a steel man). What does a Bridge Inspector know about curves? Assessing bridges’ souls is an art and a science and it extends to the structures’ very breasts. The body part of the inspection took up most of that languorous, balmy June afternoon and, by the end, I’d totted up all sorts of points.
Can a bridge’s soul really be boiled down to a mere number? Sometimes. Even when it can’t, at least some of the calculations will be numerical. It’s common for students of Bridge Inspection to stray too mathematical actually. As a trainee, I once gave the soul of Trinity Bridge joining Salford and Manchester 36.96% and was laughed out of the office; my supervisor skimmed the report, re-ran all my calculations in his head and awarded it a single blue ostrich feather. Of course! That man was a genius. Oh Mr. Mullen, I could have used your judgement during June’s trials and tribulations.
My crime? Timing. I dared to bare the world the Bridge of Breadth’s soul before it could… realise. God I was good! Too good for my own good. I rode those 35km from Britain to France and I rode every inch back again from France to Britain. It’s a hard job, alright. And I felt something, something stirred in me, something disturbing, a feeling so true it had to out: nausea. I swore not to give away the tricks of the trade but, between you and me, the crux of a bridge’s soul lies at the exact point where one place gives way to another. So you’ll understand my dream assignment turned into a horror film when I found that, in the Bridge of Breadth, that sweet spot of mutual surrender, of self-assured allowance, of cultural letting-go didn’t exist.
The identities, histories, personalities of Britain and France had become so enmeshed, there were no distinct selves to give way to. These two powerhouses of Europe were in a spatially abusive relationship; the third industrial revolution, its narrowing of tribal senses into sound-drowned echo-chambers, and its time-hopping globe-trotting traversions at the click of a button, had made us forget, on the one hand, that no country is an island, not even Britain, and, on the other hand, that no country is a continent, not even France.
Did you know that places can be as co-dependent as people and that the effects can be just as toxic? Neither did I until I wrote my dissertation on “enmergement”, as the phenomenon’s known (although only by a select few, it’s an outrageously understudied topic), under the supervision of Mr. Mullen of course. What does a Bridge Inspector know about psychology? Assessing bridges’ souls is an art and a science, and it extends to the structures’ mental health. My conclusion: the soul of the Bridge of Breadth could best be represented by not one, but two sickbuckets. My esteemed colleagues thought I’d gone mad, madder than political correctness, madder even than health and safety. My professional opinion was leaked. Then ridiculed.
Then validated. The events that followed, caused by the “realisation” (I mean in the technical sense) of the bridge’s soul, give me no comfort whatsoever. You’ll remember the ensuing national furores and the political fallout. Some demanded the countries’ conscious uncoupling (“what do we want? divorce!”) Others demanded a yet deeper union (“where do we want it? alors!”). Until neither sides’ incoherence could be ignored. Until the heads of state of Britain and France staged a meeting on the Bridge of Breadth itself, at precisely half-way. I wasn’t in the slight surprised when the two leaders shook hands and simultaneously began to projectile vomit. I was even less surprised that the crowds immediately started to hurl their guts, throwing their insides out between bursts of the national anthems until the entire structure was covered in gastrointestinal juice and carrots (have you ever seen so many carrots?); because what could one do in the face of such obvious mutual physical disgust but sing and sick in unison like Pavlovian babies in a cage made of musical theatre? Who doesn’t want to join in a chorus; but who knows how to take leave of while remaining ourselves? I watched these images splatter over my TV, my twin sickbuckets nestled beside me on the sofa. And I asked myself, as we all did: who could be at the bottom of the choreograph of such spontaneity? And I answered, as I believe we all must: who else but the soul of the Bridge of Breadth.
Did my diagnosis cause the resultant symptoms, as some sections of the press later claimed? Is it possible to diagnose symptoms that don’t exist yet? Having my workings exposed in The Sun (the serious workings of a serious scientist in that ridiculous rag!) felt like pulling my trousers down to all and sundry. I don’t know what’s worse: the misfortune that my first name, Robert, and the Bridge of Breadth could be abbreviated in the same way; or the fact that, to this day, those three letters proved so sticky in the minds of the British public (sacre bleu not the French) that that magisterial, divine, steel goddess is now called, apres moi, Bob. “BOB’S SICK”, the headline screamed, over mugshots of me and the bridge. Some commentators (even well-respected doctors!) put the “commotion above the ocean” (as the 23rd June shall henceforth be known) down to a highly infectious tummy bug. Others (including notable academics!) said it was simply an example (surely the most disgusting yet) of an outbreak of mass hysteria. Have you ever heard such hogwash? It’s enough to make you… quite.
My life became a miasmic whirl of paparazzi, hate mail and death threats so frequent I began to find them literary – “I’m going to take back your cunt”, though literally impossible, seemed somehow to contain a seed of profundity. I did receive some messages of support, including one resounding note in the post: a single word, “bravo”, written in blue ink, I like to think by a single ostrich feather quill, I like to think by the hand of wise old Mr. Mullen. It was followed by a summons from the Royal Institute of British Bridge Inspection and Traffic professionals (RIBBIT…p). The rest is geography. I lost my licence to practice, of course, became unchartered, and set myself to find a landlocked home far from water, somewhere I could weigh my own soul, somewhere with depth. What does a Bridge Inspector know about depth? I’m not a Bridge Inspector, so…