Page 32 of It's Now or Never

‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha,’ I laughed in a breathless, slightly hysterical fashion so that the people gathered on the other platform looked over at me. I looked at Alex who was wearing his absolutely deadly serious face. ‘What? You’re not kidding? You really expect me to risk my life by going on that thing? No way!’

‘You’ll be fine. It’s perfectly safe. And we’ll go down at the same time. You did say you wanted a bit of excitement and adventure, Jen. What better place to start.’

I gulped. Alex clearly knew nothing about me. If he did he would know that this was wrong on so many levels. When I’dsaid adventure I meant purely from an observational standpoint, not from a gung-ho, let’s get involved standpoint. I’d wanted to travel and see wonderful sights around the world; I wanted to stand on a remote golden beach and gaze in awe at a magnificent night sky; I wanted to explore clear blue Caribbean seas and its collection of exotic marine life from the safety of a glass-bottomed boat or view powerful raging waterfalls against a backdrop of dramatic scenery.

If none of those things were available I’d be more than happy to be wined and dined by an extremely gorgeous man and then spend the night with him in his bed while he made mad passionate love to me. My views on casual relationships had changed dramatically over the last couple of weeks, especially as far as Alex was concerned.

One thing I knew for certain was that I didn’t want to be freezing my tits off on what was turning out to be the coldest day of the year, standing on the edge of a cliff, being coerced into what was a certain step to my imminent death.

‘Alex, I’m sorry, this is really lovely of you to arrange this, but I simply can’t do this. I don’t do heights, I’m afraid.’

He grabbed hold of my forearms and looked into my face, his eyes beseeching.

‘You can do this, Jen. It is the most wonderful life-affirming experience. When you take a step off that platform and whizz down that line it will take your breath away. You will never have felt so alive in your whole life. You’ll get to the other side and have the most amazing feeling of joy and satisfaction.’

‘The other side? I’m really not ready to go there, Alex.’

‘Stop it,’ he said. I could tell he was trying not to laugh and at that moment I thought my infatuation with Alex might be well and truly over. Yep, there were definitely more fish in the sea. Preferably more of the friendly laidback variety than thewoman-eating shark variety. His grasp, on my shoulders now, tightened.

‘You’re shaking. I promise you I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think you could do this. I promise you, you’ll thank me for this when you’re standing at the other side feeling a wonderful sense of accomplishment.’

‘I’ll thank you when you’ve got me home, safely in one piece,’ I grumbled.

I could feel my teeth chattering and my whole body trembling with fear and cold.

‘See that kid over there. He’s twelve and he’s been down three times already. If he can do it, you can too, Jen.’

‘Bully for him!’ I said petulantly. ‘He’s clearly that type of irritating child who does wild adventurous things. Like trampolining and tree climbing. I wasn’t like that as a child and I’m certainly not like that now. He can go up and down a hundred times for all I care, but I don’t want to!’

I could quite easily have sobbed, but I was determined to hang onto the tiny bit of dignity I had left.

‘Why don’t I drive down to the bottom and wait for you in the café. I’ll order us a nice pot of tea and some rock cakes. Who knows, I might even live really dangerously and order some carrot cake as well. Does that sound adventurous enough for you?’

Alex wasn’t impressed by my feeble attempt at humour.

‘I can’t force you to do this, Jen, but I think you should at least give it a try. You’ll feel amazing when you’ve done it. I promise you. And just think how proud you’ll feel. Hell, I’ll be proud too. Sometimes you just need to feel the fear and do it anyway.’

This was just what I needed, a motivational pep talk from Alex. Uncharitably I gave a fleeting thought to the owner of those damned earrings and wondered what she might do in thesecircumstances. I felt certain she would be the adventurous type who would be only too willing to throw herself off a cliff or at Alex’s feet, whatever he asked her to do.

He led me gently by the hand over to the aptly named launch platform.

‘It will all be over in a few minutes,’ he said ominously, as though leading me to my death – and I still wasn’t sure if that was the case or not.

I closed my eyes and let myself be manhandled by the instructors who strapped me up, checked my harnesses, touched me in places no self-respecting woman wants to be touched in broad daylight, gave me a good talking to, which I think amounted to ‘hold on tight’ but I couldn’t be entirely sure as by that stage I’d entered another realm. My eyes were stinging, my legs were wobbly and a trussed up Alex was waving at me like a lunatic from the other wire.

‘We’re in this together, Jen. Deep breaths and we’ll go on three.’ Suddenly there was a whole chorus in my ear. One… Two… On ‘three’, my breath was taken from me and I stepped into the abyss, a huge cavern of nothingness opening up beneath my legs.

‘Oh my… aargh!’ My mouth opened involuntarily and I screamed, unable to stop, although I couldn’t hear any sound coming out, just the wind rushing past my ears and my suit whipping madly around my body. I dared to look down for a moment, quickly deciding that was a very bad move and focused my gaze into the distance instead.

‘Aargggh!’ An invisible force pressed down hard on my newly acquired accelerator button as the line picked up supersonic speed and I whizzed through the air, an unhappy uptight wasp flying on a death mission. I snapped my eyes shut and held my breath tight. When I forced myself to open them again I gasped,energised by the adrenalin rushing through my veins. An all encompassing power filled my body. Suddenly I felt super-human, invincible and totally alive, invigorated by my own bravery and the beauty of my surroundings. I was flying like a magnificent bird of prey, completely exhilarated. It was the longest, and shortest, forty-five seconds of my life and I loved every single moment of it. As I came down to land, swooping through the air like superwoman, I realised my mouth was still wide open and now I could hear the sound belting out from my lungs. It wasn’t a scream any more, but a joyous whoop of delight.

Moments later Alex ran over to greet me, a huge smile spread across his face, before he scooped me up in his arms, holding me aloft like a trophy.

‘What did I tell you? You’re amazing, Jen. You did it. See, you are adventurous. I knew it all along, it just needed coaxing out of you. You realise you can do anything you want to now. Doesn’t that make you feel amazing?’

‘Yes!’

I was bold. I was brave. I was all those things and more.

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