‘God, sweetie, it looks like a carnival threw up in here,’ Maya said from the doorway, just as Paige was placing the pyjamas on the bed. Her normal house guests were a good deal younger than her best friend; the other spare bed was currently covered in washing waiting to be put away, and Paige couldn’t be bothered to clear it.
‘I’ll just go and get you some water and then I’ll turn in. Do you need anything else?’
‘Nah, I’m good,’ Maya said as she fumbled with the buttons on her shirt, not bothering to wait for Paige to leave.
Paige went back downstairs and filled a bottle with water; she didn’t trust her friend not to spill a glass everywhere in her inebriated state. Rooting around in the utility room she managed to find some painkillers for Maya’s inevitable headache in the morning. By the time she had made it back up the stairs she could already hear her best friend lightly snoring. She tiptoed into the room to place the bottle and tablets on the nightstand. Maya had fallen asleep on top of the duvet, half undressed, so Paige grabbed a blanket and carefully laid it over her, tucking her in. As she left she paused in the doorway to look at the slumbering form. She couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like not seeing Maya every other week, which was the pseudo-routine they had fallen into over the last few years. She gently closed the door behind her.
Paige quietly got ready for bed, even though she thought a bomb going off wouldn’t wake Maya. She lay down and closed her eyes, expecting sleep to come quickly like it usually did. Instead, Maya’s drunken suggestion about Taylor kept playing around in her mind. She got the familiar twinges in her stomach that indicated her anxiety was about to flare up, so she forced herself to think of something else. Her niece and nephew would be coming to stay soon, so she started planning various walks for them to go on, and different fairy tales she could tell them about the forests they were exploring. As she drifted off to sleep her head was filled with thoughts of woodland elves and monsters hiding in felled trees, and happy little children exploring and trying to catch sight of them.
TAYLOR
Taylor had driven Dylan home. She had intended on just dropping him at the door and heading home herself, but he had been conspicuously quiet during the drive, so she invited herself up. Dylan didn’t protest, but she wasn’t entirely sure she was welcome. She followed him through the first set of doors and up the winding stairs in complete silence. The only sounds were their footsteps on the tiles and the tinkling of the keys in Dylan’s hand.
‘You alright?’ Taylor asked when they finally got to his front door.
‘Fine,’ Dylan said unconvincingly. But still, he held the door to the flat open for his sister.
‘Tea?’ he offered politely.
‘Have you got any decaf coffee?’ she asked. He glared at her in response.
‘Of course I do, I always have some knocking around in case you visit. I don’t know how you can drink that stuff,’ he muttered, turning his back on her and beginning to make the drinks. The white tiles of the kitchen felt cold under the fluorescent light, with the blue walls adding to the chill of the room.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Taylor asked, pressing.
Dylan didn’t answer straight away. Instead, he carried on making his tea and her coffee, giving the drinks all his attention. He stirred the sugar into his tea quite vigorously. Once he was finished, he unceremoniously shoved Taylor's mug into her hands, before blurting out, half angry and half hurt, ‘You don’t trust me, do you?’
‘What do you mean?’ Taylor asked with feigned ignorance.
‘You don’t trust me to be able to go into a pub and not drink. Were you really in the area or were you just hovering?’ he asked, more aggressively than he meant to.
‘I was really in the area,’ Taylor said softly. ‘I finished late in work, and by the time you told me where you were, I was basically back at my car.’ Dylan glared at her some more. ‘But yes, I was probably hovering too,’ she said quietly. Dylan huffed and put his drink down on the table with force, slopping tea everywhere. He grumpily got some paper towels and began clearing it up.
‘I just worry about you, alright! I know how hard you’ve worked to stay sober, and I want to do everything I can to support you with your sobriety. I don’t even drink anymore!’
‘I never asked you to stop drinking! I never asked you for any of this! You’re not my parent, or a support worker, you’re my sister! Can’t you just be my sister?’ he said pleadingly, before trailing off, deflated.
‘This is me being your sister. Sisters worry. It’s in the job description,’ she said, trying to appease him.
‘I know, just... Stop hovering, OK? I can take care of myself,’ Dylan said, calming down.
‘OK’ Taylor said gently, ‘OK, I hear you. Backing off. But I’m always going to worry, OK? I’ll always worry about you. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ Dylan mumbled under his breath, looking at the floor. Taylor stepped towards him and embraced him tightly. He half-heartedly hugged her back, before returning the squeeze full force and picking her up, making her scream.
‘Hey! Just ’cause you’re bigger and stronger than me!’
‘Brother’s prerogative?’ he said with a sheepish grin as he put her down. She slapped him lightly on the arm while smiling. There was that pain in the arse she knew so well.
The siblings said their goodbyes and Taylor let herself out, leaving Dylan by the sink washing up the mugs they had just used. Listening to the echoes of her footsteps down the stairs, she re-played what he had said in her head. She didn’t want to smother him, but watching him go off the rails last time had broken her heart. Their parents had found an excellent treatment facility for him, but he hadn’t exactly gone willingly; they’d given him an ultimatum, it was that or he would be kicked out. She could still feel the hurricane she’d felt in her stomach when the intervention started. She could still remember the look of betrayal on his face when it became her turn to speak. That expression would be etched in her mind for the rest of her life.
Taylor sighed as she got back in her car, watching the light go off through his kitchen window. She needed to let him stand on his own.
CHAPTER FIVE
Helped Back on the Horse
Taylor stood in the entrance to the climbing centre, folding and unfolding her arms. Every now and again she would take a few steps and glance out the door or up at the clock on the wall. Dylan was supposed to have met her here twenty minutes ago, having finally decided to brave public transport. The windows into the climbing area revealed that the climbing club was in full swing. People were pairing up and starting their climbs. She was just starting to worry when Dylan finally replied to her text:
‘Missed the bus sorry, should be there in half an hour. Start without me.’
Taylor sighed and put her phone away in her bag. Easy for him to say. He’d already learnt the names of everyone in the club and even had in-jokes with some of them. She told herself that the only reason she was there was to make sure Dylan actually managed to get there by bus. Taylor toyed with the idea of relocating to the cafe, but she’d already eaten that evening and didn’t want to buy a drink just for the sake of it. Then again, she felt awkward just standing there in the foyer. Thankfully, she remembered the existence of the auto-belay and headed in to the climbing wall. It took a few seconds for her to acclimatise before registering that the auto-belay was in use. A few chairs scattered in one corner provided a safe retreat. She tried wasting time, rummaging in her bag and dawdling when putting her climbing shoes on, but the auto-belay remained occupied. Sitting there alone somehow made her more conscious of her body and her breathing, and the sight lines of everyone else in the room, so she slipped quietly over to the bouldering wall.
The smaller enclosed space felt safer. Several of the bouldering walls sloped inward, providing a greater climbing challenge, and affording Taylor somewhere to hide. There were a couple of young children climbing horizontally around the walls, rather than up one
particular route, giggling as they chased each other. Taylor waited for them to pass before surveying a route, mentally going through the moves she would need to use. It was something she used to do a lot as a teenager, and the rusty cogs were slowly grinding into life. The route grading cards normally stuck to the bottom of the wall seemed to be missing She knew she hadn’t picked the easiest route, but her steady improvement over the last few weeks gave her confidence to try. Climbing regularly with Dylan meant she was getting some of her old form back. The last part of the climb involved almost crouching on two foot holds, with her hands on a third, and launching herself at a large hold with a concave top, known as a jug. The lip of the jug would allow her to wrap her fingers over it, giving her enough purchase to handle her momentum from the jump.
Happy with her plan, Taylor arranged her limbs into the starting position and began to climb. She had barely got a metre off the ground before questioning her route. She could feel a trickle of sweat between her tense shoulder blades as she hauled herself up to the halfway point, making a mental note to work on her grip strength. She scolded herself almost instantly - she was only here for Dylan, she wasn’t going to take up climbing again, so didn’t need to work on her grip strength, or anything else for that matter. Steadily she navigated her way to top of the bouldering wall, a slight burning in her forearms telling her she hadn’t used her legs enough. Finally, she positioned her hands and feet like she had planned and set up for the dynamic move; a coiled spring ready to launch. Taking one last steadying breath she leapt from her position, up, arms outstretched, towards the giant hand hold at the top of the wall, and just as she made contact with it she realised her terrible mistake. The hold was not, in fact, a jug. It was just a regular hold. For regularly training climbers this would have been no problem; but Taylor’s experience alone wasn’t enough to make up for how out of practice she was. She scrabbled at the coarse surface, her momentum causing her legs to keep going, swinging her up to an almost horizontal position before her hands slipped off the hold. The top of the wall rapidly grew distant. In a split second Taylor landed on the crash mat, flat on her back. The unmistakable slapping sound her body made as it hit the material drew the attention of everyone in the vicinity. Taylor blinked a few times, trying to re-orientate herself. She had managed to avoid landing directly on her head, which was something. But then she tried breathing, and nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity she took a giant rasping breath in and began coughing, still lying prone on the crash mat.
‘It’s OK, you’re OK,’ a voice said from somewhere above her. She could vaguely see the almost fluorescent green shirts of the staff in her periphery; but it was Paige who had got to her first, kneeling on the crash mat beside her and helping her into a sitting position.
‘Easy now,’ Paige said gently with her hand carefully placed on Taylor’s back. The dark spots that had started appearing in front of Taylor's eyes were slowly abating as her breathing steadied. Once she had fully regained control of her diaphragm, her brain seemed to divert all its energy into turning her face bright red as she became aware of the crowd of people starting at her. She tried to scramble to her feet, but Paige held fast on to her arm.
‘I think we’re OK here guys, thank you. I’ll call you if we need anything,’ she said to the staff members authoritatively. Taylor didn’t hear them respond but the fluorescent green in her periphery faded away.
‘I wouldn’t try standing just yet, give yourself a few minutes.’ Taylor felt like her vocal cords were paralysed, so she just nodded in response. The draught of air from her crash landing had caused the lost grading card to reappear, flipped the right way up. Catching sight of it, Taylor groaned. The route she had attempted was much harder than she anticipated.
‘Are you hurt?’ Paige asked in response to the noise. Taylor shook her head. The slight crimson on her cheeks changed to a deep red.
The rest of the climbers had gone back to their own activities, and Taylor felt the paralysis on her vocal cords ease. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your climbing.’
‘I know. I was only watching though. Dylan asked if he could climb with me as you weren’t coming tonight, so I hadn’t partnered up with anyone. I’m glad you were able to make it in the end.’
‘Yes,’ Taylor said through slightly gritted teeth. ‘I’m glad I could make it too.’ Paige didn’t seem to register her sarcasm. ‘I feel OK now’ Taylor said, slowly getting to her feet. Paige was still holding on to her arm, and Taylor wasn’t sure her close proximity was helping with her balance. She was planning on making small talk just long enough to be polite before leaving, never to return. Paige didn’t give her that chance.
‘Would you like to do a rope climb? To, err... get back on the horse?’ Taylor was unsure if Paige was asking her the question, or questioning her own idiom. ‘I’d be happy to belay you. I would have offered sooner but I didn’t notice you were here.’
Taylor smiled politely back, but her insides squirmed at the thought of having Paige solely focused on her as she climbed, considering she had just scraped her up off the crash mat.
‘How about I belay you?’ Taylor suggested. ‘You’ve been letting everyone else climb while your arm healed, it’s definitely your turn.’
Paige paused before responding. ‘Sure, I’d like that.’ She smiled.
The two women unsteadily made their way off the soft crash mats and onto the climbing room floor. They made a quick detour to retrieve Taylor’s harness before Paige made a bee-line for a feature in the back right corner. Three walls, heavy with inset features and dark but detailed colour, created a small chimney-like void that went almost to the ceiling. Taylor hadn’t tried any of the routes here, but Paige seemed to know it well; she didn’t even glance at the grading cards. Taylor knew that the way the walls twisted and undulated meant she would have to be hyper-vigilant when belaying, as she wouldn’t always be able to see Paige. Her stomach started twisting into knots. Paige however was already tying in. Taylor watched as Paige’s nimble fingers deftly made the figure-of-eight knot popular with climbers. Eventually she unhooked the belay device from the side of her harness, threaded the rope through it, and re-attached it to a loop on the front. She double and triple checked everything was secure.
‘Ready?’ Paige asked
‘R-ready,’ Taylor stammered back. Her days of climbing multiple times a week seemed a very long time ago.
Without a second look Paige made her way into the chimney, bracing her hands on the two opposing sides and finding her first foot hold. To Taylor’s great surprise, Paige was not using any of the various colour-coded routes. Instead, she was climbing the chimney solely using the features and the three walls. Taylor’s hands moved quickly on the belay, making sure she always had one hand on the rope and that she kept her eyes focused on Paige. It meant that she was almost directly underneath as the secret agent seemed to bound up the walls, the form-hugging leggings allowing her to contort her body into a variety of positions.
Taylor gave herself a mental shake as she took in more of the rope.
PAIGE
Paige repositioned her legs, giving herself a better angle to brace her arms. She was just a metre or so from the top of the wall now and her limbs were starting to burn a little. ‘The Chimney’ was her favourite climbing wall in the centre; being surrounded on three sides blocked out the outside noise, and it almost felt like she was being embraced by the walls. The lack of external stimuli allowed her to concentrate much better, meaning that in this small space she became a better climber. She had climbed like this several times before, but she enjoyed challenging herself to do it faster or with less rests. A massive grin stretched across her face as she put both hands over the top lip of the wall; something she quickly realised was a mistake. When she lifted them back up again they were caked in dust. Taylor began lowering her to the ground, and Paige carefully walked herself down the wall, using one hand to hold on to the rope an
d the other to make sure she didn’t hit her head on any of the holds or features. She was both smiling and grimacing when her feet touched the ground., and she quickly wiped the dust from her hands on the sides of her legs.
‘Do you want to have a go at this one?’ Paige asked Taylor, quickly untying and offering her the rope.
‘No, thank you, I couldn’t do anything that impressive,’ she said, laughing awkwardly.
‘It’s not fair on you for you to compare yourself to me, you’re out of practice. I come here most weeks.’
‘No, I know. But I’m competitive enough that I’d probably take it too far and... well... you saw what happened earlier,’ Taylor said, blushing again. Paige noticed that every time Taylor was embarrassed, she looked down and to the right, trying to hide her tell-tale cheeks. It was not very successful.
‘OK, how about that one?’ Paige said, pointing at a much easier wall in the middle of the room.
‘Yeah, that’d be a good -’
‘Hey, Lor, sorry! I’m sorry I’m late!’ Dylan interrupted, bounding over. ‘The bus timetable I was using was out of date and then by the time I got to the right bus stop the next bus wasn’t until -’
‘It’s fine, Dylan, don’t worry about it,’ Taylor said, holding her hand up to shush him. ‘I did some bouldering and just belayed Paige, it’s fine.’
‘Oh, good. You guys seem all sorted, I’ll leave you to it. The auto-belay is free and it’s my own fault -’
‘No it’s OK,’ Taylor said conspiratorially, ‘I know you planned to climb with Paige so I’ll go use the auto-belay, I know you weren’t expecting me tonight’. Dylan just looked confused at his sister for a few seconds, and then his eyes went wide. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but no sound came out. ‘Have fun!’ Taylor said, flicking a smile at Paige before walking away. Dylan was still doing his impression of a fish.
Paige stayed silent and watched Taylor walk away. She found herself feeling disappointed that Dylan had made it; she had enjoyed the brief time she’d spent with Taylor, and her near-constant blushing had been endearing.
The Face of It Page 5