by Jane Lark
I wiped up the frying pan as he washed up the last of the stuff.
He leaned back against the Belfast sink, watching me as I finished drying up. ‘Okay?’
I looked at him as I put the last of the cutlery in the drawer. ‘Yeah.’
‘Well, let’s go get into our gear. You’re going to need the leggings and a top that I bought you yesterday, and that coat. You need stuff that’s easy to move in.’
I hadn’t agreed to climb, though.
We got dressed together in his room and he pulled on a pair of legging-style bottoms too, and a thermal top like the one he’d bought me, and a black jacket to cover it. ‘You’ll need your bike helmet too.’ He threw it at me. I didn’t ask why. I’d given up trying to keep up with the pace he lived his life.
All kitted out and ready to go, with my new gloves on, and my woollen hat in my pocket, I stood outside waiting as he opened the barn that had been converted into a garage.
There were two bikes in there beside a four-by-four: an off-road bike with big wheels and a basic frame, and a Ducati, which was gleamingly clean, like his Jag had been in London.
He walked over to the off-road bike and glanced at me. ‘Put your helmet on.’
I put it on as he put his on, and I did it up how he’d showed me in the shop yesterday, checking it was tight. He straddled the bike. ‘Come on.’ He beckoned me to get on the back, behind him.
My heart played out an Arctic Monkeys’ loud, aggressive rhythm as I climbed on, straddling the bike behind him. He started the engine. I’d never ridden pillion and this bike wasn’t even designed for it.
He tapped my thigh and pointed at the footrests. I looked down and put my feet on them as I gripped his waist.
‘Hold on tighter!’ he shouted. He was sitting as far forward as he could.
I wrapped my arms right around his waist and held him, pressing my head to his shoulder. When he drove out of the barn the door automatically closed behind us.
I held on tight as he drove on to the track leading back to the main road, my heart pumping hard with adrenaline. His body was rigid. His core was made of iron.
He turned off the track and on to the grass before we got to the road. The bike bounced across the uneven meadow. I pressed closer to him, hanging on, but he wasn’t going too fast. Probably because I was behind him and slowing him down.
At the edge of the field he turned the bike sideways and slid it down a muddy hill. I squealed. He ignored my outburst, carrying on along a narrow mud track.
It looked like he rode the bike along here a lot; there were tyre marks everywhere.
It only took a few more minutes to get to where he was headed – a cliff face about twenty meters high at its highest, and about five meters at its lowest.
He stopped the bike and pulled off his helmet. ‘You can let go of me and get off.’
I leant away from his back and let go, but my hand touched his side to steady myself as I climbed off. My hands and legs were shaking, and my heart raced so badly I struggled to catch my breath.
He slipped his helmet off. ‘So, first off, I’ll show you how to do it.’
He threw his helmet at me. He was lucky I caught it, but he wasn’t even watching; he unzipped his coat and tossed that on top of his helmet. I balanced the helmet on his bike and hung his coat over the handlebars, then took off my helmet as he walked towards the highest part of the cliff.
When I looked around he was about three meters up the cliff, with no fucking rope on. But it was like he balanced on the air; I couldn’t see him putting any weight into his feet or his hands. When he gripped the edge of a rock and pulled himself up it looked as if he gripped the rock with his fingertips, all his weight and his balance was in the core of his body.
He looked for another handhold, gripped, then moved his foot up higher. It looked effortless. He was Spiderman. He was about six meters off the ground now.
I swallowed against the dryness in my mouth. Willing him not to fall.
He didn’t even look nervous. He was just doing it, like he did everything – full-on and full-force.
He was insane.
He carried on climbing, looking from one side to the other for holds. At the top there was a ledge that jutted out, which he’d have to lean outward to climb over. I couldn’t see how he’d do it. A tight knot of anxiety caught in my throat. But he knew what he was doing. He climbed around it, moving sideways to reach an easier point and then found a solid handgrip and lifted his leg up.
God. I wanted to pass out just looking at him as he hauled himself up on to the top of the cliff. I breathed in properly for the first time in about ten minutes.
He waved at me.
‘You’re crazy!’
He smiled, then turned away and disappeared out of sight.
A few moments later a rope came over the cliff, unravelling and tumbling down to the bottom, about four meters away from where I’d last seen him. The end of it hit the ground. A couple of minutes later, another rope came over the cliff at the lowest part.
I saw him then, standing at the top and wrapping the first rope he’d thrown down around his waist, then he abseiled down, walking down the rock as his hands controlled the slip of the rope around his body. It wasn’t safe. He wasn’t properly attached to the rope he was using.
‘If you want to climb, this is the bit you can climb.’ He pointed at the lowest part of the cliff. ‘See, it’s not so scary.’
‘Is this on your land?’
‘Yes, that’s why I have all the ropes set up. This was the deal-clincher when I saw this place.’
‘I didn’t know you climbed.’
‘I’ve climbed since I was a kid. I have friends I climb with. We go all over. But I still love messing around here.’
‘Where do you climb in London?’
‘There’s a climbing club, with mocked-up walls. I climb there to keep my toning up.’
When he was climbing I’d had a pretty good view of that toning. His clothing was skin-tight, his thighs strong and his bum firm, and his torso and arms were, as I’d thought before – like something you’d cast in bronze.
‘While you’re deciding if you’re going to be a chicken or not, I’m going to time myself on this face.’ He looked at his watch, pressed a button, then turned away and ran to the edge of the cliff.
This time he did wrap a rope around him, and pulled it so it was taut, but he didn’t keep it taut as he climbed. He wasn’t safe. He climbed anyway, reaching for footholds and handholds in a hurry, swinging on his fingertips at one point. Jack was crazy, but despite being terrified he’d fall, I was impressed by his Spiderman impression. He was clever.
I didn’t want to be Spiderwoman, though. I found a rock to sit down on and turned on my phone. Oh shit, there were about thirty messages from Rick, and two missed calls from him late last night, and ten missed calls from Mum. Awesome. I turned it off again. I’d have gone into games but if I left my phone on I’d hear the messages and the calls coming in. I didn’t want to answer. I wanted to hide away from it all for a little longer.
‘Ivy, come on. You’ve got to give it a go, at least.’
I looked up at Jack. He grabbed my hand that held the phone and pulled me up, then took the phone away and dropped it on to the ground, on the mud. ‘For me, Ivy. Think about how you’ll feel when you conquer that rock.’
‘I thought we were living in the now, and right now I’m standing at the bottom of it. I can’t think about conquering it, that’s not now.’ The whole idea turned my tummy over. The thought was beyond heart-pounding; it was petrifying.
He pulled on my hand.
‘Jack.’ A cold sweat made my hands damp as I looked from the rock to him.
His eyes said, please try it for me. ‘There has to be a first time for everything. A moment of discovery. You can’t know what it’s like until you try it, and if you conquer it and conquer your fear – think of the rush – the adrenaline pulse you’ll get from that.’
&n
bsp; He was a full-on adrenaline junky. I’d only been dabbling, dipping my toes in at the edges. ‘That’s what you’d feel. I feel terrified.’ This was where he and I were very different.
‘But you need the fear the first time to make it exciting – if you didn’t know it was hard and risky, what would be the fun in having achieved it?’
I shut my eyes.
‘I’ll give you a harness. I’ll put it on for you. You’ll be safe.’
I didn’t answer and kept my eyes closed, shutting out his persuasion.
He let go of me, and I sat back down and opened my eyes.
He sat down next to me and his hand settled on my thigh and tapped it.
I shook my head. ‘I’m not you.’
‘No. You’re you: beautiful and determined, full of fire and passion. You liked the night you had me all trussed up didn’t you?’
I looked at him. ‘Yes… But so what?’
‘Because you liked getting control over me. Well, imagine being in control of that cliff?’ That annoying eyebrow of his tilted.
I made a face at him, but I was imagining it. ‘You’re sales-pitching me. Stop it.’
He laughed. ‘Works, though, doesn’t it? You can see yourself, can’t you, climbing over the top and thinking, shit did I do that? Me. Who used to be scared of heights.’
The face I’d made distorted further. ‘You’re so fucking clever.’
He laughed and stood up. ‘It’s up to you, Ivy. Feel that rush of success, or keep watching.’
I really wanted to hit him. How could he make me want to do something I was terrified of?
I looked at it, the cliff. Then looked at him.
‘Okay.’ I stood up.
I couldn’t believe I was going to do it. But it wasn’t a rush of anticipation and excitement in my blood – it was pure panic.
‘Hang on, I’ll get the harness.’ He scaled the five-meter climb he wanted me to do in about three minutes, with no rope. Then he threw down two more ropes and abseiled back down, holding a small helmet and something else in one hand.
My heart thudded out its rhythm in my ears.
‘Here.’ He handed me the helmet to put on first, then squatted down. ‘Step into this.’ It was a set of straps that together made up a seat-like harness. Then he attached the rope to that with a metal clip.
‘Okay, you’re ready.’ He picked up the other rope, which turned out to be the other end of the rope he’d strapped me to. ‘Watch.’ He stepped up to the cliff face and cupped his fingers on a tiny narrow ledge. ‘This is the sort of thing you’re looking for; just something you can grip or get the tip of your toes onto. Keep your body light. Don’t put too much weight through your grip… and you can’t fall because I have you on the rope, alright? So you don’t need to worry.’
He had no concept of what being scared of heights meant. It was irrational. It wasn’t about whether you could fall or not – it was just fear.
‘Go on then, Ivy.’
I started climbing. It was easy starting. I wasn’t up high when I started and the first couple of handholds were easy to find.
When I lifted my right foot for the second time, he gripped the sole of the thin trainer I had on and moved my foot to a ledge. ‘That’s it.’
My heart played out the rhythm of the Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Crawling Back to You’. I was getting too used to his break-up music. I started singing the song in my head and found a few more holds and climbed up a little higher, focusing on the song.
But then I couldn’t find anywhere to put my foot. My fingers clung while my toes blindly felt for a hold and there was nothing, I couldn’t look down because I was too high… I lost the music in my head and it became a massive blur of panic. My lungs were solid. Petrified. I had no breath. I couldn’t move. I just clung. ‘Jack!’ My voice was shaky with desperation. ‘I can’t do it! Jack!’
‘You can. Just take a couple of breaths, concentrate and you can control the fear. There’s a foothold about ten inches away from where your foot is. Lift your leg and it’s a little to the right.’
‘No. I can’t do it, Jack. I want to come down.’
‘Coming down is harder than going up.’
‘Please? I can’t do it.’
‘Wait a minute. I’ll tie the rope around a tree.’
The next thing I knew he was there. His hand gripped my foot and moved it to the hold he’d meant, then, when I lifted my other foot he moved that too. ‘The rope is going to go slack, Ivy, but if you fell you won’t hit the ground. Just be careful you don’t bash yourself on the rock. Don’t put your hands out, just curl up.’
‘That makes me feel better. Not.’
He laughed as he climbed up beside me. ‘Just remember, I’m not wearing a rope, so don’t fucking fall.’
Why had he had to say that? ‘Thanks for adding to the pressure.’
But talking to him and having him close made me feel better; he was talking deliberately, taking my mind off the panic.
‘Lift your weight on to your right foot and go for this handhold up here.’ His fingers were gripping it, but he let go when I did what he said. He was balanced easily on two points, up to his Spiderman tricks.
‘Your other hand can go there. Then you can move your left foot.’
He talked me all the way to the top. When I reached it, relief flooded me as I clutched the grass and pulled myself over the top of the cliff on to the turf. I rolled to my back, shutting my eyes, breathing hard as pure adrenaline, and no more fear, pulsed through my blood. I was shaking. ‘Thank you, God.’ I breathed into the air as ‘Crawling Back to You’ played in my head again. Only this time the memory of the rhythm and the words to the song were joined by the image of me whipping Jack’s arse with my leather belt.
‘Did you enjoy it? Would you do it again?’
My heart thumped against my ribs as if it wanted to get out of my chest, and it didn’t feel cool. ‘No.’ I wasn’t like him. If he’d scared the crap out of himself like that he’d be buzzing from it now.
He laughed, then he held out a hand to take mine.
He pulled me up. ‘But you mastered it. You’re now the master of that little bit of rock. You won. You got the control over your fear and the stone.’
‘You don’t need to sales-pitch me after the event.’
‘I do if I want you to do it again.’ He looked over the edge.
I tried it, but it made the world spin. It wasn’t ever going to happen again. But it had happened once. The memory was mad. I’d done it – and his sales pitch was working. I did feel proud of myself.
He pressed a quick kiss on my lips. ‘You know if you’d really wanted to come down, you could have just let go of the rock, you’d have just hung on the rope. I had you. I’d have just lowered you down.’
I hit his arm. ‘You bastard!’
‘You conquered it, though, you’ll be thanking me later.’
‘I was terrified. And what if you’d fallen?’ Oh shit, I heard Rick’s voice again. He would be yelling at Jack if he was here; he’d never condone a guy climbing with no ropes. He’d call it irresponsible, and most of the time Jack came up here and climbed alone.
He did a few more climbs, while I sat on the rock shaking with cold in the aftermath of the adrenaline. Then we went back to the cottage and I cooked lunch – cheese on toast – because I didn’t know what to do with any of the fancy food he had in his fridge. After we’d eaten lunch Jack told me to put my motorbike leathers back on then threw my helmet at me again.
‘Where to now?’
‘Just out for a ride.’
He drove the off-road bike and we went out on to the road, to a forest of fir trees that covered one side of a giant hill where he turned on to a mud track.
The ride became a fast-paced mud-spraying scramble through the forest, going up and down the steep tracks, with the bike sliding on the soft ground, while the echo of the engine’s sound buzzed back from the trees.
This made my heart pound exci
tedly. It was dangerous, but fun.
Chapter 7
‘Jack, can we sleep in the big house tonight? It’s my last night and I want to wake up to the view of the hill.’
I glanced over my shoulder at Ivy as I threw the keys down on the side. I’d taken her out for dinner, because it was our last night. I’d decided to go back on New Year’s Eve. I was hoping Victoria was going to let me see Daisy on New Year’s Day and I wanted to call around to see her and just… I don’t know, cement the deal. But she’d agreed to it in one of the numerous texts that had been passing between us since Christmas. She’d said I could have Daisy on my own for two hours. So I needed to work out what to do with a child for two hours, when most places were shut.
I leaned back against the kitchen worktop and folded my arms over my chest.
Ivy gave me one of her sweetest, brightest smiles, saying, ‘please?’ with her lavender eyes.
I never slept in the big house now. But Ivy got this place; it had been good having her here. Fun. Cool. She’d been good company. The only downside was she’d hated the climbing, but the rest of it, she’d loved everything about it.
‘Maybe,’ I answered. ‘We’ll see.’ The bed would be made over there, it would be cold, though, the fires wouldn’t be lit. But coldness just gave sex another edge.
Maybe…
I turned and took my jacket off then threw it over the back of a chair. ‘Do you want wine or anything?’
‘Just ale.’
I laughed to myself. That was generally all she drank; she hadn’t liked the champagne. She was such a cheap girl compared to Sharon. I turned to the fridge and took out two bottles.
I held one out to her. ‘Do you fancy a game of gin rummy?’
‘What is gin rummy?’ She took the ale bottle from my hand.
‘Didn’t you play it as a kid?’ I turned to a drawer and found a pack of cards, then held up a hand, encouraging her to head into the living room. ‘You get seven cards to start with, then the top one is turned over on the pack so you can see it, and you have to pick up a card and throw one away every time it’s your turn. You can pick up cards I throw away instead of the one from the pack, too. Then with the cards you hold in your hand you have to make runs of three or more cards, so like two, three and four of hearts, or jack, queen and king of spades. Aces can be either high or low.