by Paige Toon
That’s about the most he says to me for the rest of the journey, but I’m okay with that. I’m not capable of small talk.
Very soon, the cliffs become vertical again, and then up ahead I see a windsock fixed to a rock, and a small red and white painted hut. The cliffs on the left fall away to a landslide of rocks which run into a steeply sloping grass patch strewn with boulders. This small piece of land is surrounded on three sides by water and behind it is a sheer cliff face. Once the base jumpers have landed down here, there would be no way to reach Lysebotn other than by boat.
My guide cuts the engine and we drift to a small platform adjoining a huge boulder. From there, a wooden walkway leads directly to the grassy slope.
‘You can wait here and watch them come down,’ he says. ‘I’ve got to change to the dinghy in case anyone lands in the water.’
I climb out and watch as he motors over to a red inflatable dinghy attached to a buoy, and then I turn my attention to the cliffs above.
I don’t know where I’m supposed to look. The top doesn’t seem that far away, but I have a feeling the distance is deceptive. I sit on the boulder and, when my neck begins to feel sore from gazing upwards, I decide to lie down, using my backpack as a pillow. The wind is cold and I shiver, listening to the whirling, circling birds crying out, high in the sky. As the minutes tick by, my unease grows. How will Alessandro react when he finds me down here?
He left Italy because he wanted to be alone. I’m gate-crashing a deeply personal experience for him and he might well be upset or even angry at me. But I have to let him know that he’s not alone, however much he thinks he wants to be.
I’m sure he never meant to develop real feelings for me, but somewhere along the way that happened. I know it happened. I think he might have even fallen in love with me, but he isn’t capable of admitting it.
He isn’t capable of accepting my love, either. He doesn’t feel deserving of it – giving or receiving.
And I can’t work out why that should be.
Is he still punishing himself for the years that he went away? Does he hate himself that much for abandoning his grandparents and Giulio in their grief?
Or is there, yet again, more to it than that?
‘They’re getting ready to come down!’ the boat captain shouts over at me.
‘Where?’ I shout back, sitting up with a wave of intense nervous anticipation.
He points to the part of the cliff I need to watch. I get to my feet hurriedly and squint up at it, and suddenly, I see movement. The height is deceptive – the figures are so tiny, they’re smaller than ants; no more than pinpricks. I can make out three people, no, four. But there could be others out of sight.
It’s another few minutes before the first jumper takes off. I see him or her on the cliff edge and then they’re no longer there. My eyes scan the cliff face and there! A small fleck against the grey granite rock. They’re falling at a diagonal trajectory. I try to keep watching, my heart in my throat, and then I catch sight of another person following swiftly behind. All at once, there’s a flash of colour and their parachutes burst open into red and blue canopies, tiny still against the grey of the cliffs. Their whoops of delight carry like bird calls across the wind as the parachutes glide through the air, twisting and turning, left and right, as they float towards the ground. It looks like they’re going to touch down on the bigger boulders, which seems precarious – surely that’s a good way to break bones – but they manage to land safely on the grass, one after the other.
Almost instantly I know that neither of them is Alessandro. I can barely make out their faces from this distance, but I can tell they’re a couple of mates by the way they’re excitedly calling across to each other as they pack away their parachutes.
I return my attention to the clifftop as another two jumpers launch themselves, one after the other. Are they wearing wingsuits?
I crane my neck as two figures fly right over my head, high, high in the sky. They look like flying squirrels. And then their brightly coloured parachutes open and they glide down to the sound of whoops and clapping from the guys on the ground.
When they land, I realise one of the jumpers is a woman. Still, no Alessandro.
Two more come down, one of whom lands in the water, something I gather he’s not happy about from the tirade of swear words I’m hearing. My man in the boat zooms over to help pull him out at around the same time the first two jumpers – a couple of bearded, scruffy-looking lads – arrive at the boulder I’m sitting on.
One of them laughs at his comrade in the water and lifts his hand to high-five me. He thinks I’m a spectator, here to watch like a tourist.
I comply, not wanting to be rude, but I feel like I’m going to throw up. Where is Alessandro? Have I got this wrong? Has he jumped from somewhere else?
‘Is there anyone else still up there?’ I ask the high fiver.
He looks around to see who’s come down. ‘Yeah, Allez. He likes to jump last,’ he adds, slightly mockingly.
We both squint up at the clifftop, and then I see him, a lone figure, standing on the edge.
And then he’s no longer there.
He doesn’t fly outwards away from the cliff, nor does he come down diagonally.
With air choked out of my lungs, I watch him fall almost straight down.
I don’t know how many seconds he falls for: ten, fifteen… They’re the longest seconds of my life.
Please, please, please, I beg, my heart in my throat, and then his chute bursts open, devoid of bright colours. I’m standing and watching, not taking my eyes off him for a millisecond as he glides to the ground to the sound of a few cheers and handclaps from the others. He lands right on the grass only thirty or forty metres away, and it’s beautiful, graceful, his parachute billowing out behind him, black against the green grass and blue sky.
In that moment, right before he sees me, I know that he’s happy and at peace. Free.
A wave of love and relief chases away the darkness as I start towards him.
Chapter 44
Alessandro’s eyes lock with mine and he freezes.
His parachute is still attached to his backpack, still billowing in the wind, and his arms hang at his sides, his hair lifting from his neck in the breeze. He hasn’t shaved since I last saw him, but despite the extra bulk his beard adds, he looks as if he’s lost weight.
He’s dressed as usual in black – a long-sleeved T-shirt and black pants – but his clothes seem ordinary, not special gear like the padded tracksuits or wingsuits belonging to the other jumpers.
He watches me approach across the rock-strewn grass, his expression fathomless. I’m not seeing anger, nor am I seeing joy. Is it fear? And maybe wariness?
I come to a stop a few feet away, something about his stance warning me to keep my distance.
‘That was for Carlotta?’ I ask.
His head barely moves as he nods, never once taking his eyes from mine.
One of the guys on the boulder calls out, jolting him to attention.
‘I’ve got to pack away my chute,’ he mutters, unclicking his backpack and swinging it around to the ground. I stand and watch, not wanting to distract him as he meticulously folds up his parachute.
The sound of a motor has me looking over my shoulder. Our captain has swapped the dinghy for the bigger boat and the other jumpers are getting ready to board.
Alessandro doesn’t say a word to me as we walk across the grass to the boat, but a couple of the others try to make conversation with him, one of them fist-bumping him. I’m not sure they notice or care that Alessandro’s response is half-hearted; they’re all too caught up in the adrenalin rush.
Alessandro sits opposite me at the bow of the boat, and for most of the return journey he watches me with that same impenetrable expression.
When we dock, he waits for me to climb up the ladder first, but while the others tail off to go around the side of the base-jumping building, Alessandro walks towards Frida.
‘I need to pay for the boat ride.’ I jerk my head towards the boat.
‘Ah.’ He opens Frida, swings his parachute inside, and closes the door behind him.
A couple of the base jumpers are inside the shop. I hear someone say ‘troll’ and wonder if they’re talking about the place where Carl Boenish, the father of modern base jumping, lost his life.
‘We’re going to grab some lunch,’ Alessandro tells the boat captain.
‘See you back here this afternoon?’ he replies.
Alessandro nods.
‘What’s happening this afternoon?’ I ask as we make our way towards Frida.
‘Last jump of the day.’
I’m taken aback. ‘You’re going up there again?’
He nods. ‘Probably.’
Probably isn’t definitely.
‘Where are you staying?’ he asks.
‘Stavanger.’
‘Hotel?’
‘Apartment. It belongs to the son of some friends in Coober Pedy. He’s gone away for the summer so said I could use it. I didn’t have time to check it out before I came here.’
He doesn’t say anything, merely opens up the passenger door to his van and waits until I’m seated before closing it after me and putting my bag in through the side door.
I still have no idea what he’s thinking. I can’t get a handle on his emotional state of mind at all.
We drive out of the village in total silence, but he doesn’t turn right to go up the mountain road. Instead he drives straight on, past a couple of small houses, and parks near a green meadow.
‘What are we doing?’
‘Picnic,’ he replies, slipping between the two front seats and grabbing a few bits and pieces to put in his rucksack.
We walk across a meadow dotted with sheep and flanked by mountains. There’s a river tumbling noisily over big grey boulders beside us, and ahead is a wooded walkway, sun streaming down between the trees. We come to a footbridge and cross over, the white foam crashing and splicing between slick, dark rocks beneath. It’s so green and lush on the other side of the river that I can barely believe my eyes. Moss as thick as shaggy sheep wool clings to the branches and tree trunks, and the rocks that occasionally cross our track are slippery with river spray. It’s like paradise.
We come to a grassy clearing surrounded by enormous boulders. To my surprise, there’s a picnic table right here in the middle of nowhere.
Alessandro unpacks his rucksack, getting out a loaf of crusty bread, a chunk of cheese and a couple of cans of soft drink. Using a Swiss Army knife, he hacks off slices of cheese and makes two sandwiches.
‘Thank you.’ When is one of us going to say something about what I’m doing here?
I don’t know where to start.
Finally he meets my eyes.
We stare at each other for a long, drawn-out moment. He still has that same strange, serious look on his face, but I feel less wary of him now.
I begin to speak quietly.
‘You jump, every year, on the anniversaries of their deaths.’
There’s a pause, then he nods.
‘No matter what the conditions. If it’s raining, windy, life-threatening, you jump anyway.’
‘I’m not suicidal,’ he says.
I wait for him to go on.
‘I’ll never kill myself intentionally.’
‘When you were on that mountain in the Dolomites…?’
He nods. ‘I thought about it. I was so tired, I wanted to end it all. I’d had enough. I’d walked so far and then climbed so high and I was ready to keep going.’
In a corner of my mind I’m wondering how we can be talking so calmly, so rationally, considering the circumstances.
‘I looked down on this beautiful onion-domed church glinting in the valley, and I had this most overwhelming urge to be there, walking inside. Then Logan and his friends showed up.’
‘You were standing right on the edge?’
‘I’ve never been afraid of heights.’
‘But you stepped away when they turned up.’
He nods. ‘I watched them. I saw them fly.’ He sounds reverential. ‘They took off, right from the edge of the cliff. It was incredible. I don’t know how I found the strength but I walked down the mountain, went inside the church and stayed there all night. It was dark and cold but I felt at peace for the first time in years. The priest found me the next morning and got me something to eat and drink, and then he began talking about life in the mountains and I just listened. Eventually I began to talk too.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Everything. I told him I’d thought about stepping off that cliff edge, and he told me that suicide was a sin. He wanted me to entrust my life to God’s hands. He said God would take me when it was my time to go and not before. The next day, when I climbed up on the anniversary of my mother’s death, I was only intending to look at the view and think about her. And then Logan showed up. That first year, all I could think about was doing what I saw him and his friends do. It was what kept me going. I got it into my head that I’d jump on Carlotta’s next anniversary. I was determined to make that jump. I didn’t have enough skydives under my belt, but Logan agreed to take me base jumping if I could get myself to America – that was where he was headed that year. I worked day and night, trying to save enough money, sleeping in a tiny box room owned by the restaurant manager. I lived that way for years, cash in hand, hand to mouth – cleaning, waiting, odd jobs – ducking between Canada and America and trying to avoid the authorities. I saved enough money to travel further afield, only returning to Europe when I heard my grandparents were ill.’
‘But this morbid desire to jump on the anniversaries of Carlotta and your mother’s deaths… Why? You want to put yourself in their shoes, feel what they felt as they fell?’
He looks at me. ‘Yes. That’s exactly it.’
My heart squeezes. How could he hurt himself like that? Does he think he’s somehow honouring them?
‘With wingsuiting, it’s like flying. It’s pure joy, the best adrenalin rush you could imagine. When I jump “slick”, without a wingsuit, the terror is so intense. When you step off the edge, it’s… It’s horrific. Every single hair on your body is standing up because it knows no man should be doing what you’re doing. Your head wants what your body really doesn’t want. Then you pull your chute and find out that it’s functional, the lines aren’t tangled and you aren’t going to get smashed against the rocks. When you’re away from the cliff face and you’re floating down safely… That’s the moment. That’s when I feel free. Until the next jump, at least.’
‘But why are you punishing yourself like this?’
He looks down, breaking eye contact.
‘You’re still in mourning for them, aren’t you?’ I say gently. ‘That’s the real reason you wear black, not because it’s “easy”.’
He shrugs and nods, cracking open his can of soft drink. ‘Can we eat now? I’m starving.’
I realise I am too. I’ve been feeling so sick and nervous that my hunger pangs have been sidetracked.
‘How did you get here?’ he asks as we’re walking back to his van.
‘Ferry this morning.’
‘Is there another one leaving this afternoon?’
‘No, so I’m stranded unless you give me a lift to Stavanger. Can you be tempted? Hot shower? Proper bed to sleep in? A shave?’
He rubs his hand over his beard. ‘You don’t like it?’ he asks, glancing across at me and, my goodness, I detect humour!
‘Maybe we could visit Pulpit Rock, Preikestolen, whatever it’s called?’ I ask hopefully.
‘Maybe,’ he murmurs. ‘I was supposed to do another jump here, but I might skip it.’
My relief is immense.
Once we reach the village, he parks in front of the base-jumping shop. ‘I might be a while sorting everything out. You need to use the bathroom? It’s o
ver there.’ He points to a block to the left of the café a couple of hundred metres away.
‘Sure, thanks. You want a coffee or anything for the drive?’
‘No, I’ll be okay.’
I glance over my shoulder at him as I walk away. He’s standing by Frida, watching me go. Some of my anxiety returns at the look on his face. We’re not out of the woods yet.
I hear it, when I’m locked in a cubicle, going about my business: the unmistakable sound of Frida roaring by.
Alessandro is gone by the time I make it outside.
Chapter 45
I can’t believe it. In a panic, I run all the way back to the shop, jolting with shock at the sight of my backpack on the countertop.
Mr Boat Captain picks up a few notes from the counter and holds them out to me. ‘Motel’s up there. Room’s all sorted.’
‘What?’
‘Motel’s up there.’ He jabs his thumb in the opposite direction to the fjord. ‘Room’s sorted.’
‘I heard what you said. I don’t understand.’
‘Allez left this for you.’ He waves the notes at me. ‘Said he owed you for the motel and ferry.’
‘He’s gone?’
‘Yeah, he ducked out of the last jump, said he had to get going. He didn’t tell you?’
‘Where’s he gone?’
He shrugs. ‘Beats me.’
I’m shrouded by the most horrible feeling of darkness imaginable.
Outside the window, the other jumpers are gathering by a minibus. I see the guy who mentioned the word ‘troll’ earlier. And then something clicks inside my mind.
I quickly turn to the boat captain. ‘Is Trollveggen the same as Troll Wall?’
‘Yeah.’
I grab my backpack from the counter and run outside.
‘Wait!’ I call. ‘Are any of you planning to go to Trollveggen? Troll Wall?’
A couple of them look at each other a little shiftily and I remember something else: it’s illegal to jump from there.
‘Will you take me there now?’ I ask desperately. ‘Instead of doing this last jump? Can we leave right away?’
They glance at each other again and it’s clear that they think I’m out of my mind.