by Paige Toon
‘I’ll pay you!’ I cry, brandishing the notes Alessandro left for me.
‘Sorry,’ one of them replies, shaking his head.
I drop my backpack to the ground and hurry to locate my purse, but I don’t have enough to compensate them for missing out on a jump from Kjerag.
‘How much money would it take?’ I ask.
One of them, the guy who high-fived me earlier, shrugs. ‘Maybe six, seven hundred euros?’
I frantically rummage around until I find it. ‘I could give you this as collateral.’ I offer up my opal, my heart tearing at the thought of losing something that would have forevermore reminded me of Jimmy. ‘It’s worth nine thousand Australian dollars. You can hang on to it until we find a cashpoint machine, but we have to go now.’
‘Nine thousand?’ the high-fiver asks.
I wince as his fingers collect my prize.
‘It’s a hundred-carat opal,’ I tell him.
He glances at his friend again and then at the minibus that was about to take them up the mountain for the next jump.
‘Please,’ I beg. ‘But we have to go now. Right now. I’m worried about Alessandro.’
They nod at each other, decision made.
Jimmy’s words from our last conversation come back to me: ‘I only hope it comes in useful.’
If his opal helps me to save Alessandro, it will be priceless.
*
It’s a thirteen-hour drive to Trollveggen without any breaks, but my companions, Friedrich and Paul from Germany, will only go at a pace that suits them.
Paul drove his bright blue Mercedes Vito campervan to Norway from Germany and goodness only knows how long that took him. I must have got used to Italian driving speeds because I’m itchy with frustration as he takes hairpin bends at snail speed up the mountain. We curve between smooth rounded granite rocks that gleam under the sunshine, glittering lake pools that reflect the clouds in the sky and past hundreds of manmade stone-pile sculptures like the one I saw earlier down by the shore. A river crashes white as a waterfall, parallel to the road, and sheep run along beside it, wearing bells that we hear long after we pass. We drive through small villages with strange names that have crosses through the ‘O’s and circles over the ‘A’s, and we see waterfall after waterfall cascading down charcoal-grey cliff faces. Some of the houses even have grass growing on their roofs. It could not be more different to the landscape of the desert, and under other circumstances, I would be overcome with wonder. But right now I feel too sick with dread.
The day after tomorrow, I believe Alessandro plans to launch himself from one of the most dangerous base-jumping locations in the world: the highest vertical rock face in Europe.
I want to scream when Paul and Friedrich call it a night. ‘We gotta sleep, Angie,’ Paul says, unpacking his tent for himself so that I can crash in the roof space. ‘It’s risky driving around here in the dark, anyway.’
All I can do is hope that somewhere out here Alessandro is sleeping too.
The next day, Friedrich and Paul chat away to each other in German, laughing and joking, while I sit in the back feeling anxious.
I know this is merely another adventure to them; they wanted to go to Troll Wall anyway. They insist on stopping for regular breaks, telling me to chill out whenever I get too antsy. The only thing that reassures me is that I know Alessandro won’t jump until tomorrow, 16 August, so we should be able to catch up with him.
I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there, how I’ll go about stopping him. I’m hoping I’ll think of something in the next few hours.
During one of our breaks, I ask the guys if they can show me where jumpers might take off from.
They get out a map and talk me through the hiking route to one of the most-used exit points.
‘Is it a difficult hike?’
They shrug. ‘Depends on how fit you are.’
When we’re on the road again, I borrow one of their phones and look it up.
Expert hike, sure-footedness, sturdy shoes and alpine experience required…
I look down at my Converse and feel faint as I read on.
The Troll Wall is part of the mountain massif Trolltindene (Troll Peaks) and is the tallest vertical rockface in Europe, around 1,100 metres from its base to the summit of the highest point. The rock is gneiss, formed into a broken rock wall of huge corners, concave roofs and crack systems topped with a series of spires and pinnacles on the summit rim. The rock is generally loose, and rock fall is the norm on this north-facing big wall.
Carl Boenish, the ‘father’ of modern base jumping, was killed jumping from the Troll Peaks in 1984, shortly after setting the world record for the highest base jump in history. Base jumping from the area has been illegal since 1986.
I really, really hope I can stop Alessandro at the bottom. I have to.
That night, Friedrich and Paul tell me something that chills me to the bone. They think it’s good news, that we no longer have to rush.
‘There’s a storm coming in. No one’s going to be jumping from Trollveggen until it passes. He’ll be waiting at the bottom with a nice cup of tea.’
‘Please put your foot down,’ I beg in response.
I’d seen photographs, but nothing prepares me for the sight of Trollveggen in person. Maybe if the sun were shining it would be different, but on the dark and gloomy anniversary morning of Marta’s death, the mountain looks sinister and foreboding, a giant black wall thrusting into the sky and topped with sharp, jagged peaks.
‘There!’ I yell, pointing ahead at Frida, parked up on the side of the road.
Please let him be inside, please let him be inside, please let him be inside…
I leap from Paul and Friedrich’s van before it’s fully come to a stop and run to Frida.
It’s empty. He’s already set off.
Tears sting my eyes as I look around wildly. The rain hasn’t started yet, but the sky is dark and cloudy and the cold wind is scouring my face. How can I do this on my own?
‘Will you take me up the mountain to the take-off point?’ I plead with Paul and Friedrich.
‘Nobody will be jumping,’ they respond, shaking their heads.
‘Alessandro will!’
‘But that’s suicidal,’ Paul replies with a frown.
‘I wouldn’t even hike halfway up in this weather,’ Friedrich adds.
‘Come on, let’s go and find somewhere to have breakfast. I think there’s a café around here,’ Paul suggests.
‘Will you please show me where the hike starts from?’
‘Sure,’ he replies with a shrug, indicating for me to get in the van.
Friedrich is perturbed when I tell them that I’m going to walk a little way up to see if I can see him. ‘Have you got a jacket?’
I nod, hastily slipping it on. ‘I’ll manage,’ I add when I see him scrutinising my shoes.
‘Okay, we’ll put the kettle on and wait a while.’
‘Thank you,’ I breathe, surreptitiously throwing my backpack over the bench seat and slipping out of the van.
They’re too caught up in what they’re saying to each other to notice that I’ve taken one of their parachutes.
Chapter 46
I don’t know if Paul and Friedrich will wait. If they drive off, Jimmy’s opal will be lost to me forever, but I can’t think about that now. This is about survival – mine and Alessandro’s. Like it or not, my heart has chained itself to him, and if he’s going down, I’m going down with him.
I took the map with me, but the route is marked and there’s a rocky mountain track to follow. It’s a three-and-a-half-hour hike to get over to the exit point and I have no idea when Alessandro set off. I just have to believe that I’ll reach him before it’s too late.
I trudge through alpine meadows, pass mountain pools with grey shingle shores and I even see my first snow, but I don’t stop to touch it. Occasionally I’ll glimpse the view across the valley and the higher I go, the smaller I feel, but I
’m too concerned about Alessandro to register my fear of heights.
The exercise is keeping me warm, but what would happen if I stopped? Would I freeze up here? I push the thought aside and press on against the bitterly cold wind, praying that the rain holds. There isn’t a single other person up here – no one else is crazy enough.
Inside my head, I recite recipes to keep me going…
Mix together one cup each of plain flour, oats, desiccated coconut and brown sugar.
Melt half a cup of butter with two tablespoons of golden syrup.
Mix one teaspoon of bicarbonate soda with two tablespoons of boiling water and add to the butter mixture.
Pour the liquids into the dry ingredients and mix well.
It’s the recipe for Anzac biscuits, one of Nan’s favourites.
What would she and Grandad say if they could see me now? They loved me as if I were their own daughter – it would break their hearts to see me putting my life at risk.
I come to a steep section of rock and my heart almost jumps out of my chest. It looks so precarious, so impassable.
I’m going to kill myself doing this.
I’m too scared even to cry. My feet slip and slide as I try to cross the rocky terrain, slicing my fingers open on sharp rocks.
When I should be focusing on each and every treacherous step, my memories drag me away to another time, another place…
I’m opening my lunchbox at school and the heavenly aroma of biscuits wafts out, making everyone around me sit up and take notice. I share like always and everyone tells me how lucky I am to have a nan who bakes for me every day.
I understand why you did it, Nan, I say to her now. You loved me, just as you loved my mother, and you were terrified that you’d lose me too.
I forgive you for not telling me the truth.
A wave of peace washes over me, and then I see Grandad, his beard white with mine dust, and I tell him also that I forgive him.
He takes me into his arms and gives me a hug and I hold him, one last time, before returning my attention to the perilous path ahead.
The mountain peaks are all around now, jagged dark triangles piercing the clouds.
And then I see him, a black shape against the stormy sky.
Hope blasts away the cold grip of fear, but the feeling is fleeting: he’s standing near the edge and I know he’s committed to jumping.
‘Wait!’ I scream, but the sound is snatched away by the wind. I lose my footing and stumble to my knees. Gripping hold of the slippery rock with ice-cold fingers, I push myself back up.
I’ve come so far: from the driest, flattest of lands to the soaring peaks of windswept mountains. I’d go to the ends of the earth for him – and beyond.
I still don’t know if I stand a hope in hell of changing this tortured man’s mind, but I had to try, whatever the cost, whatever the consequences.
God knows how I’ll make it down from here alone.
Drawing as much air into my lungs as I can, I open my mouth and give it everything I’ve got…
‘SANDRO!’
His name rips through the elements.
He glances over his shoulder and I know I will take that look on his face with me to the grave. It’s haunted, hollow, bleak. In his head, he’s already jumped, already committed his life to God’s wretched hands. And he will die. The wind is so strong that I’m struggling to stay upright.
Then his expression transforms and he’s disbelieving.
‘Angel?’
‘Don’t jump!’ I beg.
He takes a few steps towards me and halts abruptly, a mask coming over his features.
‘You don’t keep your distance from your family because you don’t love them,’ I cry. ‘It’s because you don’t want them to love you. You’re trying to protect them because you don’t expect to live. Every anniversary, every year, you think this might be the jump that kills you. You know that will be the case now. But it hasn’t mattered how much you’ve pushed them away: Serafina, Jacopo, everyone… they all love you anyway. They’d be distraught if anything happened to you, and it would kill Giulio.’
Alessandro turns his face away.
‘Is that why you go to confession?’ I ask. ‘Because you know you’re hurting the people who love you? You don’t need to confess to a priest; you need to speak to a counsellor! Look at me!’
He does so, reluctantly, but his eyes are cold and dead.
I press on, urgently: ‘If I have to see your broken, bloody body, the way I had to see my grandfather’s body, the way you had to see Carlotta’s and your mother’s… I will never forget it. It will live with me for the rest of my life. It will destroy me.’ He flinches and closes his eyes. ‘I know you’re not a selfish person, so please don’t do this. Please stop. I’m not asking you to stop doing what you love – that has to be your decision – but please stop doing these anniversary jumps, stop putting your life at risk so recklessly.’
I don’t know if I’m getting through to him or if everything he’s hearing is simply white noise. When he opens his eyes, my gut lurches. He looks as though he’s in some sort of trance.
‘I made a promise,’ he says in a low flat monotone. ‘Every year I would honour them by jumping. If I survived, it would be God’s will. I would be free to live without guilt, at least for another year.’
What was it he said to me once? I don’t do it to die… I do it to survive.
‘That’s insane!’ I cry, a cold knot of fear crushing my insides. ‘You’re talking like you’ve made a pact with the Devil!’
‘Not with the Devil, with God,’ he replies, his voice growing in strength.
‘So when you jump, you’re challenging God? Is that who you’ve made your promise to?’
‘Yes. I’m giving God a chance to take my life. If He wants me to live, then I’ll live.’
He sounds fanatical, zealot-like. I feel as though he’s lost his grip on reality. How can I make him see sense?
‘But so far you’ve been lucky! Maybe you’re a survivor. Maybe you’re good at it! But we all fail at what we’re good at sometimes! This isn’t right. You don’t deserve to die! Why would you even think that? Everyone could throw themselves off a cliff and tell God to take them if it’s their time. Why are you so different to the rest of us? What makes you so special? Should I throw myself off a cliff? Would that make you see sense?’ I thump my chest and he pulls his eyes away from my face and looks at what I’m wearing.
When I thought, If he’s going down, I’m going down with him, I meant it metaphorically. There is no way I would ever have used the parachute I’ve strapped on, but I did think I might be able to trick him into believing that I was capable of jumping.
My plan worked because, right before my eyes, his spell shatters.
‘ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?!’ he bellows, and the next thing I know he’s shoving me backwards and knocking me to the ground as he unclicks the parachute from my body.
‘Stop!’ I shout as he goes to launch it over the cliff edge. ‘I stole it!’
He glances at me, his expression ripped and stricken and tormented and, also, really quite confused.
‘I stole it from Paul and Friedrich,’ I tell him, my hands in the air.
He stares at me with disbelief, and then he lets out an empty laugh. ‘I’ve reduced you to a thief too?’
‘I would do anything to save you. Anything,’ I repeat fervently. ‘Please, Alessandro,’ I implore, shivering uncontrollably and hoping against hope that he doesn’t slip back into his trance. ‘I won’t make it down from here alone.’
He blinks at me. And then the remnants of his mask slip away as his eyes rove over my body.
‘You’re freezing.’ Fear clouds his features as he drops to his knees and places his hands on my arms, making me jolt at the contact. ‘I’ve got to get you back to Frida.’
‘You’re coming with me?’ I ask, daring to hope.
He nods, a little dazedly. ‘Yes. I’m coming with you.’
> I burst into tears.
Chapter 47
I don’t know how we make it down safely. The rain comes, drenching us, and I slip multiple times, sometimes too fast for Alessandro to catch me.
We don’t speak, we’re too focused on every step. By the time we make it to Frida, we’re both soaked to the bone.
‘Get your clothes off,’ Alessandro commands as he cranks up the heat in the van.
He glances over to see me struggling. My fingers are so cold and numb, they’re useless. There’s a sense of urgency as he comes to my aid, helping me out of my coat and my shoes. I’m shivering violently and he’s muttering about hypothermia as he hurriedly strips off my T-shirt and peels off my wet jeans, then quickly shifts the bench seat into a bed position.
‘Get into my sleeping bag!’ he orders, and I shakily do as I’m told, watching as he strips off his own wet gear and grabs a towel.
He’s down to his underwear too, now, and he’s scared, I can see it on his face as he wraps the towel around my wet hair and climbs into the sleeping bag with me, zipping us into the snug space together and dragging the quilted blanket over for an extra layer. And then I’m in his arms and he’s engulfing me, rubbing my back and my arms, holding me tight against his chest and trying to bring me warmth.
I don’t know how long this goes on for – the storm outside is raging, rain is pounding down on the roof and the wind is blowing so hard that the van occasionally rocks with the force of it. The air around us heats up and, within our cocoon, so, eventually, do we.
When I finally stop shivering, Alessandro is rocking me gently, cradling me against his chest as though I’m something precious. I lift my head and stare at him.
His eyes are wide and full of terror. He’s still rocking me, still not letting me go, still absolutely petrified.
‘You scared me,’ he whispers.
‘You scared me too,’ I whisper in return.
And then his face crumples.
‘Alessandro…’ His name sounds like a prayer on my lips. Slipping my arms out of the sleeping bag, I pull his face against my chest and wrap my legs around his waist, somehow managing to bring him even closer than he was before.