Authors: Jenny Colgan
She knew what they had to do from numerous public information films, but it didn’t make the process any less embarrassing. Gwyneth found an overhanging rock which provided some shelter from the wind, and unpacked the sleeping bag from Rafe’s rucksack. He was still panting, and his skin was grey. Gwyneth herself was shivering so much she found it difficult to undo the knots, but hadn’t had anything like the dunking Rafe had endured, and had torn off her wet clothes as soon as she could.
The raft was no longer anywhere to be seen, and by some instinct, Gwyneth had headed for the far bank, which meant they were cut off from any route back and a very long way from home.
Gwyneth undressed Rafe methodically, trying not to think about what she was doing, even as she peeled the plaid shirt and white t-shirt from his hairless chest. She must concentrate on helping a possibly endangered human being.
Lying naked, like spoons, in both sleeping bags, sheltered by the hanging rock, she encircled his chest with her arms, and pressed herself to him, closer and closer, willing her warmth into him. He hadn’t said a word since the first mutterings when she had pulled him from the river, and he felt terribly, dreadfully cold.
There was only the moon to see by when they finally, exhausted, scrambled up the last footstep to the top of the hill.
‘The camp
must
be here,’ Sven was saying. ‘They knew it was going to be dark when we got here.’
Arthur leaned down and lifted Cathy up the last little way.
‘Did you do that whole thing with your eyes shut?’ he asked her.
‘Well, I was holding on to Sandwiches,’ she said, still quavering a little.
‘Yeah, but I think Sandwiches had his eyes shut, too,’ said Sven, leaning over to check on his dog.
‘They are
bastards
,’ said Marcus, straightening up and seeing what was in front of him. ‘One hundred per cent diamond carat, A1 solid
bastards
.’
It was, finally, warm inside the sleeping bags. Outside, the wind was buffeting the earth relentlessly, but inside, the absurdity of the situation felt far away and slightly dreamlike to Gwyneth, who could do nothing but focus on radiating warmth over the huge, buff body in her arms.
Gradually, slowly, she felt him stir. His hands moved, and a huge shiver passed all the way up and down his body. Then, after a pause, he gently took her small hands in his large ones, and slowly, slowly, began to turn round to face her.
He still wasn’t saying anything, but she saw by his eyes that he was awake and fully concentrating on her. He put his hand up to her face and stroked it softly.
‘Rafe,’ she said, but whispered this time, feeling a lump in her throat that wouldn’t dissolve.
‘Ssh,’ he said. He stroked her face again. ‘You know, the Chinese say that if you save the life of a man, he is yours forever.’
And he pulled her towards him as gently as the sky outside was wild.
The five of them stood, high above Wales, staring straight ahead. In the distance could be seen a camp fire. This was undoubtedly their camp. It was, however, on the peak of the next hill. It wasn’t far away, but you’d still have to crawl down the valley and up again.
But linking the two hills was an odd triangular wire construction. There was one wire at the bottom, and two strands at waist height, attached to the bottom wire with zig-zags. It looked like a bridge, but a bridge with nothing to walk across.
‘Shit,’ said Arthur. ‘Shit shit shit shit!’
The others, bar Cathy, gradually drew closer to the structure.
‘What the
hell
are you meant to do?’ said Sven.
‘I think – well, you hang onto to the top wires and walk along the bottom,’ said Marcus.
‘They must be joking.’
‘They must have left safety ropes around here somewhere,’ said Arthur, dropping to his hands and knees with the flashlight. But there was nothing to be found.
Marcus turned round 360 degrees. There was absolutely no sign of human habitation anywhere, except in the winking light of the campfire. As it had grown dark, the cold had reasserted itself, and he thought he could feel drops of rain in the wind.
‘Oh God,’ he said.
‘I’m not sure Sandwiches can walk across a wire,’ said Sven pensively. ‘He’s got twice the appropriate number of legs.’
‘So have I,’ said Arthur, ‘by virtue of not being a monorail.’
Marcus gingerly took hold of the wires and stepped bravely out, keeping one foot firmly on land. The whole structure wobbled alarmingly. Swallowing audibly, Marcus tentatively lifted his other foot on. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he was still there.
‘Well done, Marcus.’ Arthur found he was smiling, even in the middle of their predicament. The idea of Marcus volunteering to climb a high wire up a windy mountain in Wales in mid-winter was not one he had ever dreamed of, and he was proud of him.
‘Well done!’
Cathy was standing in the dead centre of the hilltop, shaking like a leaf. Arthur went to her, while Sven lit the way for Marcus, who was tentatively moving forward now. Sven wondered aloud if Sandwiches could jump that far (it was at least thirty feet).
‘Hey,’ Arthur said.
‘I’m not doing it,’ said Cathy. ‘I can’t. There’s just no way.’
‘I know,’ said Arthur.
‘So you can’t try and talk me out of it, or anything.’
‘God, no. Wouldn’t dream of it.’
‘I shouldn’t even have come here. It was meant to be Rafe, not me. I’m only good at being in the office.’
‘You’re very good at being in the office.’
She looked up at him. ‘I don’t want to … I know it sounds silly, but I feel like someone could
die
out here.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Arthur. ‘No one’s going to die.’
Cathy looked around into the wild night. ‘It’s ridiculous. I’m imagining I can hear wolves howling.’
Arthur stiffened.
‘Can you?’
‘No, no of course not. It’s just Sven farting, most likely.’
They stood there for a while, looking into the gloomy blackness. Stars were coming out overhead, but there was nothing in the countryside around them to illuminate.
Arthur suddenly thought of Ross’s team. He imagined them tucked up right now in their cosy camp beds, gloating and planning their tactics for tomorrow, and here they were, stranded on the top of a hill, half the team missing …
He shook his head. ‘Cathy,’ he said.
She looked at him. ‘You’re going to ask me to do this, aren’t you?’ she said.
‘Cathy, we’re on the top of a mountain.’
She nodded. ‘Can’t you get me a helicopter?’
‘I forgot my RAC card.’
Some way in front of them, they could just make out Marcus. He was about halfway across, and Sven was shouting encouragement.
‘Look how well Marcus is doing,’ said Arthur. ‘We could have it all over and done with that quickly.’
Cathy looked up at him, her eyes suddenly large in her chubby face. ‘What are you most frightened of?’
Arthur blinked at the question. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I
mean
,’ said Cathy, her voice rising slightly in panic, ‘that I want you to know what being up here is like for me. That’s all.’
‘Well,’ said Arthur. He turned round and stared into the thick velvet blackness, thinking as he did so of the streetlights in his cul-de-sac and how he never saw the dark; not really. There was always an electric sheen rising off wherever he went, wherever he was.
‘I just want … I just want not to cock things up, really. I feel … this is going to sound silly, but I feel I’ve got this destiny that I’m meant to live up to and it’s really important that I do things properly. And I’ve failed and failed a lot up until now, but things have been – are going – the right way, and I’m worried about letting myself down …’
Cathy was looking at him.
‘And wolves. And snakes. And religious fundamentalists. And I don’t like that chemical stuff at the bottom of crisp packets.’
Cathy came forward. ‘You know, everyone feels that way, about missing their destiny, about what they’re supposed to be.’
‘Yes, but mine is a real destiny,’ said Arthur.
‘Mine too,’ said Cathy.
‘Really? Does everyone think that way?’ Arthur grimaced. ‘I thought I’d been chosen specially.’
‘Uh huh,’ said Cathy.
‘Well,’ said Arthur. ‘This is yours.’
Marcus was waving frantically from the middle of the bridge.
‘It’s okay!’ he was yelling, his voice almost lost in the wind. ‘Come on! It’s okay!’
They stood around Cathy and gave her a huge hug. Ordinarily, this would have elicited loud snorts from Sven, thought Arthur, but here on top of this mountain, when they felt like the only people in the world, it seemed like the right thing to do.
‘You can do it,’ said Sven. ‘If, you know, I’m not so fat I break the whole wire.’
‘You’re not so fat,’ said Cathy. Sven actually smiled.
‘Go between Marcus,’ – Marcus was now hopping up and down the wire as if he’d been born to it; Arthur was worried he was going to start doing tricks – ‘and me. We’ll let Sven bring up the rear just in case …’
‘Thanks for spoiling a nice moment,’ said Sven. ‘But aren’t we forgetting someone?’
Sandwiches was looking at the gently swaying wire bridge with a very disconsolate expression.
Arthur asked Marcus, who was coming back to help, ‘Can you take him in the rucksack?’
Marcus screwed up his face to complain, then smiled instead. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘He can join Marcus’s official high wire act.’
But of course it didn’t feel quite as comical once they were all finally on the bridge. Marcus, with Sandwiches peering out the back of his rucksack with complete equanimity, wobbled over first. Then they cuddled and cajoled Cathy onto the wire.
‘I’m keeping my eyes closed,’ she warned them.
‘That’s the way! Well done!’ shouted Arthur. Not at all it was the way, as the wind swayed the bridge alarmingly. After a tense moment halfway across when she froze completely – until the other three started up a rousing chant of ‘CATH-EE! CATH-EE!’ – she finally, painfully, made it to the other side and fell into Marcus’s arms. Arthur felt an amazing burst of energy.
‘Whoo hoo!’ he screamed over the gap. ‘You did it!’
Cathy waved back, smiling hugely. ‘I KNOW!!!!’
He realized the full extent of her bravery as he wobbled across himself, trying not to peer into the abyss beneath his feet. Yet somehow, on top of the wire, balanced in mid-air in the middle of nowhere, muscles aching with weariness, he felt a sense of being as alive under the stars as he had ever known.
The campsite was a rough affair: two tents and a fire, nothing more. They literally collapsed in front of it, legs dropping underneath them. Next to the fire were four packets of soup.
‘
Soup
!’ said Marcus. ‘We do all that bollocks and all we get is
soup
?’
‘This is starvation rations,’ said Arthur, nervously.
Sven ponderously opened up his rucksack.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve got food in there,’ said Cathy. The Toblerone was long gone.
‘Yes,’ said Sven. The others jumped up. ‘Unfortunately,’ he added, ‘it’s not for us.’ And he deposited two cans of Pedigree Chum on the ground.
‘Sven!’ said Arthur.
‘Well, I didn’t know, did I? I assumed they’d feed us.’
‘They have,’ said Marcus. ‘Soup.’
‘Well, look on the bright side,’ said Cathy comfortingly. ‘They’re not trying to kill us quite as much now.’
They stared at the Pedigree Chum, all thinking the same thing.
‘I’m so hungry,’ said Marcus.
‘We couldn’t,’ said Cathy.
‘And you’re not going to!’ said Sven. ‘Sandwiches!’
Sandwiches had wandered off.
‘That’s all we need – a lost dog,’ said Arthur.
‘My dog does not get
lost
. He goes out on
business
.’
‘
Okay.
’
After fifteen minutes, as they huddled round the fire trying not to think about the consequences of the disappearance of Sandwiches, he returned with something in his mouth, looking rather smug.
‘Euk!’ Cathy jumped up and screamed when she saw what it was. ‘Rabbits!’
‘Rabbits!’ said Sven, in an entirely different tone of voice.
Arthur watched in amazement as Sven bent down and took the gift from the dog’s mouth.
‘Don’t tell me you know what to do with those,’ he said.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve never skinned a rabbit,’ said Sven.
‘Of course I’ve never skinned a rabbit! I’m a town planner, for Christ’s sake!’
Sven pulled out a knife from his rucksack. ‘In Denmark, we would call you a
fejghed
,’ he said.
‘What does that mean? Completely normal person who for completely normal reasons doesn’t like ripping the guts out of furry animals?’