‘I’d say this will be my only jump,’ I say with total confidence. ‘I’m terrified of heights.’
‘What?’
I realise that I have actually shocked Adrienne. Which I’d thought was impossible up until this point.
‘Nowyou’re shocked?’ I demand. ‘I thought you belonged to the “do what scares you” school of thought?’
‘What scares you in a metaphorical sense,’ she says. ‘Not what bloody terrifies you. Why put yourself through that?’
I don’t answer straight off. Instead I explain about Vilma’s roof climbing: ‘When she was about ten, Vilma used to climb onto the kitchen roof from her bedroom, and I was terrified the first time I saw her do it.’
I can still see it in my mind.
‘It’s safe,’ Vilma had said airily.
‘Get in!’ I’d shrieked.
‘You get out,’ she said.
I hadn’t. I’d run downstairs to find Stefan.
‘Fear is what terrifies me,’ I tell Adrienne. ‘I can guarantee you that I won’t jump again but I’m jumping tomorrow.’
Finn is driving me down to the Kildare parachutists’ club where the gang of Rape Crisis Centre charity jumpers are to gather. It’s a cool morning and I’m nervous but Finn drives most of the way with his left hand holding on to my right one, only taking it off to change gear.
We don’t talk and it’s strangely peaceful in the early morning light. Because the weather is changeable, we have to be there at half eight, so we can complete our training and be jumping by lunch.
I’m jumping out of a plane in a few hours, I think, watching the landscape pass by in a blur. But it’s going to be all right, I know. I hold on to Finn’s hand and I know this is the right thing to do.
He hasn’t asked me why I’m doing it: he’s simply there with me, supporting me. I haven’t explained a thing. I don’t need to.
Only jumpers are allowed into the training area and once we’re in our flight suits, alltwenty-four of us, twenty women and four men, are brought through the training technique over and over again: how to exit the plane, how to use our emergency chute if we need to and how to land, which is a tricky manoeuvre unless you fancy breaking your legs.
‘Just because it’s a tandem jump, don’t think you can coast,’ says the instructor, ‘no puns intended.’
We have coffee before it’sjump-off time and I’m happy to be in the second group of four going up. The clouds are moving in and if they do, the jumping will stop till tomorrow. I’m ready now – I might have become properly frightened by tomorrow.
Finn’s sitting in a cosy room with some other drivers and onehalf-asleep father who has brought twin daughters for atwenty-first birthday jump.
I go straight to Finn and hug him.
‘I’m scared,’ I whisper, now that it’s almost time. I can hear the whine of the plane taking off with the first team. I have ten minutes to be out there for my turn.
‘You’ll be safe,’ he whispers into my hair. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’
On the plane, it’s so loud that I can’t hear my teeth chattering with fear. The other jumpers are grinning, and the tandem instructors are so relaxed, I almost can’t bear it.
‘You OK, Sid?’ says Carla, the female instructor jumping with me. ‘It’s a blast but you don’t have to. There’s no shame in admitting that it’s not for you.’
It’s that word again. I can feel my spine strengthen as the steel comes back into it.
‘Oh, I’m jumping.’
I must have spoken out loud.
Carla grins at me.
She expertly hooks us together and when the small plane’s engine is shut off and we’re flying on the wind, coasting like a bird of prey riding a thermal, Carla and I make our way over to the fuselage door which has been pulled open.
