Beneath us, two thousand feet below, everything looks like a child’s toy farm, with fields spread out around us and the parachute centre nothing but a tiny little collection of buildings.
I know the statistics: two minutes for me and Carla to land, if all goes to plan.Thirty-seven seconds to drop to earth if not.
I’m frightened but I’ve been far more frightened and that fear has held me in its grip for too long. Not anymore, I think.
‘Ready? Three, two, one –’
And we’re gone, into the air speeding down until Carla pulls – I mean, she must – the rip cord and we jerk up.
‘Look up,’ she yells and I look to see the beautiful sight of an opened chute above me. I breathe in, letting the glorious air fill my lungs.
‘See?’ she says joyously. ‘Isn’t it amazing!’
I exhale slowly and yell back. ‘Yes. Amazing.’
Some fears are meant to be faced after all.
PART THREE
Witch Hazel Blossoming
34
Marin
I wake up in the morning and I’m in bed alone. There’s no sign of Nate and I’m feeling ripples of fear run through me. It’s a combination of everything I’ve been feeling and thinking for so long. I get out of bed, race into the shower and let water stream over me. I don’t just want to wash him out of my hair, I want to wash him out of my life. I get dressed quickly. It’s half six; normally I’m not awake or dressed this early on a Sunday morning. But I get myself ready, because I feel I have something to face.
It’s an instinct. Ancient.
I refuse to sit in bed waiting for him to come home on a Sunday morning, smiling and saying: ‘Oh babe, how are you, you were out all night?’ I’ve just had it up to here. I go downstairs and make the strongest coffee I can cope with and some toast. But I can’t eat the toast. Who can I ring? I need to talk to someone.
April, who warned me, of all the people to warn me. That it should be April, still astonishes me. I dial her number.
‘What’s wrong, Marin?’ she says, answering instantly. ‘Has something happened? Is it Ma, Dad? Tell me.’
‘It’s Nate,’ I say. ‘He didn’t come home last night. And you know what, he’s been late home so often and I couldn’t tell you. I think he’s having an affair with Angie.’
‘Angie?’
‘Yeah, Louise saw him with a blonde woman, although she couldn’t see who it was, and then I saw them having a weird moment at the Christmas party. It has to be Angie. I haven’t had the courage to confront him. I thought he’d leave me...’ There: I’ve admitted it.
‘I’m so sorry, lovie,’ she says. It doesn’t escape me that April, who is always the other woman, is feeling sorry for me because my husband is cheating on me. ‘But how do youknow?’
‘I just know,’ I say.
‘Well, you can’t put up with that, I mean, he’s got –’ she stops. ‘No I’m not going to tell you what he’s got to do. What doyouthink he’s got to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say and suddenly I want to cry. ‘We’ve got two children, we’ve got a life. What do I do? Just say get out of here now and let’s sell the house and I’m going to try and make it on my own. I don’t know what to do.’
And then I hear a noise downstairs.
He can’t have been here all along? His side of the bed wasn’t slept in. But –
‘I think he’s home,’ I say suddenly. ‘I’ll ring you later.’
I stalk downstairs and he’s in the kitchen, in underpants, socks and aT-shirt he must have found in the laundry basket.
He’s clearly just woken up, so he must have been here.
