When She Was Bad (20 page)

For a moment, she thought she was going to collapse, but then Amira’s arm was around her.

‘You did it. Bloody well done.’

Mark Hamilton came towards her with his hand raised so at first she had the alarming impression he was about to hit her.

‘High five, teammate,’ he said. She wiped her palm surreptitiously on her trousers again before raising it to his.

‘Way to go,’ yelled Will from the bottom as Ewan, eschewing offers of help, swung himself into the tower. Paula saw him glance across at Rachel to see what sort of impression he’d made. Did he really think he had any chance with their boss? Why couldn’t he see that she was just playing him along, keeping him in reserve like a little lap dog?

When Paula was younger, she’d had a friend a bit like Rachel. Claudia had arrived at the school mid-year and Paula had been put in charge of showing her around, after which Claudia had adopted her – at least until something better had come along. All these years on, Paula could still remember the euphoria of those days when Claudia would seek her out or laugh at something she said or, as occasionally happened, invite her back to her rambling Victorian house with her four wild brothers and her bohemian parents who let them drink a glass of wine with their dinner. And then the agony of those times when Claudia would cold-shoulder her in the lunch queue or swap in-jokes with the other girls about funny things that had happened at gatherings Paula hadn’t been invited to.

Claudia had soon moved on. Found her natural milieu among the popular kids and by the end of the year Paula found it hard to believe they’d ever hung out together. But since Rachel arrived, Claudia had been popping into Paula’s head a lot. Sometimes, during one of her nocturnal insomnia sessions where she’d lie awake listening to Ian’s snoring through the wall and worrying about money and how her children were ever going to be able to afford to leave home and whether her life would always be this much of a struggle just to keep going, things that Claudia had said to her would come zinging across the decades. The awful time Claudia had told a mutual friend that Paula didn’t even know how to put a tampon in. But over the top of it all, that sense of terrible grief at being cast out without even a chance to prove herself, without even realizing it was happening until it was too late. No question, Ewan was heading for a fall if he kept on running around after Rachel.

‘How are we feeling, guys? On top of the world?’

Will looked very small from the platform at the top of the tower. His voice sounded like it was coming from very far away.

‘How about giving yourselves a group hug for getting this far. Come on, don’t be shy. That’s what you’re here for.’

‘If he has us singing “Kumbaya”, I’m jumping,’ said Amira.

Still they shuffled into a circle and put their arms stiffly around each other. Paula, who’d found herself suddenly next to Rachel, hoped the other woman couldn’t sense her discomfort. Rachel’s touch on her back was as light and fleeting as a falling leaf.

Then it was time to cross the wire to the other tower. Paula had deliberately not been allowing herself to think of this part, that endless thin line stretching into oblivion. The way it would wobble under your feet, the way you would look down and see nothing between you and the ground far below.

‘It’s really not bad,’ said Katie, Will’s waifish assistant who was buckling a safety cord to their harnesses to attach them to the top wire running parallel to the one they were supposed to walk on. ‘That cord is amazingly solid.’

Chloe was first, followed by Rachel. ‘Once more into the breach,’ Rachel said gaily before stepping out on to the wire. She seemed to be making a concerted effort to put the business with Sarah behind her. Paula wondered whether it was for Mark Hamilton’s benefit, then berated herself for being so cynical. She never used to be. Sometimes she wondered if the antidepressants she’d been taking since she and Ian split up were changing her personality. The small print on the leaflet that came with them had said that might be a side effect. Mood altering, it had said. Paula had found that strange, seeing as the whole point of antidepressants as far as she could see
was
to alter your mood – otherwise, really, what were they for?

When Rachel was partway across, the tightening of the cord between her and Mark indicated it was time for him to set off.

‘Paula, just so you know, my will’s in the top drawer of my desk,’ he joked, turning towards her. She was touched when she noticed his hand was shaking and she again had that sense of connection with him that gave her a warm glow, even in the face of her own growing fear.

But by the time a wan-faced Charlie had started inching his way across to the other tower, Paula had forgotten about Mark Hamilton, forgotten about Rachel and about Will standing down below bellowing encouragement beside Sarah, her red hair vivid against the lush green lawn. All she could think of was that thin wire stretching out across the chasm of thin air.

‘Off you go, Paula,’ said Ewan. ‘The quicker we get across, the quicker we can get down and start the party.’

He was trying to be relaxed and jolly, but Paula could see how his eyes kept darting over to the tiny figure in silver and pale-blue Lycra already over on the other tower. He was itching to have his turn in the limelight, to be impressive.

Paula grabbed tight hold of the hand ropes and put her right foot on the wire. It was a steel cord, made of thinner steel cords all wound around each other. It moved slightly under her foot but at least it didn’t wobble. Her hands were slippery but she clung tight to the ropes on either side, keeping her eyes focused on the other tower where those already across were standing. She saw Mark Hamilton make a thumbs-up gesture.

She took another step forward and another, refusing to look down. Now she was a third of the way across, hands still gripping tight to the ropes. Ahead of her she saw Charlie reach the far tower – a fan of outstretched arms gathering him in. Paula’s longing to get to the end was so great, she could almost experience what it was like to be him, feeling the grip of those hands pulling her to safety. She inched out further. And now the cord underneath her feet was beginning to sway. A splash of red moved in the very outer reaches of her vision – Sarah, changing position down below – making Paula mistime her step so that her foot came down on the outside of the cord. For a second panic stoppered up her throat, but then she slowly shifted her foot back into the right position. The breeze whistled in her ear as if it had been holding its breath.

‘Wow, Paula, you’re practically skipping across there. You sure you’re not descended from mountain goats?’

Will’s voice floated up to her but it was as if it was coming from another world.

Another two steps. And now she was in the very centre of the cord where the swaying was most pronounced and the breeze felt more like a gust that could sweep a person off her feet. Her legs were trembling and she’d lost the feeling in her fingers from gripping the ropes so tightly. And then it happened. A movement so quick it was almost like the wind whooshing, a blurred dark wriggling worm in the corner of her eye, there for a second and then gone.

‘
Oh my God!
’

A woman’s voice shouting out from the tower ahead. Chloe’s? Amira’s?

But what was it? What had happened? The cord was still solid under her feet, the ropes under her hands still taut. Then she glanced behind her. The safety cord that should have been attaching her to the top wire had come down and trailed uselessly from the harness on her back, its end dangling over the void beneath her feet.

Panic burst inside her like a firework.

There was nothing to stop her falling, nothing holding her in place besides the ropes connecting her to Charlie and Ewan and through them to the others.

‘You’re fine, Paula. Just wait there. I’m coming up.’

Will’s voice, free of its joky sheen, was strangely thin.

Frozen to the spot, gripping the ropes on either side and gazing stiffly ahead, she dared not move her head but was aware of movement below her, the bright trail of Will’s blond hair across the grass. The group of figures on the tower ahead of her changed formation, a space opening up in their midst. Time seemed to hang suspended, as she was, seconds refusing to pass, dragging themselves on for ever. She was aware of an ominous quivering of the cord under her feet and remembered Ewan, stranded there somewhere behind her.

‘Should I go to her?’ he shouted now. ‘I could easily grab her and walk her over.’

‘
No!
’

The vehemence of her own voice startled her, and for a moment she feared she’d unbalanced herself, her centre of gravity sloshing from side to side like a spirit level. She tightened her grip, trying to meld the individual filaments of rope into the skin of her palm. The thought of Ewan blundering behind her, heavy-footed, ripples spreading out along the cord and up through the rubber soles of her cheap shoes, drenched her in panic. He was impulsive enough to charge in and try to rescue her single-handed, using her nightmare to show off in front of Rachel.

Finally, Will was there on the platform of the far tower ahead of her, his once-easy smile now straining at the seams.

‘Now here’s what’s going to happen, Paula. I’m going to come and get you.’ He raised a hand to silence the anticipated protest. ‘Don’t worry. I’m so used to this wire, I can practically levitate across. You won’t notice a thing. Then I’m going to take my safety cord off and clip it on to your harness, and then we’re going to come back together.’

He stepped on to the wire.

‘I’m going to fall,’ she screamed.

‘No, you’re not.’ His eyes didn’t leave hers – deep set, blue. Somewhere in the tiny part of her brain that wasn’t flooded with the battery acid of adrenaline, she registered the novelty of it. Ian’s eyes were grey, actually pink-tinged now from his four-cans-of-beer-a-night habit. Once she’d thought him the most handsome man in the world, and the knowledge that most women wouldn’t look at him twice only made him more special, as if he was a brilliant artist whose work only she appreciated.

‘Oh,’ she cried out as the ropes under her hands vibrated with the touch of Will’s fingers.

‘You’re fine, Paula. You’re doing brilliantly!’ Sarah’s voice wafted up from somewhere down below. Paula wondered whether she looked ridiculous, frozen here like one of those living statues that paint themselves silver or gold and stand stock-still in city centres. She gazed at Will, who seemed hardly to be moving.
Please hurry up.

But now, at last, he was here, his arms, tanned and roped with sinew, outstretched towards her. And she was feeling her legs shaking and her nerve-ends fizzing until his hand was gripping on to the top of her arm and she felt the hard, solid proximity of him.

‘You’re OK now. I have you,’ he murmured as he unhooked his own safety cord and then reached both arms behind her to clip it to Paula’s harness.

Click. And just like that, she was reattached to reality, aware of the clamminess of her clothes under his hands, the way her thin hair was hanging in damp wisps around her face, the presence of her two immediate bosses a few metres away, their faces turned towards her, expressions unreadable from that distance. Following Will’s instructions, they inched forwards in tandem towards the other tower, her feet treading obediently where his had just been, her hands gripping on to rope still warm from his touch.

And then she was at the other end, and he was scooping her up as if she weighed nothing and now her legs, on solid ground once more, were giving way under her and Charlie and Amira had their arms around her, stopping her from falling, and they were smiling as if it had all been a bit of a laugh.

‘Blimey,’ Amira said. ‘I thought you were stuck there for life.’

‘Hope that wasn’t too traumatic for you, Paula,’ said Rachel, coming over to hover nearby. ‘Probably felt a lot more dangerous than it was.’

Paula couldn’t believe she’d heard right. Was Rachel seriously dismissing what had just happened as nothing more than a slight mishap?

Back on the ground, Sarah came rushing over.

‘You poor thing. Are you OK?’

Paula remembered suddenly about the pregnancy bombshell Sarah had dropped on them all just a short time before. Could there be a part of her that was enjoying the diversion Paula had created?

‘I could have died,’ she said, her voice wobbling. But even as she said it, she was looking up at the wire and noticing how much lower to the ground it looked from here than it had when she was up there. The distance between the towers, which, when she was stuck in the middle had seemed endless, was just a few metres. Nothing at all really. Yet the danger had felt so real.

Will had now made it down too and was talking to his assistant Katie in a low, urgent voice.

‘Sorry about that, guys,’ he said. ‘We’ve never had a safety rope fail before. The clasp seems to have come undone but Katie has had a look at it and can’t understand how it happened. It wasn’t worn out at all. In fact, they’re all pretty new. And we had another team on here earlier today using the same equipment and it was all fine.’

‘Where is all the equipment kept?’ Charlie asked. ‘Could it have got mixed up with other older stock?’

Will shook his head.

‘It’s exactly the same equipment as we used earlier. It was all still set up from before. There’s just no reason for it to have happened.’

‘Maybe if you employed some more experienced staff?’ said Mark Hamilton, sternly glancing meaningfully over at Will’s baby-faced assistant.

‘Katie’s done this many, many times. It wasn’t her—’ Bur Mark cut him off: ‘As it happens, there was a happy ending, but it could have been a very different story.’

‘Oh come on,’ said Rachel, glancing over at Will, who was looking distinctly uncomfortable. ‘It wasn’t really that bad. Paula was never really in danger. It’s hardly like we had her scaling the Shard or anything.’

Paula stole a glance at Mark, waiting for him to leap to her defence and was shocked to see him break into a smile, as if what had happened to her was some sort of in-joke.