When She Was Bad(50)

Sarah’s spirits, which had momentarily lifted when he’d mentioned the word ‘indoors’, came slamming down again. As they followed Will around the side of the hotel and down a sloping lawn towards a field at the bottom hidden by a hedge of tall trees, Sarah watched his broad shoulders and his easy swagger and wondered if her boys would grow up like this, so completely at home in their own skin, so uncomplicatedly happy to be themselves. Or might she in fact prefer them to be challenging and spiky, all dark depths and deep hollows?

So engrossed was she in her ruminations that Sarah failed to give a thought to what the next activity might be until they were through the gap in the hedge. She stopped in her tracks.

‘Now I know it might look daunting, but believe me, it’s not once you get up there.’

Will was grinning as if his saying it should be enough to put their minds at rest. But nothing he could say would make it better. Sarah gazed at the structure: two towers at least ten metres tall and forty metres apart, connected by a wire with ropes to hold on to on either side.

‘Don’t look so horrified – it’s Sarah, isn’t it?’ Will switched his smile in her direction as if he was adjusting the beam of an anglepoise lamp. ‘It’s really fine. And this one’s not a competition. The other team are off doing their own thing. This is all about working together. So you’ll all be wearing harnesses and be tied together with ropes so you’ll have each other’s backs. Literally. The idea is for the whole team to make it from one tower to the other. You’ll be working together with the stronger ones helping the weaker ones across, because if one goes, you all go . . . Only kidding. No one is going to go because you’re all attached also to the top wire.’

Sarah glanced across at Charlie who was muttering something under his breath. It wasn’t a prayer.

‘I can’t do this,’ she hissed at him.

He shrugged and shook his head.

‘No choice, babe,’ Amira whispered. ‘Anyway, I think it might actually be quite fun. There’s no real danger.’

‘No,’ Sarah said, her voice wobbling. ‘You don’t understand . . .’

‘Now, before we start, I just need to run through some health and safety stuff. Yawn, yawn, right?’

Mark Hamilton, who’d been staring nervously up at the climbing structure, gave a weak smile. ‘Bane of my life,’ he said.

‘So,’ Will continued, ‘I just need to make sure none of you are epileptic, diabetic, pregnant, have a heart condition or breathing problems, blah, blah, blah.’

‘Nope,’ said Rachel. ‘I checked all that in the personnel files to make sure we were all good to go.’

‘Cool,’ said Will. ‘Well, if you’ll just step this way, Katie here will give out the forms you have to sign for the insurance company to say I’ve told you the risks so if you all drop dead of heart attacks it’s not my fault. Then we’ll get you all rigged up.’

A young girl who’d just joined them raised a limp hand. She didn’t look old enough to have left school, let alone work for the same corporate events company as Will. She didn’t look old enough to be out of school, quite frankly. Maybe she was on work experience or something. Normally Sarah would have made a joke of it to Charlie but she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Her heart was hammering against her ribs as she took the form from the girl’s outstretched hand and waited for the one pen to make its way around. Her hand hovered over the paper.

‘I can’t,’ she croaked.

‘Course you can,’ said Rachel. She had that smile on but behind it her voice was snappy, as if it was on a spring-hinge, the words rat-a-tatting out.

‘There’s always someone who’s reluctant at first,’ said Will. ‘But you know I haven’t had one single group where, when we finish, everyone doesn’t say, “I’m so glad I did that.”’

Sarah could feel one of her legs shaking as if it had gone into spasm.

‘No, I can’t.’

‘Oh, come on.’ Even Charlie was losing patience. ‘The sooner we do it, the sooner we can get to the bar for a stiff drink. Look, Paula’s signed it.’

Paula nodded. She looked pale, but determined. Sarah saw her glance over at Mark Hamilton and wondered if she was trying to impress him, and if so, was it because he was her boss, or whether in some weird, unfathomable way she might actually fancy him. But the distraction was fleeting. Her attention was once again drawn to the tower she’d be expected to climb, and that wire running from it to the next one. From this angle it looked finer than cotton thread.