‘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.’