‘Ow.’ A hand slapped my naked bottom. It wasn’t the nicest alarm.
‘Come on, wake up, beautiful. We have shopping to do. I want to get into town before it’s too busy.’
‘Shopping?’
‘Yes, I want to get you some things. If you’re staying the rest of the week, then those high-heeled fancy boots you brought for walking around London won’t do.’
I looked at the clock. It was nine a.m. and he was dressed and his hair was wet as though he’d had a shower. He smelled nice.
I rolled over on the bed. We’d come up to his bedroom and had sex again last night, with me lying on my tummy and him lying over me. I’d fallen asleep afterwards without moving.
‘I’ll make some French toast while you shower, if you like?’
‘Thank you. I like.’ I slid off the bed. He watched while I found some clothes out from my case.
It was funny, because this was the second day, after the second night, and yet I felt just as I had yesterday – really awkward now it was daylight. The sex-goddess role I was playing with him was fine when I could hide in the darkness and the low light of the fire. But in daylight I had to face that woman and look her in the eyes. Who was she?
She wasn’t me.
When I walked into the bathroom, I heard his footsteps on the stairs.
An hour later Jack and I stood outside a sports shop in Keswick, watching a guy open up. He looked at us queuing on our own like we were weirdos who should have something better to do. It wasn’t a large shop and they didn’t seem to be going too much for the whole Boxing Day-sale thing.
Jack immediately started walking around the shop pulling things off racks and handing them to me. ‘Try these too.’ He gave me another pair of leggings that looked like jogging pants. I already had an arm full of things to try on: bottoms, tops and coats.
He turned back and looked at me. ‘Go on, then, try them on.’
‘You’re not my boss, Jack. Stop ordering me.’ But I turned away to find the changing rooms anyway.
‘Whatever. Remember you’re going to need enough until the thirty-first and you’ll want something to wear every day. You’ll be getting dirty—’
I looked back. ‘Why, what are we going to do?’
‘Wait and see.’
I went into the cubicle. None of it was sexy. It was all like jogging stuff. If he wanted me to go running with him, I wasn’t very fast.
I made the shop guy get a couple of alternatives and then picked four pairs of leggings and a couple of warm tops and a lightweight coat that was meant to be really warm even though it was thin. I didn’t show Jack any of my choices on. I didn’t like giving Captain Control the chance to tell me exactly what to wear, which was why two of the leggings I chose were ones the shop guy had given me.
Jack didn’t challenge my choices, though. When I came out of the changing room he threw a woolly hat at me and a pair of leather gloves. ‘You’ll need those, and shoes.’ He looked at the shop guy. ‘Something she can climb in… What size are you, Ivy?’
‘Seven.’
The guy immediately disappeared through a door, into a storeroom as Jack took the clothes I’d picked from me and carried them over to the till. He left them piled on the counter as the guy came back with three different boxes. Jack watched as the shoes were revealed. He selected a really light, thin pair of trainers for me to try on.
I didn’t argue, only looked at him and said, ‘Captain Control’ before I tried them on. His expression twisted with a look that questioned my comment.
When I said they were comfortable, he said we’d have them. The store guy had got over his reticence about his only Boxing Day shoppers as soon as he’d realised how much money Jack was willing to spend.
Jack chose some walking boots for me too.
‘Climb in?’ I whispered while we stood by the till and he found out his card.
He looked sideways at me and gave me the sort of twisted smile he’d have given me the day we’d begun all this, when we’d been queuing for coffee in Nero’s. Then he said, ‘Captain Control?’ with a lift of his eyebrows and a pitch that made the words a question.
‘Captain Control is you in a bossy mood, when you think no one else at work can get the project right, ‘cause Jack’s way is perfect.’
He made a face and shrugged the comment off. ‘One more place to go to.’
We walked out of the store loaded down with bags.
The one more place turned out to be a motorbike shop that sold leathers, helmets and boots. He bought me a helmet and he checked it fitted securely. I chose it, though. It was white and mauve, with silver trims so it would catch the light well. He picked out a leather outfit that fitted like a second skin; but was black with purple and white markings, so my colours. There was nothing sexy about it, yet my heart went pump, pump, pump… wondering what he wanted me to do now.
When we were back in the car, with all our purchases stored safe in the boot, I said to him, ‘Where are we going?’ It was past twelve o’clock. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘I’m taking you to one of my favourite villages. We can get something to eat there.’
‘Where?’
‘Grasmere. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills—’
‘Uh?’
He glanced over at me as he changed gears and flicked the indicator on. ‘It’s Wordsworth: When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, beside the lake, beneath the trees… and so on and so on.’ He looked over and laughed. ‘He wrote that poem up here.’
‘I never knew you were intellectual.’
‘I went to private school; you can’t avoid that stuff there.’
‘I didn’t know you went to a private school.’
‘Boarding school, but let’s not turn the conversation to that.’ He drove into another old-fashioned-looking village with grey-stone buildings, white-washed cottages and picture-postcard streets.
When he’d parked up I opened the door.
He grabbed the back of my coat before I could get out. ‘Wait a minute. Stay in the car.’
He got out and walked around to get something out of the boot, then he came around my side with the walking boots he’d bought me in his hand. ‘You’ll need these.’
I looked down at his shoes to make a point. His shoes were not walking boots.
He laughed. ‘Mine are in the back.’
I unzipped my heeled boots and took them off, then sat sideways in the front of the car and pulled the walking boots on and laced them up. When I stood up, I saw him lift a foot down from the boot; he’d been leaning on it to do his boots up. He shut the boot down.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To get something to eat and then to see another of the most special places in the world.’
We walked into the village, which had a charm all of its own including the tiniest shop I’d ever seen where they made an old gingerbread recipe. But the shop was shut so I couldn’t try any.
We stopped in a pub for lunch and ate steak-and-ale pies before walking out of the village and through a gate into a field.
I gripped his arm as I looked up a steep hill. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Up yonder hill and down dale.’
‘Stop talking in riddles. What are we doing?’
He freed his arm from my grip and, instead, wrapped it around my shoulders. ‘We’re walking up this hill because at the top of it there’s a really beautiful tarn: a lake, to ignorant people.’ His fingers squeezed my shoulder, then let go. ‘It’s called Alcock Tarn. You’re going to love it.’
His leather-gloved hand gripped my woollen, stripy glove and pulled me on.
He was right. I loved it. Oh my God, I loved it. It was so peaceful, an idyll. Right on top of the hill, like a secret paradise.
‘I’ve swum in it,’ Jack said, letting go of my hand and walking forward. He took his gloves off. ‘In the summer this year, I came up here at daybreak.’
He leant down and touched the water, sending out ripples. ‘Ah, shit that’s cold.’ He looked back at me. ‘It was fucking cold then too.’
I laughed when he stood up. We were making so many memories to keep a hold of up here. My lips parted in a wider smile.
‘Do you want to swim now?’ He rushed at me and picked me up.
‘Ahhh. No!’
He moved as if he’d throw me in, and he was so toned he controlled it until the last minute, making me really think he would. But he didn’t let go; instead he set my feet down on the edge of the grass. I turned and faced him. His eyes seemed darker. That look did weird things in my tummy, it was like a penny rolling around in a spiral dropping down inside me – and my internal muscles clasped at it.
His head bent down, then his lips were on mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back. It was the first time, except for the moment we’d made our agreement, that we’d kissed without any expectation of more.
I was still breathless from the kiss when we walked back down the hill. I was glad I’d come here with him. I didn’t regret it. I wouldn’t ever.
Jack picked up my plate. ‘Today you’re going to discover why I bought you all those clothes.’
‘I’ll wash up. You keep doing everything.’
‘Because I don’t care for other people’s cooking, and you’d damage your nails washing up.’ He threw the tea towel that was on his shoulder at me. ‘You can dry up.’
I watched him walk back into the kitchen, then stood up and followed. It didn’t feel as awkward today. Last night we’d had sex in the shower before dinner, then eaten dinner and played a game of truth or dare, with sexual consequences.
The truth questions included him asking me how many people at work called him Captain Control? I told him everyone, when he took a project over.
‘Tell me what we’re doing?’
‘We’re doing what I spend most of my time here doing.’
‘What?’
He looked over his shoulder at me. ‘Climbing.’
‘You said climbing yesterday, but climbing what?’ I picked up a plate and started drying it.
‘Rocks.’ He lifted an eyebrow at me. ‘Cliffs.’
I wanted to punch that clever eyebrow. ‘I’m scared of heights.’
‘Perfect chance to get over that, then.’
‘You can’t just get over it.’
‘You can if you want to.’ He wasn’t looking at me any more – he was focusing on washing up. I couldn’t imagine him being scared of anything and if he was scared I think he would do what he was telling me: face up to it and ignore it.
I wasn’t like him.
He glanced back at me. ‘Look if you want to watch me and stare at the rock, that’s what you do. But I want to get some climbing time in up here. So sorry if it’ll be boring, but if it is, then it’ll be your fault for not taking part.’
I’d gained a new insight into his relationship with Sharon from things he’d said in our truth-or-dare game. They were both self-centred. I bet they hadn’t done much together – except have sex. But actually, even that they’d done apart too. They’d probably gone off and done their own thing all the time. Rick and me had been the opposite. He’d wanted us to do everything together: I’d endured hours on the edge of a rugby pitch in the freezing cold, watching.
I sighed. I didn’t have much choice about going today, though, unless I sat in here and listened to music, or aimlessly wandered around the field outside. It wouldn’t harm to go with him and watch him.
I wiped up the frying pan as he washed up the last of the stuff.
He leaned back against the Belfast sink, watching me as I finished drying up. ‘Okay?’
I looked at him as I put the last of the cutlery in the drawer. ‘Yeah.’
‘Well, let’s go get into our gear. You’re going to need the leggings and a top that I bought you yesterday, and that coat. You need stuff that’s easy to move in.’
I hadn’t agreed to climb, though.
We got dressed together in his room and he pulled on a pair of legging-style bottoms too, and a thermal top like the one he’d bought me, and a black jacket to cover it. ‘You’ll need your bike helmet too.’ He threw it at me. I didn’t ask why. I’d given up trying to keep up with the pace he lived his life.
All kitted out and ready to go, with my new gloves on, and my woollen hat in my pocket, I stood outside waiting as he opened the barn that had been converted into a garage.
There were two bikes in there beside a four-by-four: an off-road bike with big wheels and a basic frame, and a Ducati, which was gleamingly clean, like his Jag had been in London.
He walked over to the off-road bike and glanced at me. ‘Put your helmet on.’
I put it on as he put his on, and I did it up how he’d showed me in the shop yesterday, checking it was tight. He straddled the bike. ‘Come on.’ He beckoned me to get on the back, behind him.
My heart played out an Arctic Monkeys’ loud, aggressive rhythm as I climbed on, straddling the bike behind him. He started the engine. I’d never ridden pillion and this bike wasn’t even designed for it.
He tapped my thigh and pointed at the footrests. I looked down and put my feet on them as I gripped his waist.
‘Hold on tighter!’ he shouted. He was sitting as far forward as he could.
I wrapped my arms right around his waist and held him, pressing my head to his shoulder. When he drove out of the barn the door automatically closed behind us.
I held on tight as he drove on to the track leading back to the main road, my heart pumping hard with adrenaline. His body was rigid. His core was made of iron.
He turned off the track and on to the grass before we got to the road. The bike bounced across the uneven meadow. I pressed closer to him, hanging on, but he wasn’t going too fast. Probably because I was behind him and slowing him down.
At the edge of the field he turned the bike sideways and slid it down a muddy hill. I squealed. He ignored my outburst, carrying on along a narrow mud track.
It looked like he rode the bike along here a lot; there were tyre marks everywhere.
It only took a few more minutes to get to where he was headed – a cliff face about twenty meters high at its highest, and about five meters at its lowest.
He stopped the bike and pulled off his helmet. ‘You can let go of me and get off.’
I leant away from his back and let go, but my hand touched his side to steady myself as I climbed off. My hands and legs were shaking, and my heart raced so badly I struggled to catch my breath.
He slipped his helmet off. ‘So, first off, I’ll show you how to do it.’
He threw his helmet at me. He was lucky I caught it, but he wasn’t even watching; he unzipped his coat and tossed that on top of his helmet. I balanced the helmet on his bike and hung his coat over the handlebars, then took off my helmet as he walked towards the highest part of the cliff.
When I looked around he was about three meters up the cliff, with no fucking rope on. But it was like he balanced on the air; I couldn’t see him putting any weight into his feet or his hands. When he gripped the edge of a rock and pulled himself up it looked as if he gripped the rock with his fingertips, all his weight and his balance was in the core of his body.
He looked for another handhold, gripped, then moved his foot up higher. It looked effortless. He was Spiderman. He was about six meters off the ground now.
I swallowed against the dryness in my mouth. Willing him not to fall.
He didn’t even look nervous. He was just doing it, like he did everything – full-on and full-force.
He was insane.
He carried on climbing, looking from one side to the other for holds. At the top there was a ledge that jutted out, which he’d have to lean outward to climb over. I couldn’t see how he’d do it. A tight knot of anxiety caught in my throat. But he knew what he was doing. He climbed around it, moving sideways to reach an easier point and then found a solid handgrip and lifted his leg up.
God. I wanted to pass out just looking at him as he hauled himself up on to the top of the cliff. I breathed in properly for the first time in about ten minutes.
He waved at me.
‘You’re crazy!’
He smiled, then turned away and disappeared out of sight.
A few moments later a rope came over the cliff, unravelling and tumbling down to the bottom, about four meters away from where I’d last seen him. The end of it hit the ground. A couple of minutes later, another rope came over the cliff at the lowest part.
I saw him then, standing at the top and wrapping the first rope he’d thrown down around his waist, then he abseiled down, walking down the rock as his hands controlled the slip of the rope around his body. It wasn’t safe. He wasn’t properly attached to the rope he was using.
‘If you want to climb, this is the bit you can climb.’ He pointed at the lowest part of the cliff. ‘See, it’s not so scary.’
‘Is this on your land?’
‘Yes, that’s why I have all the ropes set up. This was the deal-clincher when I saw this place.’
‘I didn’t know you climbed.’
‘I’ve climbed since I was a kid. I have friends I climb with. We go all over. But I still love messing around here.’
‘Where do you climb in London?’
‘There’s a climbing club, with mocked-up walls. I climb there to keep my toning up.’
When he was climbing I’d had a pretty good view of that toning. His clothing was skin-tight, his thighs strong and his bum firm, and his torso and arms were, as I’d thought before – like something you’d cast in bronze.
‘While you’re deciding if you’re going to be a chicken or not, I’m going to time myself on this face.’ He looked at his watch, pressed a button, then turned away and ran to the edge of the cliff.
This time he did wrap a rope around him, and pulled it so it was taut, but he didn’t keep it taut as he climbed. He wasn’t safe. He climbed anyway, reaching for footholds and handholds in a hurry, swinging on his fingertips at one point. Jack was crazy, but despite being terrified he’d fall, I was impressed by his Spiderman impression. He was clever.
I didn’t want to be Spiderwoman, though. I found a rock to sit down on and turned on my phone. Oh shit, there were about thirty messages from Rick, and two missed calls from him late last night, and ten missed calls from Mum. Awesome. I turned it off again. I’d have gone into games but if I left my phone on I’d hear the messages and the calls coming in. I didn’t want to answer. I wanted to hide away from it all for a little longer.
‘Ivy, come on. You’ve got to give it a go, at least.’
I looked up at Jack. He grabbed my hand that held the phone and pulled me up, then took the phone away and dropped it on to the ground, on the mud. ‘For me, Ivy. Think about how you’ll feel when you conquer that rock.’
‘I thought we were living in the now, and right now I’m standing at the bottom of it. I can’t think about conquering it, that’s not now.’ The whole idea turned my tummy over. The thought was beyond heart-pounding; it was petrifying.
He pulled on my hand.
‘Jack.’ A cold sweat made my hands damp as I looked from the rock to him.
His eyes said, please try it for me. ‘There has to be a first time for everything. A moment of discovery. You can’t know what it’s like until you try it, and if you conquer it and conquer your fear – think of the rush – the adrenaline pulse you’ll get from that.’
He was a full-on adrenaline junky. I’d only been dabbling, dipping my toes in at the edges. ‘That’s what you’d feel. I feel terrified.’ This was where he and I were very different.
‘But you need the fear the first time to make it exciting – if you didn’t know it was hard and risky, what would be the fun in having achieved it?’
I shut my eyes.
‘I’ll give you a harness. I’ll put it on for you. You’ll be safe.’
I didn’t answer and kept my eyes closed, shutting out his persuasion.
He let go of me, and I sat back down and opened my eyes.
He sat down next to me and his hand settled on my thigh and tapped it.
I shook my head. ‘I’m not you.’
‘No. You’re you: beautiful and determined, full of fire and passion. You liked the night you had me all trussed up didn’t you?’
I looked at him. ‘Yes… But so what?’
‘Because you liked getting control over me. Well, imagine being in control of that cliff?’ That annoying eyebrow of his tilted.
I made a face at him, but I was imagining it. ‘You’re sales-pitching me. Stop it.’
He laughed. ‘Works, though, doesn’t it? You can see yourself, can’t you, climbing over the top and thinking, shit did I do that? Me. Who used to be scared of heights.’
The face I’d made distorted further. ‘You’re so fucking clever.’
He laughed and stood up. ‘It’s up to you, Ivy. Feel that rush of success, or keep watching.’
I really wanted to hit him. How could he make me want to do something I was terrified of?
I looked at it, the cliff. Then looked at him.
‘Okay.’ I stood up.
I couldn’t believe I was going to do it. But it wasn’t a rush of anticipation and excitement in my blood – it was pure panic.
‘Hang on, I’ll get the harness.’ He scaled the five-meter climb he wanted me to do in about three minutes, with no rope. Then he threw down two more ropes and abseiled back down, holding a small helmet and something else in one hand.
My heart thudded out its rhythm in my ears.
‘Here.’ He handed me the helmet to put on first, then squatted down. ‘Step into this.’ It was a set of straps that together made up a seat-like harness. Then he attached the rope to that with a metal clip.
‘Okay, you’re ready.’ He picked up the other rope, which turned out to be the other end of the rope he’d strapped me to. ‘Watch.’ He stepped up to the cliff face and cupped his fingers on a tiny narrow ledge. ‘This is the sort of thing you’re looking for; just something you can grip or get the tip of your toes onto. Keep your body light. Don’t put too much weight through your grip… and you can’t fall because I have you on the rope, alright? So you don’t need to worry.’
He had no concept of what being scared of heights meant. It was irrational. It wasn’t about whether you could fall or not – it was just fear.
‘Go on then, Ivy.’
I started climbing. It was easy starting. I wasn’t up high when I started and the first couple of handholds were easy to find.
When I lifted my right foot for the second time, he gripped the sole of the thin trainer I had on and moved my foot to a ledge. ‘That’s it.’
My heart played out the rhythm of the Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Crawling Back to You’. I was getting too used to his break-up music. I started singing the song in my head and found a few more holds and climbed up a little higher, focusing on the song.
But then I couldn’t find anywhere to put my foot. My fingers clung while my toes blindly felt for a hold and there was nothing, I couldn’t look down because I was too high… I lost the music in my head and it became a massive blur of panic. My lungs were solid. Petrified. I had no breath. I couldn’t move. I just clung. ‘Jack!’ My voice was shaky with desperation. ‘I can’t do it! Jack!’
‘You can. Just take a couple of breaths, concentrate and you can control the fear. There’s a foothold about ten inches away from where your foot is. Lift your leg and it’s a little to the right.’
‘No. I can’t do it, Jack. I want to come down.’
‘Coming down is harder than going up.’
‘Please? I can’t do it.’
‘Wait a minute. I’ll tie the rope around a tree.’
The next thing I knew he was there. His hand gripped my foot and moved it to the hold he’d meant, then, when I lifted my other foot he moved that too. ‘The rope is going to go slack, Ivy, but if you fell you won’t hit the ground. Just be careful you don’t bash yourself on the rock. Don’t put your hands out, just curl up.’
‘That makes me feel better. Not.’
He laughed as he climbed up beside me. ‘Just remember, I’m not wearing a rope, so don’t fucking fall.’
Why had he had to say that? ‘Thanks for adding to the pressure.’
But talking to him and having him close made me feel better; he was talking deliberately, taking my mind off the panic.
‘Lift your weight on to your right foot and go for this handhold up here.’ His fingers were gripping it, but he let go when I did what he said. He was balanced easily on two points, up to his Spiderman tricks.
‘Your other hand can go there. Then you can move your left foot.’
He talked me all the way to the top. When I reached it, relief flooded me as I clutched the grass and pulled myself over the top of the cliff on to the turf. I rolled to my back, shutting my eyes, breathing hard as pure adrenaline, and no more fear, pulsed through my blood. I was shaking. ‘Thank you, God.’ I breathed into the air as ‘Crawling Back to You’ played in my head again. Only this time the memory of the rhythm and the words to the song were joined by the image of me whipping Jack’s arse with my leather belt.
‘Did you enjoy it? Would you do it again?’
My heart thumped against my ribs as if it wanted to get out of my chest, and it didn’t feel cool. ‘No.’ I wasn’t like him. If he’d scared the crap out of himself like that he’d be buzzing from it now.
He laughed, then he held out a hand to take mine.
He pulled me up. ‘But you mastered it. You’re now the master of that little bit of rock. You won. You got the control over your fear and the stone.’
‘You don’t need to sales-pitch me after the event.’
‘I do if I want you to do it again.’ He looked over the edge.
I tried it, but it made the world spin. It wasn’t ever going to happen again. But it had happened once. The memory was mad. I’d done it – and his sales pitch was working. I did feel proud of myself.
He pressed a quick kiss on my lips. ‘You know if you’d really wanted to come down, you could have just let go of the rock, you’d have just hung on the rope. I had you. I’d have just lowered you down.’
I hit his arm. ‘You bastard!’
‘You conquered it, though, you’ll be thanking me later.’
‘I was terrified. And what if you’d fallen?’ Oh shit, I heard Rick’s voice again. He would be yelling at Jack if he was here; he’d never condone a guy climbing with no ropes. He’d call it irresponsible, and most of the time Jack came up here and climbed alone.
He did a few more climbs, while I sat on the rock shaking with cold in the aftermath of the adrenaline. Then we went back to the cottage and I cooked lunch – cheese on toast – because I didn’t know what to do with any of the fancy food he had in his fridge. After we’d eaten lunch Jack told me to put my motorbike leathers back on then threw my helmet at me again.
‘Where to now?’
‘Just out for a ride.’
He drove the off-road bike and we went out on to the road, to a forest of fir trees that covered one side of a giant hill where he turned on to a mud track.
The ride became a fast-paced mud-spraying scramble through the forest, going up and down the steep tracks, with the bike sliding on the soft ground, while the echo of the engine’s sound buzzed back from the trees.
This made my heart pound excitedly. It was dangerous, but fun.