Chapter 14 #2
‘You did brilliantly,’ Freya tells Anita when she gets out. ‘You were so much more stoic than I was.’
This is objectively not true; Freya was stoic, other than a bit of swearing when she got out, whereas Anita squeaked throughout.
‘Thank you so much.’
The two of them share a hug and then stand back to watch Jerome get in. Jerome gets pretty sweary about the whole thing.
‘Turns out you’re an actual man of steel,’ Freya whispers to me.
‘Small sample size,’ I say, but if I’m honest I’m weirdly pleased that she’s complimented me. Probably just the contrast to how things were before. It actually gets quite wearing being permanently at war with someone.
Next it’s time for the reptile experience.
Freya begins to tense noticeably on the walk over there. She’s no longer laughing – even politely – at even my best jokes; she can barely even raise a smile. And she’s walking kind of stiffly.
When I ask, ‘So you really don’t like snakes?’ she physically flinches.
‘I can’t even stand the word,’ she tells me.
‘What, the word sn—’
She cuts me off. ‘Exactly.’
‘Proper full-blown phobia?’ I check. ‘Much worse than your fear of heights?’
She hadn’t seemed that bad with the height thing. Clearly uncomfortable but not to these levels. More your ‘I have a very rational dislike of being high up if there’s a possibility that I might fall’ type fear.
‘Yep.’
‘It’s actually completely unacceptable to force someone to do something they’re this uncomfortable with,’ I say.
‘We’re on national television and we signed up to this and what can I do?’
‘You didn’t actually sign up to this. Neither of us signed anything saying we’d do absolutely anything they required of us and, if we had, I really don’t think it would stand up in a court of law because it’s so ridiculously unreasonable to expect that of anyone and it would effectively have been under duress due to the on-national-television-you-can’t-pull-out pressure. ’
‘Well, maybe it’s good for me to face my fears.’
‘Well obviously that might be true,’ I concede.
‘If you want to face your fears.’ In front of me and lots of people she knows even less.
And TV cameras. I feel that your average person would probably rather face their fears in private and either supported by close friends or with complete strangers.
This really doesn’t seem the best place for it.
Freya doesn’t reply; we’ve nearly reached the tent where the reptiles are and she’s just staring at it as we approach – at a snail’s pace, her walking having slowed dramatically.
‘Come in.’ Sonja holds the tent flap door open and we enter, to see a man with a large snake around his neck only a few feet from us.
‘Eeuurrrgh.’ Freya makes a strange sound next to me. As I turn to her, I see her do a full-body shudder – definitely involuntary rather than for effect – and she covers her face with her hands.
Okay. This is ridiculous.
‘Sorry.’ I put my arm round Freya’s rigid shoulders and draw her back out of the tent.
‘Where are you going?’ asks Sonja.
‘We aren’t doing this activity,’ I tell her. ‘We’re going to go for a walk.’
‘Sorry, what?’ Sonja’s smiling (there’s a camera behind us) but her tone is pure steel. ‘You agreed to do this weekend and you have to participate in every task.’
I shake my head. ‘As you will be aware, there is legislation in place to protect people from being bullied and traumatised in the workplace. You knew that Freya had a snake phobia. You didn’t ask her if she would like to face her fears or do this.
From a legal perspective this is completely unacceptable.
The production company is not legally able to make anyone go into a tent of reptiles if they don’t wish to do so.
We are going for a walk. Enjoy the reptiles. ’
Sonja’s mouth has fallen slightly open and she’s doing that thing where she presses her ear to hear what her producer is saying.
Freya’s seeming quite limp next to me, as though she might faint, so I maintain my grip on her shoulders, nod at Sonja, and wheel Freya round in a one-eighty and march us both off away from the tent.
‘Outrageous,’ I say as we walk, hoping to divert Freya’s mind from the snakes. ‘How can she possibly think it’s okay not to give people a choice about what they do? That was all recorded as well. I wonder if they’ll destroy the evidence in case we make a complaint.’
‘Thank you.’ She takes a deep breath and shakes her head.
I feel her relax a little as she takes another deep breath.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘That was quite ridiculous of me. It’s just…’
‘Hey, no.’ I remove my arm, because she clearly doesn’t need any physical support any more and there’s no good reason whatsoever for me to be holding her, and the fact that my arm felt so right when it was round her is all wrong.
‘Not ridiculous. A lot of people have phobias. Apparently it’s entirely rational to have them and without them the human race might not have survived.
’ I have no idea whether or not that’s true.
It sounds very plausible, though. And a lot of phobias are rational.
‘Hmm.’ Freya’s sounding much more like her usual self now.
‘That can’t be true about all phobias. I mean, that one where people get very distressed by holes, like in crumpets and industrial ceiling tiles.
But it’s true that it makes a lot of sense to be wary round certain creatures unless you’re certain they’re safe. ’
‘Exactly. And no-one should bully people into doing something that upsets them in any way. Especially not just for a TV show.’
‘Jake Stone, I think I agree with absolutely everything you’re saying. How did that happen?’
‘Sonja happened,’ I say.
Freya nods, very seriously. ‘Yeah. I really liked it when you went full legal. Was everything you said true?’
‘I mean, broadly. I’m not actually au fait with any laws there might be on making people face their fears but clearly there is legislation and best practice in place to prevent people from being bullied or traumatised in the workplace.
And this is kind of a workplace for us in that we’ve been paid for our appearances.
I mean, you can’t just make people do something unreasonable, and that is unreasonable, clearly.
Also, maybe they could say we were in breach of contract, although I doubt it, but who cares?
I think it’s more in their interests than ours for us to continue with the rest of the weekend. ’
‘All very true. Although I do want to do the baking thing.’
‘More than you didn’t want to do the… reptile experience?’ I nearly said the snake word there; better be careful.
‘No. Definitely not.’ She gives me the smile that has such an effect on other people, and I feel it. ‘Thank you.’ She looks behind us. ‘There are frigging cameras following us.’
‘Yeah, we did sign up to that. I would suggest a walk but I don’t think it would be that great being followed the entire time.’
Freya nods. ‘You’re right. Maybe we should text Sonja and ask her to call us when it’s time for the next activity, and then go back to our rooms.’
‘Good plan.’ I pull out my phone and send the text, and then we turn round, and, cameraman in tow, set off back towards the accommodation.
‘Are you finding it hard to walk normally?’ Freya asks me a second later.
‘No?’
‘Are you not remotely paranoid about the cameras following us?’
‘Well I wasn’t.’ I look over my shoulder and yes they are very much focused on us, from about twenty feet away. ‘But now I am. Although is footage of two people walking great TV?’
‘Yeah, true, probably only if we do something remarkable.’
‘Okay, so let’s not walk at all remarkably.’
‘No problem,’ Freya says. ‘I can do that. Totally.’
A second later she begins to snigger. ‘I can’t. I cannot walk normally when I’m thinking about it.’
I take a look at her. ‘What are you doing that isn’t normal, though?’
‘I don’t know. I just feel weird. Because someone has a camera trained on my bottom.’
I can’t say the first thing that comes to mind which is that every time I’ve seen her bottom it looks lovely. I shouldn’t even be thinking that.
Freya’s really sniggering now. ‘I keep imagining doing something quite outrageous by mistake that would then get broadcast on national television.’
‘How would that happen, though? Like you would just accidentally… what? What outrageous things does anyone do when they’re walking?’
‘I don’t know. Okay, not outrageous. But what if we suddenly started pirouetting. Or really sprinting. Or stripping to our underwear and throwing our clothes at the camera.’
‘Yeah, none of those things are going to happen to me.’ I’m laughing too now.
‘I don’t think they’re going to happen to me,’ Freya says, ‘but what if they did?’
‘Then they might make good TV and be broadcast or they might not.’
She smiles at me. ‘Ever rational.’ Weirdly, she sounds almost fond, as though she likes me.
I kind of like her, I realise. She’s good company; she’s nice. And funny.
Yeah, weird. Never judge a book by its cover, I suppose.