Chapter 16
‘For God’s sake!’ Rosemarie had observed. ‘You’d think you were doing the planning for D-Day. It’s just a bit of fun. Stop taking it all so seriously.’
Rosemarie was on a late lunch because Crystal had been interviewed by the podcast #ScumbagCity about how perimenopause affects women’s sex drive.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up doing a Katie Price on it and having another baby, just to prove how hot she is. Jesus, I’ll never see my home if she has another one. Got to go, Ally, keep me in the loop.’
Just then her phone buzzed. It was William.
Hey, hope you’re still OK for this evening? Text me your office address and we can drive out together.
Which was gentlemanly. Suddenly, it struck her .
. . Oh Lord, this was actually happening.
As long as she was just talking about the idea or doing some online shopping, it was all a bit of a fantasy, but now everything was becoming horribly real.
Why, oh why, had she allowed herself to get into this situation?
Rosemarie was right, she had a phobia about heights, so how could she climb a vertical wall?
What if she froze solid and had to be winched off by sweaty men on a big ladder?
I’ve got to put a stop to this travesty before it goes any further, she decided. She would text William and tell him she had a terrible . . . what? Tummy upset. Yes, that’d warn anyone off, even someone as keen as William. Brilliant.
Just then her phone buzzed.
Hi, on my way to you now, traffic clear and ETA 5.37pm ??
Oh shite.
Too late.
There was only one thing for it. In Dad’s horse-racing parlance, the only way is through. She slipped upstairs to the bathroom and unpacked her online purchases, which, perhaps unwisely, she’d decided to keep as a surprise for herself.
The climbing shoes she’d stick in her bag till she got there, but she climbed into the pale-grey jersey bottoms (for all-round stretch), which somehow looked more solid in the picture on an invisible model.
The only mirror in the room was stuck above the wash-hand basin and at least five feet above the ground.
How the hell was she supposed to check her rear at that height?
The only option was to carefully climb onto the loo seat, clinging to the wall, and stick her bum across, trying to catch sight of it from the side.
Oh God. The bottoms mercilessly clung to every pore.
Admittedly, the fluorescent lighting wasn’t doing her any favours, but at that moment her buttocks looked like the dark side of the moon.
A powerful rapping of knuckles on the door caused her heart to lurch.
‘Anybody in there?’ boomed Vincent’s voice.
’Course they bloody were. Why else would the door be locked?
‘Out in a minute,’ she piped. God, her voice sounded like a pet gerbil.
Meanwhile, the pale-pink tank top that had looked longer, she was certain, on the website, was in fact, horror of horrors, undoubtedly some sort of sports bra.
They must have sent the wrong thing. She’d definitely ordered a top, but what had arrived was something that left a three-inch gap of midriff, which she totally hadn’t prepared for.
If she’d only known that that piece of her body would be on display, well, at least she could’ve done something drastic about it.
How could she have been so dim as not to try everything on beforehand?
How many crunches could she have done? Plenty, that’s how feckin’ many.
And that’d have been a whole lot better than zero.
In fact, was there space in the bathroom to do a few quick sit-ups right now?
Not a chance. She had to come up with a solution.
It was all about creating an illusion. If she stood ramrod straight and sucked everything in, she could pass herself off, but then .
. . if she forgot and breathed out . . . Oh, whatever.
The other issue was that the sports-bra thing she’d bought was turning out to be uncomfortably close to her own skin tone and would look, to the casual observer, as though she were climbing topless.
Oh well, too late now. Got to go.
She opened the door, only to find herself face to face with Vincent’s six-foot-four frame.
He’d obviously been hovering out there, earwigging her panicked mumblings, and he looked her up and down with narrowed eyes as she tottered past him, feeling painfully exposed.
Just as she started down the stairs, she heard him muttering under his breath, ‘Ho, ho, I do love me a bit of camel toe. Yummy.’
She was too shocked to turn around – or had she just imagined it? Oh, feck it, so what? She’d more to worry about right now than creepy Vincent and his slimy comments. She had possible imminent death to consider, which was bad enough without full exposure of her cellulite.
* * *
William tooted the horn and waved from his new sky-blue EV. Even his car looked cheery. Clearly, IT jobs paid a great deal more than anything she was qualified for.
She hopped in beside him, glad to get out of the wet at least. There was something intimate about sitting inside someone’s car. Like you had an insight into their own private little world.
‘Nice car, William.’
He smiled and pulled out into the traffic while glancing down at the winking display screen.
‘Thanks. Hmm, she’s at sixty-eight per cent.
You know, it’s amazing – when you have the lights, heat and windscreen wipers on, it eats the battery, but d’you know, when you put your foot on the brake, it actually starts to recharge,’ he announced affectionately, as though his car had just scored a load of points in the Leaving Cert.
She had a quick look around; there was that new-car smell and a tiny Galway Gaelic football jumper dangling from the mirror. He was in his happy place.
‘I worked from home today – a bit claustrophobic with the other lads, so at least we can relax and unwind on the wall. It’s one of the highest in Europe, by the way.’
Oh my God. They couldn’t have been on more different pages.
Look, she scolded herself, it’ll probably be absolutely fine.
She was likely worrying unnecessarily. It also turned out that his friends, Ronan and Fergus, had heard nothing more from the law, so the whole brawl debacle seemed to have been forgotten about.
In short, William was in top form. And why not?
Mortal danger was his happy place, apparently.
* * *
Ally gazed up at the towering walls, a good three-storey high, with coloured knobs stuck in at intervals all the way up, which she recognised were handholds.
There was pounding techno music playing, presumably to get the adrenalin pumping, but that only had the effect of making her feel even more petrified.
‘Great,’ enthused William, ‘let’s put our stuff in a locker and get going. Have you got your own harness, by the way?’
‘Er, no.’
‘Not a bother in the world, we’ll hire one for you. I’m paying,’ he said cheerfully.
Whatever else she might be feeling, she was clearly getting to see William at his best. If only the same could be said for herself.
She took off her coat and stuffed it in the locker.
He was wearing well-worn, but obviously good, climbing clothes that looked like they’d seen a lot of hours on the wall.
Like a dancer’s practice gear, she thought, they looked cool in a way that was earned through hard work.
William looked at her skimpy outfit admiringly.
‘Nice one, Ally, I can see that you’re prepared for some really physical climbing. I like it.’
This charade has got to stop, she decided.
‘Look, William, I’ve got to be honest, I’m really nervous about this.’
He looked bewildered. ‘Nervous? Why?’
‘Because I haven’t . . . actually ever climbed . . . anything quite this high before. I normally climb . . . lower rocks.’
She was going to mention the phobia, but he looked disappointed enough.
‘Oh. Oh . . . I didn’t realise. Well, don’t worry, you’ll be roped on and I can lend you a figure of eight for your harness,’ he said, rummaging in his bag and pulling out a . . . thingy.
‘I’ll just attach it on with a locking carabiner, like so . . .’ He was concentrating on manipulating her harness, which was a not unpleasant feeling. ‘Anyway, we’ll be climbing as a couple so . . . what can go wrong?’
Weirdly, that made her feel a bit better.
What if her only problem was anxiety? Once she let go of that, she could be absolutely fine.
All that was left to worry about was the camel toe, but she reckoned that between the harness and the ropes, nobody would even notice. She turned and walked ahead of William.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you still have the label on your bottoms.’ And without asking for permission, he reached out and snapped it off. Mortifying.
They arrived at the wall, where scores of people, including small children, appeared to be flinging themselves fearlessly up the colour-coded routes like a troop of lemurs.
I mean, if six-year-olds could do it, how hard could it be?
He led her over to a stack-like structure that looked like something out of the Arizona desert.
‘I’ll lead and when I get to a certain height, I’ll clip in, and you can follow me,’ William explained, pulling on his fingerless climbing gloves that gave him an air of expertise, which was quite sexy, she had to admit.
He started climbing rapidly, finding his hand- and footholds deftly. She did her breathing and watched his taut arse, which she’d definitely never before seen from this angle, work its way up the wall. After a while, he stopped and gave her a thumbs up.