The wait was actually less than the board had predicted. Even so, I was growing hot and thirsty as we shuffled towards the head of the queue in the summer sunshine. I was on the point of suggesting we duck out and go for an early lunch instead when I had the unmistakable, goose-walking-over-my-grave feeling of being watched. I turned around, my eyes immediately locking on those of the man I’d collided with. Boy, some people really know how to bear a grudge, I thought, pointedly turning my back to him. Even so, I could feel the burn of his stare from where he stood in the single rider queue.
‘Sorry girls, you’re not tall enough.’ The ride attendant had the look of a prison warder and I felt like telling the disappointed teenagers there was no point in arguing with her. But they did anyway, moving quickly from pleading to pissed-off, without success. Sasha and I exchanged a secret smile. They sounded exactly like us at their age. The girls stomped off, disappointment exuding from them like a vapour.
‘I suppose there’s no chance of me not being tall enough?’ said Sasha hopefully to the woman, who looked as happy as a traffic warden who’d just slapped a fine on a windscreen. ‘No, you’re good,’ said the woman, ushering us through the metal turnstile.
‘Sasha, you really don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,’ I offered. It was impossible not to notice that she’d gone a shade paler under her summer tan.
‘No. It was my idea,’ she maintained. ‘And you want to do it.’
I looked at the carriages and felt a small thrill stir in the pit of my stomach. She was right. I did.
‘You’re in luck, ladies. The front carriage is all yours,’ declared a ride attendant decked out in an outfit that was supposed to look like chain mail and was probably just as uncomfortable.
‘Yay,’ said Sasha, as though we were off to the gallows.
I climbed into the small metal carriage, stowing my bag and sunglasses in the mesh holdall by my feet. Sasha slid in beside me and immediately tried to pull down the padded safety bar.
‘They don’t engage those until everyone is on,’ I said, placing my hand over hers on the bar. I was shocked to discover she was actually shaking. ‘You’re really scared, aren’t you?’
A blush came into her cheeks, which helped dispel a little of the pallor The Hybrid had painted on them.
‘I’m just being daft,’ she said, twisting in her seat and watching as the carriages behind us began to fill. She swivelled back to face the front and I could see her eyes following the track where it fell away a short distance in front of us, and then rose up again towards the sky in a gravity-defying ascent.
‘So, tell me about your final fitting yesterday. I bet your dress looked totally amazing,’ I prompted, because if there was one topic guaranteed to take Sasha’s mind off the ride, then it was her spectacular wedding dress. But today even the designer gown from the exclusive bridal shop couldn’t distract her. She leapt suddenly to her feet and snatched up her bag.
‘I’m sorry, Bella, I can’t do this. It’s scaring the crap out of me.’
She was already clambering over me to step out of the carriage, but when I went to follow her, she pressed her hand firmly on my shoulder. Afterwards she told me that every nightmare she ever has of that day features that moment: when she’d pushed me back down on to the ride.
‘Stay,’ she urged, looking much happier now that she’d made up her mind not to. ‘You know you want to see what it’s like.’ That’s the thing about friends who’ve known you for over twenty years: there’s absolutely no point in lying to them.
‘I do,’ I admitted.
‘Don’t feel bad about chickening out, you’re not the first,’ assured the ride attendant, as he directed Sasha towards the exit sign. ‘You can wait for your friend at the bottom.’
I waggled my fingers at Sasha as she was ushered from the ride; in the distance I heard a voice calling out: ‘Single rider for carriage number one.’
The seat beside me was once again filled, but when I turned towards the new arrival, my smile of greeting faltered on my lips. Of all the thousands of people in the park that day, why did it have to be the one person I’d decided I didn’t like?
The Hybrid hadn’t been built for someone that tall, and all at once the compact carriage seemed full of long denim-clad thighs and feet that barely fitted into the well designed for them. I squeezed myself as far to the right as I could, painfully knocking my ankle against a metal bolt as I did. For the second time that day, I was scowling when he spoke to me.
‘Hello.’ His voice was friendly enough to make me wonder if he hadn’t realised I was the girl he’d been openly staring at in the queue. ‘Again,’ he added with a flash of a smile that revealed extremely white, even teeth.
I mumbled a greeting as I tried and failed not to acknowledge that he was very easy on the eye. When we’d bumped into each other, my only impression had been his height and breadth. Now, at close quarters, I could see that he was the classic cliché: tall, dark and handsome. The black hair and the cleanly shaven square-cut jaw reminded me of someone, but it was only when he readjusted the black-rimmed glasses on his nose that I made the connection. The man sitting beside me was a dead ringer for Clark Kent, Superman’s alter ego.
‘Did your friend change her mind?’ His question confirmed he’d definitely been watching us, although weirdly he didn’t appear to be trying to hide it. Wonderful. I was now incarcerated in a small metal vehicle for the next minute and a half with my very own stalker.
‘Uh huh.’ I hoped my monosyllabic answer would convey I had no desire to chat. The sooner we accelerated away at speed, the better.
‘Ah, the famed roller-coaster walk of shame,’ he said, with a smile that was so unexpectedly charismatic I felt momentarily disoriented, as though the ride had already begun and gravity could no longer be relied upon.
‘You like roller-coasters?’ The question surprised me, popping out almost of its own volition. But his answer surprised me even more.
‘Not particularly.’
I looked up, trying to peer through the reflective surface of his glasses to see if he was joking, but they were coated with something that defied all intruders.
‘Then why—?’
‘It’s my job.’
‘You ride roller-coasters for a living?’ Who had a career like that, and why had no one told me about that profession when I’d been trying to work out what to do with my life?
‘I write travel guides. Most specifically, guides about theme parks.’
It was an intriguing occupation and I regretted my earlier frosty attitude, because I really would have liked to hear more about it.
‘Oh well, I bet you’ll love this one.’
He shifted slightly in his seat, his hip bone momentarily coming into contact with mine. ‘I doubt it,’ he said, sounding a little resigned.
A bored-looking attendant began walking along the row of carriages, pushing each safety bar in place, as if on an assembly line. Ours came to a rest against my companion’s abdomen rather than mine, leaving a gap of several centimetres between me and the restraint. I tugged down on the thickly padded bar, trying to inch it a little closer. I could sense the dark-haired man watching me.
‘Ever been on one this fast before?’ he asked conversationally.
I shook my head, pretty sure my ponytail must have struck him in the face with the action. Why on earth did they make these carriages so small? Despite scooting as far from him as I could, my left leg was still pinioned against the length of his; his denim fusing with mine, as though the two fabrics were loom-mates being drawn back together.
‘Are there any?’
‘There’s one in Dubai, and Six Flags… oh, and then there’s the one in Japan.’ He knew roller-coasters the way I knew dog breeds. What a pair of nerds we were, I thought with a twisted smile.
The sound of raised voices distracted me and I glanced at the ride podium, where two teenage members of King Arthur’s court had now been joined by a third. One was speaking animatedly into a walkie-talkie, while another was repeatedly jabbing at buttons on a huge aluminium panel, which looked like it belonged in a cockpit rather than an amusement park. Was there some sort of problem?
‘They’re taking their time to get going,’ my companion observed mildly. I looked around and saw that several other riders in the surrounding carriages were clearly thinking the same thing. Heads were turning, and brows were furrowing. No one looked exactly worried (except possibly me) but the air of excitement that had been hanging over the ride was suddenly infiltrated by filaments of tension, like small arcs of electricity.
For no reason I could pinpoint, I suddenly wanted to get off the ride, really wanted to get off. The illuminated green exit sign that had led Sasha to safety beckoned to me like a beacon. I didn’t care how stupid I looked; I’d say I was feeling sick, or something. The wine I’d drunk earlier was swirling unpleasantly in my stomach, so it wasn’t even a lie.
But before I could attract anyone’s attention, a switch was flicked and the Excuse me my lips were getting ready to form was blasted from them as the ride rocketed away from the platform. We shot away so fast my turbulent stomach felt as though it was surely travelling several carriages behind ours. The air stung my cheeks as they were pulled back in a look I’m sure was far from attractive. We plummeted down an incline, leaving even more internal organs momentarily displaced. And then the track rose up, almost vertically, like a mountain summit. The cry that escaped me was echoed like a Chinese whisper in every carriage behind us. I glanced to my left and caught my ride companion’s quick flash of a smile. If my lips had been able to move, I might have attempted to smile back. But then we were shooting down the other side of the incline and angling around a bend so sharp my body slithered against his. Before I could apologise we’d tilted back the other way and were hurtling towards another peak in the track. We crested it, and I can still recall that one blissful moment when I remembered that this was actually great fun. I liked the speed, I liked the momentum, I liked looking down and seeing the ground whipping past in a multicoloured blur.
Except all at once it wasn’t whipping or blurring at all, but coming sharply into focus as the ride jerked to an unexpected stop. Our carriage, which was already over the top of the pinnacle, came to a halt at a precarious angle, facing downwards. I tightened my vice-like grip on the bar and braced my feet against the inside of the carriage, wincing as my bruised ankle protested at the manoeuvre. Out of everything that came after, that was the thing that stuck in my head like a burr… the pain from my ankle.
‘Is it meant to do this?’ I asked, turning to the stranger beside me, my voice betraying the fact I already knew the answer to my question.
He didn’t bother lying, although part of me really wished he had. ‘I don’t think so,’ he replied, peering over the edge of the track at the ground, which suddenly seemed incredibly far below us. Perhaps he saw the rising panic in my eyes, for he immediately back-pedalled. ‘But these things are always having technical glitches. They’ll get it sorted out in a moment or two.’
‘I don’t think—’ I began, but the sentence was torn from me, as without warning we shot off again. I waited for the relief to flow through me, but it never got a chance. I never saw the obstacle, the single, detached, riderless carriage from the previous ride, but the man beside me did. I heard him swear, and the fear in his voice shocked me far more than the profanity. His hand reached out and covered mine on the bar.
‘Hang on,’ he yelled. ‘This is going to be bad.’
It was a very accurate prediction.
There was no time to scream, no time to do anything. I remember the feel of his fingers gripping mine, as if united we might somehow get through this unscathed. But of course, that was impossible. Still, I think I’ll always be thankful that someone, even a stranger, was holding my hand at the moment when my life changed.
Our carriage hit the stationary vehicle with a metal-crunching jolt, which for a split second I feared would catapult us off the track and down a hundred metres to the ground below. But instead we crumpled around the halted machinery, like a crushed plastic drink cup. I felt the impact through every bone in my body. Some broke, some were crushed, but the itemisation of my injuries was lost under a wave of pain so intense I felt as if I was drowning in it.