HIGH JINKS

By Richard Banks 

I live in a bungalow, all the rooms I need on one floor, none higher than the doorstep. If man was meant to go higher God would have given him wings. That’s what Granddad use to say and I reckon he never said a truer word. Not that he didn’t chance his arm from time to time, but never more than six rungs up the ladder and always with Grannie holding on to the bottom end.

         A wise man was Granddad, no doubt about that, that’s why he lived to be ninety-two, not like Uncle Ernie who didn’t make it to seventy, but then he lived in a block of flats on the fourteenth floor. And if you need any further proof just think about all the folk who die in aeroplane crashes or fall off mountains. Keep to the six rung rule I say, you know it makes sense.

         Trouble is that nowadays too many folk are reckless chancers addicted to danger, adrenalin junkies, is what they’re called. They should know better, but they don’t and there’s no getting through to them. Well, that’s their lookout. Safe, sound, and on the ground is my motto, and that’s why I’m still going strong when others aren’t.

         OK, I’ve made my point, enough said you're thinking, and indeed there be no need for saying any of this if it wasn’t for Sis. That’s Sis for sister. Her real name is Constance and no one lives up to it better than her. Once she has an opinion she never lets up. Constant Pain I call her, and when she got engaged to Lenny Payne I thought she had found her perfect match. But oh no, no such luck. Having decided not to blight his life she now unloads most of her opinions on me.

         Well, no one can accuse me of not having a broad back but when she said my good sense in staying close to the ground was no more than a cowardly fear of being up high she went too far, even for her. What’s more, she’s saying all this at the Wheatsheaf whilst I’m waiting for my turn at darts. Acrophobia, she squawks, that’s what you’ve got. And when I say, “what’s that?” she shows me it in a dictionary that’s used by the Scrabble team.

         “But it ain’t saying I have it,” I tells her, but she says it stands to reason I do because it’s hereditary. “Her what?” I say, and she starts turning to the H pages but I take the book from her and put up it high on a shelf where she can’t reach it.

         But she won’t stay quiet. “It stands to reason,” she hollers. “Granddad had it, and so did Dad. Don’t you remember how he was unwell on the big wheel. And where was he when Mum went up in that hot air balloon? On the ground that’s where, and shaking like a leaf at the thought of her being up so high. He caught it from Granddad and now Dad’s passed it on to you. It’s as plain as a pikestaff.”

         “Not to me it ain’t.”

         “That’s because it’s common sense,” she says, “but you wouldn’t know about that because you’ve never had any.”

         “So, I’m stupid as well as cowardly. I’ll let you know I once got a special certificate at school. First prize it said.”

         “Yes, first prize for trying. And thirty years on you’re still doing it, trying my patience and everyone else’s too.”

         Well! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, but before I can say another word she storms off only to return ten minutes later with a copy of the local paper.

         “Here we are,” she says, turning to the leisure section. “If you’re not scared of heights have a go at that.” She points to an advertisement for the County Fair that lists all the things that will be going on.

         “What, you mean the waltzer?”

         “No, you fool, the Big Whopper bungee jump. Prove me wrong by doing that. I’ll even pay the £30 they’re charging for it. Come on, it’s only ninety feet up. Easy-peasy for a brave man like yourself who's not scared of heights.”

         “No problem at all,” I holler, and for a few moments I believe what I’m saying; then I start thinking of all the tall men, one standing on top of the other, that would be needed to reach up to ninety foot. Fifteen of them, that’s how many and I’ll be the one on top! Even the deep end of the swimming pool is only ten feet, and that’s going down, not up.      

         Any hope I have that all this is going to simmer down and be forgotten lasts only as long as it takes Jimmy Bray to tell everyone in the pub what’s going on. “What do you know,” he shouts, “Billy here’s doing the bungee at the fair! Tallest one in the country so the paper says. A special certificate for everyone who does it. Good grief, man, you’ll be the toast of the village if you do that and survive.”

         Sis pipes up that it’s not as dangerous as all that, but Harry Perks says that people die of it every year in the States. Old Mr Taplow is adamant that it shouldn’t be attempted by anyone with a pacemaker while Dave who runs the betting shop in the High Street reckons that while the odds on me surviving the Big Whopper are probably in my favour he will be taking bets at six to one on that I won’t be surviving it.

         Suddenly I’m the most popular man in the pub and everyone wants to buy me a drink, not least of all Fred, the Governor, who’s come round from the saloon bar to see what all the rumpus is about. “Are you doing it for charity?” he says, and when I tell him I haven’t had much time to think about it, he starts banging the drum for the Kids Help Foundation who have a collection box on the bar. To seal the deal he gives me a whisky chaser to go with the pint that Jimmy Bray’s just brought me. By closing time I’ve had so much to drink that I have to be carried home where they find my key and lay me down on the sofa.

         Next morning I have the mother and father of hangovers and an uneasy feeling that I’ve done something I’m going to regret. But maybe I didn’t I tell myself, maybe it was just a bad dream. But that’s just wishful thinking, and later on, when Sis comes by, it’s to say that not only am I doing the Whopper but I’m already sponsored for £400.

         “Sorry,” she says.

         “Sorry for what?” I say, thinking she’s got even more bad news.

         “Sorry, that it’s all my fault. Shouldn’t have said what I did. Didn’t mean it to get out of hand. Of course, you can’t go through with it. I’ll go down to the Wheatsheaf this evening and explain how you can’t be expected to do it on account of your acrophobia. It’s no shame, you can’t help it. I’m sure they’ll understand.” 

         “Will they hell,” I say, “not after all the drinks they brought me, and anyway I won’t have them thinking I’m too scared to do it. I ain’t no coward and no one’s going to say I am. And neither was Grandad; he might not have liked the high-up places, any more than I do, but he fought in the war, and won medals too. He wasn’t a coward and neither am I.”

         She goes back to her place without another word. It’s the first time I’ve seen her close to tears, and despite the fact that we fight like cat and dog I’m feeling guilty she’s upset. The only good side to this is that the show’s over a month away and the free drinks are still coming at the Wheatsheaf.

         A week nearer, and I get a telephone call from a Miss Pugh of Kids Help thanking me for doing the jump and saying that the Wheatsheaf have now raised over a thousand pounds, providing everyone pays up. What’s more, she wants to come down to the village and take some photos for their newsletter. They have a Spiderman costume left over from the London Marathon and if I was to wear it for the jump it would, she says, be so much fun and bound to help with the fundraising. Well, what can I say, so, with three weeks to go, the photos are taken and they send me a copy of the article they’ve written under a headline that reads, ‘Local Hero’s Daring Stunt’.

         With little more than a week to go, I decide it’s time to get down to some serious training. It’s mind over matter I’m thinking, so I get out the old ladder and stand it up against the chimney stack at the side of the bungalow. If I start at rung six and go up one each day I figure that come the Fair I’ll be on a roll and ready to make it all the way up the Whopper. So, get the ladder out is what I do, but with only three days to go, I’m no higher than rung nine and shaking like a leaf. I need to get myself up to ninety feet, but I’m stuck at ten. This is not working and when Sis comes round to tell me that she and her fella, Ross, will give me a lift to the Fair I tell her there’s no way I can do it. She’s right, I say, I’m every bit the coward she said I was. There’s nothing for it but to go to the Wheatsheaf that evening and call it all off. After that I will leave the village; how can I stay?

         She says of course I can’t leave the village, it’s where I live, and that no one will mind me not doing it, but I can see she doesn’t really think that. She goes home, leaving me to stew but two hours later she’s back. She’s got a plan and, according to her, everything’s going to be alright.

         “How so?” I say.

         “Dutch courage, that’s how. It’s a little green pill that Ross came across in Amsterdam last year. Take one of them with a pint of Shires and you won’t have a care in the world. For the hour or so it lasts you’ll be as brave as Spiderman, Superman and all the rest of them rolled into one. There'll be nothing you can’t do. Ross says it’s the best feeling in the world and that the only problem you’ll  have on Saturday is that the Big Whopper won’t be high enough.”

         “Are you sure?” I say. She is. Indeed she’s never been so sure of anything in her life. Our worst problem, she says, will be the traffic on the A1. We agree to set off at ten.

         By Friday the surge of hope I was feeling has all but gone, and by the time I go to bed, there’s no way I’m going to sleep. At 9.15 I’m in my costume and ready to go when a reporter from the Gazette comes round and wants to take my photograph outside the pub. “Best to do it now,” he says, “in case it all goes strawberry jam later on.” He hopes not, of course, but if it does go wrong I’ll at least have the consolation of being on page one.   

         I return home for yet another pee, and then, bang on time, Sis and Ross arrive in his van.

         “Where’s this pill?” I say, but Ross says it’s too soon, and that it’s best I take it when we get to the Fair. So, off we go, they tell me all the way what a wonderful time I’m going to have, and me saying next to nothing because my voice can hardly get past the fug in my throat. At last, we’re there and we park up in a field next to the fair. It’s already started, and towering above everything else is the Big Whopper. There’s a queue of people waiting to take their turn and, as we watch, someone throws themselves off the top. It reminds me of the guillotine in the French Revolution, and any hope I had of getting through this in one piece is fast disappearing. If the pill don’t work gawd help me!

         Ross opens up the back of the van, and we climb in and shut the door so no one can see what we’re doing. He gives me a bottle of Shires from a crate. “Get that down you,” he says.

         By now I’m in a panic. “Where’s this pill?” I say. “I need more than a few bevvies. You do have it don’t you?”

         Sis says its in her handbag but insists that I first drink most of the bottle. When I do she pops the pill out of a foil strip and I swallow it down with the last of the beer.

         “How are you feeling?” She asks after a few seconds. At first I’m not too sure but then I couldn’t be more chilled, no cares at all. Thank the Lord - it’s working! Ten seconds more and I’ve never been so laid back. “Let’s do it!” I shout and we make ready to leave the van.

 

                                                  *****

        

         It goes well, couldn’t be better and, in the car park on the way back, Sis and Ross can’t stop talking about it, how I bounded up the ladder, two steps at time, how I was laughing and joking on the platform, and how I bowed to the crowd before throwing myself off the edge, nearly touching the ground before they unstrapped me. Then we see Fred and some of the regulars from the Wheatsheaf who show me their photos, and we arrange to meet back at the pub in the evening to celebrate.

         When we set off for home my only regret is that I can’t remember more of what’s happened, but, as Sis says, that’s how it is with the pill. Nevertheless, she thinks most of it will come back to me, like how I shouted, ‘Come into my web!’ when hurtling towards the ground.

         “Yes, that’s right,” I say, “got that from the film.” My thoughts are definitely clearing and I’m remembering more and more of the things people are telling me, and so it goes on all evening at the Wheatsheaf.

         Next day not even a hangover can spoil my mood. Everyone I see, or speak to on the phone,  tells me how well I’ve done, and when Fred also phones it’s to say that I’ve raised over five thousand pounds for the charity. He’s collecting together all the photos people have taken and will let me have them in an album when he gives Kids Help a cheque for the money raised. “Pity,” he says, “there’s not more of you with your mask off; Sis and Ross have some but so far they’re the only ones who do.”

         “No problem,” I say, “everyone knows I did it,” and indeed when I see Sis a few days later she shows me the pictures they took, including one of me, mask in hand, as I’m being let out of the harness; it’s proof positive, if anyone’s needing it. There’s only one thing bothering me. Just a small thing, but there’s something wrong with my trainers. I mean the way they look. They’re black Nikes, just like they should be, except for a little white mark on the side of the heel. It’s a fault on the film I’m thinking; no doubt it was Ross’s mate, Riley, who did the developing. He’s a good amateur but he don’t have the equipment that the Kodak shop has. Then I see the same mark in other photos and I realise that from the shoes up it’s not me.

         When Sis and Ross call round later in the day it’s only too obvious from the shoes he’s wearing that it was him who did the jump and not me. At first they pretend they don’t know what I’m talking about. “Of course it was you,” they say, then the truth leaks out. The pill I swallowed was only meant to send me asleep, and while Ross was doing his stuff I was out for the count in the back of the van. When they return they put me back in the Spiderman suit and, as I begin to come to, they stand me up between them and walk me up and down in the car park where they hit upon the idea of telling me what’s happened like it was me who was doing it. And still being dopey from the pill I take in everything they tell me, hook, line and sinker.

         “It’s called false memory syndrome,” says Sis. “We all have it, mainly things that happened when we were no more than tots. People tell us the same old stories, time after time, until we get to thinking we remember them when really we don’t. Reality is often what we make it, and since Photoshop, not even seeing is believing. Everyone in the village thinks it was you, and so do Miss Pugh and the Gazette. That’s their reality and they like it that way. Why spoil it for them, or yourself?”

         “So, you’re saying all’s well that ends well?”

         “How can it get any better, unless you want to thank me for all the trouble I’ve gone to by buying me a new sofa; the one in the window at HSL will do.”

         “So now I’m the most generous man in the village as well as the bravest?”

         “As well as having the best big sister in this or any other village. It’s a wonderful, mixed-up world; you couldn’t make it up, but then we just have. Make the most of it. It may never be this good again.”      

                 

Copyright Richard Banks