Historical fiction set in 1920s OXFORD
The Worst First Date by Mary Jayne Baker
24th August 2022
‘Oh come on. What’s the worst that can happen?’
That should have been all I needed to hear, right there. Had the Dr Pepper ads of the late Noughties taught me nothing? Apparently not, or I wouldn’t now be dangling from the top of Malham Cove like a broken yo-yo while a harness dug painfully, and I suspected quite unflatteringly, into my bum.
‘It’s spectacular, isn’t it?’ breathed Chris, who was clinging to the rock face beside me.
Spectacular was one word for it. Terrifying might be another, with a side helping of ‘Oh God, will I survive this?’ It reminded me of a recurring nightmare I had, with the only difference that I wasn’t naked this time. I was over a hundred feet off the ground though, and with no prospect of waking up in my own bed any minute.
‘Elle?’ Chris said when I didn’t answer.
Don’t look down. If only I didn’t look down, if I kept my gaze fixed on the blinding white cliff face I was clinging to for dear life, maybe everything would be OK.
‘They filmed one of the Harry Potters here,’ I blurted out.
Chris laughed as he clambered higher. I clambered too – well, really more of a vertical scurry – as I tried not to lose sight of him.
‘Really?’ he said. ‘You’re one hundred and thirty feet up one of the natural wonders of the world and all you can think of is movie trivia?’
‘I need movie trivia. If I’m thinking about movie trivia, I’m not thinking about falling.’
‘You won’t fall. You’re attached to a rope, Elle.’
‘My brain knows that and my eyes know that, but my stomach’s still struggling to accept it.’
He smiled. ‘You’re funny. I’m glad you came with us today.’
Well, that made one of us then.
I’d been getting close to Chris at work for months now and I’d been waiting for him to ask me out. When he’d told me he and some friends were planning to go rock climbing in Malham and pressed me to join them, it had seemed like the perfect opportunity to show him what a good sport I could be. And now I was going to plummet two hundred feet to my death, so that had worked out well. I wasn’t even sure if Chris thought of this as a date. It would be nice to know if he even liked me that way, since I was risking my life to spend time with him.
I clambered after him, then following some treacherous impulse… I looked down.
What’s that French term? It means something like ‘the call of the void’, where you feel a sudden impulse to hurl yourself into things or off things. I didn’t have the impulse to hurl anything other than my breakfast, yet the view was oddly hypnotic. Silver-blue walls of limestone made a patchwork of deep summer green from the fields and fells, with the landscape becoming more isolated and rugged the further it stretched to the horizon. For a moment I felt weightless, like I was flying.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Chris whispered.
‘Yes,’ I said simply. There didn’t seem much more to say.
‘Only the bravest get to enjoy this view, Elle. I really wanted to share it with you today.’
I drew my gaze away to look at him. ‘Why?’
‘Well, because… because I like you, don’t I? I know this might not be everyone’s idea of a first date, but I was relying on the view to win you over.’ He reached out to squeeze my arm. ‘Come on. We’re nearly at the top now.’
I looked up. The crest of the cove still seemed far away, but I knew I could do it now. Something about the landscape and Chris at my side, knowing he’d brought me here to share this with him, gave me fresh courage. It didn’t feel like very long afterwards that we were scrambling over the top of the cove on to the limestone pavement above. When we reached it we both collapsed, panting. Chris shuffled closer to put an arm around my waist, and I rested my head on his shoulder.
‘Well?’ he said softly. ‘How was your first rock climb?’
‘It was the single most terrifying experience of my life.’ I looked up to grin at him. ‘When can we do it again?’
Mary Jayne Baker writes romantic comedies set in the beautiful Yorkshire countryside. Her latest, The 24-hour Dating Agency, is available to buy here.
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Nope! You haven’t sold me on this idea at all!!
Lovely story, but there is no way even a stud like Chris undoubtedly is, would tempt me into doing something quite as silly as rock-climbing again.
I have only tried this once, many, many years ago, on a school outward bound trip to North Wales. I got stuck half way up (or down depending on how you look at it), had a panic attack, froze and couldn’t move. One of the instructors had to come and physically manhandle me back to the ground.
He did something he probably wouldn’t be allowed to do today, all my peers fell about laughing at me, and all I wanted to do was curl up and die, after I had been violently ill!!
No view is that good, believe me 🙂