Dumped, Actually(81)

Completely out of character.

But that’s how I’ve been feeling since I came away from Mum and Dad’s house – impulsive. And maybe even a little reckless in the bargain.

That spring that I’ve had in my step has thankfully not gone away since that day.

It’s amazing what a bit of perspective can do for your mental outlook on the world. I feel like I’ve turned a very large and very long corner in my life.

So now I’m fairly buzzing with anticipation of what life holds for me in the future. And I’m also buzzing with a lot of pent-up energy that needs to be released. Released in a grand and overambitious way, to signify a change in Ollie Sweet’s outlook on life.

Hence why I’m now walking towards a twin-prop aeroplane, with ‘REACH FOR THE SKY’ written down the side of it in exciting, jazzy blue lettering.

It’s also why I’m wearing a black helmet, a small radio headset and a bright-yellow jumpsuit, with a parachute on my back that is getting heavier by the second.

No.

No.

Stop it.

I said it’ll be fine, and I meant it. I’ve had two full days of instruction with Ted the ex-paratrooper, and am feeling confident that I know what to do once we get airborne.

Ted is a very good instructor, and he’ll be with me the entire way down, just in case I start doing anything too Oliver Sweetish on the way to the ground.

Also, it’s not like I’ll be going the whole hog and doing a skydive from fifteen thousand feet. That, my friends, is something you take a long time to build up to.

I’ll be doing a static-line parachute jump from five thousand feet – which is more than enough for me, thanks very much.

The eyes of a thousand people are upon me as I make my way over to the plane. Among them are Erica, Wimsy, his new girlfriend Lizzy, Vanity, Laughlin McPurty, Skeez – the guy who suggested I do this parachute jump in the first place – and both of my parents. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my father as proud of me as he is now. My mother looks worried. But she has no reason to be.

And no.

Neither do you.

Everything is going to be fine.

‘All set, then, Ollie?’ Ted asks me as I clamber into the open side doorway of the plane – which wouldn’t be able to fit more than a dozen people in it, if it was set up for passenger flights.

Ted is square of jaw, square of head and square of outlook. Everything about him screams solid and dependable. It’s this that persuaded me to go through with the jump, once the initial rush had worn off. If he hadn’t exuded such an air of competence and enthusiasm about the whole damn thing, I would have probably bottled it by now. But Ted has been there – over the course of two hastily arranged days – to keep my courage from faltering too much.

I’m slightly annoyed I’m not gay, to be honest. Ted would make a wonderful husband.

‘Yep!’ I say to the husband material with a grin. ‘I’m good to go!’

Just look at the thumbs-up I’m giving, would you?

Look how proud and erect it is!

Not a trace of nerves. Not a bit of shake. It’s the thumbs-up of a man who is confident he’s made the right decision – and knows that chucking himself out of this plane today will mark a new and exciting chapter of his life. A leaf will be turned over here at this airfield. Of that you can be sure.

Onwards and upwards!


Fifteen minutes later, my arse is trying to take bites out of the side of the plane.

I’m terrified.

I’m scared to death.

You were absolutely right – this was a stupid, stupid idea.

Everything is resolutely not going to be fine.

I got vertigo just leaning out over the side of a car park, what the hell made me think I could come all the way up here, without being consumed by an ocean of extreme terror?

Look how small everything is!

Look! Look at that bloody field! It looks like a postage stamp!

And I’m going to throw myself at it, am I?

What the bloody hell was I thinking?

My arse is now attempting to affix itself like a limpet to the part of the plane bulkhead that it hasn’t already eaten.

If it wasn’t for the bright-yellow jumpsuit, it would probably succeed. You wouldn’t be able to prise me away. I’d become half man, half barnacle.

It’s one thing to feel calm and confident about a parachute jump when you’re on the ground – it’s quite another when you’re five thousand feet in the air. When you’re five thousand feet in the air, all logic is thrown to the same wind that’s buffeting the wings of the plane like an angry elephant.

Fuck Ted and his square head.

It’s his fault I’m up here – about to evacuate the contents of my bowels as I contemplate the horror that is to come.

‘How are you doing?’ Ted the bastard asks me, probably sensing that I’ve gone from considering him husband material to wanting to rip his face off for making me come up here.

‘I’m shitting a fucking brick, Ted. How are you doing?’

Ted laughs. Even his laugh sounds square, and ever so upright. You could probably lay the foundations of a house on top of it.

‘You’ll be absolutely fine,’ he tells me, echoing my own thought process, when I was still on terra firma, and not in firm terror.

I nod. ‘Yes, I know I will, Ted, because I’m not fucking jumping!’