I feel her relax a little as she takes another deep breath.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘That was quite ridiculous of me. It’s just…’
‘Hey, no.’ I remove my arm, because she clearly doesn’t need any physical support any more and there’s no good reason whatsoever for me to be holding her, and the fact that my arm felt sorightwhen it was round her is allwrong. ‘Not ridiculous. A lot of people have phobias. Apparently it’s entirely rational to have them and without them the human race might not have survived.’ I have no idea whether or not that’s true. It sounds very plausible, though. And a lot of phobiasarerational.
‘Hmm.’ Freya’s sounding much more like her usual self now. ‘That can’t be true about all phobias. I mean, that one where people get very distressed by holes, like in crumpets and industrial ceiling tiles. But it’s true that it makes a lot of sense to be wary round certain creatures unless you’recertainthey’re safe.’
‘Exactly. And no-one should bully people into doing something that upsets them in any way. Especially not just for a TV show.’
‘Jake Stone, I think I agree with absolutely everything you’re saying. How did that happen?’
‘Sonja happened,’ I say.
Freya nods, very seriously. ‘Yeah. I really liked it when you went full legal. Was everything you said true?’
‘I mean, broadly. I’m not actually au fait with any laws there might be on making people face their fears but clearly there is legislation and best practice in place to prevent people from being bullied or traumatised in the workplace. And this is kind of a workplace for us in that we’ve been paid for our appearances. I mean, you can’t justmakepeople do something unreasonable, and thatisunreasonable, clearly. Also,maybethey could say we were in breach of contract, although I doubt it, but who cares? I think it’s more in their interests than ours for us to continue with the rest of the weekend.’
‘All very true. Although I do want to do the baking thing.’
‘More than you didn’t want to do the… reptile experience?’ I nearly said thesnakeword there; better be careful.
‘No. Definitely not.’ She gives me the smile that has such an effect on other people, and Ifeelit. ‘Thank you.’ She looks behind us. ‘There are frigging cameras following us.’
‘Yeah, wedidsign up to that. I would suggest a walk but I don’t think it would be that great being followed the entire time.’
Freya nods. ‘You’re right. Maybe we should text Sonja and ask her to call us when it’s time for the next activity, and then go back to our rooms.’
‘Good plan.’ I pull out my phone and send the text, and then we turn round, and, cameraman in tow, set off back towards the accommodation.
‘Are you finding it hard to walk normally?’ Freya asks me a second later.
‘No?’
‘Are you not remotely paranoid about the cameras following us?’
‘Well Iwasn’t.’ I look over my shoulder and yes they are very much focused on us, from about twenty feet away. ‘But now I am. Although is footage of two people walking great TV?’
‘Yeah, true, probably only if we do something remarkable.’
‘Okay, so let’s not walk at all remarkably.’
‘No problem,’ Freya says. ‘I can do that. Totally.’
A second later she begins to snigger. ‘I can’t. I cannot walk normally when I’m thinking about it.’
I take a look at her. ‘What are you doing thatisn’tnormal, though?’
‘I don’t know. I justfeelweird. Because someone has a camera trained on my bottom.’
I can’t say the first thing that comes to mind which is that every time I’ve seen her bottom it looks lovely. I shouldn’t even be thinking that.
Freya’sreallysniggering now. ‘I keep imagining doing something quite outrageous by mistake that would then get broadcast on national television.’
‘How would that happen, though? Like you would just accidentally… what? What outrageous things doesanyonedo when they’re walking?’
‘I don’t know. Okay, not outrageous. But what if we suddenly started pirouetting. Orreallysprinting. Or stripping to our underwear and throwing our clothes at the camera.’
‘Yeah, none of those things are going to happen to me.’ I’m laughing too now.
