‘Toilet break,’ Freya says blandly.
‘Together? In the bushes.’
‘Both desperate,’ Freya says.
‘Fucksake,’ says Sonja, not quite under her breath.
‘Fuuuuck,’ breathes Freya a couple of minutes later. ‘That ishigh.’
She isn’t wrong. I have no fear whatsoever of heights beyond not wanting to fall from one without any safety equipment, but I’ll definitely be keen to check that our harnesses are properly secured.
‘I feel like breakfast was a mistake.’ Freya does look quite green in the face now.
‘Okay. This is going to befine,’ I tell her. ‘There’s no way they’re going to let anything bad happen to us on a programme made forWake Up Britain. It would be the end of loads of people’s careers. Especially Sonja’s. Also, people go on treetop walks all the time.’
‘I don’t think we’re just going to be walking.’ Freya’s pointing up towards the sky.
I follow the line of her finger and see that there are hoops and parallel bars and other gymnastic equipment along the walk.
‘Well, that looks like fun,’ I say, weakly. I mean, itdoeslook like fun. But not, I’m guessing, if you’re scared of heights.
‘Yeah, can’t wait.’
‘Honestly,’ I say. ‘Iknowthat you don’t like heights and I really, really get that, but it truly will be fine. And since this is a team-building weekend, I’m guessing we’ll be doing it in pairs, in which case I’ll be there the whole way and I’ll help you.’
‘That’s true.’ Freya’s beginning to look just pale rather than ocean-on-a-stormy-day green.
I really want to take her in my arms to try to cheer her up, but I’m certainly not doing that under Sonja’s eagle eye. It doesn’t take a lot of thought to determine that Sonja is one of the last people in the world we want to know about last night.
Freya is amazing. She gets tearful once or twice, she mutters, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ a lot under her breath, she tells me more than once that shecan’tcarry on, but she manages it. I do my best to encourage her but when it comes down to it, it’s all her. She’s basically amazing.
‘I’m so impressed,’ I tell her as we finally reach the ground. ‘You’re brilliant.’
‘This is wonderful,’ Sonja gushes, having popped out from behind a bush somewhere to our right. She’s wearing camo army-style fatigues, and I think there actually was a camouflage purpose to her wearing it. Thank fuck I wasn’t hugging Freya in the way I would have liked to. ‘The two of you really have bonded. Which is wonderful, because you came last in that task– we timed you – so you’ll be doing one final ice bath, but this time you’ll be doing it together, in one big bath.’
‘Great,’ says Freya, very miserably.
I think Sonja and the producers imagined that being in a bath together might somehow cause something sexual to happen between us, but it’s anicebath and there are many onlookers.
I’m pretty sure that they’ll have got max a second or two of showable footage from it, because we both just climb in, don’t react and then get out again when our time is up, while the others clap.
Sonja rounds us all up, tells us that we’ve all been wonderful, instructs all twelve of us to set up a group chat to stay in contact, informs Freya and me that she’ll be in touch very soon with details about the live show, and finally leaves us.
‘Hooray,’ says Freya.
I nod.
When we’ve dutifully set up the chat (to be fair, the whole weekendwasbonding and the other participants are a really nice group of people), everyone goes off to get their luggage before we reconvene for final goodbyes.
I wait until I’m sure everyone’s out of earshot and then say to Freya, ‘I drove. Why don’t I give you a lift back to London?’
‘That would be great,’ she replies with no hesitation, ‘but should we drive off together?’
‘Yeah, no, we shouldn’t. What about if you get a taxi to the station and then say you’re catching a different train from anyone else, and then say you’re going to the loo and sneak back out and I’ll pick you up?’
‘I feel like I would definitely bump into Sonja,’ Freya says. ‘But what about if I say I’m getting a cab to a different station and actually just meet you in the middle of nowhere?’
‘Good plan,’ I approve.
