platform, with a black metal chain on which hung the sign, DANGER OF DEATH: DO NOT CROSS . Dean Winterbottom cheerfully unclipped it and waved me through.
âGood luck my dear, and remember what I said about the ropes. Oh â and do come down if itâs too windy, wonât you.â She handed me a screwdriver and a red bulb that sheâd been carrying, almost like a bicycle light, but much larger. On the back it said AIRCRAFT WARNING LIGHT . I stepped into the harness, tied the bulb to my belt and pulled as hard as I could on anything that looked like it might break or come loose. Matters had progressed more rapidly than I had anticipated. My palms began to sweat. I wiped them on the thighs of my jeans, walking up the remaining stairs, which creaked and grumbled, until I came to a little door, about the right size for a hobbit. I opened it onto the cool evening air. All of Salisbury was laid out before me. Shaftesbury, too. Hardy country, Iâm told. Stonehenge and rape fields. It was too high for mosquitoes. If I fell, I would have time to worry on the way down.
Except that I wasnât worried. As if for the first time, I felt alive. Of course, you always know youâre alive â rationally you know, you can feel your pulse and think and move and all that â but now, up here, I really felt alive. I could feel my skin buzzing and the sharp geometries of my surroundings hung in the air before me like they were the only real things I had ever seen.
I looked down at the green, where tourists were swirling like dust. A sharp gust tore at my hair as I located a little metal loop, onto which I clipped my first safety rope. I put my hands on the frame of the door, then got a foot up, turning myself around to face the spire. I looked up at the climb, and tested my weight on the black metal structural ladder. I felt I knew how to do this instinctively, almost as if it was coded in ancestral genes. Another gust wrapped itself around me, and I shifted the second rope on my shoulder. I went one rung at a time, slow and steady, methodically, tantalising myself with furtive thoughts of the drop below. I got to the top of the ladder and took a breather. My fingers were tingling. I wondered how long it had been since I had last eaten, and wiped my palms again, one by one, on my jeans. Here was the spire. I gulped down air. I was at the highest point between the horizons. Beside me in all directions was sky, and beyond that, space.
The wind changed direction twice in short succession. I held the spire itself and stood upright on the topmost rung of the ladder, trying to get myself steady. I couldnât see anywhere to clip my second rope â the spire and the rungs were too wide. I unscrewed the first of four attachments on the warning light and caught the screw in the same hand as it fell â a moment of unwonted grace. I did the second and third without trouble, stowing the screws in one of my marsupia, but as I started to unscrew the fourth, with the plastic casing now hanging off, a new gust caught me front on and I lost my footing. I grabbed the spire as the wind took me and, for one fraction of a second, hung in perfect balance, supported almost horizontally by the wind. Then the air under me went still, and I fell through it.
I caught a rung on my second attempt, hitting the ladder with various extremities as I jerked myself short of oblivion. I didnât trust that rope to hold a normal adult, let alone someone of my dimensions, so it was a relief to find myself clinging hard to the ladder, held fast, breathing heavily, alive. I had nearly conquered the spire. I would conquer it.
I climbed the ladder again, removed the shell, replaced the light and, triumphant, took the old spent bulb in my hand. I heard a cheer as from a far-off stadium, and looked down at the tourists, who had converged in the middle of the green. Little pinpricks of xenon flashed out in the murky light, and I lifted the
âGood luck my dear, and remember what I said about the ropes. Oh â and do come down if itâs too windy, wonât you.â She handed me a screwdriver and a red bulb that sheâd been carrying, almost like a bicycle light, but much larger. On the back it said AIRCRAFT WARNING LIGHT . I stepped into the harness, tied the bulb to my belt and pulled as hard as I could on anything that looked like it might break or come loose. Matters had progressed more rapidly than I had anticipated. My palms began to sweat. I wiped them on the thighs of my jeans, walking up the remaining stairs, which creaked and grumbled, until I came to a little door, about the right size for a hobbit. I opened it onto the cool evening air. All of Salisbury was laid out before me. Shaftesbury, too. Hardy country, Iâm told. Stonehenge and rape fields. It was too high for mosquitoes. If I fell, I would have time to worry on the way down.
Except that I wasnât worried. As if for the first time, I felt alive. Of course, you always know youâre alive â rationally you know, you can feel your pulse and think and move and all that â but now, up here, I really felt alive. I could feel my skin buzzing and the sharp geometries of my surroundings hung in the air before me like they were the only real things I had ever seen.
I looked down at the green, where tourists were swirling like dust. A sharp gust tore at my hair as I located a little metal loop, onto which I clipped my first safety rope. I put my hands on the frame of the door, then got a foot up, turning myself around to face the spire. I looked up at the climb, and tested my weight on the black metal structural ladder. I felt I knew how to do this instinctively, almost as if it was coded in ancestral genes. Another gust wrapped itself around me, and I shifted the second rope on my shoulder. I went one rung at a time, slow and steady, methodically, tantalising myself with furtive thoughts of the drop below. I got to the top of the ladder and took a breather. My fingers were tingling. I wondered how long it had been since I had last eaten, and wiped my palms again, one by one, on my jeans. Here was the spire. I gulped down air. I was at the highest point between the horizons. Beside me in all directions was sky, and beyond that, space.
The wind changed direction twice in short succession. I held the spire itself and stood upright on the topmost rung of the ladder, trying to get myself steady. I couldnât see anywhere to clip my second rope â the spire and the rungs were too wide. I unscrewed the first of four attachments on the warning light and caught the screw in the same hand as it fell â a moment of unwonted grace. I did the second and third without trouble, stowing the screws in one of my marsupia, but as I started to unscrew the fourth, with the plastic casing now hanging off, a new gust caught me front on and I lost my footing. I grabbed the spire as the wind took me and, for one fraction of a second, hung in perfect balance, supported almost horizontally by the wind. Then the air under me went still, and I fell through it.
I caught a rung on my second attempt, hitting the ladder with various extremities as I jerked myself short of oblivion. I didnât trust that rope to hold a normal adult, let alone someone of my dimensions, so it was a relief to find myself clinging hard to the ladder, held fast, breathing heavily, alive. I had nearly conquered the spire. I would conquer it.
I climbed the ladder again, removed the shell, replaced the light and, triumphant, took the old spent bulb in my hand. I heard a cheer as from a far-off stadium, and looked down at the tourists, who had converged in the middle of the green. Little pinpricks of xenon flashed out in the murky light, and I lifted the
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