RN Verdala, Malta GC, c 1955 – school Christmas Party
Just like the climbing frame at school, it was constructed from ex-navy training equipment, man-scale ropes and nets, vaulting horses and ladders. There were chasms to cross holding onto a coarse rope slung from iron rings in the ceiling. A ladder rose to the ceiling itself where a net full of balloons teased with their string tails waving just in reach of a child brave enough to stretch out one trembling arm. At least one tubular section of the structure led to a tipping into a cold bath only seen after the first slipping sensation. I had avoided the shock of cold water by bracing my skidding feet against the sides and slowly inching back up to the horizontal junction. The dwarf called ‘Grumpy’ had wagged his finger at her and mouthed ‘Nearly’. I had pressed my face flat against the opaque cylinder making a monster face at him. He had laughed.
‘Can I go again?’ I asked Grumpy.
‘How many times is that, now? You’ll be sick,’ he warned.
‘No, I won’t. I really like it and I’m never sick. You can ask my sister,’ I reassured him, knowing that Frances was at the opposite side of the hall, well out of earshot.
‘You’re a keen one, all right – how about a dare then?’ he grinned at me. He looked up at the top of the construction and back at me, calculating.
‘You a good jumper?’ he asked his voice soft.
I followed his gaze and swallowed heavily.
‘Do you mean jump from up there?’ my voice wavered. The top was higher than the climbing frame at school.
‘I’ll make it easy. I’ll catch you.’ He was smiling now, persuasive.
Something about Grumpy’s near-whispering unsettled me.
‘I dare you,’ he said.
Then he spat on his hand and offered it to me. I could see the glistening slime patch on his palm. Even the rough boys at school didn’t do that. No-one had ever done that, not even in a film.
My mother was fond of saying pride would be my downfall. I wasn’t sure what pride was exactly but it was true I didn’t like to back down from arguments or dares, especially physical ones. So, though I knew I shouldn’t, I spat on my own palm, slapped it on Grumpy’s hand and started to climb, feeling our mixed spit drying as I went, knowing as surely as I knew anything that it sealed a promise that couldn’t be broken. I was going to jump off the very top of the obstacle course.
Getting to the top was easy. I was never dizzy even in the wildest games of spinning and whirling so a straightforward climb posed no difficulties. Standing on the topmost beam, my hair brushing the ceiling, with the tangled pile of ropes and nets spiralling down to the floor, my mouth suddenly dried. Grumpy seemed a very small target. When he lifted his arms and nodded his head I almost backed out but then I noticed a small circle of children around him, growing by the minute. The white ovals of their upturned faces were expectant. I also saw that, from the other side of the hall, a naval officer was following Frances’s arm which was pointing right at me. She looked white in the face and the officer started to stride at speed towards the obstacle course. I looked down at Grumpy, standing on a pair of coir mats, mouthing something that looked suspiciously like 'Coward.’
So I jumped.
I had done rope-to-rope jumps before, letting one go before catching the other and knew the stomach-heaving moment when neither rope was quite in my hand and only momentum held me in the air. I also knew the elation of feeling my grip on the second rope hold. Nothing had ever been like the rush of air through my hair and on my skin as my dress blew back and I fell, arms and legs ready to grip towards Grumpy who stood firmly braced beneath me. He knew enough to roll backwards as I arrived and we both sensed enough to hold onto each other, my spindly arms and legs round his neck and middle and his bear hugging arms across my back. Even so, the coir mat felt like concrete.
It was strange. I heard and felt the air leave his body in a series of explosions. He coughed, then belched and farted at the same time even as his grip on me loosened and he laid me, so gently, on my side whilst he rolled the other way. I was startled but completely unhurt, apart from the heat in my palms from the ropes, so I stood up not sure what to do next. I felt a surge of elation as a dark formal figure swept by.
‘Able Seaman Martin! Attention!’ the officer barked.
Grumpy, already on his way to his feet, turned his natural rising motion into something stiff and unnatural. He shot a sly wink at me then locked his eyes on the distant wall and impersonated a plank. The officer turned to me.
‘Are you all right? Want to see the MO?’ he asked, looking me over for blood or signs of madness.
‘What’s the MO?’ I asked, hopeful of another party game.
‘Doctor,’ he replied. ‘Better get you checked out.’
He collared Happy and told him to take me to the MO. As Happy led me away I could hear the officer speaking far too close to Grumpy’s face, ordering him to somewhere called "The Brig" where he might stay for a fortnight. I hoped it was somewhere nice but suspected that Grumpy was in a heap of trouble. The last I saw of him he was marching in that strange stiff way towards the exit. I waved and thought he caught the motion and smiled, but it was hard to detect a smile that must be a secret, a smile that could get him into even more trouble. It was like being cheeky after you’re caught at school. Not a good idea.