According to my sisters, no Gemini should ever contemplate giving birth to a Pisces. Thankfully my mother ignored this advice, in the way she ignores most advice, not that her choices (many of which brought permanent frowns to the faces of the tut-tutting classes,) seem to have done her any real harm. As a result of such independent thinking, she failed to consult an astrologer before being so feckless as to conceive me. I am also fairly certain that she failed to consume folic acid as part of the baby having procedure. Folic acid was not in fashion back then. The harvesting of amniotic fluids would also have seemed barbarous science fiction to her generation, scans unnecessary and as to discovering the sex of the child before it was born, that would only have ruined the surprise. Remember, those were the times when naming a child before it was born was considered tempting fate.
So, she had a Pisces, poor thing, at least according to my sisters. Whether this is true sympathy for my mother, or some sort of accusation levelled against me, I cannot say. Suffice it to say, that according to them, it completely explains my mother’s relationship with me. What this is, is impossible to say, but according to my astrology hooked sisters, our relationship is fraught with confusion and misunderstanding. This may be so, but if it is, I explain it to myself as a generational gap, or personality differences. My sisters think otherwise. They tell me that we are merely actors in some Greek play; comedy, or tragedy they never say. Mostly, I ignore such talk, but sometimes I have cause to pause and wonder.
For instance, when my mother asked me to jump from an aeroplane, just what had she in mind? She had never, herself, expressed any desire to leap from a plane at five thousand feet and allow gravity do its worst. What was this about? Had her stars aligned her against me? Was the moon holding water? Was Neptune up to no good? Perhaps Mars was even redder than usual. Her request baffled me on so many levels.
My male role model, my father, was afraid of heights, enclosed spaces, being buried alive, and gardening (least it ruin his golf swing.) This may make him sound like a wuss, but he was no wuss, so long as his feet were firmly on low lying ground, and nobody was nailing him into a coffin while there was breath still left in his body.
However, he was generous with his neurosis, sharing them with anyone who would listen. Maybe because of this, I fancied that I too suffered from a fear of heights. Whatever the reason, when my mother went on a charity drive and asked me to jump from an aeroplane, for whatever cause she was supporting, I said yes. My theory being that, by facing my fears they would retreat to the side-lines and therefore be less of a nuisance.
It is all very well to sit on a barstool and indulge such a theory, but to turn up on a cold Spring morning as sheep are being herded from the runway tests one’s resolve. Seeing them ushered into a holding pen might have given me pause for thought but looking at the small aeroplane close to them was reassuring. Dowdy and humble sure, but it seemed airworthy. Just as this thought crossed my mind, a minibus pulled up beside it. Men got busy, jump leads were produced, an electrical umbilical cord was attached to the plane and my palms began to sweat, despite the cold. Still, I reasoned once the engine was started and up to speed… I shivered, gave up on reason and continued to the clubhouse. It is, after all, emotions, not reason, that drive people to greatness or their doom. My emotional investment was twofold, money had been raised for a good cause, backing down would have meant no money. There were also friends who had jumped before me. There would have been no end to the slagging if I turned and ran away now. I am sad to say I was driven by shame.
I would like to say that the reason I was feeling fragile as fifteen first-time jumpers huddled together in a cold shed, was the early hour, however that is not true. My confidence had been lowered by what I had seen outside. Remember, these were solo jumps. We were not going to be conjoined with an instructor. We were going to have to find our own way down, though gravity would lend a helping hand, as our instructor pointed out when he stood before us and said,
“This is an adventure sport; people die doing it. Anybody who wants to leave, do so now.”
Heads turned; frightened eyes scanned the room for people brave enough to leave. But we were all cowards, more willing to jump from a small aircraft, than to look tiny in our friends’ eyes.
We then had a twenty-minute lecture about the joys of being splattered on tarmac, of having our legs broken, what to do if our parachute failed to open, and how to open our emergency shoots, as we dropped like a stone, when our main chutes failed. Fifteen sets of ears listened, and some brains may have absorbed the information. However, having teaching experience, I would imagine that at least five of those present heard nothing above the, ‘What-the-hell-am-I-doing-here,’ voices screaming in their heads.
You may wonder why I was still willing to go through with the jump, aside from the shame of dropping out. The answer is that everyone I knew who parachuted from a plane had survived uninjured. In other words, the technology was proven. I also remembered an evening spent with a one-armed golfer as he reminisced about being in a parachute regiment during the second world war. His scariest jump, he told me, was from a balloon basket. It was a straight fall, as opposed to jumping from a plane at one hundred miles an hour. Which means that you are moving one hundred miles an hour sideways as gravity takes hold of you and begins to pull you down to earth. The balloon jump was even scarier, he believed, than a night-time leap into the darkness. Based on his opinions, I would be pumping less adrenaline than if I were jumping from a basket.
Eventually, after learning how not to break a leg when landing, how not to castrate myself with the parachute harness – by tightening the straps correctly – the instructor pulled me aside for the hand inspection. Hand might be over stating things, hook would be more accurate. He asked me to raise my hands to see if the hook was high enough to catch one of the toggles which steer the parachute. We agreed that the hook was up to the job, it was all systems go.
Lots were drawn, soon myself and the others of the long straw brigade were watching the first batch of jumpers huddle together in the aircraft. You could argue that it is better to get the ordeal over with quickly but be assured none of us lotto winners wanted to exchange places with any of the sardine-like creatures now squeezed into the plane. My heart practically bled for the jumper who would be first out of the aircraft, first to count to three, to wait for the chute to open and slow their descent.
Finally, the aircraft was fully loaded with scared, novice jumpers. Our instructor issued last minute orders and was about to join his students when confusion arose in the ranks. People spilled from the plane and a protesting; would-be parachutist crawled from the bowels of the aircraft. White-faced, he removed his helmet and handed it to the instructor, who immediately turned and gave it to me. Likewise, I was handed the main chute, along with the emergency one and, with no time to think, slipped into the harness and tightened up the straps.
There was no time to consider whether Saturn had gone retrograde in my chart, or if the stars had decided that, like a Final Destination victim, it was my time to die horribly for cheating Death some time before. There were quite a few moments to choose from. Whatever the reason, it was time to jump. Worst of all, using the ‘last-in-first-out’ rule, it seemed as though there was a big number one written on my back, I was going to be the first person out of the plane.
The aircraft would, no doubt, have been comfortable enough if it had passenger seats, or a door. Aside from the pilot, nobody got a seat, a lesson Ryan Air could learn from. As if confirmation were needed about the number on my back, I found myself sitting in the doorframe, half-in-half-out of the aircraft, the instructor, a lead weight on my feet keeping me from tumbling from the plane at least until we were airborne.
There were a minimum number of pre-flight checks where the passengers were concerned. There were no airhostesses prattling unintelligibly about storing your possessions in the overhead lockers. All I heard was the shout from the instructor, “Keep your feet off those pedals.” That’s when I saw the terrified jumper sitting beside the pilot. There is no way of knowing what size his feet were but, clad in walking boots, they seemed enormous and perilously close to the pedals before him.
The engine roared into life. The plane rolled forward and gathered speed. I watched sheep droppings fly into the air as the plane raced towards a hedge at the end of the field. My imagination was dwelling on fireballs as my mind flew into nightmare mode. All I could think of, as my shoulder dug into the doorframe, were size 12 boots pawing at the controls, keeping us on the ground just a second too long. Oddly enough, I now thought that it would be safer to jump from the plane at five thousand feet, than to stay on board for the landing.
There are things no novice jumper is ever prepared for as they take that leap of faith. The silence for one. Then the view. When you look down everything is flat. Two dimensional. Disorienting. You feel lost. You find yourself asking, where did that big X you were told to aim for get to? Then you find it. The chances of you landing near it are slim, but there is a feeling of triumph at having found it. There is no doubt in your mind that you won’t land in the same field as the big white letter which marks the spot. The odds are in your favour. It is a big field after all, but with the wind at your back…
Then you spot the twenty-thousand-volt power lines beneath you. It is time to panic. You frantically pull a toggle and, instead of turning in a different direction, you become a human spinning top. So, you ease off on the toggle and drift away from the cables only to find yourself about to straddle a barbed wire fence.
Now, if a harness can damage you digging into your crotch, what can a barbed wire fence do to you? It is far tougher than nylon after all and sharper too. This is a rough translation of the OMG thoughts which ran through my head seconds after my twenty-thousand-volt power line incident. Unasked for scenes flashed behind my eyes.
It seemed that an accident and emergency ward featured in my imminent future. Young nurses swarmed into my imagination, gathered around my trolley, and eyed up the damage. They were wide-eyed, their heads craning forward to better inspect my injuries; their eyes both horrified and fascinated in equal measure. I could have spent all day in my imagination, watching them watching me, getting high on hospital smells, but thankfully my parachute training kicked in.
By now I was an old hand with the toggles. Not that I understood them, but they gave me an illusion of control. I pulled and prayed, missed the fence by a few yards as I landed safely. Who cared that this was the wrong field? I was finally down, my legs appeared to work, even if they were weak. It was time to stand up, look around, assess where I was and make my way back to the adjoining field. Somewhere in the back of my mind the there was only one question that needed answering, were the pubs open yet?
I arrived home a little later than expected, and right on the legal drink/driving limit – they were much more generous back then. This is ok, Pisces are known to like their drink. And as for my Gemini mother, she was her usual smiling self as she greeted me at the doorway before waving goodbye and heading into the night. I was home safely, she had places to be, the world was back to normal.
It was only later that my sisters told me that my mother had rung them, wondering where I had gotten to. The sun had gone down, after all, and only the foolhardiest would parachute in the dark. It was reassuring to learn, that no matter how the stars aligned, my mother did wonder at the folly of throwing her Pisces son from a plane.
I gleaned one lesson from this ordeal. The next time somebody asks me to jump, I will ask ‘how high?’ before agreeing. As for my phobias. I still have a problem with heights. But that’s probably just vertigo.