When you go to the bungy jump site and then decide that you just can't throw yourself off that bridge, you have to choose your moment to make the call.
You can't do it when you're standing there on the precipice, that would be too humiliating. You can't really do it after you've bought the ticket but before you've stepped onto the bridge, because then you'd have to stand in the queue to ask for your money back, which would also be humiliating. You can fake an aneurysm, but that's going to attract a lot of unneccesary attention. And most of the staff have probably seen it before and would just be standing around saying, 'Too scared, going down the aneurysm route...'
There is always, of course, not going to the bungy site in the first place. Just getting up in the morning and doing something else, like watching tv, painting still life or eating prunes. But then you will never have looked at the scale of what's before you, you will never have faced your fear.
It's perfectly sensible to never face your fear. Me, I'm scared of heights, and decided I needed to face my fear. I went to the bungy site. Back to paragraph two.
We were in Queenstown, New Zealand. Home of the bungy. Ever since watching the LOTR trilogy and then completely over-reacting to being bored at the February holiday by deciding to travel to Middle Earth itself for the Easter break, I had been thinking that I ought to make the jump. To do something adventurous, that would absolutely scare my pants off, but which would have the advantage of lasting just under five seconds.
There are three bungy sites around Queenstown. The one where you jump from a platform one hundred and thirty-four metres above a river. Just looking at the photograph makes my insides curl. The one where you jump off a platform over solid rock, the whole of Queenstown in front of you. It's only forty-seven metres, but the solid rock thing has a strong psychological effect. And then there's the original bungy, the forty-three metres over - and into - the river. That was the one for me.
I thought about it for a while, didn't mention it to anyone else. Then, as we were mincing around Queenstown, I casually tossed the idea into conversation, as casual as leaping into thin air. This, sadly, caused much excitement with our children, who loved the idea of their father plummeting off a bridge. The day before we left Queenstown we were watching the solid rock bungy, when a company man called Shane came for a chat, to ask why we were watching and not jumping. He asked me a few marketing questions, during which it seemed to become established fact that the following day, as we drove north out of the town, I was going to stop and make the jump at the Kawarau river site. He began using phrases such as 'When you've made your first jump,' and 'It's a shame I can't talk to you after you've jumped...' I began to realise that deep inside, I had no intention whatsoever of jumping off no stinkin' bridge.
We arrived at the site on a pleasant, out-of-season Saturday morning. This original bungy site is now a visitor attraction in itself, as they try to cater for and attract people who aren't intending to plummet from high over the canyon. We mooched in, we stood on the viewing platform, we watched a couple of sacrificial lambs throw themselves at the alter of adrenaline. We went back inside for a coffee.
'Are you going to do it?' asked TPCKAM.
'I'm thinking of faking an aneurysm,' I said. Having been against me throwing myself off a bridge in the first place, she looked understanding and relieved. The kids, on the other hand, were crushingly disappointed, and started exhorting me to have some balls. This climaxed in One of Two saying, 'Just do it, Dad, then you won't have to think you're a wimp for the rest of your life...' She may have continued talking after that, but I couldn't hear her because I had my hands over my ears and was singing Nessun Dorma as loudly a possible.
The family wandered off to watch a young Japanese chap throw himself into oblivion for the benefit of his large touring party. I sat in the cafe drinking rubbish coffee, watching the goings on. I wanted to participate, I wanted the positive adenalin-induced feeling that I'd get from the jump, I wanted to get out there. But, in the blessed words of Elvis, from the frankly mortal Old Shep, 'I just couldn't do it, I wanted to run, I wished they'd shoot me instead...'
It was sitting there that I realised the best place to decide not to jump. Sitting in a chair at a table in the cafe, drinking coffee. I just looked like a guy passing through, rather than someone riddled with strangulating pusillanimity at his inability to tackle his own fears. I had made my decision, and like Elvis trying to put a bullet in the napper of his old dog, I just wasn't going to do it.
As we were leaving, the children's cries of disappointment ringing like bells of doom, a group of eleven year-old girls came in to sign up for the jump. There were about six of them. This didn't make me question my decision at all. There are lots of things that don't frighten young girls that frighten me, such as rollercoasters, the Sugababes and eating too much sugar. Now, had a group of middle-aged blokes come in, that might have been the peer-pressure push that I needed. But a group of giggling wee girls? I just looked at them and shook my head.
The bungy jump at the Kawarau River isn't going anywhere. (Unless it gets hit by a stray American missile aimed at a block of flats in Tehran.) I have pinned the brochure to the noticeboard in the kitchen, so that I can look at it every day. It's still out there, calling me, waiting for me to go back. And one day, one day soon, just as soon as I can afford to travel to New Zealand first class on Singapore Airlines, I'm going back...
