Maggie’s Phobia

It was a beautiful April morning.  At daybreak, the glowing ridge of the sun glistened through the thin pale green edging around the aspen trees on the hillock behind the chalets.  Several early morning risers were out in bright pullovers or gay summer shirts, visiting friends or enjoying an early constitutional while wives or husbands indulged in a more leisurely rising.  The sun rose slowly above the trees and spread shimmering light, like pale gold butter across a colourless expansive sky.  Tiny fluffy clouds stretched gossamer tendrils of white which evaporated and disappeared.  Gradually more and more strollers emerged from chalet doors, and wandered up the shallow slope towards the dining room.

 

There was a Sunday School atmosphere abroad portending a special day, as indeed it was.  It was “Round the Island trip” day.  Bags of sandwiches, biscuits, fruit and sweets were handed out to the travellers at breakfast time, and as soon as they emerged into the brilliant sunshine, the coaches had arrived, had turned round, and were waiting, doors open to collect their passengers.

 

Only a few of the less mobile were left behind.  Those unable to sit for long without discomfort; those who disliked coach travel, and one or two who could not face the prospect of having to be carried on and off three steep steps each time the coach stopped for more than a few minutes.  These, having waved a cheery goodbye to the excursioners, sat around in front of Reception, or wandered to the wooden seat beside the putting green.

 

Maggie, having been left behind to hold the fort while most of the rest had been detailed to travel to help with poor walkers, came and looked at the small group half-heartedly wondering how they should fill a long day.  The blue minibus was parked in the drive and impetuously Maggie called, “Anyone for a ride?”  There was an instant hesitation, then the proposition was discussed.  “Where shall we go?”, “How long will we be out?”  All their queries were dismissed as of no consequence.  “Does it matter where we go?”.  “Just for about an hour or two”.  “Of course we’ll be home in time for lunch”.

 

Thus reassured, nine people accepted the invitation and clambered into the bus.  A message left with the handful of people now left at the Camp and the little bus drove off down the road, round the corner and headed, slowly and comfortably, towards Freshwater.

 

The passengers chattered and laughed like a crowd of lively sparrows.  The high banks each side of the narrow lane gleamed with pale cream patches of primroses.  The copses behind the low hedges had dark blue floors of massed bluebells.  The bus slowed as it approached a cross roads and small shops lined the white twisting road.  A broad open space beside the iron rail along the steep edge of the drop to the beach and beyond it the barely moving sea.  Tiny frilly waves splashed into white edging on the yellow sand.  The bus stopped beside the open window of a shop where, just inside, was a cabinet of various coloured ice-cream.  Cornets were handed round, and silence reigned while busy tongues licked away small drips of melted ice-cream escaping down the wafer cones.

 

The bus was started again, and turned towards the slope rising towards the tall cliff edge.  The engine dropped into a lower gear and the sea spread out further until the edge disappeared into the misty line of the sky.

 

Maggie, here engine pulling happily, turned her eyes towards the sea far below and experienced a quick stab of panic.  Many times before she had been along the road edging this cliff, but never before had she been driving.  Her phobia of fear of heights suddenly almost overwhelmed her.  Desperately she turned her eyes towards the golf course on the opposite side of the road, but her nerves had been shocked.  She drove stolidly, without daring to think or to speak.  The animated chatter behind her continued.  They commented on the height, on the drop below to the sea, and she dare not respond.  She wished she could tell them to keep quiet, to sit perfectly still, to say anything which would soothe her jangled nerves, but she dare not.  With immense relief, on the near side of the road, appeared a plateau cut into the chalk.  With gratitude, she turned the nose of the Minibus into the flat spaciousness of the cavity.  She stopped the engine and walked as calmly as she dare to the door of the bus, opened it, and let down the step.  One or two of her passengers descended and wandered off towards the cliff edge.  Maggie wandered away until she reached a broad hawthorn bush white with blossom.  Thus hidden, she was quietly and secretly sick.  When she appeared around the other side of the bush, she was collected and serene.  One or two commented that she did not look well, but her reassurance dispelled their concern.  After a few minutes, the passengers climbed back into their seats and Maggie edged her vehicle around the corner and out onto the road.  She steeled her taut nerves for another session of frenzy but, with hysterical relief, she saw the road swing away inland in front of her and a wide green strip of rough grass protected her from that menacing perpendicular drop to the steely sea.

 

It was a long road home, longer than Maggie had intended.  Passengers and driver wondered whether they would be back in time for the mid-day snack.  Maggie feigned confidence all the way back.  She assured them that she knew how long the drive would take, what time they would drive into Yarmouth and over the rickety bridge, and back to their meal.

 

But on no account, thought their demoralised driver, would she return along that terrifying road high up towards heaven.

 

As Maggie confessed to her companions when she related the episode to them late that evening, she would never drive herself along that road again “except in a thick fog”, so that she could not see beyond that frail little hedge growing just along the brim of that dreadful drop.

 

Curiously enough, as Maggie recalled, the phobia did not operate unless she felt herself responsible for the bus.  As long as someone else drove her as a passenger, she could slouch comfortably in the seat beside the driver and gaze out at that expanse of water far below, without a qualm.

 

Thinking about it in retrospect, Maggie could not account for her fright.  There was never any doubt that she was in full control of the bus; there was never the slightest danger that she and her load would fall.  She had no unaccountable urge to drive towards the edge – rather the opposite; there was never the slightest danger to her or to anyone.  But, then, phobias are like that.