I lay my case down flat and open it up. There, lying neatly folded on the top, is a T-shirt with a picture of one solitary pineapple hanging from a plant with the captionHang in there. I stare at it before gingerly picking it up. I hold it close. ‘I’ll wear this.’
Cam is sending me a message; I just know he is.
A few minutes later, after Mimi has doused herself with sickly-sweet perfume, we stand admiring ourselves in the floor-length mirror. Amber and Mimi look spectacular, like Victoria’s Secret models.
‘It feels as though you both should be wearing wings, killer heels and carrying whips,’ I giggle.
‘And I like your choice of outfit,’ says Amber. ‘It’s very statement. Very elderly woman in a care home.’
We all start laughing at my oversized ‘Hang in there’ T-shirt over baggy striped pyjama bottoms, also two sizes too big. Only my neck is visible.
‘Now, stick to the plan,’ I tell them. ‘Nobody is getting their bits meddled with. Not on my watch.’
* * *
We get a slow clap from the three boys as we enter the huge bedroom and parade down the central aisle between all the beds. The boys are whooping and cheering, especially at Amber and Mimi, who do look absolutely stunning. They both make an extravagant show of walking like catwalk models, arms swinging and every few steps they stop and twirl to show off their amazing figures. Henri looks gutted when I come through the door dressed like his grandad. Then as we pass by and make our way down to the bottom three beds and get in them, the cocky, self-assured expectation rapidly disappears from their faces. Suddenly the whooping turns into moaning and huffing.
None of us have a clue what time it is, but the lights go off very suddenly, and before I know it, the boys are all snoring their heads off.
Living the dream is utterly exhausting.
25
‘Who in their right mind votes for potholing down a haunted mineshaft?’ Giovanni says as we all climb into our harnesses the next day. We were woken at the crack of dawn to drive two hours through the jungle. We stopped off at a virtually abandoned roadside café for the toilets and breakfast, which was a plate ofhuevos ahogadoswhich we were told was ‘drowned eggs’. They were delicious but probably not what we should have eaten on such a bumpy ride.
‘Zeez costumes are vairy, vairy unsexy,’ says Henri, pointing to our regulation baggy boiler suits.
‘It’s cruel is what it is. Cruel,’ says Amber, looking genuinely upset. ‘And these safety boots. I wouldn’t be seen dead in these IRL.’
She must think we’re all part of an elaborate hallucination.
‘I’m covered in mosquito bites,’ complains Mimi, regretting having tried to roll up her boiler suit into a short playsuit.
‘They are getting everywhere,’ shrieks Giovanni, swatting at his arms and legs. ‘I’m sure they’re inside my suit.’
I take out my trusty insect repellent and spray everyone down. I pass Mimi some lint doused in ointment for her to dab on her bites to calm them down.
While they all try to give me a grateful smile, they look miserable. The instructors, who look haggard and genuinely surprised that anyone in their right mind has booked this tour, explain that the mine is haunted with the souls of over two hundred miners who lost their lives digging for precious metals.
This deflates the mood even more.
While one of them starts to unload what looks like enough rope to circumnavigate the Earth at least twice, the other explains that his forty years as a search and rescue team leader makes him the ideal expert for a mission like this.
‘I’m not going down there,’ says Mimi, looking from the rings of rope to the dark entrance to the mineshaft. ‘Oh my God! What was that?’
‘What was what?’ shrieks Amber.
‘That,’ Mimi yells. ‘I saw a shadow. A ghost!’
‘That’s it. I’m not going in either. I hate the dark,’ says Amber. ‘I can’t deal with it. I just can’t.’
Both girls look genuinely terrified.
As I look at the boys and camera crew, it is very clear that no one is looking forward to this activity. I can’t believe I’m about to do this, but someone is going to have to do a pep talk about facing your fear and the great benefits that result from personal challenge.
‘Erm, listen.’ I get off to a shaky start. It’s difficult to find what the potential benefits might be of exploring a haunted mineshaft that looks about to collapse around us the moment we step foot inside. ‘I’m sure it’s perfectly safe. Come on, guys. We’ve got this. We can do it.’
‘Yes, it is safe,’ says the expert. ‘This is why we have fitted each of you with an extra harness in case of a fall. You have a headlight in your helmets in case of power failure from the generator. You have no oxygen so try not to breathe heavily when you are down there. Take some spare rope as there are lots of unexplored shafts. Do not go in them or you might not come out. Always watch where you put your feet in case of snakes. And you have flares in case communications fail with the above-ground team.’