The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

What if, I thought, I could climb up onto the tea chest? That way, my head should be above the level of the pit, and there might be some kind of hook higher up the wall: something, perhaps, that had once been used to suspend a bag of tools, or a work light.

But first I had to find my way back to the chest.

Bound and tied as I was, this took far longer than I expected. But sooner or later, I knew, my legs would crash into the thing and, having completed my circumnavigation of the pit, I'd be back where I started.

Ten minutes later I was panting like an Ethiopian hound and still hadn't come up against the tea chest. Had I missed it? Should I carry on or go back the way I came?

Perhaps the thing was in the middle of the pit and I had been tiring myself by hopping in rectangles all round it. By what I could recall of the pit from my first visit—although it had been covered with boards and I had not actually looked down into it—I thought that it could be no more than eight feet long and six wide.

With my ankles trussed, I could hop no more than about six inches at a time in any direction: say, twelve hops by sixteen. It was easy enough to conclude that with my back to the wall, the center of the pit would be either six or eight hops away.

By now fatigue was overtaking me. I was jumping about like a grasshopper in a jam jar and getting nowhere. Then, just when I was about to give up, I barked my shin on the tea chest. I sat down on it at once to catch my breath.

After a time, I began moving my shoulders, back a bit and to the right. When I shifted to the left, my shoulder touched concrete. This was encouraging! The box was up against the wall—or close enough to it. If I could somehow manage to climb on top of the thing, there might be a chance I could throw myself up and over the rim of the pit like a sea lion at the aquarium. Once out of the pit, there would be far more likelihood I might find some hook or projection to help me rip Pemberton's jacket from my head. Then I would be able to see what I was doing. I would free my hands, and then my feet. It all seemed so simple in theory.

As carefully as possible I turned ninety degrees so that my back was to the wall. I shifted my behind to the rear edge of the tea chest and brought my knees up until they touched the part of the jacket that was under my chin.

There was a very slightly raised edge round the top of the chest, and I was able to hook my heels onto it. Then slowly… carefully… I began to extend my legs, sliding my back, inch by inch, up the wall.

We were a right-angled triangle. The wall and the top of the chest formed the adjacent and opposite sides and I was the shaky hypotenuse.

A sudden spasm shot through my calf muscles and I wanted to scream. If I let the pain overtake me, I would tumble off the box and likely break an arm or a leg. I steeled myself and waited for the pain to pass, biting the inside of my cheek with such ferocity that I tasted, almost instantly, my own warm, salty blood.

Steady on, Flave, I told myself: There are worse things. But for the life of me, I couldn't think of one.

I don't know how long I stood there trembling but it seemed like an eternity. I was soaked through with sweat, yet cool air was blowing in from somewhere; I could still feel its draughty breath on my bare legs.

After a long struggle, I found myself at last standing upright on the tea chest. I ran my fingers over as much of the wall as I could, but it was maddeningly smooth.

Awkwardly, like an elephant ballerina, I rotated one hundred and eighty degrees until I thought I was facing the wall. I leaned forward and felt—or thought I felt—the rim of the pit beneath my chin. But with my head swaddled in Pemberton's jacket, I could not be sure.

There was no way out; not, at least, in this direction. I was like a hamster that had climbed to the top of the ladder in its cage and found there was nowhere to go but down. But surely hamsters knew in their hamster hearts that escape was futile; it was only we humans who were incapable of accepting our own helplessness.

I dropped slowly to my knees on the tea chest. Climbing down, at least, was easier than climbing up, although the rough splintered wood, and what felt painfully like a tin rim running round the top of the box, made a hash of my bare knees. From there, I was able to twist sideways into a sitting position and swing my legs over the edge until I felt them touch the floor.

Unless I could find the opening through which the cold air was entering the pit, the only way out was up. If there was in fact a pipe or conduit leading to the river, would it be of sufficient diameter for me to crawl through? And even if it was, would it be free of blockage, or would I suddenly crawl face-first—like a mammoth blindworm—into some ghastly thing in total darkness and become jammed in the pipe, unable to go either forward or back?