‘You’re not the only one who’s changed, Joel. I’m not the same nerdy girl I was at school.’

Arundel Castle is ahead of us, on its own little hill, and the first butterflies flutter in my tummy. We park up and join the other abseilers in their purple tabards. As they chat nervously, I realize everyone but me has a personal connection to the hospice.

I am a fraud. Hospices do a brilliant job, but I’m here for the thrill, not the cause. It’s become a standing joke at work. Hardly anyone sponsors me anymore because they’ve got so bored of ‘Krazy Kerry’ and her latest stunt.

‘How high is that?’ Joel points upwards.

‘Just under two hundred feet. It doesn’t compare to jumping out of a plane.’

I volunteer to go up with the first group of fundraisers. We’re fitted with harnesses and told what to do, though it’s hard to concentrate, knowing Joel is watching. Tim never comes and I’ve never minded, because this is my secret vice.

With the others, I climb the stone steps up to the keep, where they’ve erected a scaffold structure to attach the harnesses to. I drink in the panoramic view – bright green fields, darker clusters of trees, red-brick houses grouped together to form communities, and, furthest away, the glistening blue band of the sea.

A middle-aged superhero couple push to the front – the wife is dressed as Wonder Woman, her husband as Superman. They’re bickering till the moment the woman steps off. Her face is set in a grimace as she disappears over the edge.

‘She had to go first to make sure I would go through with it,’ Superman says to me. ‘I’m bloody terrified of heights.’

‘Why are you doing it then?’

‘Our daughter,’ he says, and I immediately regret asking because his eyes blur behind his tears. ‘Would have been unbearable if it hadn’t been for the hospice.’

‘Come on, you big fat coward,’ Wonder Woman calls from below. ‘Get it over with so we can start on the brandy!’

Superman squeals in delighted panic all the way down.

My turn. I climb onto the scaffold plank, my harness connected to the rope. I hear the wind in my ears and I tune into the thump of my heart in my chest. I love this sensation, it’s the most alive I ever feel.

‘Ready, sweetheart? Turn round, lean back . . . and off you go.’

It lasts only seconds but oh, what seconds! Adrenaline and gravity and the whooshing view of Sussex over my shoulder as I accelerate, unable to take it steady.

‘Kerry! Come on, Kerry!’

It’s Joel: the only person who knows my name. As my feet hit solid ground, I want to run back up the stone steps and do it again. Joel appears from nowhere and he’s grinning. ‘That took guts, mate, I’ll give you that.’