Sophie was trying not to think that the bungee cord buckled to her waist looked far too thin to be safe. She stared straight ahead at the spectacular view, the skyscrapers in the distant city silhouetted against the cloudless blue sky, and tried to stop herself glancing down at the ground, towards which she would soon be plummeting.

If you had told her a few months ago that she would be about to bungee jump for the first time at the age of fifty, Sophie would have scoffed and called you mad.

At the beginning of this year she had stood in her back garden and stared up at the wide expanse of sky, feeling utterly lost. Divorce had followed swiftly on the heels of redundancy. She and her husband both worked hard to save their marriage, but it was falling apart quicker than they could fix it. He left, and now she lived alone in a huge house that still seemed to echo with her children’s voices, though they were grown adults now. She had realised that she could retire quietly, find hobbies and activities to fill her empty days, or she could start doing all the things she had always wanted to do. Fear no longer held her back; the worst had already happened. She’d been a scrupulous saver all her life and she deserved to treat herself.

That same night, Sophie had gone upstairs and dug through her memory box. She held aloft her bucket list, scribbled long ago when she was in her teens and had the whole world in front of her. It was high time, she thought, to start fulfilling her dreams.

One by one, she began to tick off items on the list. In March she went to Venice and lounged in a gondola as it drifted down the canals. She travelled to America and swam with dolphins in the balmy spring sunshine. By the time she boarded the Eurostar to Paris she had cut her hair short and dyed it blonde. She could not be further from the woman who had been a slave to her job, working hard all day only to come home and spend hours cooking her husband’s dinner.

She’d seen Rome by helicopter, the ancient city bathed in gold from the light of the setting sun. She’d been to a souk in Marrakech and tasted food the likes of which she could never have imagined. And she’d waded into the sea in Spain in a bikini, heedless of those who stared.

Even so, she was only three-quarters of the way through her list. One thing she had been putting off since the beginning sat near the top of her list: bungee jumping. It was something she’d always wanted to experience, that free fall, that letting go of all control. But she had been afraid.

Sophie was still afraid now, when she stood on the platform high above the ground with the cord attached to the harness circling her waist and the instructor telling her that the countdown would begin soon. She still wasn’t sure if she could do it.

But if she could, if she did step off the edge, she could finally be free of the last of that fear. She could let go of everything that had kept her from the life she’d wanted to live and the adventures she’d wanted to have. If she could overcome this fear, then nothing would hold her back.

“10, 9, 8…”

It was time. The instructor was beginning the countdown. Sophie continued to stare straight ahead, breathing deeply. It was tempting to close her eyes, but she forced herself to keep them open.

“7, 6, 5, 4…”

Sophie found herself smiling. She felt curiously light, as if she could jump and float all the way to the ground.

“3, 2, 1…”

Sophie took a deep breath, and jumped.