Just Another Mountain Read online

  ‘I think that’s a lovely idea!’

  ‘Awesome! We can get tapes on the weekend,’ I said, as my mother suddenly made a sharp intake of breath and her face creased. ‘What’s wrong? Where do you hurt?’

  ‘It’s my back this time,’ she groaned. Touching her gently, I willed her not to hurt – and the discomfort eased.

  ‘Imagine if I really did have healing hands?’ I said. ‘I just want to fix you.’

  ‘You have in a way,’ she replied. I still don’t know what she meant by that, but, the pain having passed, at the time it didn’t feel right to press her.

  Early the following morning Mum’s coughing woke me. I walked into the living room to check that she was all right. She was sitting on the sofa, wrapped in her purple dressing gown, staring fixedly at the television.

  ‘It makes you want to cry,’ she said, not shifting her gaze.

  I looked at the flickering images being broadcast. News was being reported live that Princess Diana had died at four in the morning following a traffic accident in Paris.

  ‘Life is a lottery,’ Mum added sadly.

  I turned my attention back to her as she wiped the end of her nose with a tissue, and I wondered if she was also thinking of herself.

  I’d been worried about Marty during the night: his breathing was terrible, he’d been coughing and was restless. I hadn’t thought it was the best idea to smoke a big reefer every night before crashing out (scoring some grass from a local had been first on his to-do list on arrival at our hotel), and it sounded as though I was right. Complaining about a headache, he had gone to find the medic, and I fell back into broken sleep till he returned.

  ‘What did Emma say?’ I asked.

  ‘She gave me Diamox.’ His perfunctory response made me realise just how much he was suffering – ordinarily Marty could talk the hind legs off not just one but a whole herd of donkeys.

  ‘Hope it works for you,’ I said in sympathy. But, unless his taking it had the placebo effect, I had my doubts. While the drug is an aid to acclimatisation, there’s no guarantee that it will either prevent or relieve symptoms of AMS. My own doctor had told me it wasn’t necessary to take it, but that if I did want to use it, it would be best to begin taking the pills a few days before I started climbing, so the drug was already at work in the system. I chose not to take it.

  ‘It’s fucking freezing, I’m putting more layers on.’ Now I was wearing two pairs of thick socks, a T-shirt, fleece, windstopper and both my down jackets.

  Marty coughed. ‘I feel like shit,’ he said. And with that we settled down as best we could. Both of us woke often. As I tossed and turned like a giant blue caterpillar on my sleeping mat I was conscious of my breathing and the need to inhale deeply.

  In the morning it was Marty’s coughing that stirred me to full wakefulness. As we ventured out only the porters were about, beginning the daily water-boiling ritual and preparing the canteen for breakfast. I returned to my slab on the finger of rock to watch the sunrise; it was as evocative as the previous evening’s sunset. Orange beams of warm light stretched forward in a burst of rays and heat to greet the new day, dispelling the night’s discomfort. And I basked in its glow.

  A few weeks after Mum had made the tapes of nursery rhymes and stories her health deteriorated and I had a bad feeling about what was coming. It was afternoon and she was resting in my bed. I wanted to lie next to her and hold her, but dared not. The last time I had brushed my awkwardness aside to embrace her gently I had hurt her; cancer now made every bit of her ache. So I sat on the carpet with my back against the wall and hugged my knees, drawing them into my chest. The sun’s rays filtered through the flimsy yellow gingham curtains, its golden light in harmony with the walls.

  ‘I love this room. I like how the sun makes it feel warm,’ she said, as she turned her face towards mine. ‘Do you know what I regret? I regret that I’ll miss what happens to everyone. And I had looked forward to being a granny.’ Once more her words made my heart ache and quite suddenly I felt terrified that time would make me forget how she sounded, looked and smelt.

  ‘I regret I can’t give you half my years,’ I choked, as anxiety, that now familiar stabbing pain, seared across my chest. I felt hopeless and guilty – guilty for living, and for grieving even though she was still with me. I felt robbed of our future, of laughing, moaning and arguing with her – and that child’s voice inside whined. It’s not fair! The child was screaming and stamping its feet with all its fury and might.

  ‘The only thing I’m worried about is that I’m not going to be around to keep an eye on your spending; it’s a bad habit of yours when you’re upset.’ She paused. ‘I wish I could have left you everything, Sarah, but I’ve written a will.’ And then followed another short silence before Mum continued, ‘You’re the best thing I have ever done; you are my daughter and you’re carrying my genes. You have been reliable and true. And you’ve been here for me in every practical way.’ I wished I could carry on doing everything for her for longer, for ever.

  ‘What will I do with you . . . when you are gone . . . what shall I do with your ashes?’

  ‘I won’t care, I’ll be dead. You do what you think is right. It might take you a while, but you’ll get there in the end . . . you always do,’ then, not for the first time, she added, ‘Just promise me you won’t give up.’

  ‘I promise,’ I said, trying to sound believable as I swallowed my sadness in the happy glow of the room.

  As I left the slab of rock and walked back to camp, the glaciers on Kibo, Kilimanjaro’s highest peak, glittered and sparkled as they reflected the light.

  At breakfast it was clear that the majority of our group was experiencing the effects of altitude. And on everyone’s mind was the prospect of not being allowed to reach the summit, but subdued chatter of hopes and fears closed when we were briefed by our guide, Don.

  ‘Today we are trekking over the Saddle to camp four at Kibo. We’ll eat lunch, rest, eat dinner at about five, then I want you all to get some rest or sleep if you can. At eleven o’clock tonight everyone needs to be up and ready to make our summit bid. This is the toughest part of the trek, guys. Dig deep.’

  I had been anticipating that promise of hardship and struggle – and the five-hour trek across the alpine desert didn’t disappoint. Although cool winds blustered across the barren landscape, the sun’s fierce rays burned down, and there was no shelter. The sweltering heat and thirst occupied my thoughts till I saw something curious gleaming in the near distance. I asked our local guide Peter what it was.

  ‘Two years ago a small airplane carrying Italians crashed into Mawenzi. The debris went everywhere,’ he said. ‘Everything from the wreckage, apart from the four dead bodies, was left on the mountain.’ As I approached the fuselage of the plane I saw that it was its white carcass reflecting in the sun that had dazzled my eyes. Cutesy paw prints painted on its empty shell only exaggerated the sense of eeriness.

  A long time on the Saddle had passed and I desperately needed to pee. This necessary and basic human function dominated my thoughts as I scoured for some place suitable to drop my pants: a lava bomb, situated some distance off the trail, was going to have to do. By the time I’d sorted myself out, Peter was quite far ahead. As I made tracks towards the guide a perfectly round puff of cloud was tumbling like a massive white beach ball across the high, sandy plain. It was a brilliant photo opportunity, but Peter had my camera so I ran to catch up with him. This was a big mistake. Huge. Almost immediately my lungs felt compressed and tight, as though they were being squeezed. I felt like I was suffocating as I struggled to breathe. Every intake of air was piercing, and by the time I caught up with Peter I genuinely thought I was going to die.

  ‘Haraka haraka haina baraka!’ Peter said, shaking his head.

  ‘What’s . . . that . . . mean?’ I said between gulps.

  ‘It means, hurry hurry has no blessings. Up here you have to take it slowly, pole pole.’

  I’d never exp
erienced pain like it and continued the journey with my head bowed. It occurred to me that I might have destroyed my chance of going to the summit. I had to keep walking and willed myself to take one slow step after the next. Internally I revelled in my rage as the cumulative effects of sun, altitude, hunger, lack of sleep and excruciating chest pain made the going truly hard.

  At 4,700 metres Kibo was at an elevation equivalent to Mont Blanc, and I had never been so pleased to reach a camp. In the relative privacy of our tent I was glad for some respite and, once I’d recovered sufficiently, I sorted out kit for the summit attempt. At lunch, word had got round that I’d been unwell and a couple of the trekkers were kind. One lad gave me the last of his concentrated blackcurrant juice, another lent me four AA batteries for my camera and our medic pushed two paracetamol and two Diamox on me. I was glad for the juice and batteries, but there seemed no point in taking the pills now, since I’d almost recovered from my high-altitude sprint. And in any case, I kind of wanted – needed – to feel suffering, as if doing so brought me closer to Mum.

  Wednesday, 15 October 1997, was the third-last day of my mother’s life. She was in a bad way. Thrush had developed in her throat, and the front of her head was hurting, but she hadn’t complained. Her skeletal frame, like that of a woman twice her forty-four years, stumbled into the living room, and her shrunken body was consumed by the brown armchair she sat down into.

  ‘Do you want me to call the doctor?’ I asked tentatively.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Never before had I felt the enormous weight and power of that single word; it terrified me, and in my guts I knew she was near the end. When he came to the flat the doctor wanted to give her morphine for the short journey to hospital, but Mum said no.

  ‘I want to know exactly what’s going on. I want to be fully aware,’ she answered firmly.

  From the front door of the flat my eyes locked onto the two ambulance staff as they lifted my mother, in a chair, down the stairs. One of them grumbled loudly, struggling with the awkwardness of the task. I kept my mouth shut, but inside I was screaming expletives. After calling my grandparents and Frank, I made my own way to the hospital, but on arrival I was sent away almost immediately by my mum.

  ‘Can you go home and fetch me the bangle that Gerry gave me. Don’t tell Frank though.’

  ‘Yeah, course I will.’ I said unquestioningly. She obviously didn’t want to hurt Frank’s feelings, and neither did I. When I returned she put it on. I had no doubt she loved Frank, but he was going to carry on living and make a new life for himself eventually. Maybe she knew herself the end was near and perhaps having the bangle gave her some kind of superstitious comfort.

  Everyone at camp had taken Don’s advice and rested up until we were called for the evening meal, by which time I had recovered from my lung-crushing episode. After eating, a final brief was given.

  ‘Use bottles for your water instead of the CamelBak hydration packs as the tubes are likely to freeze, and I don’t want anyone listening to music as we summit. I need your full attention. If another member of the group gets into difficulty you need to be alert and ready to help. I won’t lie, this last push is going to hurt. It should take us six hours to get to Gilman’s Point and from there it’ll take another hour and a half to get around the crater’s rim to Uhuru Peak. Some of you won’t make it. Altitude sickness can come on rapidly and if you are suffering you must let us know. It will only worsen the higher you go and you will put yourself at serious risk if you continue. There is no point giving everything to get to the summit to realise you can’t make it down. Trust me, if you are suffering the only thing you will be thinking is Get me off this fucking mountain.’

  ‘I will be joining you all on the ascent until the first person gets sick, and it’s not a case of if, but when, because somebody will,’ Emma added.

  I sat on my camp chair in our canvas canteen and glanced around the faces listening intently, trying to hazard a guess at who might succumb first, hoping upon hope that it wouldn’t be me. It was just another lottery.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hell on Earth

  Kibo to Uhuru Peak, 5,895 metres, June 2010

  It was midnight. With no moon I was enfolded by pitch-blackness as I scrambled from the tent. Assembling under the stars, our group came together, headtorches flickering into life. Galvanised into action by Daniel, our summit guide, we set off, slowly and steadily. Marty and I followed in single file directly behind him. My reasons for being up front were purely selfish; we’d been told that if we didn’t reach Gilman’s Point by 8 a.m. we would not be allowed to continue on to Uhuru Peak – the mountain’s true summit. If I was further behind there would be someone slow holding things up. Adrenalin pumped as I felt consumed by a sense of purpose.

  The black night was bitterly cold as we trod in small steps on and up. Repetitive monotony of pace, coupled with the intense light powering from my headtorch, made me feel dizzy, but the voice inside my head chattered away again, and before I knew it a whole hour had slipped by.

  We continued to snake our way up the scree slope in silence, an occasional mad cry from the guides keeping us amused. We’d been on the move for three hours, climbing 500 vertical metres; and now, as high as Everest Base Camp, we stopped to rest at the cave marking the halfway point to Gilman’s. Kitchen porters greeted us with a mug of soup to keep up our fluid intake – and warm us up; I was in awe of their organisation and also very grateful. Murmuring voices clustered together in the darkness, growing in volume as more of our group arrived; their talk, centred on the ascent, flew around in an atmosphere of nervous anticipation while I stood near Daniel wanting to get going. My head throbbed.

  As we pressed on into the night the tediousness of the increasingly steep trail felt interminable. I felt light-headed, but the light beaming from my headtorch was also making me feel nauseous, so to distract myself from these unpleasant sensations I began to count from one to a hundred over and over, and over again. Absorbed by this monotonous pastime, I was surprised to suddenly notice we’d reached Gilman’s Point. From my high stance, as I looked down the mountainside, the split between groups was more evident: clusters of white light shining from headtorches were separated by some large and some small spans of darkness. Just then Daniel’s radio crackled into life.

  ‘I need help with a casualty, and I’m not sure if I’m on the right path back to Kibo. Can you send a guide down?’

  ‘Yeah, okay, Emma,’ I heard Don reply over the airwaves. ‘Two trekkers were turned round at the Cave. Peter’s with them. Stay where you are and he’ll look for you as he makes his way down.’ I wondered momentarily who was sick, glad it wasn’t me.

  Trekkers hugged and congratulated each other for making it up to the 5,681m signpost, but we still had 200 vertical metres to gain before we’d reach the true summit. Just before we set off for Uhuru Peak, Marty and I fell out.

  ‘My CamelBak pipe is frozen,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t mind sharing my water, but I’ve only got a litre left so we need to take little sips,’ I said to him.

  ‘Don’t fuckin’ bother then,’ he answered crankily.

  ‘Marty! We’ve got at least two hours’ walking to get to the top, and then we’re gonna have to get all the way back down to camp. All I’m saying is we’ve got to be sparing.’ But Marty stropped off.

  It almost felt like being granted the gift of sight when dawn broke and revealed the mountain’s features once more. We had transcended those dark hours and trekked into a brand-new colourful day. Optimistically, it felt symbolic. There wasn’t so much as a whisper of wind. Cloud, like a herd of white horses galloping noiselessly into the mountain, was again cutting us off from the world below. Ahead, the route along the rim of the crater followed over loose and rocky terrain, dropping down over 100 metres. At the bottom of the steep scree slope on my right was a new view – the dormant volcano’s resurgent dome. Straining my eyes, I could just make out a meandering, broken thread of ant-si
zed people crossing the vast, dusty-brown plain below; in my confused state, their presence was surprising. It was worth a photo, but Don, who seemed to have crept up behind, urged me to hurry on. ‘You need to put the camera away. There’s no time for hanging about,’ he muttered bad-temperedly.

  Our original group of twenty-five had become twelve as we walked in a straggling single line, each of us quiet. By now my head was incredibly sore: my eyeballs seemed to be vibrating in their sockets and my face felt hot. My balance was all to fuck, and as I came down off a rock it felt like I’d stepped out on a dead leg, my knees buckling. I knew I was feeling the effects of the altitude but I was determined to keep on going. I’d come so far, giving up was not an option.

  Concentrating on breathing, I staggered forward. Movement felt like trying to push through some kind of invisible force field. I felt diabolical . . . hammered and hungover all at once. My hand scraped off a tower of brittle wall on my left. Beyond the Reusch Crater on my right was the ash pit; my vision made the scenes blur and the ant people disappear amid the dust. I panicked: I was here to make sense of myself and my grief, yet with my eyes refusing to work, I couldn’t even make sense of my surroundings. My mind was in chaos.

  It was evening when I went back to see Mum at the hospital. Frank was already there. Curtains were drawn and the only light in the small room came from a bedside lamp, but I could see that Mum’s stare was glazed.

  ‘The doctor injected her with a massive dose of morphine,’ Frank said, ‘and she’s been hallucinating.’ The way he spoke made it all sound like some sort of game.

  ‘She didn’t want drugs, why did they give her morphine?’

  ‘I don’t know, she must have needed it,’ Frank replied.

  ‘Are those warts all over your hands?’ Mum asked me.