Just Another Mountain Read online

  ‘No!’ I replied, initially amused at her deadly serious tone.

  ‘There are bugs on the bed . . . and why is Frank pissing in the corner?’ My mum swore! Apart from one time when she’d dropped the vacuum cleaner on her toes she’d never sworn in my presence. ‘Look! My skin’s turning red!’

  ‘Mum, it’s okay, you’re not going red. It’s just the morphine they’ve given you that’s making you think these things.’ But she didn’t register what I was saying. I felt horrified, angry and upset, and went to find the doctor.

  ‘Why did you give her morphine? She said she didn’t want it and now she’s having awful hallucinations.’

  ‘We gave her the drug because she was in great pain,’ the doctor replied. I returned to the room feeling very afraid.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ I asked, as her gaze followed something.

  ‘Balls dropping from the ceiling,’ she answered.

  ‘I’m going home,’ Frank said. ‘Do you want a lift?’

  ‘No. I’ll stay a while longer, but thanks anyway,’ I replied. And then it was just us two. Repeatedly raising her arm she grasped at nothing. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked. I knew I wasn’t going to hear anything rational. I just wanted to hear her voice.

  ‘I’m picking loose hairs.’ But then, in a moment of lucidity, my mum was back and, looking straight at me, she said, ‘I’m scared I’m not going to get out of here.’

  I was too. I knew she was going to die. I wondered if she knew it too? Even if she did, I would not confirm both our fears; I revolted against it. My head pounded, my right eye felt like it was going to burst open and tsunami-sized waves of sick dread churned in my guts.

  Pounding pain in my head and eyes and a heavy fatigue induced sickness in my guts as I progressed towards the summit of Kilimanjaro. Pushing on and emerging from behind the last of the rocky stacks, I saw a glacier close up for the first time – a sight so remarkable and unexpected that it served as a total distraction from my aching body: stepped blocks of ice whose cliffs, with dirty, geometric upward streaks, creaked and groaned as if in conversation; beyond its icy reaches was the dark silhouette of Mawenzi, a cone of castellated spires. And further away still, where the sky met the horizon, the curvature of the earth was plain to see. Those spellbinding views stopped me in my tracks. When I got going again it hurt to push on to the elusive top, but eventually the rocky path gave way to a trail of footprints over ice-encrusted snow and I knew that I must surely be nearing Uhuru Peak.

  Men and women I didn’t recognise passed me by, and confusion returned once again to replace the sense of wonderment and peace I’d felt moments before. They aren’t in our group. ‘You’re nearly there!’ and ‘Congratulations!’ The American accents twanged, accompanied by a pat on my shoulder.

  Who are these people and where have they come from? I asked myself, as I reciprocated their words of encouragement with more a quizzical smile than one of friendly acknowledgement. And as they went on their way I couldn’t help but notice they all seemed to have the same sickly yellow complexions. What’s wrong with them?

  We’d walked almost eight hours through the night, but after ten more minutes of determined footsteps, at seven-twenty, I finally made it to the summit. As well as the low hub of noise on approaching Uhuru Peak, the sight of a disorderly queue of human traffic evidenced how busy a mountain Kilimanjaro was. People from a range of nationalities crowded around, waiting for their turn to be photographed next to the sign that proved they’d made it to the roof of Africa. It was surreal. And while strangers hugged and shook hands, all I wanted was for them to disappear. My nerves frayed and finally I lost my temper as Marty started complaining about the water situation again. ‘Why don’t you take all my food too?’ I yelled, and threw a chocolate bar at him before walking away in fury.

  The physical effort, the pain, the relief of having made it – everything suddenly threatened to overwhelm me. Desperate to get away from the bizarrely large summit horde, I managed to find a quiet spot where I collapsed to the ground and, with my legs dangling over the rocky shelf, the floodgates opened.

  I saw Frank on my way to the hospital that Thursday morning. He stopped his car, rolled down the window and said, ‘You know this is it, don’t you?’

  ‘No. What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘The doctor told me your mum is going to slip into a coma.’

  Not waiting to hear another word, I raced to the hospital, tears, rage and adrenalin at work. As I reached out to open the door to her room, a warm hand gripped my forearm and I looked up to see who dared stop me. I had been oblivious to the staff in the corridor.

  ‘She won’t recognise you,’ the doctor warned. ‘You must be prepared. She hasn’t spoken since last night, and your mum didn’t know either me or Frank.’ Tears ran down my cold cheeks.

  ‘Let me go!’ I cried, wrangling free from her grasp and pushing the door open. Mum looked at me with alarm as I almost fell into her room.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ she asked, all concerned. Her question caught me off-guard and I experienced a surge of joy amid the agony: I hadn’t expected to hear her voice. They’d said she wouldn’t recognise me!

  ‘I’m not,’ I lied as I walked to the window, my back turned so I could quickly wipe tears away.

  Composure regained, I sat next to her, telling myself that everything was really all right. Her lips were open, but she didn’t speak. I wiped her mouth and I held her. Her eyes stared vacantly. I told her I loved her so many times that if she had been able to register what I was saying I’d have driven her mad. I was quiet when my grandad arrived, and not much later we left – I left her on her own.

  ‘Hi,’ she said quietly, when I came back. And then that really was it. She never spoke again.

  Grandad brought Gran to the hospital. When he pushed her into Mum’s room in a wheelchair the nurse had a hold of Mum under the armpits and was lifting her onto a potty. Mum’s nightdress rose, revealing her dark pubis, and though I felt embarrassed at the invasion of her privacy she did not react. I looked at her dumbly. As a child I had sought comfort from that body, whose arms had folded around me and whose hands had clasped mine. As a teenager I’d been grossed out when I’d seen it nude as I’d caught her dressing for work. Her nakedness did not worry me now; it consumed me with sorrow. Hers was a cancer-ravaged frame under a suspended sentence. When Gran saw her daughter, she was overcome; her chest heaved up and down uncontrollably as a tide of emotion burst forth. Rushing from the room to the nearest toilet cubicle, I collapsed onto the floor in my own tearful outpouring. Gran’s pain was more than I could bear. I could only imagine how she must have felt to see her child dying. It wasn’t right; it wasn’t the natural order of things.

  Later that evening my grandad returned, red-faced, with several beers inside him. Mum lay catatonic in the hospital bed, and as he gazed at her face and held her hand he softly said, ‘My Jeffa’, calling her by her pet name. Tears filled my eyes and a lump rose in my throat. And I wondered how many times, and in how many ways, a person’s heart could break.

  At six o’clock, back at the flat, ringing shredded the dark silence of morning. Its shrill alarm set my heart pounding. I hadn’t needed to answer the phone or hear the words: I knew exactly who was calling and why. I went to Frank’s room. ‘Hurry! We’ve got to get to the hospital before it’s too late.’

  I threw on clothes I’d worn the day before and was ready to go, but Frank seemed to take for ever to get ready, and then an infuriating length of time to drive to the hospital. ‘Fuck the speed limit. My mum is dying!’ I wailed as the car trundled along at 30mph. It was tempting to open the door, bail out and run as fast as my legs could go: I was desperate to be with her. Frank said nothing.

  The overhead lamp was on, its light shone through the tiny frame of glass in the door, and as we entered the room a sweet, sickly scent filled my nostrils. She was lying on her side and her breathing rattled and bubbled, laboured and slowed. I touched her
shoulder; her nightshirt was sweat-soaked. I put a disc of classical music that she liked into the CD player, and its vibrations joined the room.

  ‘I wonder where Grandad is?’ I said to Frank.

  ‘I told the nurse not to phone him,’ he answered.

  I felt that my grandfather should have the choice to be there or not, so, going against Frank’s decision, I left the room, found a nurse and asked her to make the call. My motives weren’t entirely altruistic – I needed him there.

  Another seeming eternity lapsed before my grandfather arrived. Like Frank he had made himself presentable: my beloved old soldier had washed, shaved, suited up and polished his shoes, and suddenly I felt ashamed to be there in my scabby green mod jacket, jeans and top. Now I detected the faint odour of cigarette smoke from my clothes and hair; my mouth tasted of stale alcohol and I cursed myself for having gone to the pub when I’d left the hospital the night before.

  Grandad and Frank each took a chair on either side of my mum’s bed while I sat on it and held her hand. We were all quiet, watching, waiting. Barber’s Adagio for Strings intensified as it crescendoed, and the violins shrieked and screamed as if they knew that the moment had come. Drowning in a cacophony of noise that echoed and thumped in my ears, I wanted it all to be over. I looked at my mum. Weakly, she squeezed my hand.

  ‘It’ll be okay. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right,’ I whispered. Liar, liar, you big fat fucking liar. Her eyes stared into the corner of the ceiling, then slowly her head turned. Her gaze shifted to the opposite corner of the room, where it remained fixed. What’s happening? What’s she doing? What can she see? My thumb brushed the bangle on her wrist. Is it Gerry? Has he come for her? Her breathing slowed. In . . . out . . . in . . . and that was it. She isn’t taking another breath; where did it go? How can she have just gone? I could not understand. I searched my grandad’s face looking for an answer, but all I saw was sorrow.

  Grandad went to find the doctor. ‘I’ve never watched anyone die before,’ Frank said flatly as I pressed my cheek against hers: she felt warm. I stroked my hand through the damp curls of her grey hair.

  The doctor came in and I had to leave.

  I sat on the summit of Kilimanjaro, feeling calmer for a moment. I took out the photograph of me and Mum, and the small pot of her ashes I’d brought. On an impulse, I released them here, so close to her childhood home. Watching her ashes disperse into the crisp mountain air, my memories of her roared with a burning intensity and I felt overcome once more, crying as though she had left me right then.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Marty said, as he came up behind me and put his arms around my shoulders. ‘We’ve been here half an hour. Come on, we need to get down.’

  ‘Okay.’ I smiled back. I didn’t want to leave, but he was right, our job was only half done. I found a nook in some stones and buried the picture of Mum and me, which I’d popped inside the pot, then stumbled away from Uhuru Peak.

  Descent was torturous. And, like the Americans had been, now we were yellow-faced. My mind felt wrecked and all concept of time was lost on me, but I guessed it had to be about ten o’clock when we found ourselves back at Gilman’s Point. Kibo’s hut and the collection of tents looked tantalisingly close yet were so far away, and now, in the broad light of day, it was startling to see the steepness and distance we had covered during the night. In agonising and fitful bursts of movement I only managed to progress several metres at a time, down loose scree slopes, before having to crouch against or on rocks to catch my breath and let the pain ease.

  In the hospital my mother’s body lay inert and lifeless, but as I made my way out on the long road towards my grandparents’ house it felt as though her spirit had wrapped me up from the inside out like a protective cloak – as though her soul had jumped into my body – and at that moment, in the strangest of ways, I felt comforted. Instead of walking along the pavement I crossed the road, gravitating towards the tall stone boundary wall of the Farmer’s Showfield; in my mind I saw it helping to prop me up, preventing me from falling helplessly to my knees. The October wind sent a few rusty-coloured leaves scuttling across my path. The sun pursued its course behind the clouds and the cold, steely grey of day pressed down from all sides, swallowing me whole. Suddenly I understood the meaning of being carefree because I was not, and in crushing defeat I felt as though I never would be again. Each of my footsteps fell automatically, moving my body forward. My body existed but it was as though my spirit, the I that makes me me, had transferred to another world where it fluttered unresting and lost. Only my feet progressed towards their destination. At the house I went straight to Gran’s room. She was in bed lying up against her pillows. ‘Is that it then?’ she asked, and Uncle David, seated in the chair next to her, searched my face. Unable to say the words, I walked over, sat across my uncle’s knees, put my arms around his neck and cried. I did not see my mother again.

  Kibo was a place of safety, and when I finally crashed back into camp I promptly burst into floods of tears again, but this time they were sobs of relief. It didn’t matter if I got sick now; I’d achieved the summit. As I pulled myself together, conversation with a tone of concern alerted me to the arrival of a member of our trekking group. His face looked like he lived on a planet with a gravitational pull six times stronger than Earth’s; his eyes, and the skin underneath, drooped and sagged, as did his cheeks and the flesh of his jowls. Though supported by a porter, he walked without co-ordination, and his speech was slurred. He’d collapsed on his way back to Gilman’s Point and had been out cold. He was an intelligent man (and someone who had taken Diamox from the start) but, driven by summit fever, he had lost all faculty for reason – so much so that he’d put his very life on the line – and it was only my shock at seeing him in that condition that made me appreciate the real danger of climbing at altitude. My thoughts turned to my children. I wanted so much to be with them.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dead Loss

  Horombo Huts, 3,720 metres, June 2010

  I returned to my tent, where I was looking forward to collapsing in a heap, but as I grabbed at the flap to scramble in I came face to face with Marty, who was clearly unwell. He was coughing harshly and his eyes were bloodshot and bulging like a bullfrog’s, and with the next bout of coughing he spat blood.

  ‘How long have you been like this?’ I asked.

  ‘I was feeling really shit when we were at the summit, but after I left you at Gilman’s, that’s when the coughing got worse.’

  Without hesitation I went to find Emma, who accompanied me back to the tent where she examined my friend. Marty was diagnosed with onset pulmonary oedema, and so while he and the other casualty were raced to lower altitude on one-wheeled contraptions – a metal stretcher, like a mobile see-saw, with handles each end – the rest of us made the four-hour haul on foot.

  Trailing down over the vast, dusty expanse, with nothing to see but volcanic boulders and senecio trees, was total and utter hell on earth. I was physically and emotionally spent, had no appetite and was running on empty, but everyone was suffering. All any of us wanted was to reach Horombo camp, and it was a case of every man for himself as people desperately fought to get there. Unsteady on their feet, people fell about; far-spread individuals and pairs staggered along, suddenly dropping to the ground to rest. It was like watching an apocalyptic scene of a film with a cast of zombies, and I was one of them.

  Horombo huts eventually came into sight and so did a very chipper Marty; seeing his happy face cheered me up.

  ‘What a speedy recovery! You don’t look like Gollum from Lord of the Rings any more,’ I said.

  ‘Cheeky bitch!’ he laughed. ‘It’s good to see you!’

  We chatted for a bit and unpacked the stuff we needed for a last night of camping. Then, after a meagre meal of rice accompanied by carrots and peas (the last of the food supplies), nobody needed persuasion to have an early night – we’d not slept in over thirty-six hours, and any shut-eye prior to that had been i
n short supply. Bodily weary, I managed only one solitary thought before my eyes closed. What an epic and twisted forty-eight hours.

  On the first night of life without Mum I barely slept at all. And as I lay in my bed I thought about how I hadn’t wanted either the day to finish or time to move forward; and how I hadn’t wanted to return to the flat – where she wouldn’t be.

  I recalled leaving my grandparents’ house late and going to visit Mum’s friend and teaching colleague, staying with her till midnight – till going home could no longer be avoided. A snippet of Mum’s friend’s conversation turned over in my mind. ‘I remember when she first got breast cancer and your mum said to me, “They found it in my lymph nodes, so that’s it, I’m a goner.”’

  Mum hadn’t told me or my grandparents; she had known all along that the cancer would return and that death would come to her sooner rather than later, but she had protected me and all of her family from the truth. A stream of tears trickled from my eyes. I could see my whole life stretching endlessly ahead of me: time was too large and I was swallowed up in it, I didn’t want it to go on without her.

  It must have been throwing-out time from the pubs because there was sudden noise out in the street. People passing on the pavements below sang, shouted and laughed. I felt resentful and totally disconnected to that world that carried gaily on outside my window. Nobody out there knew how I felt. Nobody out there cared. Why would they? This was my life, my sorrow, and it seemed that nothing would make me feel better ever again.

  In the end I gave up on sleep. I reached out for a pile of papers by my bedside on which my mother had handwritten several verses from the Rubaiyat. Grandad had given her this book of poetry many years before, and a few weeks earlier she had selected her favourite philosophical quatrains to copy out. She had wanted Grandad and me to find comfort in their words after she was gone. I had coloured Celtic patterns around them, so they had become something we had created together. I lay there looking at them by torchlight, reading those lines over and over again.