My Life and Other Stuff That Went Wrong (4 page)

‘Let go!' she snaps. So I do.

She raises it, then brings it down again. This time she really strains to lift it. Her eyeballs swell and I worry she's going to drop it, but she doesn't. She presses it up to full arm's length, then down again. And up. And down. I smile.

‘You're good,' I say. ‘Let me get the camera.' I run out of the garage, up the back steps and grab Nan's camera off the dining table. I am only gone for ten seconds, but by the time I get back Nan is pinned beneath the barbell and her face is bright red.

‘Nan!' I pull the barbell off her chest. ‘Are you okay?'

I sit her up. She leans forward. I wonder if she has broken something.

‘Did you get a picture?' she asks.

‘No, Nan. I didn't get a picture.'

‘Maybe tomorrow,' she says, standing up unsteadily, before flopping back down onto the milk crates. ‘I might need my supplemental oxygen, love. Grab the canister and mask from under my bed. That's a good boy.'

The next two weeks are hardcore. Five o'clock, every morning. Weights, sprints on her walking frame, chin-ups. Meanwhile, across town, Jack is training his nan for Everest, too. They fit her cart out with snow tyres and chains. He thinks she's going to win. And she probably will.

One morning, on our way home from training, I try to talk Nan out of the whole Everest idea. ‘I heard that it's best to attempt Mt Kilimanjaro first, that it's easier.'

‘I don't have time for Mt Kiliwhatchamacallit. I'm seventy-five years old. I'll probably be dead before the year's out.'

‘But Everest takes seven weeks. And, Nan, I read that with airfare, permits, climbing gear, sherpas and everything, it costs about forty-thousand dollars. How will you afford it?'

‘I have a few dollars tucked away,' she says, tapping the side of her nose. When we get home she shows me all this money under her mattress. Some of the notes I don't even recognise. She reckons she's been sticking it there for thirty-five years. ‘I never trusted banks,' she says. ‘Or your grandfather.'

I tell her I've been reading on the internet about hypothermia, frostbite and how you can get sunburn in your nostrils from the
reflection off the snow. So, next day, she buys a whole bunch of stuff from the op-shop where she helps out on Tuesdays, including makeshift nostril protectors and thermal underwear (which she insists on showing me).

The night before the Battle of Cemetery Hill, this is the conversation at dinner:

‘How's Nan?' Mum asks.

‘Good,' I say.

‘Is she still going to climb Mt Everest?'

‘This is delicious,' I say, scooping up a spoonful of cauliflower in ham sauce. ‘Was this from a recipe or …'

‘Tom?'

‘Nah, she's given up,' I say.

‘Why are you still going over to her place so early?'

‘Just to … help her out. With jobs and stuff.'

Mum looks me in the eye. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Yeah. As if she's going to climb Mt Everest. She's not crazy!'

But Mum knows that this is not entirely true.

Oof. Oof. Oof.

That's what I hear as we make our way through the early-morning dark towards the starting line. Nan
click-clacks
along next to me. It's a warm morning and I'm in thongs and shorts, but Nan is dressed head to toe in her op-shop outfit – sheepskin boots, ski goggles, knitted gloves, a ski jacket three sizes too big, a deer-hunting cap with woollen earflaps, and her pearl necklace and handbag. The part of her face not hidden by the goggles glows with sweat.

Oof. Oof.

We turn the final corner and, up ahead, in a pool of street lamplight, I see Jack sitting on the bonnet of his nan's motorised granny cart. He is holding a punching bag and Sue is smacking it with her bare knuckles like she's got something to prove.

When we reach the starting line I say, ‘Racing in a motorised cart is cheating.'

Jack turns to Nan. ‘Hey there, little old lady.'

Sue punches the bag one last time. Jack falls off the front of the cart and lands on his head.

‘Ow.'

Sue's angry-looking black-and-white dog snarls at us from the back of the cart. It has a container hanging off its collar, like the small wooden keg you might see around a St Bernard's neck.

‘All right,' Sue grunts, throwing a small Australian flag down to me. ‘First one to plant their flag between the boneyard gates wins.
And no foul play this time, you got it? On your marks …' She turns the key, revs the accelerator. ‘Get set …'

‘Go!' Nan calls, taking off into the dark, slightly faster than a snail.

‘Get outta my way, numbskull!' Sue screams at Jack, who is still lying in front of the cart, rubbing his head. Sue jerks forward, rolling over his toe, squishing it beneath a monster-truck wheel.

‘Owww!' Jack clutches his foot.

I run a few steps to keep up with Nan – she's really moving.

Beeep!
Sue slams her hand on the horn. ‘Outta my way!' she calls as her cart moves up next to us, headlamps lighting the road ahead. ‘You haven't got a hope. And you look ridiculous in that outfit, by the way.'

Sue veers sharply to the left, trying to steer us off the road and into a ditch.

Nan adjusts her ski goggles but doesn't say
a thing. She focuses on the road ahead.

‘My dad was a world-class mountain climber!' Sue shouts over the annoying
hum-buzz
of the cart engine.

‘What?' Nan lifts one earflap on her deer-hunting cap.

‘I said my dad was –'

‘I don't care if your dad was Sir Edmund Hillary,' Nan says. ‘I can see you're a whopping great woolly mammoth riding a motorised buggy. How are you going to get that thing up Everest?'

Sue sneers. ‘It's the Sherpa 5000, top of the line. It's the Tenzing Norgay of granny carts.' She floors the accelerator, taking the lead. She veers in front of us and drops something off the back of her cart. I hear the tinkling of metal on tar and, in the red glow of her tail-lights, I see something sharp. Thumbtacks. Dozens of them all over the road.

I try to steer Nan around the tacks, but I'm too late. We walk right through them. Nan doesn't notice them in her thick-soled sheepskin boots, but my thongs are like a bed of nails.

‘Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.'

I want to stop and pick out the tacks, but Nan continues climbing so I suck up the pain and follow. ‘Ow. Ow. Ow.'

‘You okay, love?' Nan asks.

My thumbtacked soles go
click-click
on the road while Nan goes
click-clack
.

‘Sort of,' I say, trying to ignore the pain
roaring through my feet.

Sue is several metres ahead and mutters something over her shoulder to her evil dog. She reaches around and twists the lid of the container on its neck. The dog gives a husky snicker and leans forward. Something tips from the container and spills onto the road in a pool.

I'm distracted by Nan taking a huff on her asthma puffer.

‘Are you okay?' I ask.

‘Fine, love. You?'

She is sweating like crazy and starting to slow down.

‘How about we take your jacket off, Nan?'

‘No, I'm right. If I'm complaining about the weather now, imagine what I'll be like when I arrive in Nepal in May.'

‘Aargh!' Nan screams and we both slip and fall on our backsides.

Jack limps past in the darkness, laughing.

My hands are covered in black stuff. Oil, maybe. Nan groans.

‘Are you okay?'

‘Just my hip, love. I'll be right. Can you help me up?'

I try to stand but I slip again before struggling to the edge of the oil slick.

‘Grab my hand,' I say and pull Nan to her feet. She has black stains all over her new clothes.

‘She's ruined my outfit.' Nan waves a fist at Sue. ‘You beast!'

Sue scruffs her dog on the neck as the cart continues up the hill. She is about ten metres ahead of us with thirty metres to go.

‘This means war,' Nan says, reaching into her handbag.

Sunlight colours the sky to the east and I can see the old iron gates at the top of the hill. Gargoyles look down at us from pillars on either side.