Psychovertical. Andy Kirkpatrick

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      The bags were hard to lift and painful to carry. They had to be moved in relays unless I could find wheels, whether taxi, bus or trolley, but even when I felt my knees were about to buckle or my vertebrae compress down like an empty Coke can, I enjoyed carrying them. Pain like that is simple, honest, and feels invigorating as muscles and mind are pushed beyond their norms. Carrying stops you thinking.

      The longer you go without thinking the better it feels when you experience it again.

      Each bag made the car sag further, and the taxi driver’s eyebrows rose as his wheel arches dipped towards the gutter.

      ‘You might need another taxi, mate,’ said the driver, kicking his tires with concern.

      ‘Only got one small one left,’ I said, as I nipped back down the alley to my house.

      I walked through the back gate, past Ella’s frog-shaped sandpit and small red scooter, and in through the back door of our tiny Sheffield terraced house.

      My last bag lay on its side surrounded by Ella’s toys.

      There was one more thing I had to do. I crept up the steep narrow stairs and slipped into her bedroom. She lay on her side, her thumb in her mouth. Perfect. Nothing in my life seemed to fit together properly any more, my marriage, work, climbing. Nothing but her. She was the only thing in my life that I didn’t doubt.

      But even she wasn’t enough.

      You have to go.

      I wanted to kiss her, but knew if she woke up I wouldn’t be able to leave.

      I spent a lot of time wondering what she would think when she grew up, if I were to die climbing, and I thought about it again now: the selfishness of what I was about to do, risking my life once more, and in turn, risking her life and future. Many climbers, or people who do dangerous things, give it up once they have kids, but for me her birth had come at the start of it all.

      At that time, people made judgments about me as a climber and a father, often asking me how I could do it. I didn’t know, all I had was excuses. I’d said that you shouldn’t sacrifice who you are for your kids, but I wasn’t so sure. Wouldn’t it be me sacrificing them for what I wanted? But I knew that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be a person worth having as a father, and in a way that was why I was here now, about to set off on another climb. The more I tried to quit, the more the pressure built inside me.

       What if you never see her again?

      I told people I didn’t want to die before she was born, just as much as after she was born. But the truth is dying is never in any climber’s plan.

      She made sense, but she also made what I loved even more senseless. Mountains don’t care about love.

      I wanted to stand there forever. I could. But I wouldn’t.

      I crept out of her bedroom, closed the door, and turned to see the stairs leading up to our bedroom, where Mandy probably lay awake. She would be angry with me, leaving her again to go climbing. She wanted so little: a normal life, a normal husband. I couldn’t give her that, but we were both stubborn and we’d been together for ever. We didn’t quit, so here we were. Still fighting. We also loved each other.

      I knew she would be lying in bed hating me now, yet wanting me to climb the stairs and say goodbye, or even to say I’d stay—not because she was weak, but because she loved me.

      I was about to solo a climb so hard only the best had attempted it, a route I doubted I could do. Yet in that moment the thing I most feared was climbing those stairs, climbing up to face her and say goodbye.

       What if you never see the baby growing inside her?

      I went out to the garden and tried to compose myself, not wanting the taxi driver to see I was upset. I was everything I despised.

      They will be better off without you.

      As I’d done so many times before, I opened a box in my head and placed the feelings inside, closed the lid, and moved on.

      ‘Where to?’ the taxi driver asked as I sat next to him and clipped in my seat belt.

      ‘The station, please.’

      We drove down the hill, and through the empty streets.

      ‘Where you off to?’

      ‘America, to a place called Yosemite.’

      ‘Oh aye, I’ve heard of that. Are you a climber, like?’

      ‘Yeah . . . sort of.’

      ‘Are you going by yourself?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

      ‘No,’ I lied, ‘just more work.’

      ‘You want to be careful with those bags of yours, they’re bloody heavy.’

      ‘Oh, they’re OK, they keep me fit.’

      ‘No mate,’ the driver said, looking at me with concern, ‘remember, hard work kills horses.’

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