With clenched teeth and lungs wrung dry of breath, we clawed our way upwards, each step a battle against the gnawing cold that sank its teeth into our bones. Ice clung to the crags of our faces like barnacles on a shipwreck, and the bitter wind sliced at our extremities with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. Above us, wisps of ghostly cloud drifted lazily past, stark white against the cruel brilliance of an unfeeling sky. The sun, though bold and golden, was nothing more than a duplicitous trickster—beaming down like a benevolent king while withholding every scrap of warmth.
Far below, the landscape rolled out in a green-and-gold embrace, pine-clad and perfumed, the very picture of solace. It called to us like a siren’s song, promising comfort, ease, and the kind of warmth that seeped into your very marrow. The temptation to turn back was almost unbearable, to let gravity pull us homeward, to slip into the tender arms of safety. But ambition, that cruel and relentless taskmaster, urged us ever higher. The mountain was our enemy, and we meant to conquer it. To plant our flag, bask in the warm tide of adulation, and return as heroes wreathed in glory, that was the true reward.
Of course, in reality, it was raining, and I had a monstrous pile of sodden washing staring at me like an uninvited guest who refused to leave. The tumble dryer, once my faithful ally, was no more. Banished. Gone the way of all luxuries. In its place stood my clothes horse, a contraption that, despite its noble efforts, was about as efficient as drying your hair with a sigh. Tall, skeletal, and folding in an accordion-like ascent, it stood there, waiting for its burden. I took a peculiar satisfaction in methodically hanging each garment, arranging them with military precision, as if that would somehow lessen the irritation of the task. And yet, an escape loomed on the horizon, a laundrette, discovered on the high street, its presence heralded by a swift Google search.
A quick phone call, brisk and businesslike, confirmed my plan. For the princely sum of one hundred and twenty new English pence, I would be granted half an hour of glorious, bone-dry salvation on the highest setting. Hot, fragrant clothes; now that was a prize worth chasing. Was it excessive to imagine myself kneeling before the open dryer, basking in the heat, arms wrapped around my freshly warmed garments like a lost soul clinging to salvation? Perhaps. But desperate times called for desperate comforts.
Years ago, an era so distant it might as well have been chiselled into a cave wall, the tumble dryer had been an unknown luxury. Back then, we had the top-loading washing machine, a hulking, obstinate beast that slurped water through a rubber hose clamped to the kitchen tap. In the centre of its belly sat the dreaded witch’s hat, a black, blunt-bladed cone that churned and thrashed, wrestling the filth from our clothes with all the delicacy of a prizefighter in a bar brawl. Steam rose, thick and soapy, filling the kitchen with the sharp tang of detergent. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can smell it.
On top of this mechanical leviathan sat the twin rubber rollers of the mangle, powered by a simple crank. We fed our clothes through like sacrificial offerings, twisting the handle until they emerged damp and flattened, ready for the spinner—a thing of raw, unbridled power. I couldn’t tell you its exact RPM, but it was fast enough to fling your socks into another dimension. Clothes would cling to the drum like barn dancers in a gale, and the excess water gushed from a spout shaped like a duck’s bill, dribbling into a waiting dish. Then, finally, the washing would be hoisted outside onto the carefully wiped line or, in less clement weather, draped over the ancient clothes horse in the dining room.
That old clothes horse, it was a thing of many lives. More than just a drying frame, it was a sheer cliff face, a mighty skyscraper, an unconquered peak. To my childish imagination, it was Everest, and my action men were the bold climbers, scaling its treacherous heights. Woollen threads, carefully tied and snipped, served as their climbing ropes. My mountaineers, swathed in clean white shirts and flanked by ghostly sheets, teetered on the brink of greatness.
Enter Father M. A familiar figure in our house, as comfortable there as the furniture itself. Clad in his priestly black, he was an unlikely playmate, but an eager one nonetheless. As the fire roared behind us, its orange and yellow tongues licking at the grate, he took up a position opposite me, mirroring my every move. We played in perfect, unspoken synchronicity, each secretly racing the other to the summit, neither willing to cheat – each step required proper knots, proper placements, proper dedication.
Then, catastrophe.
In his eagerness, Father M toe-punted the clothes horse with all the grace of a man stepping on a rake. I lunged to steady it, missed entirely, and tumbled backwards in a graceless sprawl, taking the whole wretched structure down with me. The flimsy fireguard, more suggestion than safeguard, folded like a house of cards under my weight, crumpling against the coal fire. Chaos erupted. We scrambled, grabbing at tumbling garments, yanking the frame away from the flames.
And, right on cue, Mum stormed in from the kitchen.
There is a particular type of silence that follows disaster, the moment when all involved brace for impact. My burned finger throbbed, my eyes welled, but no amount of whimpering could shield me from the coming storm. Father M, normally so eloquent in his Sunday sermons, stammered and fumbled like a schoolboy caught red-handed. It mattered not. Wrath was upon us.
One garment perished in the flames, a casualty of our mountaineering folly. As for me, I was left with a scar—both on my skin and, more deeply, on my pride. Father M made a hasty, muttering retreat, his clerical status no shield against the full force of my mother’s ire.
And so, the grand adventure ended; not in triumph, not in glory, but in scorched cotton, sore fingers, and a healthy dose of childhood humiliation. Everest, it seemed, was not for the likes of us.
Wording 