Page 20 of The Sky Beneath Us
The waiter sets my coffee down with a smile and I thank him, then pick up the journal again. Just before I begin to read, animage flashes into my mind of the gilded gate in the corner of the Garden of Dreams and the devastation that lay on the other side of it. Dreams in ruins.
There could be no more fitting metaphor, I realise, for the next chapter of Violet’s journey.
PART TWO
Violet’s Journal
SATURDAY, 2NDFEBRUARY, 1929
Perhaps if I write down all that has happened, it will seem more real. Because I’m struggling terribly to absorb it. I feel my throat constrict again as I choke back my tears and I struggle for breath. A part of me wishes for an end to my life. But I know I must force myself to go on, to keep myself and my baby alive. And so I breathe in and I breathe out and somehow – impossibly – my heart keeps beating.
As soon as we’d disembarked on the dusty makeshift airstrip at Kathmandu, I took leave of my new friends and bade them good luck with their mission, then hurried to find a rickshaw and gave the driver the address of the Namaste Guesthouse. Durbar Square was easy enough to find, with its temples and market stalls, but once the driver had deposited me and my case beside the vast stone lions guarding the entrance to the square it took me some time to pick my way through the crowds. People jostled and shoved on every side. Beggars tugged at my sleeve, and I knew they didn’t believe me when I shook my head and said I had no money. But it was true. My last few rupees had gone on the rickshaw. I’d gambled everything on getting here, on finding Callum.
After several wrong turns, I managed to ask a man selling incense if he knew where the guesthouse was, and he pointed to a distant corner of the square where the buildings crowded together to form a shabby terrace. Dragging my case behind me, I pushed my way through the throng. At last I saw the guesthouse sign, nailed to a wooden doorpost. I pushed aside the length of cloth that stood in for a proper door and stepped over the threshold.
It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness after the glare in the square outside. It was stiflingly hot, despite the gloom, and a sickly stench made my stomach heave. I swallowed hard.
‘Hello?’ I called out, tentatively at first and then a little louder. ‘Is anybody here?’
A shrivelled woman appeared from the other side of a door and peered at me suspiciously.
‘Do you speak English?’ I asked.
She nodded, not returning my smile. ‘Little bit. You nurse?’
‘No, I’m not a nurse. I’ve come to see my fiancé. I believe he’s staying here. He’s with the British expedition. Mr Gillespie.’
Without a word, she jerked her head towards the stairs, then disappeared back from whence she’d come, and I heard the clatter of pots and pans, the sound of a kettle boiling.
I left my case where it was and climbed the rickety staircase to the first floor. The stench was stronger up there and I held my handkerchief to my face, waving away the flies that buzzed angrily about my head.
‘Callum?’ I called.
I knocked at the first door I came to but there was no reply. At the second one, a man shouted, ‘Who’s there?’
‘My name is Miss Mackenzie-Grant,’ I replied. ‘I’m looking for Callum Gillespie.’
The door opened a fraction, and I caught a glimpse of a dishevelled-looking character. ‘Last door on the right,’ he said, eyeing me with curiosity. ‘Have you brought medicine?’
I turned away, panic rising in my chest now, and heard his door slam shut again as I hurried to the end of the corridor.
Callum didn’t answer when I called his name. I pushed open the door to his room and gasped at the sight and the smell that awaited me. He lay in a tangle of dirty, bloodstained sheets, his face bathed in sweat. When I sank down on the floor next to him, his eyes were closed, and I could hear his lungs labour with every breath he struggled to take. I laid my hand against his brow and at the touch he opened his eyes, his gaze glassy and unfocused with the fever that raged within him. My foot nudged a tin pail beside the bed, and as its contents slopped over the rim I quickly realised it was the main source of the stench in the room.
He opened his mouth as if to try to speak, but no words came out. Hurriedly, I reached for a glass of water that sat on the bedside table and held it to his lips, supporting his head as he tried to drink.
‘Don’t talk,’ I said. ‘I’ll fetch the doctor.’
He reached for my hand and stopped me getting to my feet. ‘Vi,’ he whispered. ‘Come to say goodbye. I’m sorry ...’ His eyes closed again, and I wasn’t sure he knew I was really there.
‘Callum, listen to me,’ I said. I tried to keep my voice level and firm, so he wouldn’t hear the terror that threatened to overwhelm me. ‘You have to get well. I’m here now. I’ll take care of you. Everything will be all right. Try to drink a little more water, there you go.’
But he coughed as I held the glass to his lips again and I recoiled in horror as flecks of blood spattered my hand. I panicked then, calling his name as he sank back against the sodden mattress, but he didn’t open his eyes and seemed to sink into unconsciousness. I heard a footstep on the floorboards behind me and turned to seethe old woman from downstairs standing there. She set a basin of hot water and a strip of grey towel on the table. Her expression was frightened, wary but not unkind.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I sobbed.
‘Is typhoid fever. He very ill boy.’
‘We must get a doctor,’ I said, scrambling to my feet. ‘Where are the other members of the expedition? Where is Colonel Fairburn?’
