Page 25 of The Sky Beneath Us
It’s incredibly frustrating not to be able to go outside to breathe in the mountain air and feel the sunlight on my face, but I know I have to resign myself to my week of incarceration. And in a way I welcome it. There’s been so much to take in. Even just getting here has left me reeling, never mind the news that I have some living relations in this tiny, remote village perched on the highest edge of the world.
I bring the journals and letters downstairs and spread them out on one of the tables. And then, between frequent breaks for more cups of tea, I tell Tashi, Dipa and Sonam all that I know of Violet’s journey and how my great-great-aunt came to be here in the first place.
Violet’s Journal
FRIDAY, 14THJUNE, 1929
It feels strange to be writing in my journal again after so long. But only now can I look back and take stock of all that’s happened in these past months.
In the weeks following our departure from Namche Bazaar, the expedition settled into a routine of trekking, making camp, hunting for plants, and then moving on again to explore the next valley. Our slow and steady gain in altitude, with weeks spent working from a campsite base, was a blessing. I didn’t once feel the ill effects of breathing the thin air, the way some of the men did. Poor Mr Andrews, whose strength must have been sapped by his illness, was laid low for several days with a blinding headache when we reached the place called Thamo.
My morning sickness soon passed, too, and I felt a renewed sense of energy and purpose in accompanying the men on their forays in search of new species. It was noticeable, as we trekked deeper into the Khumbu valley, how the plant life around us changed. The pine and birch woods grew sparser, giving way to scrubby growths of juniper, which crouched closer to the ground. But other strange shrubs grew alongside the paths trodden by yak herders too, and Iwas kept busy capturing the forms of their leaves and flowers with my watercolours. I feel sure some of them will do well in the British climate as the growing conditions at these altitudes are so much cooler than the subtropics of Kathmandu. Indeed, some may even thrive in our milder temperatures and gentler weather. I have high hopes for one of the forms of pom-pom-like primulas we’ve found and can picture it growing by the pond at Inverewe, perhaps. I shall write to Mrs Hanbury, when I have the time and opportunity to send a letter. I haven’t written to Hetty for weeks either, but told her in my last letter not to expect to hear from me for a while so she wouldn’t worry.
We still walked through forests of rhododendrons, but only the earlier ones were in bloom above Namche. We had to rely on identifying them by their other characteristics and it was gratifying that my work in the Herbarium stood me in good stead. Once the men realised I had some useful knowledge, they began consulting me for help in identifying their finds. At first, some of them enthusiastically culled plants wholesale, pulling them from the stony ground and carrying them back to camp, roots and all, hoping instantly to have discovered some prized new find that would make their fortunes. I supposed they thought it would save them the effort of climbing repeatedly back and forth between hillside and camp. With the help of Colonel and Mrs Fairburn, who had considerably more experience in the field than most of the men, I managed to convince them to take more care, to mark their finds on a plan and bring back just a sprig at first, accompanied by descriptive notes, until we could ascertain which areas merited further investigation. I showed them how to mark the location on the ground of the plants worth collecting, so we could return later in the season to gather the seeds once they’d set.
I didn’t mind scrambling up slopes and over screes to be shown their findings. Indeed, seeing plants growing in situ is of huge valuein helping with their identification. But as the weeks passed and my baby grew within me, I began to find the exertion a bit more tiring and became a little more cautious about taking risks on the steeper rock faces. I think Mrs Fairburn must have noticed my slight reluctance because one morning she declared I should spend more time at the camp. ‘Your drawing and painting skills are most valuable to the expedition, now the men are getting into their stride and know what to look for,’ she said, then turned to her husband. ‘Don’t you agree, my dear? It would be best if Violet were to remain here a bit more.’
He looked up from the map he was perusing as he planned the next excursion. ‘I suppose you are right, as you so often are, Roberta. Although if Miss Mackenzie-Grant wishes to accompany us, she has proven herself more than capable. But there are specimens to be prepared and labelled for sending back, so perhaps you two ladies could carry on with that whilst we’re away.’
When I smiled my thanks to Mrs Fairburn, I caught her looking at me a little thoughtfully. Instinctively, I sat up slightly straighter in my camp chair and attempted to pull in the rounding of my stomach beneath my overcoat. She smiled back, giving no sign of suspecting anything, and I relaxed, relieved I was still managing to conceal my condition. The climbing has made me stronger and fitter, my muscles becoming more defined even as my baby pushes my belly outwards.
We based ourselves at Thamo for several weeks. It was less than a day’s trek from Namche Bazaar but felt a world away. A brightly decorated monastery sits on high there above a few stone hovels, and the nuns who inhabit it were most welcoming. They have little enough to sustain themselves but insisted on bringing us gifts of food – little dumplings filled with savoury vegetables, and tasty pickles with which to break the monotony of our pemmican. Mrs Fairburn offered them a few tins in exchange for theirgifts, but when they learned the contents were some form of meat they quickly handed them back. Mingma told us it is against their beliefs to consume another living thing unless it has died of natural causes. I was surprised to learn they eat meat at all, but the ancient form of Buddhism practised here seems rather a pragmatic one and I suppose when food is always so scarce and life so hard, it is only sensible to eat what is available. Some of the nuns are very young, mere children of ten or twelve years of age, and it is all too evident they don’t get the nutrition they require. I could see one or two of them had the thickened ankles and bowed legs characteristic of rickets. We substituted some tins of condensed milk for the offering of pemmican, and these were gratefully accepted. I just wish we could do more to help them.
As the weeks passed, the weather improved, and I began to grow accustomed to the cycle of days in the mountains. The nights were bitterly cold, the sky clear and blacker than any I’ve seen in Scotland. But it was filled with breathtaking curtains of stars – far more even than Callum and I saw on the eve of Samhain. I looked up at them and wondered if he was there, somehow, somewhere, looking down on us. I wished I believed in reincarnation as the Buddhist nuns do, so that there might be some chance of him returning one day. But I knew I was alone, even in the company of the expedition, and that the time would come, soon enough, when I would have to fend for myself and my baby on my own.
Daybreak arrived as a cold, grey light at first and I would scramble out of my sleeping bag and into my clothes, emerging from my tent to seek out the first rays of warmth as the sun appeared from behind the wall of mountains enclosing the valley. Mingma and our porters would already have the fire going and a tin kettle steaming merrily atop it as, one by one, the expedition members came to sit in the sunlight, basking like lizards on a rock whilst the welcome warmth thawed out stiff limbs.
I began to notice that Mr Andrews would make a point of coming to sit beside me. He is a kind man, but I didn’t wish to encourage his advances, nor to mislead him in any way. He probably imagined me to be rather shy and was being careful, too, not to encroach on my grief.
Whilst the mornings were clear and bright, more often than not a veil of cloud would accumulate over the mountaintops and roll down into the valley by mid-afternoon. Sometimes it became so clammy and cold that I was forced to retreat to my tent and wriggle into my sleeping bag for warmth, keeping all my clothes on whilst I attempted to finish writing up the day’s notes. The men would usually arrive back from their excursions later in the day and we would all gather again beneath the awning of the cook tent to eat supper and discuss the latest findings.
One evening, alongside the assortment of plant materials the men had collected, they produced with some triumph a large slab of honeycomb. They’d found curtains of it hanging from the underside of a large cliff and one of the more intrepid amongst them had scrambled up to steal a chunk of it, braving the stings of the large and angry bees that quickly swarmed around him, making clear their displeasure. How we all longed for something sweet to break the monotony of our diet! But when I tasted the honey, I found it had a peculiar, bitter edge to it that did not agree with me and it rasped unpleasantly in my throat. My baby seemed to agree, giving my belly a good hard kick. I quietly passed the dish of it along, noticing that the Colonel and his wife did the same. But the men devoured it, spread on hard biscuits from our supplies.
That night, tucked up in my tent, I heard the most terrible commotion outside in the camp. I drew on my coat and stuck my head out through the flap of canvas. It was another crisp, cold night and the moon was almost full, illuminating the snow on the mountain peaks as well as the scene before me. For a moment, Iwondered whether our camp had been invaded by werewolves, or some other sort of demons. Dark figures stumbled about, one of them seeming to throw back its head and howl at the moon. Then another of them staggered towards my tent. ‘Violet,’ it slurred. ‘I love you. I desire you.’
‘Mr Andrews!’ I exclaimed, deeply shocked. He wore only his undershirt and long-johns and his feet were bare. I averted my eyes from his evident state of arousal. ‘What on earth has got into you all? Have you been drinking?’ I scrambled out of my tent to stand, feeling that he might attempt to get into it with me if I stayed inside and I would at least be able to make a run for it if I was out in the open. But there was no need – the men seemed too intoxicated to be at all coherent and could scarcely stand. Mr Andrews suddenly bent double before me and vomited copiously on to the ground.
I wondered where on earth they could have got hold of so much strong liquor. We had some bottles of whisky in one of the chop boxes, but the Colonel kept it padlocked and only he had the key, wishing to limit the amount consumed and make the supply last. He only broke out a bottle occasionally, dispensing a tot here and there for medicinal purposes, to toast a promising new discovery, or to keep spirits up after a particularly miserable day’s weather. As more of the men began to vomit and retch, something stirred in a far recess of my mind. Back at Inverewe, Mrs Hanbury had insisted the beehives were placed as far away as possible from a certain grove of rhododendrons. ‘Otherwise, they gorge themselves on the nectar and the honey tastes quite nasty,’ she’d said. ‘I’ve heard in some parts of the world it can even have an hallucinogenic effect if partaken of too liberally.’
Just then, the Colonel emerged from his tent. ‘What in heaven’s name is going on here?’ he roared.
‘I think it’s the effect of the honey, sir,’ I called. ‘It’s toxic.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. What buffoons they are.’ He stepped forward, used to taking command. ‘Get back to your tents immediately!’ But the men were beyond taking orders. By now they had all sunk to the ground near the fire and lay groaning and retching. ‘Very well,’ he barked. ‘Stay there then and freeze.’ He turned on his heel and disappeared back into his tent, from where I heard the muffled sounds of a conversation between him and his wife.
Realising that the men would, indeed, freeze to death if left there like that, I went from tent to tent, collecting up blankets and sleeping bags. Mingma appeared and helped me wrap them around the prone forms as best we could. ‘Don’t worry, Miss,’ he said. ‘I stay here and keep fire going. Make sure they keep warm. Make sure they don’t bother you too.’
I handed the last blanket to him, to wrap around his shoulders. ‘Is it the honey, do you think?’
He grinned broadly, his teeth gleaming in the firelight. ‘Most certainly. It make men very excited. But not good if too much excited, I think.’
‘Not good at all,’ I said firmly. ‘Thank you for keeping an eye on them, Mingma. Will they be all right?’
He nodded. ‘It wear off after few hours.’
I didn’t sleep much after that and neither did my baby, to judge by the somersaults it was turning. I suppose my agitation must have affected it. I placed my hands on my belly, reassuring it. ‘I won’t let any harm come to you,’ I whispered. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to conceal my pregnancy very much longer. It was becoming all too evident.
As the weather improved, we climbed upwards to reach the higher elevations of the trail. Although it was still cold at night, by daythe sun blazed down on us unremittingly. Sometimes we would find ourselves walking along a dusty track with clouds floating in the valley beneath us. It was a strange feeling, as if we were walking in the sky.
