Page 46 of The Sky Beneath Us
Thou art the music of my heart
Harp of joy, oh cruit mo chridh,
Moon of guidance by night,
Strength and light thou art to me.
Very gently, I set the guitar back in its place. Sorcha closes the lid of the piano and there’s silence. The final, remembered echoes of the song evaporate into thin air as thebardoreaches its end. And Davy’s soul goes with them, and then there’s nothing left in the room but a sense of peace, mingled with our memories of the love he gave us.
Daisy – August 2020
I felt close to Violet in Nepal, but somehow that journey and my return make me feel even closer to her here. After all, this was a childhood home for both of us, and both of us had to leave it. Her only option was to make a new home, on the other side of the world. But my time away has shown me my real home was always back here, where I started. I think it’s the same for Jack as well. We’ve both come home, not only to the place we grew up but to ourselves. To each other. So I’ve decided to remain at Ardtuath.
All of us have had a lot of adaptations to make. Sorcha is able to continue her degree studies online, but Mara’s ambitions in performing arts have been completely curtailed by the pandemic. It’s impacted on the music school too, since the restrictions have brought home to us very forcibly the fact that live performances of all kinds are the first things to be cancelled and the last things that’ll be allowed to restart. I’d worried Mara might be devastated at having to put her dreams on hold indefinitely, but she’s found new purpose in her passion for gardening, partly inspired by Violet’s story. I suspect she shares quite a few character traits with her great-great-great-aunt, not least her determination, her independence and her strength of will. Together, we’ve put up a large polytunnel in the walled garden behind Ardtuath House and begun growing produce there, which Mara sells to local hotels and restaurants, aswell as running a farm stall on the pier every Saturday morning for the community. Sorcha helps out when she has the time and has been a useful source of advice, too, when it comes to trying out different crops to plant.
The music school remains closed for now. But we have plans to set up online classes from the autumn, allowing teachers and their students to keep playing. When we’re finally able to reopen, Jack and I will take over the running of the school, although I suspect Mum and Elspeth will continue to keep a close eye on us. So, even though we’re still living through strange times and there are many things we cannot do, we count ourselves very fortunate to have been able to adapt, finding new ways to keep going.
I’m spending a day in Edinburgh, because there’s something I need to do here. This afternoon, I have an appointment at the Botanic Garden where I’ve asked to see the papers of Violet Mackenzie-Grant, which are kept in their archive. I park beside the main gates and go in, carefully stepping on the disinfecting mats that have been placed there. Visitor numbers are limited to keep everyone safe, and even though we’re outdoors, everyone is still wearing masks. The first autumn colours shade the trees with hints of red and brown and the flower beds are filled with yellow rudbeckia and purple asters in a final defiant show of colour before winter arrives. I’m early for my appointment, so before heading to the Library, I meander along the paths and make my way to the Nepalese Garden in the heart of the Botanics. A string of prayer flags waves above a gateway of stones, from which a bronzed bell hangs, transporting me back to the Himalayan pathways leading to Phortse.
I take a photo and send it to Pema.Thinking of you all, my accompanying message reads. I wonder how they are, what they’re doing this evening. I picture them sitting round the stove in the teahouse, perhaps gathering round to look at the picture I’ve justsent if the Wi-Fi’s working there tonight. In my mind’s eye I see their smiles, etched into their faces alongside the hardship that’s written there too, the beautiful combination of kindness and toughness that’s such a Sherpa characteristic.
As I walk on, I stop here and there to peer more closely at the labels beneath the rhododendrons lining the paths. In some cases, the name of the plant hunter who discovered the specimen is acknowledged: Frank Kingdon Ward, George Forrest and George Sherriff feature.But, I mutter beneath my breath,where are the women? Where is Violet?
I take a detour to walk past the Caledonian Hall and stand for a while in front of the pretty Victorian cottage. Nowadays the building’s used as a venue for weddings and other events and the Herbarium’s been moved to the modern, purpose-built science block, which also houses the Library. I imagine Violet walking up to this same doorway with its carved gingerbread gable, plucking up her courage to enter the place where she would find Callum at his workbench. I think she’d like the fact that an alpine garden has been constructed across from it these days. The tumbling stream and low-growing, high-altitude plants would surely remind her of the Valley of Flowers in her home half a world away.
I rouse myself from my reverie and a glance at my watch tells me I need to hurry to my appointment at the Library. Once I’ve sanitised my hands thoroughly and been admitted, I sign in and follow the directions the receptionist gives me from behind his Perspex screen. As instructed, I leave my coat and bag in a locker before being allowed into the archives. The librarian shows me to a table where she’s set out Violet’s papers.
‘I don’t think these have seen the light of day for decades,’ she says. ‘You’re the only one who’s asked for them. Do you have a particular interest in this woman?’
My laugh is muffled by my mask. ‘You could say that,’ I say. ‘She’s a distant relation. I went to Nepal to track her down and discovered her descendants still living there.’
‘Oh, well in that case I think one of my colleagues would like to see you, if you’d be okay with that? When we received your request for this collection, it piqued his interest. He works with the Flora of Nepal team.’
‘I’d love to meet him,’ I say.
‘Great. I’ll let him know you’re here. But for now, I’ll leave you to look through this lot.’ She gestures to the two dog-eared boxes of papers on the desk. ‘Just say if there’s anything else you need.’
I pore over them for an hour or so. They’re mostly lists of the specimens collected by Violet and sent back to Scotland, neatly catalogued in the flowing handwriting that I recognise from her journals. I imagine Hetty would have delivered them to the Botanics – to the Caledonian Hall where I stood just a little earlier – along with the seeds and plant samples. But there are no drawings, no thick paper folders containing the plants she so lovingly, meticulously gathered and prepared. I think of the labels I saw on the rhododendrons in the gardens and wonder again: where is her legacy?
Once I’ve finished looking through them, I replace the papers in their boxes and get to my feet. The librarian must have been watching from her desk by the door because she comes over, saying, ‘My colleague is waiting in the staff canteen, if you still have time to see him?’ Once I’ve retrieved my bag and coat, she points the way down the stairs.
The canteen is empty, apart from a very tall young man sitting at a table in the corner, a cardboard cup sitting in front of him alongside the book he’s reading. His face mask dangles by its elastic from one ear.
I approach him a little uncertainly. ‘Are you Dr Martin Walker?’ I ask.
He unfolds himself, gangly as a stick insect, and extends a bony elbow in the new way it’s now acceptable to greet one another. ‘I am, and you must be Ms Laverock?’
‘Please, call me Daisy.’
He grins. ‘How apt. Are all the members of your family named after flowers?’
‘Pretty much,’ I say with a laugh. ‘Especially the Nepalese branch.’
He raises his eyebrows in surprise. ‘You have family in Nepal? I want to hear all about it,’ he says. ‘Take a seat and I’ll get you a cup of something. Tea? Milk and sugar?’
We sit at the prescribed distance from one another, but I’m able to remove my mask to sip my tea and it feels almost normal for a change.
Martin tells me about the Flora of Nepal project, which has been running for some years now. ‘There’s always been a special link between the Edinburgh Botanics and Nepal, ever since Francis Buchanan-Hamilton’s time. He was the Keeper here in the early 1800s and he’d spent time in the Himalaya before that. We know now, perhaps more than ever before, what a hotspot Nepal is in terms of its biodiversity. And with the way the world is at the moment, it’s becoming more important than ever to map and conserve that wealth of resources before it’s lost forever.
