Page 9 of The Sky Beneath Us
Sunday, 27th November, 1927
Dearest Hetty,
Well, I’ve almost completed my first term and despite Ma’s predictions I have neither got myself expelled nor have I dropped out. In fact, it’s been everything I dreamed of and more. My assignment to the Herbarium at the Botanic Garden has been going well and my drawings and paintings have, I think, added to the recording and cataloguing of many of the specimens. The chilblains on my fingers are worth it! Mawill have kittens when she sees the state of my hands (the only one of her predictions that HAS come true). The heating in the Caledonian Hall consists of a temperamental monster of a boiler that only barely manages to raise the temperature of the room by a degree or two at best, so I often work wrapped in my coat, wearing a pair of fingerless gloves so as to be able to use my pencils and brushes. But as I draw and paint, I forget the cold and the damp and the grey skies beyond the soot-speckled windowpanes and am transported to lush tropical valleys filled with bright rhododendron blooms and rugged, snow-capped mountainsides, where poppies the colour of a summer sky nod amongst carpets of starry white saxifrage. Oh, how I should love to see such sights one day! Of course, women are rarely included on the plant-hunting expeditions that send these treasures back to us. But maybe, somehow, one day I will travel further than the Scottish railways can carry me.
Speaking of which, I’m so looking forward to coming home to Ardtuath for Christmas. There is much to tell you about the past three months here, and whilst I suspect the botanic and horticultural details will bore you rigid, I do have some news of a romantic kind that will interest you more. One of my colleagues at the Herbarium is a most personable young man by the name of Callum Gillespie. It has taken a few weeks, but he has finally plucked up the courage to ask me to accompany him on a walk beside the Water of Leith next Saturday. I must confess, I find his shyness rather attractive. So far, he is most comfortable talking about the plants wework on together, but I have managed to extract from him the information that his family comes from Perthshire, where his father is head gardener on an estate near Dunkeld. Ma will have even more kittens when she learns this is the sort of person I socialise with nowadays. But, after all, we are equals at work (indeed, he is a couple of years ahead of me in experience and holds down a far more responsible role than I do at the Botanic Garden). I like him very much indeed. He is a great deal more interesting than anyone we were ever introduced to at those hunt balls.
Is there anything in particular you would like me to bring from Edinburgh, dear Hetty? I look forward to treating you to such luxuries as silk stockings and scented bath salts, as well as some of those rose cream chocolates you love.
Counting down the days until I see you ...
Your sister,
Violet xx
Daisy – March 2020
I’m all ready to leave tomorrow morning, having packed and repacked my bags several times. With time on my hands, I return to the Garden of Dreams to spend time among the jasmine and roses. I sit on the bench beneath the marble plaque and read the words of the verses again. This time, it’s the first one that speaks to me most clearly:
One moment in annihilation’s waste,
One moment. Of the well of life to taste –
The stars are setting, and the caravan
Starts for the dawn of nothing – oh, make haste!
Well, Mr Omar Khayyam, no one can say I’m not seizing the moment, stepping far out of my comfort zone and on to the middle way of the unknown.
A feeling of serenity descends over me as I sit gazing out across the neat lawns and the beds overflowing with colour. I get to my feet at last, and take one final walk along the path that circles the outer edge of the garden. In the far corner, I notice a gate I haven’t seen before. It’s as finely wrought as the others punctuating the garden walls here and there, embellished with ironwork scrolls and the heads of lions. The word ‘DREAMS’ is picked out in gilt alongthe top, just as it is on the entrance gate at the other side of the garden. But as I draw closer, my sense of serenity evaporates when I see what lies on the other side of the railings. It’s a scene of total devastation. Heaps of rubble and splintered wood are piled there haphazardly, as if a whole building has collapsed. It must date from the last earthquake, five years ago. I stand before it, shocked by the juxtaposition of the wording above the gate and the annihilation beyond it.Dreams in ruins, I think.How apt.It’s a sobering reminder of the forces of nature that are capable of racking this country without warning. My confidence wavers again, but I turn away and walk briskly towards the exit before anything else can shake my resolve to carry on with this misbegotten trip. If someone’s trying to tell me something, I’m not listening.
On the way back to the hotel, I stop in at Himalayan Java again, now my favourite café, and have one last cinnamon bun and decent cup of coffee. I know such luxuries will be hard to come by in the mountains. Just as I’m picking the final crumbs from my plate, my phone rings. I answer it, expecting it to be Tashi Sherpa calling to confirm the pick-up time for tomorrow and the arrangements for getting to the airport in time for the first flight to Lukla. But it appears our plans have been stymied once again.
Tashi tells me there are no more flights to Lukla for tourists. Because of the developing situation with the virus, as of today internal flights in Nepal are to be used only for transporting essential supplies.
I clutch my hair in exasperation. Perhaps the universe really is trying to tell me to abandon this trip and go home. But then I think of Violet, how she never had the luxury of bailing out even when her own dreams lay in ruins. And I remember Mum’s words:This trip is your chance to find what you’ve lost ... not just searching for Violet, searching for the Daisy you used to be.I feela new surge of determination. ‘So is there anything we can do?’ I ask Tashi.
‘Should be no worry, Mrs Daisy. We can walk to Lukla. Five more days trekking, maybe six. But maybe too a good way for you to climb more slowly. Sonam and I meet you at hotel tomorrow, seven in morning.’
Should be no worry. But I think of the dwindling bundle of cash in my money belt. I’ve already had to pay for my extra days in Kathmandu. And now there’ll be five more days on the trail. Or maybe six, Tashi said. But still, no worry. And then I realise he’s right. Somehow, here in this extraordinary country, where everything I once thought I knew about time has evaporated and the ability to feel in command of my plans has been removed by forces far outside my control, deadlines and schedules no longer seem to matter. After all, according to the increasingly alarming news flashes, the world outside has become equally as chaotic, so perhaps I’m just as safe staying in Nepal. I’ve been trying to cling on to the last shreds of agency I once thought I had over my plans, but that seems laughable now. What’s the point? To my surprise, I find there’s a huge sense of liberation in finally letting go. Perhaps this is what the monk at the stupa meant when he talked about the middle way. I rub the length of red string tied around my wrist between my finger and thumb.
All I know for sure now is I’m going to take a leap of faith. I will walk into the mountains, on the path of the warrior, putting my trust in a pair of strangers. I’m doing it for Mum. I’m doing it for Violet. But most of all, after so many years of putting others first, I’m doing it for myself.
I pay for my coffee, stepping out of the café and back into the frenetic hustle of the city’s streets.
Despite my efforts to discard anything non-essential, my backpack still feels awfully heavy when I test it out in my hotel room in the thin light of dawn the next morning. Reluctantly, I pull out a bottle of moisturiser, my deodorant and a spare fleece top, and set aside the comfortable slippers I’d imagined putting on my tired feet at the end of each day. I’ll just have to wear my socks and smell. The loo rolls add to the bulk, but have to stay in, obviously. I try the backpack again. If anything, it seems to feel even heavier now. How can that be possible? It’ll have to do.
I ease my feet into my hiking boots and tie the laces firmly, then manhandle both my pack and the bag I’ll be leaving at the hotel downstairs to the lobby. I force myself to eat some breakfast. The altitude pills I’ve started taking add to the dryness of my mouth. It’s an effort to swallow the toast and honey I order, and I gulp it down with cups of milky chai.
Perhaps Tashi and Sonam won’t turn up though, I think, and I’ll be able to book myself back into my room and spend the rest of the day arranging my flights home. The hotel is half empty and the waiter at breakfast told me they’re receiving more and more cancellations because of the virus, so I know accommodation won’t be a problem if I have to extend my stay by another day. But from a mirror on the dining-room wall, my reflection looks back at me, its frown lines deepening as if it disapproves of this defeatist attitude. I stand, shouldering my pack with a grunt, and push open the door without a backward glance.
Tashi and Sonam are already waiting outside the hotel when I emerge. I raise a hand in greeting, hoping my smile disguises the churning of my stomach and the final pang of regret I experience at the realisation that I’ve run out of excuses, and am now actually going to have to do this. Sonam takes my pack from me and swings it with ease into the back of the jeep that will take us to Shivalaya,where we’ll pick up the trail into the hills. I climb into the back seat, where he joins me.
‘All ready, Mrs Daisy?’ Tashi asks from the front seat.
‘All ready,’ I reply.
I ask again what I owe him for the trip, but he dismisses my question with a wave of his hand, saying, ‘Later, later.’ I just hope my scant budget is going to cover it.
