Page 21 of The Sky Beneath Us
She shrugged. ‘Colonel he went away. The others, they move when fever comes. Only one man stay besides.’ She gestured to the closed door back down the hall. ‘But he ill too. Still sick but getting better now. I try to help.’ She gestured to the basin.
‘I’ll do it,’ I said. I dipped the towel in the water and wrung it out, using it to wash the blood from Callum’s chin. ‘Can you go and tell the doctor to come as quickly as possible?’
She disappeared down the hallway and I sent up several prayers for her to hurry. Whilst she was gone, I did my best to make Callum more comfortable, washing some of the sweat from his face and neck, opening the window to try to let in a breath of air and setting that ghastly bucket outside in the corridor in the hope that later I could find a suitable place to empty and clean it. I straightened the sheets a little, ignoring the stains, and knelt back down beside the bed to take his hands in mine.
‘Help’s coming, Callum,’ I said, trying to make myself believe it.
His eyelids flickered open then and his gaze was clearer. ‘Vi. It really is you. I thought I must be dreaming.’ He smiled faintly, then frowned. ‘You shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous. Don’t catch the fever.’
‘I had to come. You see, I’ve discovered I simply can’t be without you. So we’re going to be together from now on.’ I thought if I said it firmly enough, with enough conviction, then it might just come true. His eyes closed again, but I kept talking, more urgently,trying to keep him with me. There was so much to say, so much to tell him.
‘There are three of us now, Callum. I’m carrying your baby.’ His eyes opened again, meeting mine, and I knew he’d understood.
‘We’ll make a home for ourselves somewhere out here,’ I continued. ‘We’ll raise our children in a beautiful place, free from all that snobbery back home, and they will grow up strong and happy and so very loved. We will walk into the mountains together and discover wonderful new plants. You’ll find them and I’ll paint them, and we’ll publish a book, which will make our fortune. Just imagine it, Callum. We’ll find lilies the colours of the sunrise and poppies the colour of sky.’
His breathing seemed to ease a little, becoming less laboured, so I kept on talking, watching as his face relaxed, smoothing his hair back from his forehead, holding his hand. His clear, hazel eyes never left mine and I thought he was listening. I lost track of what I was saying, I lost track of how much time had passed.
All I know is, I was still talking when the doctor appeared in the doorway. He stooped down and gave me his arm, helping me to stand. He stood by the side of the bed for a moment. And then he gently closed Callum’s eyes and drew the sheet up to cover his face before he led me from the room, my legs collapsing under me.
MONDAY, 4THFEBRUARY, 1929
Yesterday feels like a dream now. Memories drift back, of smoke and brown water and a solitary marigold flower ... If I could, I would have lain on the funeral pyre alongside him and gone with Callum as his body was burned. But the baby I carry is all there is left of him. There is no choice but to live.
As the doctor led me from Callum’s bedside, he explained how urgent it was to arrange the cremation as quickly as possible. ‘Youmust also wash yourself very thoroughly in the hottest water possible, Miss. Typhoid spreads easily.’
In my numb state, it scarcely registered as the guesthouse owner led me to a downstairs room and brought a large bowl of scalding water and a sliver of soap with which I washed the droplets of blood and the last touch of Callum’s hand in mine from my skin. She brought my case to the room and took my dirty clothes away to wash them. I put on a clean dress and, as I fastened the buttons, I noticed the slight swelling of my belly. It was still scarcely perceptible at three months, but I rested my hand there, protecting our child, wondering how tiny it must be. I’d just watched a grown man die and yet this fragile scrap of life clung on within me.
Once the doctor had tended to the man in the other room upstairs, declaring him out of danger, he joined the guesthouse owner and me in the kitchen. The cup of tea she’d made sat untouched before me and he pushed it gently towards me. ‘You must try to drink, Miss. You have had a terrible shock.’
I forced myself to take a sip. ‘How do I arrange the cremation?’ I asked, the tea easing my throat, which had closed up tight with my grief, speaking for the first time since leaving Callum’s side.
‘I will do it. As I said, it will need to happen as quickly as possible.’ He exchanged a few words with the guesthouse owner, then said, ‘I’ll arrange for them to come and take the body to Pashupatinath tonight. That way we avoid the daytime crowds on the ghats. Although your friend is not a Hindu, with typhoid cases the practicalities are the most important consideration. Certain arrangements can be made for non-believers ...’ He must have noticed my look of bewilderment because he paused and patted my hand. ‘I know it will be strange for you, but here we cremate our dead in the open air, beside the river. I’m sorry if it seems brutal. But it will be for the best. You don’t need to be there. I can oversee it.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I will go with him. He has no one else.’
‘Very well,’ said the doctor. ‘Then I will accompany you.’
They came and put Callum’s body on the back of a cart, using his filthy sheets as a shroud. ‘Wait,’ I said. I fetched the nut-brown shawl from my case and gently laid it over him. A wedding-ring pashmina, he’d called it. But now there would be no ring. Although it wrenched at my heart to let it go, it was all I had to wrap him in, and there was no choice but to give it back.
The streets were dark and deserted as we travelled to the river. I knew we were drawing near when I smelled the smoke. A few people still wandered along the ghats and here and there a pyre smouldered low with the remains of the day’s cremations, tended by men with sticks who pushed the ashes into the sluggish brown waters of the Bagmati River.
Two men carried the bamboo stretcher on which Callum’s body lay. The doctor and I followed silently, walking past the temple and the funeral pyres to the furthest end of the ghats. A skinny waif of a holy man with wild hair and his face painted in a vivid mask of white and orange appeared, saying something to the doctor, who waved him away. There would be no religious rites, no ceremony, for Callum.
I forced myself to watch as they laid him on the pile of wood and added chaff. But I have to confess, I looked away as they lit the pyre, unable to stand seeing the flames lick at the edges of the shawl that covered him. I couldn’t bear to watch, but I knew I needed to stay by his side even when the smoke choked me, making me retch.
At last, the fire burned low, leaving only embers.
I remembered the hazelnuts we’d put on the fire at the bothy on the eve of Samhain – was it only three months ago? – and thought how they had filled me with the certainty of our love and our future together. That was the only time I cried.
I sat there until the final ashes were pushed into the river. Dawn was just beginning to break, and the first birdsong floated on the faint breeze that dispelled the last of the smoke. I stood and wiped the grimy tear-stains from my face. Then I turned and took the doctor’s arm as he helped me walk away.
The first funeral party of the day, everyone carrying garlands of golden marigolds, was beginning to assemble before the temple. A flower fell to the ground at my feet, and I stooped to pick it up. Then I took it to the water’s edge and laid it in the stream, watching it slowly drift away. A solitary tribute to the man I’d loved.
When we returned to the guesthouse, the sun was rising, and the square was already filling with traders setting out their wares. To my surprise, we were met at the door of the Namaste Guesthouse not by the owner but by a well-dressed British couple. The woman stepped forward and clasped my hands in hers.
‘My dear,’ she said. ‘What an ordeal you’ve been through. I’m so sorry we didn’t know ... I’m Roberta Fairburn. And this is my husband, the Colonel. He came to fetch me from Sikkim, so we’ve only just arrived back in Kathmandu and heard the news. You poor, poor thing.’
We sat around the table in the dining room and the guesthouse owner brought bread and jam and tea. The man who’d been in the upstairs room was there too, well enough now to eat a little. He introduced himself as Harold Andrews, another member of the expedition, and he explained to the Fairburns all that had transpired. The others had left the guesthouse when illness struck, moving to another one in a different part of the city. Mr Andrews had stayed to try to tend to Callum, he told me, but then had fallen ill himself. I was immensely grateful to hear at least one of Callum’s comrades had stayed with him.
