Page 32 of The Sky Beneath Us
There’s a silence at the end of the line and then I hear her take a deep breath, trying hard to compose herself. ‘It’s so frightening, Daisy. This awful disease. We all feel so helpless. I can’t get through to the hospital, the phone just keeps ringing and ringing. They must be overwhelmed, trying to cope.’ I hear her hold the handset away as she chokes, coughing and crying again.
‘I’m sure he’ll be all right,’ I say, although the words are empty platitudes, of course, because I have no idea at all whether or not he will. I try to sound more convincing than I feel, making my voice as strong as I can so it carries hope and reassurance to her over the thousands of miles that separate us. ‘You know how tough he is. And he’s in the best place to be well looked after. You still need to rest, yourself, you know. But he’ll be back soon.’
She sniffs back her tears. ‘I know, my love. Sorry, it’s just getting to us all at the moment.’
‘I’ll try to come home, Mum,’ I say, suddenly needing to be with her.
‘No,’ she says, her tone sharper. ‘Stay where you are. You’re safer there. I don’t think you can travel anyway, but even if you can you’ll be putting yourself at risk.’
I feel so useless, unable to be there when she needs me, and I swallow down the hard lump of emotion rising in my throat.
After a few moments’ silence, Mum’s voice comes through again, softer this time. ‘Honestly, Daisy, please don’t try to come home just now. Things will be better soon, surely. It helps me knowing you’re safe and well. Just sit it out and wait until the Foreign Office says it’s okay to travel again. Promise me?’
I sniff hard, then say, ‘I promise. Oh Mum, I miss you so much. I wish I was there with you. Keep me posted, won’t you?And send my love to Davy if you manage to get through. He’ll call you the minute he can, I know.’
She’s quiet again.
‘Are you still there?’ I say.
‘Yes, still here.’ She sounds so tired, so weak. So unlike herself.
‘Get some sleep, Mum,’ I tell her. ‘You need to look after yourself so you can take care of everyone else.’
‘Okay, Daisy,’ she replies. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too, Mum.’ Reluctantly, I ring off, not wanting to cut the tenuous thread that links us.
A few minutes later, a message pings on my phone from her.Sorry, just tired. And everything always seems worse in the middle of the night. Going to get some sleep now. Take care xx.
I send her one back, but the ticks beside it remain faint, showing she hasn’t opened it. I hope it’s because she’s resting. I push my phone into my jacket pocket and follow Dipa and Sonam outside to help break the newly thawed ground in the field below the lodge so we can sow this season’s crop of buckwheat.
Violet’s Journal
SATURDAY, 29THMARCH1930
News trickles through from the outside world only sporadically. Hetty writes of the financial struggles many are facing after the Wall Street Crash of last autumn. Her own situation has been affected, with Rufus having to sell the estate in Scotland. Although they do still have the London house and can always go north to stay at Ardtuath with Charles and Helen, so they’ve not been hit as hard as some. Apparently, the stock market crash has done nothing to improve Charles’s humour!
Hetty asks whether I might come home now and bring Themi back to meet her family. Truthfully, though, I feel more at home here in Phortse, especially if there’s little or no prospect of employment for me in Britain the way things are there at the moment. And whilst I miss my sister terribly, I know my parents and brother wouldn’t welcome me back. A while ago, I plucked up the courage to write a letter to Callum’s parents, telling them about their granddaughter, but have received no reply. It’s possible it never reached them, of course, but I suspect the truth is they want nothing to do with me. So I’m making a new family for myself amongst theSherpa people, who have shown me more acceptance and support than I ever knew in the society I’ve left behind.
Today has been a real red-letter day. Having spent the winter living with Palden and Dawa, keeping my baby warm, well fed, and cuddled from dawn to dusk, Themi and I have moved up the hill today to the top of the village. Palden explained they own a little cottage just below the monastery, where his grandmother used to live. She’s long gone now, and the place has been standing empty for years. ‘But if you want it, you can live there,’ he announced last week. ‘Weather getting better now. You and Themi need space for yourselves.’
Dawa, who was bouncing Themi on her knee, singing her a song, looked up and said sternly, ‘But you come visit every day and I visit you. See ThemiDidi.’
I could scarcely believe my luck. A home of our own! We went up to take a look at it that afternoon, and Palden prised away the boards that had covered the door and windows. It’s a tiny ‘but and ben’, as we say in Scotland, although with just one room, and I fell in love with it at first sight, despite the soot-blackened walls, the rough slate roof with quite a lot of daylight showing through it, and the rook’s nest that lurked in one corner of the single room. Dawa helped me clean it and gave me a mattress and some blankets. Once we’d lit a fire of juniper in the rough fireplace and she’d added a good handful of fragrant incense, the fustiness was dispelled and the place felt a good deal cosier. Best of all, the two small windows, with wooden shutters for me to close at night, offer a view over the village and across the valley to where the great hulk of Khumbila watches over us all protectively.
And so here I sit, writing this by the light of a butter lamp, with my baby sleeping in her crib, cocooned in the softest yak’s wool. She snuffles contentedly now and then, her little hands opening and closing like the petals of flowers as she dreams. Our simplehouse may be described as basic, at best, but it reminds me of the bothy where I spent that night with Callum and the memory helps connect me to him. I talk to Themi about her daddy every day, keeping him with us.
Spring is coming. I’ll be able to resume my plant-hunting once more and send the illustrations I’ve painted through the winter back to Hetty to see if she can find buyers for them. She’s spoken to the Keeper of the Herbarium at Kew, who says they’ll take any specimens I can send them. She’s sent the prettiest pair of fine leather shoes for Themi. They were supposed to be a present for Christmas but only arrived a week ago. I’ve put them away for now, to await the time when my baby begins to crawl and then walk, as she starts to make her own way in the world one step at a time, just as her mother is doing.
Daisy – April 2020
The news of Davy isn’t good the next day. Mum sends me a message to say he’s been moved into intensive care, and I’m so upset that I can’t sit still.
Jack’s been in touch, sending messages of support. Elspeth’s told him the news about Davy. I message him back, grateful to have a friend I can talk to, one who understands:
Can’t bear to think of them going through this and not be there to help. I think I was definitely wrong to carry on with this trip. I should have turned back when I could.
After a few minutes a message comes back:
