Daisy: March 2020

The storm continues to rage around the lodge, rattling the corrugated iron roof and hurling thick sheets of snow against the windows, obscuring any last glimpses of the view from my upstairs bedroom as night falls. The accommodation is basic, but spotlessly clean, and I have a comfortable bed piled with pillows and duvets. There’s a bathroom down the hall, but as I’m the only guest staying at the moment it’s as good as an en-suite, even if the basins have no taps. Tashi has told me, with some pride, that they have a shower here at the lodge. But it turns out to be in a sort of cubicle outdoors and the water has to be fetched up from the river, then heated on the stove before being poured into a reservoir on the roof, so it’s an experience I’ll be foregoing for the time being.

As ever, the porters got here earlier and my bag’s already in my room. I peel off my wet things and hastily put on some dry layers, shivering in the unheated room, and then make my way back downstairs in search of warmth.

I pull my chair a little closer to the iron stove in the centre of the room. My body aches all over after our hard day’s trekking to reach Phortse. The glow of heat from the stove slowly permeates the layers of clothes I’ve put on, coaxing my frozen muscles to relax. It’s such a relief to be here and I feel a sense of euphoria, mixed with a little disbelief.

The walls of the communal room of the lodge are decorated with prints of intricate Buddhist mandalas, held in place with sticky tape, alongside a series of framed photos of the surrounding mountains. In one corner, a picture of the Dalai Lama, cut from a magazine, is draped with a silky scarf – a kata , Tashi tells me – like the one Dipa presented me with earlier. There are wooden benches built around the walls, beneath the windows, covered with brightly upholstered cushions and soft blankets woven from yak’s wool.

The kitchen door swings open, releasing a gust of laughter and a clattering of dishes, and Tashi appears with a cup of mint tea for me. He crouches beside the stove and adds some flat brown disks to it, stoking the flames. ‘Yak dung,’ he explains, holding one up. ‘Best fuel we have because no trees up here. Just juniper twigs and this.’

I sip from my mug, savouring it as Violet would have done, cupping my hands around it to extract every last bit of warmth.

‘Is this normal weather for this time of year?’ I ask him. ‘I wasn’t expecting it. I thought Mum and I had done our research carefully and picked a good time of year for our trip – after the winter storms and before the early-summer monsoon.’

He shakes his head. ‘Not usual at all. Weather all confused now. Very little snow in winter, and it comes now too late. Should be snow melt now so we prepare fields and plant crops for this year. But this weather gives us worry growing season will be too short.’

‘What will you be planting?’ I ask.

‘Potatoes and buckwheat mostly. Phortse potatoes very good. Number one best in world. Known all over Nepal.’

Dipa appears from the kitchen, carrying a plate heaped high with my supper. It’s a mixture of the famed potatoes with scrambled eggs and pak choi. I tuck in, ravenous after our scanty lunch of soup and crackers at the teahouse in Mongla all those hours – and miles – ago.

‘Oh my goodness,’ I mumble, through a mouthful. ‘You’re right about these spuds, Tashi. They’re absolutely delicious.’ I’m sure it’s not just my hunger talking. The plateful of food is seasoned with garlic and herbs and the potatoes taste like the ones Davy used to grow in the lazy beds at Ardtuath, before the digging got to be too much for his back, with an old-fashioned depth of flavour.

‘What is spuds?’ Dipa asks, and I introduce them to the British term, which they repeat solemnly, committing it to memory.

‘I will show you our spuds fields tomorrow if storm passes,’ says Tashi.

‘No, you won’t,’ Dipa interjects. ‘You three have to stay inside for a week to make sure you didn’t bring the virus to Phortse. Me too, now you are here. Everyone must do this now, to keep the village safe.’

‘We should be okay in open air,’ he replies, but she shakes her head firmly.

The advice seems a bit confusing to me. But I decide the best thing to do is follow Dipa’s lead.

I notice a handwritten sign above the counter saying that Wi-Fi is available, so I pull my phone out and check the settings. ‘Is there a password?’ I ask Tashi.

‘Sonam,’ he calls, and his son emerges from the kitchen. ‘Can you fix Wi-Fi for Mrs Daisy?’

Sonam takes my phone from me and taps rapidly, then shakes his head. ‘Sorry, it’s not working at the moment. This happens when the weather is bad.’ He hands it back to me with a rueful grin and a shrug. ‘Actually, it happens when the weather is good sometimes too. Yet another of the disadvantages of being in the back of beyond. But I’ll set up your phone so you should connect automatically when we get a signal again.’

I thank him and his parents for all they’ve done. ‘I didn’t really believe I’d get here,’ I say.

Tashi smiles. ‘Mrs Daisy, you should have no worries. You know you travel with Sherpas, number one best mountain guides in the world.’

I laugh. ‘Just as well – I very much doubt anyone else could have managed to get me to Phortse.’

Then Dipa adds, ‘You have good determination though. Not surprising, just like your great-great-aunty Violet.’

She sees the look of surprise on my face. ‘Tashi tells me why you want to come here. You have many cousins in Phortse. Sister-cousins and brother-cousins. Including me.’

I can’t believe it! I’d come to search for some trace of Violet, hoping at the most to speak to someone who might dimly remember hearing about a heavily pregnant Western woman who visited the village almost one hundred years ago. I remember Dipa’s words of welcome – ‘I am your cousin.’ I’d assumed she just used the term out of politeness, welcoming this stranger as one of the family, but now I turn to face her fully, my interest piqued as I realise perhaps she meant something more. ‘Exactly how are we related?’

She frowns, trying to work it out. ‘Brother of my sister’s husband married to great-granddaughter of Violet. She called Pema. Means Lotus. Like-a-flower too. When phones working again, we will tell her you’re here. And when quarantine over she will come. Her house over there, just down the hill.’

I sit in stunned silence. Violet’s great-granddaughter is here! I peer out of the window, into the snowy darkness beyond. So near, and yet so far.

The next morning the storm has passed, leaving the sky as blue as the turquoise stones that dangle from Dipa’s earlobes when she brings me my breakfast of pancakes with honey. The towering summit of Khumbila – the sacred mountain where the deity of the Khumbu valley is said to dwell, Tashi tells me – watches over Phortse, covered in a dazzling blanket of white. The village stretches down the hillside below the lodge, little houses dotted among the terraced fields, with threads of smoke emerging from their chimneys to mingle with the prayer flags that dance on the wind.

In the night, despite feeling exhausted to the very core of my bones, sleep had eluded me at first, my mind whirling with the knowledge that there were relations of Violet’s still living in Phortse. Dipa hadn’t told me much more, bustling back to the kitchen, and she didn’t reappear. I waited a while, but my eyes began to droop in the warmth from the stove and at last I gave up and came up to my room. Despite feeling exhausted, I’d ended up lying awake for hours, listening to the howling of the storm, which sounded as if it was trying its hardest to blow down the lodge. I suppose I must have been drifting in and out of consciousness, but I distinctly remember thinking I could hear voices in the wind, crying and wailing, calling out in the darkness.

When I mention this now to Dipa, saying how weird it had been and that I must have been dreaming, she shakes her head. ‘Not dream. They wind walkers. Souls of people who have too many regrets in life. After they die, they walk the winds, trying to find peace.’

‘And do they eventually manage to find peace?’ I ask.

She shakes her head, making her earrings swing. ‘Of course not. Buddha say must find peace here on Earth in our lifetimes. Winds of regret take you nowhere.’

She tops up my teacup and heads back to the kitchen, leaving me to chew my pancakes thoughtfully, mulling over what she’s just said in such a matter-of-fact way. There’s been a lot of regret in my life: divorce; a feeling I’ve been a bad mum to my girls; giving up my career and settling for a job where I’m just going through the motions; living alone, cocooned in my flat, not really making an effort to go out and socialise ... Outside, the strands of prayer flags dance and wave in the sunshine, making me think perhaps it’s about time the wind changed in my life too. Otherwise, I’ll end up walking the winds forever in a hopeless search for peace, having frittered away the opportunity to find it here on Earth.

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.