Daisy: March 2020

I close Violet’s final journal and smile at Dipa, who’s been sitting listening to the story of how my great-great-aunt came to end up in Phortse. Several days have passed since my arrival at the lodge, but the snow still lies thickly on the ground outside. It’s warm indoors, though, sitting by the stove, and telling Violet’s story to Dipa, Tashi and Sonam has helped pass the time as our quarantine ticks by, in the continued absence of any internet connection.

‘There’s just one more letter too,’ I say, unfolding the flimsy sheet of paper. It must be one of the pieces of lokta paper Violet bartered for, made here in Nepal, because it’s flecked and textured with little pieces of plant material. Violet’s handwriting – so familiar from her journals – has blurred where the ink has soaked into the softness of the surface.

Phortse, Nepal

Early in the month of Bhadra

Dearest Hetty,

I write with joyful news! My baby is here, a little girl who arrived on what would have been the 28th of July in Britain. Here, the Sherpas use another calendar entirely, and I have quite lost track of the days and months.

So you are an aunt again, this time to a niece named Themi. I’ve called her that because it’s the Sherpa name for the little purple irises that push their way out of the dust at these high altitudes with such determination and survive against all the odds. She is utterly beautiful. She arrived quite quickly and without very much fuss. I’d been helping Dawa make tsampa, a flour ground from the buckwheat that is grown in the fields here, and stood up to ease a sudden pain in my back. She glanced up at me, then immediately got to her feet too.

‘I’m fine,’ I told her, and she grinned, taking my hand.

‘You are fine, Violet, and so is your baby who is ready to come now, I think.’

I realised she was right. The pain in my back intensified, then faded a little before returning, redoubled, in the form of a strong contraction. I didn’t feel the slightest bit anxious. She’d promised me, in her calm, matter-of-fact way, that she would help me when the time came and together we’d prepared everything in a small stone birthing hut set into the hillside a little way from the village. Over the previous weeks, we’d set kindling for a fire there and brought supplies of water and clean cloths, getting everything ready. Dawa had tied bundles of dried herbs around the walls, too, some to ward off evil spirits and others that are used, she’d told me, to help ease the pains of childbirth and prevent excessive bleeding. As she led the way through the birch trees to the hut that morning, offering me reassurance and her arm to lean on when each contraction washed through my body, I felt a sense of strength and joy. And a few hours later, just as evening fell in the Khumbu valley, my baby drew her first breath, filling a pair of healthy lungs and giving a lusty cry.

I wish I could share her with you, Hetty, but I don’t even have a camera to take a picture. I know how much you would love her and how much she would love you back. For the time being, I have no plans to go anywhere else. In spite of the extremes of altitude and isolation – or perhaps because of them – this place is safe, and the Sherpas have welcomed me into their community with such kindness and generosity of spirit. I don’t know what the years ahead may hold for me and my daughter, but I think this will be a good place to embark upon the first of them together.

I’m sending you this parcel of my journals so that you may know the details of the journey that has brought me here. Perhaps you can share them with our parents when you feel the time is right, so that they may know the truth too. I’m enclosing some envelopes of seed as well. Please would you give them to Mrs Hanbury at Inverewe, with my kindest regards. I’ll be interested to know which of them, if any, can be successfully germinated and cultivated.

I hope you are as happy as I am, that your own new family treats you well and gives you the love you deserve, as we do from afar.

Your sister, Violet, and your new niece, Themi.

‘The only other thing I have is this little shoe,’ I tell Dipa, showing her the cracked, worn leather. ‘I suppose it must have belonged to Themi at one point.’

Dipa smiles, picking it up and examining it carefully, before setting it back down beside Violet’s letter.

‘And now your stories are joined,’ she said. ‘After so many years separated, you bring them back together here at Phortse.’

‘Against all the odds,’ I say with a laugh. ‘It’s been quite a journey, and now I find myself stranded here for a bit, just as Violet did all those years ago.’

‘Journey far, but travel within,’ she replies enigmatically. Before I can ask her what she means, she continues, ‘Phortse best place for you to be right now. This world no good. Virus too dangerous so you stay.’

Tashi comes in, carrying a little incense burner, which he sets on the counter. He lights it outside by the back door of the lodge every morning, to bless the coming day, he’s told me, and even though it contains nothing but cold ashes now, it still scents the air in the room with its smoky-sweet perfume. ‘You stay,’ he echoes his wife. ‘But no worry, Mrs Daisy. We will help you when it safe to return.’

‘Tomorrow last day of quarantine,’ says Dipa, counting on her fingers. ‘Then you can meet your cousins. Sister-cousins, brother-cousins. Your Sherpa family.’ She shoots me a shrewd look. ‘Best of all,’ she adds, ‘you can meet Themi. Give her back her shoe.’

It takes a moment for what she’s just said to sink in. I think I must have misheard her.

‘Sorry, did you say Themi?’ I ask.

She nods, beaming like a magician who’s just pulled a rabbit from his hat. ‘Daughter of Violet. Granny to Pema.’ She taps her forefinger against the letter on the table between us. ‘She old now. Ninety years. Very beautiful still, though, just like her mum was. Day after tomorrow, Pema will take you to visit her.’