steadied herself by looking towards the white battlements of the Himalayas and the clouds that mounted above them. Evan and Nerys Watkins might well have stood in this same spot and gazed at the same view. Nerys must sometimes have been painfully homesick too, and it would have been further to travel then, and much harder for her to communicate with the people she had left behind. For the first time since she had come to India, Mair felt emotionally connected to her grandmother.
She walked slowly on until she had completed a circuit of the enclosure. It was disappointing, but there was nothing except the three or four Welsh names on gravestones. She was about to cross to the hut, where Tsering and his uncle were huddled out of the wind smoking bidis , when she noticed a plaque set into a wall.
She read:
In Memoriam
Matthew Alexander Forbes, St John’s College, Cambridge Lost on Nanga Parbat, August 1938, aged 22
Mair wasn’t sure what or where Nanga Parbat was, but she guessed it was a mountain. Twenty-two was very young.
‘How are you, ma’am?’ Tsering was calling to her. ‘Did you find something?’
She shook her head. ‘From the names there are some Welsh buried here, but there’s nothing to connect them to my family.’
Sonam turned his head and studied her. He looked so old, but he was as alert as his great-nephew. He muttered a question and Tsering shrugged and translated for her: ‘He says, why not say first that you are interested in the Welsh people?’
Mair blinked.
Sonam stood up and gestured over the wall. She noddedagreement and he led the way out of the cemetery and down a lane that meandered behind it, with Mair and Tsering doing their best to keep up. She hadn’t explored this quarter of the old town, and she looked with sad interest at crumbling stone walls and gaping potholes. The old buildings were mostly sinking into dereliction. A woman carrying a bundle of kindling on her head greeted Sonam as he sped by.
The lane petered out at a blank wall flanked by two abandoned buildings. One was of plain stone with tall windows veiled in layers of ancient dust, and it struck Mair at once that in its absolute lack of pretension it resembled a Welsh chapel. The one opposite was no more than a wall with a collapsing door in it, but at Sonam’s nod Tsering pushed open the door. It gave on to a little paved courtyard surrounded by single-storey buildings. Weeds and saplings tilted the old paving stones, and all the glass in the small-paned windows had gone. A pair of starved dogs appeared in a dark doorway and gave them a yellow-eyed glare.
Tsering and Sonam consulted.
‘This is old mission, with school and medical clinic, my uncle remembers well. Across there, that was Welsh church. Then it became Hindu temple, but now there is new one built by them. These days, nothing here.’ He gave a shrug without a glimmer of optimism in it. Mair had noticed a similar gesture too often during her conversations in Leh.
Sonam was nodding harder, waving at her to indicate that she should feel free to explore this desolate place.
Avoiding the dogs, she peered into the tiny rooms. The first two were empty, except for weeds poking up through the floors, scattered refuse and torn sacks, but in the third lay some rotten sticks of furniture. One piece was just recognisable as a schoolroom chair, with a small shelf on the back for books. There had been chairs quite similar to this one in the infants’ class at her own school. Mair bent and tried to set it upright but the shelf came away in her hands. At her feet lay the remains of a book, a sad remnant with swollen covers that had beenhalf protected from the damp and cold by the shelf. She picked it up and looked at the ruined pages, and out of the pulpy grey mass two or three words were just distinguishable.
It was a Welsh hymnal.
Mair lifted her head. She had half thought that the two men might have been trying to please her with a visit to a compound that
She walked slowly on until she had completed a circuit of the enclosure. It was disappointing, but there was nothing except the three or four Welsh names on gravestones. She was about to cross to the hut, where Tsering and his uncle were huddled out of the wind smoking bidis , when she noticed a plaque set into a wall.
She read:
In Memoriam
Matthew Alexander Forbes, St John’s College, Cambridge Lost on Nanga Parbat, August 1938, aged 22
Mair wasn’t sure what or where Nanga Parbat was, but she guessed it was a mountain. Twenty-two was very young.
‘How are you, ma’am?’ Tsering was calling to her. ‘Did you find something?’
She shook her head. ‘From the names there are some Welsh buried here, but there’s nothing to connect them to my family.’
Sonam turned his head and studied her. He looked so old, but he was as alert as his great-nephew. He muttered a question and Tsering shrugged and translated for her: ‘He says, why not say first that you are interested in the Welsh people?’
Mair blinked.
Sonam stood up and gestured over the wall. She noddedagreement and he led the way out of the cemetery and down a lane that meandered behind it, with Mair and Tsering doing their best to keep up. She hadn’t explored this quarter of the old town, and she looked with sad interest at crumbling stone walls and gaping potholes. The old buildings were mostly sinking into dereliction. A woman carrying a bundle of kindling on her head greeted Sonam as he sped by.
The lane petered out at a blank wall flanked by two abandoned buildings. One was of plain stone with tall windows veiled in layers of ancient dust, and it struck Mair at once that in its absolute lack of pretension it resembled a Welsh chapel. The one opposite was no more than a wall with a collapsing door in it, but at Sonam’s nod Tsering pushed open the door. It gave on to a little paved courtyard surrounded by single-storey buildings. Weeds and saplings tilted the old paving stones, and all the glass in the small-paned windows had gone. A pair of starved dogs appeared in a dark doorway and gave them a yellow-eyed glare.
Tsering and Sonam consulted.
‘This is old mission, with school and medical clinic, my uncle remembers well. Across there, that was Welsh church. Then it became Hindu temple, but now there is new one built by them. These days, nothing here.’ He gave a shrug without a glimmer of optimism in it. Mair had noticed a similar gesture too often during her conversations in Leh.
Sonam was nodding harder, waving at her to indicate that she should feel free to explore this desolate place.
Avoiding the dogs, she peered into the tiny rooms. The first two were empty, except for weeds poking up through the floors, scattered refuse and torn sacks, but in the third lay some rotten sticks of furniture. One piece was just recognisable as a schoolroom chair, with a small shelf on the back for books. There had been chairs quite similar to this one in the infants’ class at her own school. Mair bent and tried to set it upright but the shelf came away in her hands. At her feet lay the remains of a book, a sad remnant with swollen covers that had beenhalf protected from the damp and cold by the shelf. She picked it up and looked at the ruined pages, and out of the pulpy grey mass two or three words were just distinguishable.
It was a Welsh hymnal.
Mair lifted her head. She had half thought that the two men might have been trying to please her with a visit to a compound that
Similar Books
