Downtime - Marc Platt [13]
She sat outside the local teahouse content to drink tea and watch the comings and goings of the market. There was no sign of the Sherpa guide she had arranged to meet, but Eric, who ran the teahouse, said that there were delays on the road north and he would arrive soon. Eric was wiry with long grey hair tied in a ponytail and had a vaguely American accent. On the walls, he had dog-eared posters of John Lennon and a man with a moustache and a beret, who was called Che. When she told Eric where she was going, he seemed startled. ‘Bad karma, man,’ he said and went back to his kitchen. Still, the mountain air outside was so sharp and clean, and the sun so warm, that she began to doze.
‘ Dzu-teh, dzu-teh! ’
The voice startled her awake. She saw the squinting brown eyes of an old man only inches from her face.
‘ Dzu-teh, ’ he insisted through broken teeth. He was waving a brown object in his hand. It was desiccated and covered in matted grey hair.
‘No. Sorry, I’m not interested,’ she said, pulling back as far as she could, but he only persisted, chattering in Nepali and waving the object in her face. Around the street, other villagers turned and stared without intervening.
‘ Dzu-teh, dzu-teh! ’
‘No. I said I don’t want it. Leave me alone!’
‘ Pa gyu! ’ Another voice cut across the street. ‘Go on, you heard me. Pa gyu. The young lady doesn’t want to buy it.’
The old man faltered and turned. He fell back as the newcomer approached.
‘That’s right. No sale. Bidaa chha. Thank you.’
She swallowed hard and turned to look up at her rescuer.
His hand was reaching out to take her arm. ‘Sorry about that,’
he said. ‘That was a phrasebook mixture of Nepali and Tibetan. It did the job anyway.’
For a moment she thought she knew him. His sandy hair was brushed over his high forehead and his eyes were fiercely penetrating. He wore khaki shorts and looked like an overgrown school prefect. ‘Are you trekking on your own?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, taken aback.
‘That’s brave.’ He glanced after the old man. ‘You’ll have to put up a better fight than that, though.’
‘I think he wanted me to buy that thing he had.’
‘It was a yeti scalp.’
‘A yeti?’
‘You look startled.’
‘Well, yes. I thought yeti were terribly rare.’
‘Very nearly extinct in the wild. And only a few in captivity.’ He plunged his hands into his pockets and grinned enthusiastically. ‘Don’t worry, the scalp was almost certainly a fake. Goat hair, I expect. He’s probably got dozens.’
‘Thank goodness,’ Victoria said.
‘That’s right,’ he nodded and sat down next to her. ‘You see, Yeti are a bit of a hobbyhorse as far as I’m concerned.’
She smiled and said cautiously, ‘I only know what I’ve read about them in books.’
His eyes lit up. ‘Ah well, the three different types are protected species, of course. Which is why our friend there scarpered pretty sharp-ish. The mih-teh and the Dzu-teh, they’re both closer to apes as species, while the Ye-teh, aka Yeti Traversii, is more bearlike and particularly timid.
London Zoo’s trying to breed from a couple at the moment.
They’ve flown the male over from Peking.’ He paused. ‘I’m babbling on, aren’t I?’ He grasped her hand and shook it firmly. ‘Charles Bryce. Pleased to meet you.’
‘Victoria Waterfield,’ she said. ‘You’re the travel writer, aren’t you? I thought I recognized you.’
He grunted. ‘That means I look like my dust-jacket photo.
How appalling.’
‘Thank you for rescuing me, Mr Bryce. I’d been sitting here trying not to look too English.’
‘Always a dead giveaway. And call me Charles, please.’ He stood and yelled at the teahouse door. ‘Eric? Two more teas when you’re ready.’ He sat down again and added confidentially, ‘Stay off the yakburgers. It’s the thin end of the greasy slope that leads to the Big Mac. Nothing is sacred.’
‘Are you writing a book now... Charles?’
‘Maybe. I dabble in zoology and botany too. At the moment I’m looking for rare plants. Gentiana and Meconopsis. The Khumbu Himal is full of unknown species.
I’ve been here several times now. But what about you? Where are you headed?