The Flight of Gemma Hardy

by Margot Livesey

  Despite the urgency, and the danger of discovery, I found myself growing drowsy. I yawned, I buried my head against Miriam’s shoulder. I had not spoken for several minutes when she patted my arm.

  “I have to tell you something,” she said, her voice a tiny thread. “Make friends with Miss Seftain. She’ll teach you Latin. You’ll like that. And when you get older she’ll help you to stop being a working girl. Keep telling the story. I’m going to try to sleep.”

  “So Angus followed Margaret into the shell house,” I went on, “and the parlour was full of people he had never seen before. They all had beautiful brown eyes, like yours, and they all wore beautiful long dark coats . . .”

  As the intervals between Miriam’s breaths grew longer, so did the intervals between my words until we were both silent.

  chapter thirteen

  I woke to a pair of blue eyes a few inches from mine. Above the eyes perched a white hat slightly askew; below, plump lips parted to reveal a few crumbs of toast. When she saw I was awake, the nurse jumped back and disappeared between the curtains. I heard a voice crying, “Sister.”

  I knew where I was—in bed with Miriam, in the hospital—and I tried not to know that one side of my body, wrapped in the blanket, was warm, the other, pressed against her, cold. Please, Miriam, I thought, wherever you are, take good care of yourself. Don’t worry about getting sums wrong, or being untidy. Maybe your mother’s there too, and you can grow beautiful blue flowers together and play with Spencer and never have to see your father. I hope your leg is better. I hope you don’t have asthma.

  A hand touched my shoulder. The uniform of the woman standing over me was the same lustrous blue as the flowers I had just imagined Miriam tending. She was older than the first nurse, but her fair hair, beneath her white hat, was as short as a boy’s. I had never seen a woman with such short hair before.

  “Hello,” she said quietly. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Gemma Hardy, Miriam’s best friend. I knew she was ill and I walked from Claypoole to see her last night. I didn’t want her to be alone. Please don’t be cross.”

  “I’m not cross,” she said, holding out her hand. “You’re a very brave girl but you have to say goodbye to Miriam and get out of bed.”

  Like Miss Bryant, this woman was used to being obeyed. I climbed out of the bed and went around to the other side. Miriam was still propped against the pillows, slumped slightly to one side, her chin resting on her chest. Hesitantly I reached for her hand. It felt mysteriously different: heavier, denser. I kissed her pale cheek but I could not bear to say the word goodbye.

  The woman stood beside me. “Do you know that poem by Robert Louis Stevenson?” she said. “ ‘Home is the sailor, home from the sea, / And the hunter home from the hill’? Miriam didn’t sail or hunt, but we hope in some sense she’s gone home. We’re just sorry that home is so far away.”

  “We used to say his poem about the shadow when it was sunny,” I said. “He was ill as a boy and he got better. My uncle showed me his house in Edinburgh.”

  I was still telling her what I knew about Stevenson as she led me between the curtains, across the shiny linoleum, and into the hallway beyond the beds. In the bathroom, she started the bath, and handed me a towel. “Call if you need anything,” she said.

  As the youngest working girl I was last in line for our weekly bath and by the time my turn came the tepid water was filmed with scum; I would leap in and wash at top speed, flailing madly to keep the grime of the other girls at bay. Now the water was hot and clear and the bath so long that I could make swimming motions and move myself from end to end. My hair floated around me and my mind became liquid and dreamy. I remembered swimming one summer day with my uncle and cousins in the pool above the weir; I had towed Veronica around in a rubber ring. Through the window I saw a seagull arc by, followed by a dozen grey pigeons. It was still early. Six o’clock perhaps. No more than seven. I shampooed my hair and rinsed it, first at one end of the bath, then the other.

  A voice at the door called, “Breakfast in five minutes.” Reluctantly I climbed out, dried myself, and dressed in my mud-smeared blouse and trousers. For the first time since my train journey, I studied my reflection without fear of interruption. Beneath my wet hair, my eyes were still grey, my features still plain, but my cheeks were thinner, my forehead higher; my months at Claypoole had aged me beyond my years.

  In the corridor the woman in blue was waiting. “I forgot to tell you my name. I’m Sister Barbara Cullen. Breakfast is served in my office.”

  Few meals, no matter how lavish, have given me as much satisfaction as that breakfast: two fried eggs, two sausages, bacon, grilled tomato, and white toast. I ate in ravenous silence. Meanwhile Sister Cullen worked at her desk. Only when my plate was empty save for a few tomato seeds did I raise my head to take in my surroundings: the broad desk, the filing cabinet, the cupboard with a key in the lock, and, most intriguingly, a poster, taller than I was, depicting a naked person with bones and muscles and organs.

  “You were hungry,” said Sister Cullen. “Now I’d like to ask you a few questions. It’s still too early to phone the school.”

  As she spoke I realised that Miriam’s death had propelled me back into the world of ordinary speech. Gently Sister Cullen asked me my age and circumstances, and I told her about being an orphan, about getting a scholarship to Claypoole only to spend most of my time cooking and cleaning. I told her how Miss Bryant had put me in Primary 7 not as a reward for my scholastic accomplishments but to conceal the age of her youngest working girl. I told her how Miriam had befriended me.

  “And you her,” said the sister.

  I had never thought to wonder why Miriam had approached me. Now, as I gazed at Sister Cullen’s pristine hat, I understood for the first time that Miriam, even with all the advantages of being a regular pupil, had, like me, no friends.

  “So,” Sister Cullen said, leaning forward, “you can’t go back to your aunt’s. And, I’m no expert on these matters, but I doubt there are many boarding schools that would take you for free. I fear your only option is to make the best of Claypoole. Perhaps Dr. White will have some ideas.”

  “He might be angry with me,” I said and confessed my refusal to speak.

  Sister Cullen shook her head. “You’re a very determined person, aren’t you?”

  I had not thought of myself that way, but I stored up the idea to examine later. “Why did Miriam die?” I said. “I thought no one died of asthma.”

  “Believe me, I would have done anything I could to prevent it. Asthma is very hard to cure.” She stood up from her desk and, approaching the poster, pointed to the lungs. When someone has asthma, she explained, the tubes that go from the face to the lungs and the smaller ones, actually inside the lungs, become inflamed and constricted. “Perhaps if Miriam had been in a sanatorium when she first developed asthma; if someone had made sure that she had the best possible diet, plenty of rest, and cheerful company . . . Well, who knows? But Dr. White took good care of her, and here at the hospital we did everything we could. When I went off duty yesterday, we thought her condition had stabilised. No one had any idea she would die in the night.”

  I stared at the dark red lungs as I asked the crucial question. “Do you think it was my fault?”

  “Your fault?”

  I meant, was I a monster? Did I hurt everyone I loved? Instead I repeated Miriam’s remark that being upset made her asthma worse.

  “You’re asking did the shock of your visit trigger an attack? No, that would have happened anyway. I’m sure your presence made it easier. Didn’t you see her face when you said goodbye? She looked as if she’d been smiling, and that was because of you. It would have been awful for her to be alone, or with strangers.”

  Then she announced that for today she was going to keep me at the hospital. I could make myself useful by reading to some of the younger children on the ward. One of her nurses, she added, had a daughter my size and would lend me some clean clo
thes.

  I did not hear what Sister Cullen said to Miss Bryant, but I pictured a glacier meeting a rock; the rock stands firm but the glacier just keeps going. Nor did I hear what must have been a wrenching phone call to Mr. Goodall. I was helping a little girl eat her porridge when he strode into the ward, still wearing his brown suit, and, ignoring the nurse hurrying towards him, pushed his way between the curtains surrounding the now empty bed. A second later he emerged and lurched towards Sister Cullen’s office.

  “You told me she was getting better. How could you let this happen? First you kill her mother, now her.”

  There was a pause—presumably Sister Cullen replied—then a single word rang through the ward.

  “Murderers!”

  Half an hour later I saw Sister Cullen, her hand resting on his arm, ushering him down the corridor.

  That afternoon I was reading Peter Rabbit to a boy with a broken leg when another man in a suit appeared. At the sight of Dr. White, my voice faltered. After my weeks of silence, here I was, talking nineteen to the dozen. He listened for a moment, then told the boy he was sorry to interrupt but could he borrow me for a few minutes.

  In the office he sat down in Sister’s chair and urged me to take the other. To avoid his scrutiny I started counting the legs in the room: two for Dr. White, four for his chair, four for the table, two for me, four for my chair, two for the person in the poster. When there were no more to count I cautiously raised my head. Dr. White was regarding me with an expression that reminded me of the portrait of Lord Minto in the library at Claypoole.

  “ ‘If a lion could talk,’ ” he said, “ ‘we could not understand him.’ A philosopher named Ludwig Wittgenstein said that, and I think the same might apply to children. Sister Cullen is a very stubborn woman, almost as stubborn as you are, and she has persuaded Miss Bryant that you will not be punished for this—”

  He paused, and I wondered if suddenly, like Matron, he was unable to finish his sentences.

  “For this valiant deed,” he concluded. “She has also made me promise that I will see you when I visit the school. I will be treating you for a chronic condition; that means something that can’t be cured. This will be your chance to let me know if there are problems. If you don’t plan to continue talking you can always write me a note. Is there anything you’d like to tell or ask me?”

  For a few seconds more I clung to my silence, hugging it close as I had used to hug the green velvet curtain in my uncle’s study. Then I asked the question I had not dared to ask Sister. “Can a person be cursed?”

  Dr. White’s mouth opened in surprise. “I suppose you are asking whether you might be cursed?”

  I nodded, picturing my aunt, Will, Mr. Donaldson, Ross, Mrs. Harris, Miss Bryant, Mr. Milne lining up to write curse tablets and throw them into the source of the river Teviot.

  “There are people,” he said, “who would say yes. I am not one of them. After a decade of practising medicine, I do think that some people attract good luck. And some do not. You’ve been in the second category for the last six months, but that will change. You must take advantage of Claypoole to get the best education you can.”

  “But what will I do without Miriam? The other girls hate me. The teachers don’t care whether I study or not. Only Cook likes me, and Matron a little bit.”

  “You’ll find other—” Then he saw my face. “Forgive me, Hardy. You don’t need platitudes. If you can’t have a friend, is there anything else that would make your life at Claypoole easier? Something Miss Bryant might agree to.”

  I pictured having my own room, but no girl had that. Spending more time with the pigs, but that seemed a stupid thing to ask for. Learning to play the piano, but many of the regular pupils did not have this privilege. “If I could use the library,” I said, “that would help. Next term, if I pass the exams, I’ll be in Miss Seftain’s class. Miriam said she was nice. I’d like to learn Latin.”

  “I’ll ask about the library. Now go and finish Peter Rabbit.”

  The following day after breakfast, Sister Cullen announced that my lift back to the school had arrived. She led me briskly down the corridors I had tiptoed along two nights before. “Thank you for all your hard work yesterday,” she said. “I hope for your sake we don’t meet again. Or if we do that it’s under very different circumstances.”

  I was about to fling my arms around her when I saw her outstretched hand.

  In the car park the van was waiting. At the sight of Mr. Milne standing by the open door, his dungarees stretched tight over his belly, I almost ran back to the ward. But behind me I felt Sister Cullen willing me on, reminding me that I had no choice. I marched across the tarmac, and climbed into the back seat.

  As we drove down the high street Mr. Milne commented on the weather, and then, when we had passed beyond the town, the sheep, but as I gazed stonily out of the window he too lapsed into silence. I recognised nothing from my nocturnal walk until we reached Denholm with its neat, white houses. Some surely held weak-minded wrong-doers, like Mr. Milne, and others strong-minded do-gooders, like Sister Cullen. In the field on the far side of the river half-a-dozen horses were circling. One of them, Mr. Milne said, had won the Grand National a few years ago. “That beast is worth twenty times what I earn in a year.”

  I glared at the horses. A member of their species had helped to kill Miriam. I hope you all fall at the first fence, I thought, and break your stupid legs.

  “I know you’re angry with me,” he went on, “but why should I risk my job and my home for a lassie I don’t even know? Would you do that for me?”

  I wanted to say he could have refused to take the letter, but I sensed that he felt bad and that my not answering made him feel worse. Halfway up the hill, without warning, he pulled into the gateway of a field of corn. I reached for the door handle, ready to run if he turned towards me, but he stared straight ahead.

  “Children are so bloody uncompromising,” he said quietly. “You think everything’s black and white, that I’m on one side and you’re on the other, but, Hardy, you’re more like me than you know. One day you’ll see something you want—money, or someone else’s husband, or a beautiful vase—and you’ll think you’ll die if you can’t have it. You’ll be ready to risk your whole future for a few hours, a few days with whatever it is. When that happens think of me: working out my sentence.”

  I did not understand his words—why would I want a vase or someone else’s husband?—but the hair rose on my arms. Briefly Mr. Milne had removed the armour of everyday life and was allowing me to see his naked self. Since my uncle’s death I had clung to the belief that I was making my way through the rough country of childhood to the safe, fertile land of adulthood. Now I glimpsed that what Miriam had said was true. The years ahead would change not only my circumstances but also my self more than I could imagine, and not necessarily in the ways I hoped.

  We drove on in silence, but it was the silence of truce, not of battle. As we slowed down to pass the lodge, I saw a woman in the garden. Grey-haired and almost as stout as her husband, Mrs. Milne looked up from a row of peas. I felt a beam of unmistakable hatred streaming towards me.

  The bell for morning break was ringing as I stepped through the back door. I went directly to the classroom and sat down at my desk, waiting for Mrs. Harris and the next lesson. Alone in the room where Miriam had first smiled at me, the realisation that she was never, ever, coming back rolled over me. I stood up and approached the map of Scotland. The word Galashiels was just as sturdy as the last time I looked. I pressed my finger to the black circle of the town.

  chapter fourteen

  The day after I returned to Claypoole Miss Bryant called out my name in assembly. “You’re in for it,” Balfour whispered, and I thought so too, but for once I didn’t care. I knocked on the white door and made my way across the blue carpet. Performing her usual trick of looking and not looking at me, Miss Bryant said how sorry she was about Goodall. She did not want to know any details of what had hap
pened—perhaps my visit to the hospital was connected to the sleepwalking that had led to my stay in the infirmary?—but she hoped I would settle down into being a diligent working girl.

  “I fear we’re stuck with each other, Hardy,” she said, unwittingly echoing Sister Cullen. “Let us do our best to achieve a modus vivendi. Do you know what that means?”

  “Way of life.”

  “Or way of living. There’s a story you’ll learn in Latin next year, a fable about the Republic of Rome. Picture the Republic as a large, able-bodied man. One day the limbs get exasperated with constantly feeding the stomach. They decide they won’t bother to gather food; they’ll just enjoy themselves. But quite soon they begin to feel dizzy and can no longer take pleasure in anything. ‘See,’ said the stomach, ‘we are all related. If you don’t feed me, you suffer too.’ Claypoole is the same. All the parts of the school are related, and all the parts need to work together.”

  “Yes, Miss Bryant.” I already knew the story. My uncle had used it in one of his sermons and afterwards, at lunch, we had joked that my aunt was the stomach and the rest of us were the limbs, busy serving her. My aunt had laughed and said that in that case she was going to have a second helping of roast beef. Now I wanted to tell Miss Bryant that the story didn’t apply to Claypoole. If I stopped work no one would get dizzy, and when she had stopped feeding me, only Cook had cared. Instead I asked if I could go to Miriam’s funeral.

  “I’m afraid not,” she said. “Mr. Goodall doesn’t want anyone from the school present. But Mr. Waugh will say something in church next Sunday. And we will all remember Miriam in our prayers.” As I headed towards the door she added, a seeming afterthought, that I might use the library when I was not working.

  Two days later I was summoned to Dr. White’s weekly surgery. Beneath Matron’s absent-minded gaze our conversation lasted barely a minute. He asked if I was all right. I said I was. How was the library? Fine. Over the next several years our meetings followed this pattern except for the few occasions—measles, a sprained wrist—when I actually needed his care. I had the consoling sense that he and Sister Cullen were watching over me.