The Flight of Gemma Hardy

by Margot Livesey

  The next day, going over my Virgil translation with Archie, I kept making mistakes. Finally he said, “Jean, you knew the subjunctive last week.”

  “I’m sorry. Could we take a break?”

  He nodded and said why didn’t he make us some hot chocolate. By the time he returned with two steaming mugs I had realised that I couldn’t ignore my new knowledge. As he handed me a mug and sat back down, I asked how long Hannah and Pauline had been friends.

  “I couldn’t say. Eight years? Ten? They met at university. Did I put in enough sugar?”

  “Just right. At school yesterday a couple of girls were talking about them.”

  Archie held his mug chest-high between both hands and regarded me steadily. “There’s a story,” he said, “about Queen Victoria that won’t be on your exams. Her ministers wanted to make homosexuality illegal for both men and women, but no one knew how to explain to the queen that some women liked each other, and so the law was passed only against men. Most of our neighbours are probably like Queen Victoria. That doesn’t stop them from being fond of Hannah and Pauline.”

  “But—” I stopped, not knowing what I wanted to say.

  Archie raised his chin. “You’re not going to tell me that, after all they’ve done for you, you disapprove of my sister and her beloved?”

  “No. Of course not. I just feel so stupid. There I was, living in their house, trying to be the ideal guest, with no notion that they shared a room.”

  “Well, it’s not my job to speak for two eloquent women. Three,” he added with a nod at me. “But they had long debates. Hannah wanted to tell you. Pauline worried it would put you in a difficult situation.”

  “Did you ask Marian to give me a job?”

  He inclined his head. “You were working so hard to make a home for yourself, and they didn’t know how to tell you that they needed their privacy. Then you spoke to me in the square, and the next day, when I came to read to George, Robin was hiding under the table.”

  “So you saved my life twice.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. Hannah will tell you I’m thick as a brick when it comes to humans. But that first day when I carried you to the van you kept begging me not to go to the police.” He gestured around the room. “This seemed better.”

  “This is better.” I looked at him in his armchair, his long legs stretched out before him, his long narrow feet in their thick green socks. “Do you think,” I said, “one can ever know another person?”

  I meant the question in a very particular sense, but Archie wriggled his toes at the opportunity to wax philosophical. “For the most part,” he said, “I’m not bothered about whether I know other people. What worries me is do I know myself?” Two philosophers, he went on, one French, one Scottish, had pursued this question. René Descartes claimed that a person was a res cogitans, a thing that thinks. David Hume had a different view. When he went looking for a self he found nothing there, just a mass of sense impressions.

  Finally I interrupted. “Please,” I said, “don’t tell Hannah and Pauline about the girls at the school. Can we say that I guessed and asked you?”

  “We can,” said Archie.

  It seemed oddly fitting that, as he left, the first snow was falling. In the morning I woke to find the muddy fields and leafless trees white and pristine. Robin and I made a snowman in the garden with a carrot for a nose and currants for eyes. Later we went tobogganing by the river, and he proved surprisingly fearless. “Another turn, another turn,” he kept saying. That evening, I made my way to Honeysuckle Cottage. As soon as the three of us sat down to supper, I said, looking from Pauline to Hannah, that I owed them an apology. “I’m sorry you felt you had to keep a secret in your own home.”

  “Thank you,” said Pauline, bobbing her head.

  “We appreciate your saying that, Jean,” said Hannah.

  I had thought they might talk about when they understood their feelings for each other, what it was like to live in a town with few hiding places. Instead Pauline launched into a story about a salesman who’d come into the chemist’s that day, then Hannah commented on the kale we were eating; our conversation followed its usual orbits. But when Hannah got up to fetch dessert she placed her hand on Pauline’s shoulder, a gesture I had seen her make dozens of times, and smiled at me.

  The snow stayed for a week and melted the day the preliminary exams began. Marian had rearranged her pupils so that I had the necessary mornings and afternoons free, and she and Robin helped with last-minute studying. When the results came, and I turned out to have got five As, they both applauded. Under the headmaster’s supervision, I wrote to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and St. Andrews universities, asking to be considered for late admission in mathematics, and received provisional acceptances from Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

  Snowdrops gave way to catkins, catkins to pussy willow; aconites sprang up in the garden, and crocuses, scilla, and forsythia soon followed. The geese began to fly north. On my walks I saw oystercatchers and lapwings. Soon the swallows would return. I studied. I took care of Robin. I visited Pauline and Hannah. I ignored the voices that came from George’s room. When Archie invited me for a walk, or once a drink, I found a reason, usually Robin, to refuse.

  I was doing a good job, I thought, of keeping everything on an even keel when one Saturday afternoon Hannah invited me to accompany her to Pitlochry. My dread of the town had receded, and I accepted with alacrity. We loaded the car with fruit bowls and drove out of Aberfeldy past the caravan site and the distillery. In the village of Strathtay, Hannah showed me the house where Archie had rooms. A few miles farther on, we had just passed a field of cows when she pointed to an oak tree beside the road. “That’s where Archie found you.”

  The tree, with its broad trunk and still dead leaves, was gone in an instant, but I felt an odd twinge at seeing the place where I had almost died.

  The shop that sold Hannah’s pottery turned out to be opposite Newholme Avenue, the site of my false address. I helped her to carry in the bowls and said I’d go for a walk while she talked to the manager. As I passed the milk bar and the electrical shop, I was struck by the difference having money made. I could stroll into any one of these establishments and, even if I didn’t make a purchase, be treated politely. I turned up the road to the church. I was gazing across the grassy knoll at the faded red door when I heard a tapping sound. The elderly man with the little white dog was approaching.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you by any chance know where the minister lives?”

  “Och, aye, lassie. See the house with the black gate.” He raised his walking stick to clarify my destination.

  Before I could reconsider, I walked over, opened the gate, and knocked on the door. Almost immediately it was flung open by a freckle-faced girl only a little older than Nell. When I asked for the minister, she called over her shoulder, “Dad. Someone wants you,” and ran off down the corridor.

  A man of about thirty, fair skinned, slender, the opposite of Mr. Waugh, appeared. His half-moon glasses were perched on the end of his nose and in one hand he held a pen. “Good afternoon,” he said with a kindly smile. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Last October I sought sanctuary in your church and someone took my suitcase.”

  “Oh,” he said, removing his glasses altogether. “You’re the girl who slept in the church. I’m sorry that you didn’t knock on my door then.”

  “I didn’t think of it. Or if I did, I was afraid you’d be angry.”

  His eyes crinkled. “My dear, almost everyone, including my wife, would tell you that my sermons are dull as ditch water, but I’ve never turned away anyone in need. I’m glad to meet you at last. Can I offer you a cup of tea?”

  He reminded me so piercingly of my uncle that I could barely speak. “Someone’s waiting for me,” I managed.

  “Well, let me get your suitcase. I have it tucked away in my study.”

  As he headed down the corridor, I thought how much of my suffering—the gloomy chu
rch, the hotel managers, the odious jeweller, the meat paste—had been unnecessary. All I had had to do was knock on this door.

  In a couple of minutes he returned, carrying my case. “Here you are.” He gazed at me earnestly. “I don’t mean to pry, but the police have you listed as a missing person, which means that someone is suffering because of your absence. May I have your permission, Miss Hardy, to tell them that I’ve seen you and that you’re all right?”

  My brain seethed with thoughts I couldn’t pursue. I had my possessions back. Mr. Sinclair was searching for me. My exams were only a few weeks away. This kind man would be disappointed if I refused him. Behind us the church bell began to chime.

  “You can tell the police I’m all right,” I said. “But they shouldn’t waste their time looking for me.”

  “I understand.” He held out his hand and, when I raised mine, clasped it briefly in both of his. “Good luck,” he said. “Fight the good fight.”

  I hurried down the street, my suitcase, heavier than I remembered, banging against my legs. Hannah was leaning against the car, eating an apple. “Have you been shopping?” she said.

  “A friend was keeping it for me.”

  “A friend? I thought you had no friends. Or none we’re allowed to know about.” She stood up and hurled the apple core in the direction of the railway line. “What’s going on? Are you thinking of leaving?”

  “No,” I said. “Not really.”

  “I note the hint of qualification.” She stepped forward and seized my shoulders. “Whatever you do, Jean”—she aimed her blue eyes and sharp chin at me—“don’t disappear on us, like you did the last people you lived with.” She gave me a little shake. “You owe us more than that. Promise.”

  “I promise.”

  As we drove south, effortlessly covering the distance I had travelled so painfully, Hannah told me that the manager of the shop had offered her twice as much display space as last summer. “I’ll have to come up with more designs, but I might actually make some money.”

  I said great and wonderful. Then I remembered to ask about her sculptures, and she said she was working on a piece inspired by Mary, Queen of Scots. By the time we reached Weem, she seemed to have forgiven me.

  At the MacGillvarys’ I carried in my suitcase, braced for more questions, but the chorus of “Old MacDonald” was coming from the sitting-room. In my room I closed the door and lifted the case, green, scuffed, familiar, onto the bed. As I raised the lid, I held my breath. On top of my folded clothes lay a sheet of paper:

  Dear Miss Hardy, we’re here if you need us.

  Followed by the minister’s name, address, and phone number. Before I did anything else I copied the details into my notebook and folded the paper into my purse. Anything, I had learned, could be lost.

  After all these months I had almost forgotten the contents of the case. Now each item came back to me freighted with memory. Here were my walking shoes, my new nightdress, the blouse I had been wearing the first evening I met Mr. Sinclair, the two skirts I’d worn to church so often. Safe between the pages of my guide to Scottish birds were my photographs: my uncle alone and with my mother at the Botanical Gardens. As I gazed at them, glad to be reunited, it occurred to me for the first time that I had no photograph of my father. Indeed I didn’t even know his name.

  I hung up my clothes and slipped the case under my bed, trying to ignore the heavy sock at the bottom. If I discovered the meteorite, I might have to throw it away.

  The exams were fast approaching, and I needed every spare hour to study, but the return of some of my possessions had awakened a passionate longing. I could not stop thinking about my last night at Yew House and the box I’d barely glimpsed. One afternoon when Marian was giving lessons and Robin was taking a nap, I rang directory enquiries and asked for a Mr. Donaldson in Oban. When I said I had neither a first name nor an address, the operator gave me two numbers. I tried both and got two puzzled men; neither had ever been a teacher. Then I rang the operator again and asked for a Miss Donaldson. This time there was only one number. The woman who answered said she didn’t think she had a brother.

  The next day when I went into Aberfeldy the bus for Perth was standing outside the cinema. I went over and asked the driver how to get to Oban. He said I would have to go via Perth and wrote down the schedule. At supper that night I told Marian that I needed to visit a friend. Could she manage without me this weekend?

  “Of course. You’ve been working so hard, Jean. Friday is no problem, and Robin can play quietly while I give lessons on Saturday.”

  The only other person I had to tell was Archie—we always studied after school on Friday—and for once I could see him struggling not to question me: Who was this mysterious friend? By way of reassurance I said I’d like to translate the Catullus on Monday.

  I borrowed an overnight bag from Marian, packed my Latin and algebra textbooks, and caught the first bus to Perth, and then another bus to Oban. Mindful of my last journey, I put half my money in my pocket with Marian’s phone number and safety-pinned it shut, and I kept my bag closed at all times. As we wound past hills and lochs, I tried to make a plan. Oban was not, I thought, much bigger than Aberfeldy. I could enquire at the library, if there was one. Shops. Pubs. Surely in an hour or two I could canvass the town. Then, of course, even if I found his sister—her name, I suddenly recalled, was Isobel—there was still the task of finding Mr. Donaldson. He might be living in Cornwall, or Timbuctoo.

  When I got off the bus the first thing I noticed was the smell of the sea; the next that a building resembling the Colosseum overlooked the town. Could the Romans have come this far north and built something so splendid? But at the first shop I went into, a bakery, a woman told me that McCaig’s Tower was a nineteenth-century folly. She herself was from Mallaig and didn’t know an Isobel Donaldson. In the sixth shop I tried, a butcher’s, the man behind the counter wiped his hands on his bloodstained apron and said, “That will be Isobel Bailey, will it not?”

  “That’s right,” said the woman he’d just served. “She used to be a Donaldson.”

  Twenty minutes later their directions brought me to a modest bungalow. Standing at the gate, staring at the grape hyacinth that lined the path to the front door, I was aware of how much I had to gain or lose. In Nell’s company I had gradually learned to forgive the two huge errors of my life: not going skating with my uncle; writing a letter to Mr. Donaldson. But there was no reason for Isobel Bailey to forgive me, if indeed she was even at home. At last I walked up the path and rang the bell. My luck held. The door opened to reveal a white-haired woman, ramrod straight in her tweed skirt and blue pullover. Yes, she acknowledged stiffly, she was Isobel Bailey.

  I introduced myself as Jean Harvey, a former pupil of Mr. Donaldson’s. I was passing through Oban and had remembered him saying he came from this part of the world. “He was so helpful to me. I’d like to thank him.”

  She neither smiled nor frowned but did something in between and asked if I had time for a cup of tea. She showed me to the living-room and went to put on the kettle. As I sat in one of the armchairs, I noticed an ashtray on the table. I pictured Mr. Donaldson clicking his yellow teeth.

  Isobel returned with tea and shortbread. I accepted both and, in response to her questions, said I’d come from Aberfeldy and that the journey had been fine.

  “Which of Henry’s schools were you at?”

  “Strathmuir. I left when I was ten. Does he live nearby?”

  “In a sense.” Isobel’s teaspoon clinked against her cup.

  “Is he dead?” I whispered. Now I could never apologise, except to a stone in a churchyard.

  “Henry might say yes but no, he’s in an old-age home. Most of the time he doesn’t know me, or even the nurses he sees every day.” She explained that he’d lived with her and her husband until, finally, they couldn’t manage. “He didn’t know the difference between day and night. We’d wake up at two in the morning and he’d be frying an egg, getting ready
to go for a walk. They take good care of him at Bonnyview, and he doesn’t seem to mind it. I’m sorry you’ve come all this way for nothing.”

  “But he was such a good teacher, and he wasn’t old.” Even as I spoke, I recalled how on some days Mr. Donaldson had been so vigilant, while on others he had simply stared out of the window.

  “You’re kind to say so,” said Isobel. “A slip of a lass like you, everyone over twenty-five must seem old. Do you not know what happened?”

  When I shook my head, she set her tea-cup down decisively. “Henry is the only brother I have, but it’s no secret that he didn’t always act in his own best interests. He was just a wee bit too fond of his dram. That was how he came to your school, which, not to be rude”—she gave me a little smile—“was a step down for him. But he was making the best of it. He’d joined the village curling club, found a foursome for bridge.

  “Then there was some muddle about a girl. He never would say exactly what happened. He was dismissed with no references and moved in with Findlay and me. We were glad to have him, but the whole thing preyed on him, especially when he’d had a drop to drink. I used to come into the kitchen and find him chatting away to himself.”

  Isobel looked over at me, her eyes suddenly intent. “I’d swear on the graves of our parents that Henry was innocent. He regarded teaching as a sacred duty. He would never have laid a hand on one of his pupils. Or on any child. I used to hope that wretched girl would come to her senses and admit she’d made the whole thing up. Maybe he’d given her a bad mark and she wanted revenge? But whatever her reasons she ruined my brother’s life. No one would give him a job. He picked up a bit of tutoring. Eventually even that was too much for him.”