As I crossed the bridge, I ran my hands along the parapet in order to feel something—anything—other than longing. If the self was a mass of sensations then I could be rough granite, soft moss, the smooth concrete seams between the stones. But what I was longing for was not Archie. I did not want to lie on the grass with him and let him put his hands inside my clothes. And he, I was convinced, did not want that either. When he touched me, to take a cup of tea or retrieve a book, his touch was no different from Marian’s. But I also remembered my journey from Kirkwall: how easily things could go awry, how quickly people became predators. It would be good to have a protector in that country, where I no longer spoke the language or knew the customs. I began to allow Archie to utter sentences like, “When we go to Reykjavik we must visit the cathedral.” I began to make remarks about visiting Thingvellir, going to see the hot spring.
A week passed with no word from my aunt. I was on the point of writing again, when one day during lunch the phone rang.
“Gemma?” I heard Marian say. “I’m afraid there’s—”
“Wait,” I called. Knocking over my chair, I ran to the hall.
“Hold on,” said Marian into the receiver and then to me, “A woman is asking for Gemma.”
As she retreated to the kitchen, I said, “Hello. Who is this?”
“Who is this?”
From the first syllable I recognised my aunt, her voice hoarse, as if she were about to cough. “Aunt,” I said. “This is Gemma.”
“That woman didn’t seem to know who you are.”
“Did you find my birth certificate?”
“I want to talk to you. I’ll be expecting you this Saturday.”
“I work,” I said. “How would I even get to Yew House?”
“I’ll send someone to fetch you. Be ready at two o’clock.” And she was gone before I could protest, or ask if the same person would bring me back.
I stood in the hall until my heart slowed. In the kitchen Marian and Robin were finishing their tomato soup and debating what Robin should plant in his garden this year. Did he remember the nice big radishes he had grown last year? Yes, but he didn’t like the taste of them. I ate my soup quietly until there was a lull in the conversation.
“That was my aunt,” I said. “She always calls me Gemma after my mother. I’m going to visit her on Saturday afternoon.”
“What a pretty name,” said Marian.
For several months I had contrived not to notice that Aberfeldy was less than thirty miles from Yew House; they were long country miles, over the hills, and no one, in my hearing, had mentioned Strathmuir. Now every night my dreams carried me back there, and during the day stray memories ambushed me: my aunt, in her gown, sweeping off to the party on Christmas Eve, my aunt driving past as I walked to and from school, my aunt siding with Will when he hit me over the head with Birds of the World, my aunt at Perth station telling me to be good. But I was not, I reminded myself, returning to that life. No one could shut me in the sewing-room. Louise and Will had surely left home, and Veronica, if she was still there, was too self-absorbed to be anyone’s enemy.
Still, adult reason could not entirely quell childhood fears. On Saturday morning I woke at six and wrote a note to Marian: If I don’t return this evening please tell Archie to contact Mrs. Hardy at Yew House, near Strathmuir, Perthshire. Tell him to come and get me at once. Once again I safety-pinned money and Marian’s phone number into my pocket. There was a phone box in the village, I remembered, not far from the school.
I was eating my cornflakes when Marian came into the kitchen, her hair unbrushed, her cardigan unbuttoned. “Jean,” she said, “I hate to ask but I need a favour. George had a bad night. I just spoke to Dr. Grady and he’s coming this afternoon. Is there any chance you could take Robin with you to see your aunt? He gets so upset on these occasions.”
I started to refuse. Then I took in the shadows under her eyes, the lines bracketing her mouth, and suddenly it seemed like a good idea. Robin’s presence would protect me not just from kidnapping but also from what I dreaded still more: being changed back into my younger self. “Of course,” I said. “I hope he won’t be bored.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” One line of worry disappeared from her forehead as she hurried from the room.
Robin, when I announced our plan, was less enthusiastic. “Must I?” he said. Grudgingly, he helped me gather up some cars and colouring books. At five to two we went outside to wait for the mysterious chauffeur, and at five past two a black car turned into the lane and came to a halt. A woman climbed out, wavy brown hair reaching to her shoulders, a blue sweater reaching to midthigh, jeans tucked into boots. As she started towards me, I recognised Louise, still carrying her Lares and Penates proudly before her.
“Gemma?”
“How do you do.” I stepped forward with outstretched hand.
“Not too bad.” She gave me a hearty shake, as if we were business acquaintances. “You’ve grown, and you’re prettier than I expected. Remember how we used to tease you by singing, ‘Skinny ma linka long legs, big banana feet’? You’d run to the toilet whenever we started up. Who is this?” She nodded at Robin, who was standing behind me, clutching the gate.
“This is Robin. I’m his nanny. Robin, this is Louise.”
Louise gave a hoot of laughter. “Heavens, for a moment I thought he was yours.”
Robin stared at her. Who was this large, loud woman? We climbed into the back of the car, leaving her alone in the front. As she drove through Aberfeldy, past the Birks, and up the hill, she told me that Veronica was spending a year in Paris. “She’s meant to be working on her French but she’s mostly studying fashion and flirtation.”
“What about your brother?” Even now I did not care to say his name.
“Don’t ask.” She gave a theatrical groan. “He’s in London, spending money like water. His big plan, you may remember, was to play football for Scotland, which he had a snowball’s chance in hell of actually doing. Now he’s an apprentice at an insurance company. Hopefully someone’s around to fix his mistakes.”
“And what about you? Are you still living at Yew House? How are your horses?”
“Gosh, I haven’t ridden in years. I’m the assistant manager at a hotel in Edinburgh. It suits me. Lots of people coming and going, always something new.”
I stared at her profile, my aunt’s plump cheeks, my uncle’s straight nose. It was easy to picture her behind the counter of a hotel, scowling at my application form.
“I’ve been coming home at weekends,” she went on, “to deal with Mummy.”
“Look,” Robin exclaimed. Two Highland cows, with their curving horns and shaggy heads, were peering over a wall.
“You can draw me a cow later,” I said. “What’s there to deal with?”
“Cancer. But I’d give ten to one she’ll see the decade out, and the next one too. Those doctors don’t know how tough Mummy is.”
Her tone was so jolly that it took me a moment to grasp that my aunt was gravely ill. Years before at Perth station I had cursed her. Now, like the rain that fell on the Welsh hills and bubbled up, eight thousand years later, in the hot springs of Sulis, my curse was finally coming true. But I felt little sense of victory.
“Will and I were always telling her not to smoke,” Louise continued, “but she wouldn’t listen. What’s so strange is that she’s had this bee in her bonnet about talking to you. She went on and on about it. I even contacted that school: Clayfield, Claymoor. When it turned out to be closed, I didn’t know what to do. I was thinking of putting an ad in the Scotsman when your letter came. It’s as if you knew we were looking for you.”
“I had no idea. I thought your mother was going to marry Mr. Carruthers.”
“Mr. Carruthers.” Louise laughed. “I’d forgotten about him. No, she’s never remarried, though not for lack of opportunity. She’d be all alone if it weren’t for me and Audrey.”
“Audrey? Audrey Marsden?” I felt Robin stari
ng at me.
“Who else? When Veronica left last year, Mum did the sensible thing and invited her to move into the house. Now there’s a nice young couple paying rent in the cottage, and Audrey has been a godsend, driving her to doctors, taking care of things. Heaven knows how much we’d be paying for taxis and nurses without her.”
In my preoccupation with my aunt it had never occurred to me that Audrey might still be at Yew House. At the prospect of seeing the person who had first told me about the Orkneys, I was struck dumb. And surely, I thought, as we squeezed past a lorry, she would have known Mr. Sinclair.
Except for Robin’s occasional exclamations—pheasants! sheep!—we drove in silence past moors and lonely farms down into the next valley. Presently I caught sight of the circular wood above the village. A few minutes later the hill with the Roman fort came into view. Driving through the village, I glimpsed the school, and my uncle’s church. The field, where Celeste and Marie Antoinette once grazed, was filled with corn. Then we were turning through the familiar gateposts, driving up the familiar drive. As we stopped outside the house Louise said, “She looks a little different.”
But I was too overwhelmed by my first sight of Yew House to pay attention. In a rush, I recognised the light over the front door, the rowan tree beside it, the antique boot scraper, the roses growing by the bay window. Whatever my attitude to the occupants of the house, these things had been my childhood friends. Louise opened the door; I crossed the threshold. The hall, which had always smelled of dogs and cigarettes and furniture polish, now smelled of nothing but cleanliness. I kept tight hold of Robin’s hand.
“I’ll tell her you’re here,” said Louise. “What do you want to do with him?”
“Robin will come too. He knows to be quiet when grown-ups are talking.”
“As you wish.” She marched off down the corridor. Once again it was easy to imagine her cajoling a difficult guest, reprimanding a sloppy workman.
While we waited in the hall I told Robin how I used to play on the stairs with Louise. I was describing how we had dared each other who could jump farther when she reappeared, beckoning. I bent down beside Robin. “My aunt is a bit scary,” I said, “but there’s nothing she can do to us.” He nodded doubtfully.
The sitting-room had been transformed. Gone were the faded blue wallpaper and the chintz sofa. Now the walls sparkled with brightly floral paper; the sofa was the colour of sand; the rest of the furniture had also been replaced. Only the picture over the mantelpiece, showing a flock of adults and children skating on a village pond, was the same. My aunt was seated in an armchair by the fire, a tartan rug spread over her knees. After Louise’s warning I had been braced to find her as altered as the room, but with her golden hair piled high, she looked much as she had at Perth station.
“Hello, Aunt,” I said. “How are you? Robin, this is my aunt.”
“Isn’t it obvious? Who’s that?”
“This is Robin, the boy I take care of. He’s going to play while we talk.” I led him over to the bay window and laid out his cars, his colouring books and crayons. “Is everything all right?” I asked.
“I’m thirsty,” he whispered.
To my surprise my aunt heard. “Louise, get the child a drink. Gemma, sit down here where I can see you. I must say you’ve turned out better than I feared. You were such a plain little thing.”
Now that I was seated a few feet away I could see other changes that suggested illness. Her eyes were duller and her hands, although beautifully manicured, were rivered with veins. “Do you have a copy of my birth certificate?” I said.
“Still the same bull in a china shop,” she said, shaking her head with a faint smile. She stared into the fire, and I understood that she was waiting for the threat of interruption to be past. I got out my notebook and pen, wrote the place and date at the top of a page and sat waiting. It was possible, even likely, that I would never see my aunt again. Louise returned, expertly carrying a tray with a glass of orange squash, a cup of tea, and a plate of chocolate biscuits. While I thanked her, my aunt told her to go away and close the door. Then she told me to turn on the transistor radio that sat on the nearby table and place it near the door. When the radio was burbling away and I was back in my seat, she pulled her rug closer and began.
“To my surprise,” she said, “you have recently been weighing on my conscience. It’s like you to nag. You were always an annoying child.”
Her thin fingers fretted the fringe of the rug. I waited. All of this had clearly been planned in advance, and needed no urging by me.
“Your uncle,” she said at last, “had not only a sister but a younger brother.”
“That’s right. There was a photograph in his study of the three of them. Then it disappeared.”
“I put it in my chest of drawers. Ian and I were courting when he died. He was driving home to Edinburgh from seeing me in North Berwick when his motorbike went off the road. I didn’t hear about it until the following day. I always think I’ve had twenty-four hours’ more happiness in my life because of that delay. People talk about premonitions, but I didn’t have the slightest inkling. No cracked mirrors, no spilt salt, no voices on the wind.” She shook her head and I caught the glint of earrings.
“The last night I saw Ian,” she said, “I told him I was expecting.”
Hearing the word Vicky had used about Audrey Marsden, used in the same way, I made a little sound.
“I was sure we’d get married, else I’d never have—” She made a vague gesture. “Still I was so nervous telling him I felt like I’d swallowed a goldfish. We were at the pub, and I remember Ian burst out laughing so loudly that people turned to look at us. ‘How clever we are,’ he said, ‘we’ve made a baby.’ We agreed, then and there, to get married the next week. Who knew when the army would give him leave again? Our parents would be shocked, but we didn’t care. Ian was handsome and clever and I was confident he’d flourish after the war. And my grandfather had left money in trust for me that I’d get when I turned thirty or married. I hadn’t mentioned this to Ian for fear it might seem like hinting. When I told him that night he just shook his head. ‘Beauty, brains, and money,’ he said. ‘How did I get so lucky?’
“We stayed until last call. Later, of course, I blamed myself for the accident. If he’d left earlier, if he hadn’t had one more drink. When I heard he was dead, I fainted and was in a fever for three days. My mother insisted it was a blessing I missed the funeral, but I think it made it even harder to accept what had happened. For years afterwards, whenever I heard a motorbike, I was sure it was Ian.”
I had written: Ian, expecting, trust fund, accident. In the background the radio gave cricket scores. By the window Robin made faint “broom broom” noises as he trundled his cars back and forth. My aunt seemed unaware of any of this, or even of me, her audience. She was looking squarely into the past.
“When my fever abated,” she went on, “I assumed I’d lost the baby. Gradually it dawned on me I hadn’t. My mother guessed my condition. She started making plans to send me to Ireland; the story was I would help out on a horse farm. I would have the baby there, give it up for adoption, and come home. No one would know, and some other nice boy would come along and marry me. She had the good sense to say this last part only once. I had a ticket to sail from Glasgow to Belfast the following week when Charles came to call. We had met a couple of times, and he knew how Ian felt about me. It was a dreich afternoon but I dragged him out for a walk to get away from my mother. We headed up Berwick Law. We were at the top, standing in the rain, looking down on the Firth of Forth, when the word baby popped out of my mouth. Charles smiled and for a moment he was the spitting image of Ian. ‘That’s grand news,’ he said.
“Then I blurted out everything, my last conversation with Ian, my belief that I’d caused his death, the whole Ireland plan. I remember watching a ship sail into the Forth, very, very slowly, and saying I didn’t think I could bear to give him up. I was sure I was having a boy. But
my parents would disown me if I didn’t, and I would only get my inheritance if I married. All the way down the hill we talked about alternatives. Charles suggested I could stay in Ireland for a few years and come back with the baby, pretending to be a widow. But even two years somewhere cheap would take more money than either of us had.
“That night Charles phoned; he’d had an idea. ‘Promise you’ll think about it for twenty-four hours.’ When he suggested we get married, I was furious. I remember shouting, ‘Don’t you have any respect for your brother’s memory?’ and hanging up. But after my parents left to play bridge I walked round and round the house, thinking. If I married Charles I could keep the baby. I could use my inheritance to buy us a house. Then, in a few years, we could get a divorce. I knew Charles would be a good father.
“At breakfast the next morning I told my parents. My mother asked if I was sure. My father just patted my shoulder and went off to the coal yard. We married in a registry office, and Will was born six months later. Soon afterwards Charles got this parish. We moved here and began to share a room. Louise and Veronica came along. When your uncle wanted you to live with us—he’d made a promise to his sister—I couldn’t say no.”
“So,” I had to say it for myself, “Will is not my uncle’s son.” As I spoke I remembered the dream I had had at Claypoole, when Will had shouted, “You’re not my father.”
“You sound pleased.” My aunt’s dull eyes regarded me curiously. It was the first sign she’d given of being interested in my reaction.
There was no point in explaining how this new fact changed everything for the better. Suddenly her blind partiality for Will made a sad kind of sense. As did her and my uncle’s unlikely union. Living at Yew House, I had taken their marriage for granted, but since meeting Mr. Sinclair, I couldn’t help wondering why my uncle had chosen someone so cruel and vain. Even as I had this thought, I realised that my dislike for her had ebbed. Now that my aunt didn’t control my life I could afford to forgive her.
The Flight of Gemma Hardy Page 34
