The Flight of Gemma Hardy

by Margot Livesey

  On the table Berglind spread out half-a-dozen photographs: my aunt and my father in my grandfather’s boat, both wearing shorts; my grandparents and the two children on a picnic; my father playing with a black and white dog, standing beside a bus, in the prow of a boat; my father and my mother in the doorway of a small, white house, my mother holding an alert baby with wispy dark hair. I stared in wonder at this last, my father’s boyish face, his arm around my mother, her arms around me.

  As if she could see my expression Kristjana said, “You must have the one of your parents together but I would like to keep the younger ones. I know it’s foolish but sometimes I hold them. I am glad to have Einar close at hand.”

  I thanked her as best I could. Then I went to my suitcase and took out the photograph I had taken from Archie’s bookshelf. Here was its rightful place. Berglind described it to her mother—I heard her say Fjola several times—and they agreed that the Scottish cousin would have a place of honour on the mantelpiece.

  When Ulfur came home, Berglind borrowed his van. She drove her mother and me to the outskirts of the village and down a track to the cove where my parents had lived. The sky was overcast, and we parked above the small jetty. Nearby was a beach covered in small black stones. Not far away was another beach pink with scallop shells. This was where my father had kept his boat in bad weather; this was where my parents had walked and I had played. Berglind led the way to a small white house with a red roof. I recognised it but only from the photograph they had shown me. The memory I had had of my uncle rolling balls across the grass must have come not from my own eyes but from his stories. By the front door were a clump of pansies and a tangled wild rose.

  “My mother says,” said Berglind, “that it looks much the same as when your parents lived here but sadder.”

  How did she know? I wondered. “Who lives here now?” I said.

  “A stranger. The uncle of a woman who works at the fish market.”

  Remembering Hallie’s question, I asked if my parents had owned the house.

  “Ah,” said Berglind, “you are thinking about money. Perhaps you are really an heiress.” She smiled at me.

  “No,” I said crossly. “I didn’t come here for money. My plane ticket cost more than I earn in six months. But I have nothing from my parents. Of course I wonder what became of their things.”

  Kristjana tugged her daughter’s sleeve. Berglind translated and then turned back to me. “I am sorry. Blame the radio. What I said sounded rude but by mistake.”

  Her wide eyes regarded me with such candour that my anger melted. I said her English was excellent and that I forgave her. Then Kristjana said that we must discuss these matters later. For now she wondered if I would like to see inside the house. She knocked and we all three waited. But as the minutes passed, nothing stirred.

  “What a pity,” said Kristjana. “When you come back we will make arrangements. Now we will wait for you at the van.”

  Alone I circled the house. Then I tiptoed towards it and looked through each window in turn: a bedroom, a small sitting-room, a kitchen. The furniture was plain, like my aunt’s. On the walls were several pictures of boats. Nothing was familiar until I looked in the kitchen window. Then I caught sight of the red and brown linoleum. I knew at once I had crawled and walked over it many, many times. Every seam, every spot and scar, was familiar. If I had been able to go inside I would have lain down and kissed that faded floor.

  I had no idea how much time passed before I tore myself away. In my notebook I drew a picture of the cottage and a little map of where it stood in relation to the jetty and the two beaches. I scrambled down to each in turn and chose a black stone from one, some pink shells from the other. I might never find the contents of my box, but Mr. Donaldson had mentioned shells.

  As we drove back past the harbour Berglind slowed. “See the blue boat,” she said. “She is called after you.”

  In bold white letters there was my name, Fjola, on the bow of the boat.

  At supper Berglind told me she had to work the next day. Thinking she meant cleaning the house or making soup, I said I could help. She laughed her boisterous laugh. “Not unless you know how to dry fish. Today I didn’t go because of you, but tomorrow I must be there at the big building near the harbour.”

  It had not occurred to me that she had a job. Abashed, I thanked her. “I don’t think anyone’s ever taken a day off work for me before,” I said.

  “It’s not often I find a lost cousin. What will you do tomorrow?”

  “Could you draw me a map of how to get to the mountain that grants wishes?”

  “Helgafell? I can. It is about five or six kilometres south. I can lend you a bicycle. Although we call it a mountain it is only a few hundred metres high.”

  Gisli began to clear the plates from supper; I rose to help. Last night I had sat shyly while he and Berglind joked over the washing-up, but I knew enough of the household now to fetch and carry. As I scraped the plates into the bucket for the hens, Kristjana said something in which I caught my parents’ names. Berglind took the plates out of my hands.

  “Mother wonders,” she said, “if you would like to visit the grave of your parents. We could take flowers from the garden. Is something wrong?”

  I looked over at my aunt, who was smiling in my direction. “No, I’m just sorry I didn’t think to ask. I must seem very thoughtless.”

  Berglind shook her head. “We both say you are very thoughtful, and my mother adds the grave is not the important thing but that you live far away and maybe it would be good to see.”

  In the garden we picked tall daisies. Berglind found a jam jar and filled it with water. Once again she borrowed the van. I had pictured a little cemetery romantically overlooking the harbour, but she told me no, it was on the outskirts of town; I had passed it, without noticing, on the bus. The cemetery was surrounded by a thick hedge and, as we stepped through the gate, the leaves rustled in the breeze. Small birds flew in and out of the branches. Many of the graves were marked by white wooden crosses, some by stones; they all faced in the same direction. My parents had two stones side by side.

  “Here is your name,” said Berglind, pointing to the second line. “ ‘Agnes, beloved wife of Einar, and mother of Fjola.’ I used to think they were quite old when they died. Now they seem young.”

  The idea that I had all along, without knowing it, been here in this cemetery, in Iceland, took my breath away. I reached out my hand and traced the letters: F-J-O-L-A.

  The next morning I helped my aunt in ways that did not require words. I hung out laundry, I gathered the eggs from the dozen hens, I chopped onions and did the ironing. As we worked, I saw how deftly Kristjana weighed the kettle, how she felt the water to see when the clothes were rinsed, how she wrapped the cheese tightly. When the clock struck eleven she made me a sandwich, filled a bottle with water, and handed me an apple. Then she made a pushing gesture with her hands and opened the door.

  I tucked my trouser legs into my socks and retrieved the bicycle. To get to the main road I had to go down to the harbour, then I pedalled back past the church and the scattered houses and the cemetery, out of the village. Last week at this time I had been walking with George and Robin in the garden. Next week . . . but I would not think about that. What I must think about were my three pure wishes. Could I wish for my aunt’s eyesight, my uncle’s resurrection? But no, I thought; I must wish for something both pure and possible. George’s health? Archie’s forgiveness? A chance to return to Stykkisholmur?

  Beyond the village rough moorland stretched in all directions. Save for a few sheep and ponies I was utterly alone. Berglind had told me that before Iceland converted to Christianity, the god Thor had lived on Helgafell. Later it had been the home of Gunner, the heroine of one of the sagas. Icelanders hoped to be taken into the mountain when they died. I came round one more bend and there, to my left, rising out of the flat landscape, was Helgafell. A track led from the road past a small lake to the mountain. As I ped
alled along I counted a dozen swans swimming on the windy water. Near the foot of the hill I leaned the bike against a fence. A sheep path zigzagged up through the long grass. Soon the grass gave way to rocks, large and small, and in the distance I could make out the colourful houses of the village and beyond the islands in the bay. A small stone ruin, the remains of a shepherd’s hut or hermit’s cell perhaps, marked the summit. The wind rushed in my ears as if it had come all the way from Scotland.

  I was heading down the path to the east when I heard a soft cry. Two ravens were rising and falling in the wind—Thor and Gunner, I thought—but I was careful not to follow their flight too far. I must not look back. I started walking again, stooping now and then to pick ripe blueberries; they had a faint bitter taste.

  “Gemma,” called a voice. “Wait for me.”

  “Who is it?” I stopped to scan the empty hillside. “Where are you?”

  A sheep raised its head. The two ravens circled.

  “Where are you?” I repeated. But only the birds and the wind answered.

  Presently I began walking again. This was not like the muffled shout in the hailstorm. I had heard the words clearly and recognised their speaker instantly. Mr. Sinclair was looking for me, was still looking for me, and I could no longer deny that I was glad. Since I stole out of the hotel in Kirkwall, I had learned that I too was capable of lying to get what I wanted, or to avoid what I dreaded. I had betrayed my uncle’s ideals. And perhaps, it came to me now, he felt that he had too: pretending to marriage and fatherhood. As I circled the base of the mountain back to where I had left the bicycle, I realised that, like my aunt and my father, I had lost my wishes.

  When Berglind returned from work I told her and Kristjana that near the top of the mountain a sheep had startled me; I had looked back.

  “Too bad,” said Berglind.

  “You are in the family tradition,” said my aunt. She set aside her knitting and clasped her hands. “I have thought about this all day, and there are two things I must tell you. Berglind, you must translate without comment and you must, both of you, forgive me for not telling you sooner. The truth is, I am ashamed. I liked Agnes, but something unfortunate happened. The first time I met her I saw how she would die. I did not know what to do. I tried to warn her not to walk on the rocks; I tried to warn Einar. But rocks are everywhere. How could I warn her against them? So I could not be friends with your mother because I was always wondering if there was something I could do to save her.

  “Then one day, soon after she became pregnant, I told her what I’d seen.”

  “What did she say?” I couldn’t imagine the bewildering conversation.

  “She was angry, and she was frightened.” My aunt pressed her hands to her temples, as if the memory still pained her. “She made me promise not to tell Einar, but I think that was why she went back to Scotland for your birth, and why she made your uncle promise to take care of you if anything happened. What I described, her pleasure in Iceland, that was true, but her pleasure grew less after I spoke.”

  “What about my father?”

  “Did I see his death? Happily, no. I was able to enjoy his company until the last day of his life. I never see things about my close family. I see nothing for Berglind or her brothers, or Ulfur.”

  “And,” I had to ask, “what about for me?”

  Kristjana lowered her hands and leaned slightly forward. “I do not need to see the future to know that you are a very determined person. Your determination will bear fruit. Now the second thing.”

  Gradually, as I heard her begin sentences, break them off, begin again, it dawned on me that my aunt was embarrassed. My parents, she said, had owned their house, and when my father died, I had inherited it. After many delays it had been sold, the mortgage had been paid off, and the rest of the money put in a bank account for me.

  “But why didn’t anyone tell me?” I thought of all the times when even a small amount of money would have made a large difference.

  “Two reasons,” said my aunt, “neither pretty. I wrote to your uncle with Berglind’s help—it was more than four years later—and he wrote back saying it would be better to keep the money here for you until you were of age. He gave me your Scottish name for the bank. Any money, he said, might make war with your aunt. We wrote again when you became eighteen to the address we had, but no letter came back.”

  Yet another of my aunt’s betrayals. Even as I opened my mouth to denounce her, Isolfur, or one of his brothers, neighed, and in the few seconds that followed I suddenly knew, as clearly as if I were standing in Edinburgh, the answer to the question I had pondered at Hallie’s. My anger was too late; there was a new grave beside my uncle’s and his brother’s. “I’m sorry,” I said. “And the second reason?”

  Kristjana turned towards the window where the sun was still high above the rooftop of their nearest neighbour. “Our life here is not easy. One winter Ulfur broke his arm and could not work. And you see how it is with me. Besides my knitting I can do nothing that makes money. I borrowed from you—nearly seventy thousand kronur—and I have never been able to pay it back. I am most sorry.”

  Beneath Berglind’s wide-eyed gaze I jumped up and kissed my aunt. The idea of being owed money by someone I loved was almost better than the idea of owning money.

  The next morning all four of them came to see me off on the bus back to Reykjavik. My hand disappeared into first Ulfur’s, then Gisli’s large grasp. Berglind lifted me up and swung me round. “One summer Gisli and I will come to see you in Scotland,” she said. “And you must come here. We will sail out to Flatey and visit the birds.”

  “I would like that,” I said. “Please translate one more time.”

  I turned to my aunt. “Since my uncle died I’ve been a friend, a pupil, a maid, an au pair, but I’ve never had a family. Thank you for making me feel like a daughter again, and a niece, and a cousin.”

  Kristjana smiled and touched my cheek. “Berglind and Ulfur say you have your father’s nose,” she said. “And we all say you have your mother’s spirit. Come and see us again soon, Fjola. Listen to the voice of Helgafell.”

  They stood waving as the bus pulled away. Only when they were out of sight and we hit the first pothole did I understand how she had dodged my question of the night before. She had foreseen my arrival; she knew about the voice on the wind.

  chapter thirty-three

  Besides the black stone and the scallop shells, and the photograph of my parents, I carried with me two copies—one in my notebook and one in the pocket where I kept emergency funds—of the details of my bank account, which, now that I was nineteen, was entirely at my disposal. Kristjana had explained that there were several branches of the bank and suggested I visit the one in the centre of Reykjavik when I got off the bus. I had never been in a bank before, and as I stepped into the lofty room, I kept expecting a policeman to tap me on the shoulder, but no one seemed to find my presence strange. The woman behind the counter beckoned me forward and nodded pleasantly at the sight of my passport.

  “A minute,” she said. “Please.”

  “Takk fyrir,” I said as she disappeared into a back office.

  She returned accompanied by a plump, cheerful-looking man wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. “Good afternoon,” he said. “Can I be of service?”

  “You’re from Scotland,” I exclaimed. His accent was much stronger than mine.

  “No,” he said, sounding pleased, “but I studied at Edinburgh University for three years. How can I help?”

  I explained about the account, that it had money, that the money was mine, and that I hoped to take it back to Scotland. To my amazement he nodded as if this were all quite ordinary. Did I want cash, in which case he would have to give me kronur? Or would I prefer a cheque, which could be in pounds?

  Although I had often seen Marian write a cheque, I was still not entirely sure how they worked. I said that I wanted the money to be safe. “If I fall through the ice,” I jok
ed, “or if someone steals my bag, I don’t want to be penniless.”

  “The cheque isn’t the money,” he assured me. “It’s the key to the door where the money is kept, and that key can only be used by you. Even if someone else gets hold of it, it won’t turn.”

  Kristjana hadn’t said how much money was in the account, and while I waited I made a bargain with myself that, whatever the sum, I would not be disappointed. If there was enough to pay back the MacGillvarys and buy books for the first term of university, that would be wonderful. If there was more, enough, say, for a new winter coat and some boots, that would be even more wonderful. I could buy Robin a book about birds and get Marian the new kettle she’d said several times that we needed.

  “Here,” the man said, sitting down beside me, holding out a rectangular piece of blue paper, “this is your name. This is your passport number, for extra security. And here”—he set some notes on the table beside me—“is the extra money in kronur. Four thousand pounds is what you Scots call a nice round sum. After the fees, that left eighteen hundred kronur.” He fanned out the brightly coloured notes. “I hope you can use it.”

  “Four thousand pounds,” I whispered. “Are you sure you haven’t made a mistake?”

  “No. We are a very careful bank. The account has been gaining interest every year; little by little it grows. There has only been one withdrawal since it was opened.”

  I took the cheque—my parents’ house, my father’s boat turned into a piece of paper too small even to make a paper boat—and put it carefully in my purse. Then he held out another sheet of paper and said here was the name and address of the bank, my account number, and his name. “If you fall through the ice, write, and I will rescue you. When you return to Scotland go to a bank—there is a nice one in Edinburgh in St. Andrews Square—and open an account. Your money will be safe, with a view of the castle, and you can get it whenever you want.”