The Flight of Gemma Hardy

by Margot Livesey

  If I had been Berglind, I would have lifted him into the air and carried him round the room. As it was I kissed him. “Oh, my goodness,” he said. He took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. Then I asked if he could direct me to a shop where I could buy flowers. He walked me to the door and pointed, diagonally, across the street.

  For the next half-hour I wandered in and out of shops, studying cakes and caviar, leather belts and jewellery, sweaters and scarves. Finally I chose a dozen deep red roses, a jar of caviar, a cake, and four jars of jam for Hallie’s neighbours. I found my way back past the bronze statue overlooking the harbour and down the hill, past the former prison, to the bus stop. Once again following the map her niece had drawn, I walked to her house. Hallie answered the door dressed in her familiar black.

  “Rosavin,” she exclaimed as I handed her the roses. “No one has given me flowers since Eirikur died.”

  My little room waited; the table was laid. While we ate, I told her almost everything. She congratulated me on my three new cousins, although two, I explained, didn’t really count. From Berglind’s silences and Kristjana’s dismissive gestures, I had understood that they were not close to the brothers in Reykjavik. Some branches on the tree, I explained to Hallie, were less sturdy than others.

  “So you have posthumous cousins,” she said, “but one good one is a lot. Did you remember your village?”

  “The only thing I remembered was the kitchen floor of the house where we used to live. When I looked through the window, I remembered crawling across the linoleum.” I asked if she knew about Helgafell, and when she said yes, I described how my aunt and father had lost their wishes there and how I had too.

  “When I met you,” she said, “you were wishing hard to find one relative and you found two. Maybe you got your wishes before you met the mountain.” Her bright brown eyes looked into mine as if there was something more that she wanted to say, but when she spoke again it was to suggest we try the cake.

  The next morning, although it was only seven, Hallie insisted on walking me to the bus stop. “Don’t forget,” she said, “to take your ticket to my niece, Nanna. She is working today and she is anxious to know what happened on your quest.”

  I promised I would. And I promised to write and tell her when I was coming to Iceland next summer. That was another thing I had discovered money could be turned into: plans. “I couldn’t have managed without you,” I said.

  “I think that is true,” she said, accepting my thanks as she had the kronur I had handed her the night before. “Good luck at university, and with the people you meet. Next summer I will take you, or you will take me, to our famous hot springs.”

  As the bus pulled away, she stood waving her small, gold-ringed hand. Until yesterday no one had ever waved me off on a journey. Now here was Hallie, like my aunt’s family, casting a blessing on my travels. Perhaps the curse I had carried for so long was, finally, loosening its grip.

  At the airport all the desks were busy; I joined the queue at Nanna’s. I wasn’t sure she would recognise me, but when my turn came to offer my ticket and passport she said, “Hello, Scottish girl. How was your visit?”

  “My visit was very good, thanks to you and Hallie.” Quickly—people were waiting—I told her that I had found my father’s family and my old home. “Could I sit by the window again?”

  “It is already arranged,” she said with a smile. “Come again soon.”

  In the lounge I stood looking out at the runway, the bleak lava fields, the distant mountains. Not far from Stykkisholmur, Berglind had told me, was the mountain of Snaefellsjökull, which the French writer Jules Verne had written about in Journey to the Centre of the Earth. “I did not like the story,” she had added, “but it was nice to see our mountain in a book.” I had promised to read it when I got back to Scotland.

  The flight was announced, and I followed the small crowd through the doors, across the tarmac, and up the steps of the plane to my window-seat. In the row in front of me a woman and a girl sat down; their wavy hair was exactly the same shade of brown. Once again the seat next to me was empty. The day was clear and I hoped for a good view as we took off. Perhaps we would fly over the city and I would see the Hallgrimskirkja or even the little lake with the mallards. A voice said, “May I?”

  Mr. Sinclair sat down beside me, fastened his seat belt, and, without another word, reached for my hand.

  Only when we were safely airborne, when the roar of the engines had lessened, and we were out over the Atlantic, the city of Reykjavik and the smoky bay left behind, did he begin to talk. As he spoke, I examined him in sly glances, taking in his skin, so much paler than when we parted, his cheeks just a little thinner, his eyes, beneath their long lashes, at their darkest blue.

  “I don’t think you can imagine, Gemma, how I felt when I discovered you were gone. I’d been up all night thinking about what I could say to you.”

  He had caught a plane to Inverness and followed me as far as Pitlochry, then lost the trail. He had telephoned police stations, churches, and libraries. He had checked hospitals and—his grip on my hand tightened—morgues. People had reported seeing me in Glasgow, Dunblane, Perth, Aberdeen. Each time he had travelled north, only to find some other young woman. As the weeks passed he had tried to persuade himself that I was fine, but he knew that I had little money, few friends, no family, no—

  “How is Nell?” I interrupted.

  “Nell,” he said. “She’s flourishing. Thanks to you, she’s doing well at the village school, and she’s made friends. She asks about you every time we speak.”

  Involuntarily my free hand moved to the place below my ribs where her fist had landed. “I thought she hated me.”

  “No. She was sure it was all her fault you’d left. I told her it was mine.”

  I was still smiling as I asked how he had found me in seat 9A.

  “I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news”—his voice fell and again his hand tightened around mine—“but your aunt has died.”

  My gasp was more of amazement than sorrow. After all my failures at telepathy, I had, it seemed, inherited a small portion of Kristjana’s gifts. But there was no time to consider that now. Mr. Sinclair was already explaining that her death had set off a chain of phone calls. A woman named Mrs. Marshall had called Aberfeldy and, when she learned I was in Iceland, had—he didn’t know why but was eternally grateful—called Blackbird Hall.

  “Mrs. Marsden,” I corrected. So even as we both endured Louise’s conversation, she had sensed some of what I couldn’t say.

  “I knew how you felt about Iceland,” he went on, “and I couldn’t help hoping that meeting you here would be a second chance.” He had flown to Reykjavik the day before and, like me, had asked people at the airport if they could help him: Did anyone remember the arrival of a Scottish girl, travelling alone, in the last week? After questioning him closely, Nanna had agreed to arrange our meeting. “Thanks to her and her aunt, I have nearly three hours to persuade you not to run away again.”

  I pulled my hand free of his and kept it, firmly, in my lap while I asked about Mrs. MacGillvary. Was she angry with me? As Mr. Sinclair said that he didn’t know—he hadn’t spoken to her directly—the air hostess set down trays of neat sandwiches. I couldn’t help reaching for one.

  “That’s the easy part,” said Mr. Sinclair. “How we both got here. The hard part is can we get to a different place from the one in which you left me. I’ve had nearly a year to think about how I might make amends.”

  I ate a delicious sandwich and then another while he told me that he was having the croft beyond the meadow rebuilt for Seamus. Maybe if he wasn’t living in Alison’s old home he’d be able to imagine a life without her. And Vicky was advertising for a couple to live in the house and help look after Nell.

  “Can you afford all this?” I asked between bites. “Houses and jobs are expensive.”

  “They are,” he said, sounding amused. “But when I haven’t been look
ing for you, I’ve had my shoulder to the wheel. And this is still much cheaper than sending Nell to boarding school, which, you may recall, I promised not to do.”

  His emphasis on “promised” made me eager to change the subject. I announced that I had got into Edinburgh University. “At least I’m pretty sure I did. The exams results aren’t out until August.”

  “That’s terrific, Gemma. You must have worked very hard. If it weren’t ten in the morning I’d ask the air hostess for champagne.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that one could drink champagne on an aeroplane. “I did work hard. Studying was the only way I could imagine my life getting better.” It was the first hint I’d given of all I’d suffered since Maes Howe.

  Mr. Sinclair nodded. “This is going to sound strange, but I had the feeling recently that you were in danger. A few months ago a minister in Pitlochry told the police you were safe and I stopped searching for you. But last week I dreamed we were back on the Brough of Birsay, standing on the edge of the cliff, watching the birds. Suddenly you announced you could fly. You kept moving closer and closer to the edge.”

  He had dreamed about me, I realised, the night before I visited Archie. “Did you cry out to me?” I asked.

  “Not then, not in the dream, but after Vicky phoned, I stood there in my study, begging you to wait.” He made a little noise and gazed down at his hands. “Were you looking for your father’s family?”

  “I was. And I found a cousin, Berglind, who’s like Pippi Longstocking, strong and cheerful, and an aunt, Kristjana, who is blind but has second sight.”

  “And did they call you by your Icelandic name?”

  “Fjola Einarsdottir. Hallie, the woman who helped me, told me that it means ‘the violet daughter of he who fights alone.’ ”

  “Fjola,” he said, muddling the syllables as I had.

  Back in his room at Blackbird Hall I had said I would tell him my Icelandic name on our wedding night. And, I now recalled, I had promised that nothing he had done could ever change my feelings. I remembered how insistent he had been in exacting the promise and how confidently I had made it, even—my cheeks burned—quoting Shakespeare. Useless to say that I had imagined he would confess to a mistress, or two; I had given my word, and I had broken it, like Gunner with Helga. I was thinking how to frame my apology when Mr. Sinclair said, “Excuse me.” With a click of his seat belt, he disappeared down the aisle.

  Alone, I closed my eyes and let the roar of the plane carry me back to Helgafell. On that windswept mountain I had heard Mr. Sinclair cry out and I had answered him. Yet here he was sitting beside me, and my feelings were hidden away in a small dark room. My mother had made custard; my father had tied knots; despite their differences they had married and had a child. My uncle had married my aunt to save his brother’s child. And Seamus—but I did not know how to finish that thought.

  Ast. Love.

  Perhaps—I had only just become a daughter—I was not yet ready to be a wife. Perhaps being a wife was not the only choice. Once a year, if the sky was clear on the winter solstice, the sun shone down the passageway of Maes Howe to the back wall. I opened my eyes to see an air hostess approaching.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Could we have two glasses of champagne?”

  When Mr. Sinclair returned I looked at him fully for the first time since he had sat down. I saw my own tiny silhouette in each of his pupils, and the creases in his forehead that mimicked his eyebrows. I saw the hollow above his upper lip where sweat gathered when he worked in the sun. He had been my age, a little younger, when the summons came to be a Bevin Boy; now he was more than twice my age. I watched as my hand touched his cheek. He seized it and kissed my palm.

  “Here you are.” Two tall slender glasses filled with golden, bubbling liquid appeared before us.

  “My first champagne,” I said.

  “Does this mean—?”

  “It means”—I raised my glass—“that I’m going to make a speech. I promised that I wouldn’t let anything change my feelings for you and I broke my promise. I didn’t mean to. I told myself you were no longer the same person, but that was a convenient sophistry.” The last phrase gave me particular pleasure and I saw him register my pleasure. “Of course you were. My friend Miriam—”

  “The girl with asthma?”

  “The girl who was my friend. She told me that I would only understand certain things when I was older. I didn’t believe her until I met Nell. And even then I didn’t understand that I would go on changing. That life”—I waved at the rows of seats where our fellow travellers read or slept—“would change me. Since we parted I’ve learned that I too am capable of stealing and lying. I’m sorry I was so unforgiving. Here’s my toast.

  “Here’s to living under our rightful names.”

  I drank my first fizzing mouthful and ducked his kiss. Through the window, far below, I saw several small islands in the grey Atlantic. I took a deep breath hoping, even here, to catch the scent of apple blossoms. In the seat in front of us the two brown-haired women were also leaning towards the window. “Smavegis,” I heard one say. “Himnariki.” Surely Kristjana would have told me if I too was about to fall on the rocks. I turned back to Hugh. He was still holding his glass, watching me intently.

  “What I said at the registry office,” I went on, feeling my way, “is true. We can be married next week. Or next year. I don’t want a promise to govern my feelings; I want my feelings to lead to a promise. And there are other things I want too.”

  I began to list them: to be a student, to write cheques, to buy cakes, to make friends, to visit the hot springs, to see a lyre-bird—

  Desires were springing up on all sides when Hugh interrupted. “You want,” he said, gazing at me steadily, “to be beloved and regarded.”

  “I do.” His eyes had grown lighter, or perhaps they were reflecting the sky. “You’ve been sitting at the adult table for twenty years. I want to sit there too, and sample a few of the courses. I want to see if I’m ready to spend ten thousand days with you, and ten thousand nights.”

  “But that’s only thirty years.”

  He was arguing for more—fifteen thousand, twenty—as I raised my glass and drank again. Then I leaned forward and kissed him.

  Acknowledgments

  I have tried to be faithful to the geography of both Scotland and Iceland but have taken occasional liberties. Blackbird Hall does not appear on maps of the Orkneys, and the jetty where Gemma’s father kept his boat may be hard to find. My thanks to the many people in both countries who stopped to answer my odd questions. I am especially grateful to the woman in the harbour shop at Stykkisholmur who talked to me about Mount Helgafell.

  My main literary debt is obvious. The following books also helped to shape Gemma’s story: Tales of the Seal People and Fireside Tales of the Traveller Children by Duncan Williamson; The Mermaid Bride, told by Tom Muir; The Northmen Talk: A Choice of Tales from Iceland, translated by Jacqueline Simpson; Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda; Sagas of Warrior-Poets, introduced by Diane Whaley; Njal’s Saga, translated by Robert Cook.

  My deep thanks to Jennifer Barth for her brilliant comments as she read and reread these pages. I also want to express my gratitude to Amy Baker, Jane Beirn, Jonathan Burnham, Jason Sack, Emily Walters, and all the people at HarperCollins who helped to make this book. Once again I am happily indebted to Amanda Urban.

  My family plays a role, witting and unwitting, in all my novels. My thanks especially to Janet for driving me round the Orkneys, to Sally for revisiting the sixties, to my nieces for reminding me of what it is like to be a teenager, and to Merril for showing me Saint David’s Well and teaching me the names of flowers. Eric Garnick endured many tedious dinner conversations. Susan Brison read the novel with wonderful empathy and attention to detail. Andrea Barrett read and commented and imagined and corrected Gemma’s journey at every stage. Thank you seems a very small thing to say.

  About the Author

  MARGOT LIVESEY is
the acclaimed author of the novels The House on Fortune Street, Banishing Verona, Eva Moves the Furniture, The Missing World, Criminals, and Homework. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vogue, and The Atlantic, and she is the recipient of grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. The House on Fortune Street won the 2009 L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. Livesey was born in Scotland and grew up on the edge of the Highlands. She lives in the Boston area and is a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Emerson College.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Also by Margot Livesey

  Learning by Heart

  Homework

  Criminals

  The Missing World

  Eva Moves the Furniture

  Banishing Verona

  The House on Fortune Street

  Credits

  Cover photograph © Mark Owen/Arcangel Images

  Cover design by Jarrod Taylor

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE FLIGHT OF GEMMA HARDY. Copyright © 2012 by Margot Livesey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.