The Particular Appeal of Gillian Pugsley

by Susan Örnbratt

  “Well,” she thought for a moment, remembering her good-bye letter to Christian all those years ago. “I returned to Longford as my father had expected, but only briefly. I feared that although home had likely stayed very much the same, I had likely changed without knowing how. I was afraid to be trapped like a caterpillar in its shelly skin, not knowing if it was dying. Can you imagine the torment of not being able to spread those wings? To be hemmed in so ruthlessly? I’d rather have been squashed flat by that pot-bellied pig I keep running into in the streets. Sublime beast he is. Don’t know if you’ve had the pleasure yet. At any rate, Daddy was furious when I had arranged with Beaty to return to London having spent only weeks back in Ireland. I’m quite sure that my father wished he’d allowed me to go to India after all. At least there I’d have been safe, he thought at the time. He hadn’t expected a war to erupt. None of us had. London of all places? In the heart of Hitler’s seething nemesis? He thought I was mad and demanded that both Beaty and I return to Ireland at once. Beaty was in love… a curious, slightly odd man called Horatio. The poor thing had hardly any neck at all, but Beaty’s heartstrings were playing a tug of war with Daddy. In the end, neck or no neck, she was staying put and there wasn’t a darned thing he could do about it.”

  “I don’t think your sister was the only one in love at the time,” Christian said as dispassionately as any man who’d been cast aside. At least that’s how Gillian imagined he’d have seen it. She sensed, however, that he didn’t want to harp on why she hadn’t stayed longer in Ireland. Her reasons were truthful and she could see that he understood.

  “Perhaps not,” she agreed soberly while patting down a corner of the picnic blanket that had been kicked up by the breeze. “But that’s not the only reason I didn’t stay in Ireland. It felt too easy. I knew if I had stayed, I’d have been taken care of, coddled if you will, and I couldn’t have that.”

  “The butterfly imagery again?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “The thing about you,” Christian said leaning into her as if to whisper in her ear, “you need to be the one taking care of people—not the other way around. I saw that right away with Romy, the way you dived into that challenge. No one had been able to help her until you came along. Within weeks, her speech had improved enough to make the kids on the peninsula sit up and notice, all the while picking up your Irish R’s. And no one would mess with that!”

  Gillian couldn’t bridle her wide grin. “How is Romy? She must be nearly twenty now.”

  “Nineteen,” Christian sighed. “She’s great. A regular spark plug! First one in her family to go to university.”

  Gillian gasped, “How thrilling! I knew she’d make something of herself. I’m just waiting to see her name in lights.”

  “Not a chance. She’s set her sights on politics.”

  “Good Lord!”

  A silence fell around them, relaxed, untethered. It felt comfortable, as though they were getting to know each other again and not only catching up. Gillian had always imagined that Christian would harbor ill feelings toward her for all time but was deeply thankful for his sobriety and good nature.

  “So tell me,” Christian said brushing his hand against hers on the blanket, “what happened to your father?” Gillian gazed at a patch of wild flowers nestled among the tufts of grass as she considered his question. They were pretty, the flowers, white like the breaking waves below. She glanced at Christian, pleased that he had asked about him.

  “He died in his sleep—an aneurysm, the doctors say. One day he was here, the next he was gone. Just like that,” she said, her eyes travelling back toward the blue sea. “It was all very uneventful as far as deaths go—a plain, naked sort of death. I suppose I thought that when it was his time, he’d go in a blasphemous rage directed toward his disobedient daughters with a theatrical fall to the ground. At least I would have driven him to that, I’m afraid. But no, he wasn’t that sort, no pummeling on a desktop, just a quiet, soulful man masked by a firm tone. Others saw him as unyielding, I think. But he was never that way with me, not once… well, apart from India.” She gazed at Christian, unable to wash the sadness from her eyes. She knew it.

  “Don’t you know how affecting you are?” he said. “You have such a way of looking at people. Makes them want to do the right thing, makes them believe in the impossible. Your father was that way with you because he trusted your instincts.”

  “I do fear he left this world disappointed in me, never having returned to the land he loved so deeply, the land where my dear mommy was buried.”

  Christian’s voice sharpened enough to make Gillian feel unsteadied. “You could never have disappointed your father. Just the opposite. I may never have met him, but I would bet these legs,” he said glancing down at his awkward position, “that your father was more proud of you than just about anything in his life. The way you talked about him. Don’t you see? It didn’t matter how far you were from him; you could have lived in Timbuktu and it wouldn’t have driven a wedge between you. He got his way with India, but you got your way in the end. You’re where you were meant to be, on a small island in the Irish Sea helping others, and I bet he beamed when he talked about that.” Christian drew a liberal breath. “Do you remember all those monarch butterflies by the cove back home, fluttering around the milkweed laying their eggs?”

  “How could I forget? It felt like a fairytale, as though they were waving me into their story.”

  “Well, that’s how I saw you, still see you, like one of them. There’s your caterpillar tale again, only yours is an epic. You got to spread your wings after all, and your father has flown in their shadow ever since, making sure you get where you need to go.”

  Gillian felt touched by the sentiment, letting herself drift into reverie for a moment to her earliest memory of her father, a memory so vivid that she was certain the images came out in words to a man she never thought she’d see again.

  Gillian had taken a stroll into the meadow just on the edge of her back garden, slipping away undetected from Beaty’s watchful eye. At nearly five years old and soon to be a fully-fledged primary school girl she paid no mind to her older sister. The heather was in full bloom. As purple as purple can be. And the sun was happy that day. She couldn’t forget that. Gillian scooped out her favorite book that she had kept wrapped in cheesecloth and nestled in the hollow of a log. She couldn’t yet read the words, but she would follow along line by line and create her own version of a story she knew by heart. She revelled in the small changes, making the story her own.

  As she knelt down in the rough to shuffle into a comfortable position, Gillian saw a figure approaching. She couldn’t make it out with the sun grinning so. It haloed the figure in a shadowy streak of light. Stiff shoulders and a stiff cap was all she could discern. She crossed her little legs with the book cradled in her skirt. And in the moment it took to breathe just a single breath, the figure stood directly above her. She sagely lifted her chin as it moved from the sun’s blinding glare.

  “Daddy!” she squealed.

  “Gillian! Oh, my sweet girl. It really is you!” He knelt down on one knee as she tossed his officer’s cap into the stinging nettle where it belonged.

  “Is it you? Is it truly you?” she gasped. “Are you back for good? Is the war over? Does Mommy know you’re here?”

  “My sweet girl, yes, I’m back. I’m back for always,” her father sighed stroking her velvety cheek.

  Gillian threw her arms around her father whom she adored above any other creature that walked the earth. Barrelling him over with a flurry of questions, he was overwhelmed.

  “All in good time, Gillian,” his voice quivered as he patted her shoulder. “What are you reading?”

  “Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. Do you know it? It’s American, Mommy says.”

  “Yes. That’s a good one. Shall we read together?”

  “Oh yes, I’d like that,” she exhaled.

  She and her father curled up against
her hideaway log with the sun warm against their skin in a blanket of violet spread across the knoll. He gazed lovingly into her eyes whilst drawing his index finger to his lips.

  “Shhh. If you listen carefully Gillian you’ll hear the breeze’s aria.”

  “What’s it singing?” she asked.

  “Why… ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,’ of course.” Gillian smiled. That moment rolled into hours and now into years.

  “He fought in the Great War?” Christian asked.

  “Yes. But we walked away from that cap of his, and I never saw it again.” Gilly said placidly. “By the time Britain declared war on Nazi Germany the second time ‘round, my father wanted nothing to do with it and was satisfied that Ireland had taken the stance it did.”

  Gilly turned away as though carried by the breeze. Christian could sense she’d had enough of the military, enough of this conversation. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder when she was going to ask about the obvious. It was as though she was trying to evade even the subtlest hint to his legs.

  “So what were you doing before you came to this island?” he asked, steering the conversation in a more pleasant direction.

  Gilly eased off the blanket then stood up donning a cardigan that had been stored with the blanket. She resembled a moving painting as her dress and hair rippled in the wind against a crisp, blue sky, long grass at her feet. Just behind her, a pair of seagulls floated on the wind, hovering nearby to catch any scraps of treacle, he thought.

  “I was living in London for a time but rather quickly moved to Ascot further south. It reminded me of such happy times with the Maharaja’s family at their home in Wentworth Estate. So I thought I’d give it a go myself.”

  “And how was it?”

  “Busy mostly. I was working as an auxiliary nurse both privately and at Hogweed Home, a very small sanatorium. Beaty called it a madhouse filled with loose brains. There was only the one ward that you needed to be wary of. I remember one day I was up on the third floor chatting with an orderly. Well, he wasn’t really an orderly, though he liked to pretend. Perhaps he should have been admitted himself. Anyhow, he was sweeping the floor when he glanced out the window and said in wonder, ‘Funny, but I don’t ever remember there being a statue in the front garden.’ Well, I took heed of his query and followed his gaze when I threw down the bedpan I had been holding and shouted ‘That’s because there isn’t!’ I sprinted down the staircase. Not a soul walking by Hogweed even noticed. Imagine that. A grown man stark naked, stock still with his legs spread and holding a broomstick like a trident, as though he was Poseidon. God knows how long he had been stiff. I nearly broke my back dragging him off that birdbath.”

  Christian couldn’t suppress his laughter, banishing everything serious in this world. He relished Gilly’s stories then and relished them now. A war hadn’t really changed her—at least not in any of the important ways. He was starting to see that now.

  Chapter 15 - 1946

  When the crocus spreads a carpet

  Of purple and white and gold,

  I know such perfect beauty

  Is a gift from the Lord.

  The daffodils, the tulips

  The velvet wallflowers, too,

  The chestnuts lighted candles

  And bluebells in the wood.

  Pale pink of apple blossom

  White bloom on a cherry tree,

  The lilacs scented pyramids

  The laburnum’s golden sheen.

  All offerings of the springtime

  For old and young to see,

  And every year when winter dies

  This miracle revives.

  Chapter 15

  1946

  The air was cooling off now and the seagulls long gone. Calf of Man across the sound was beginning to look lonely with all the cloud-cover building up.

  “You know this place has a way of creating moods just for me,” Gilly said as she turned to look down at Christian, still sitting on the blanket. She folded her arms, rubbing them to keep warm.

  “In what way?”

  “If you look there,” she motioned with her chin, “at the Calf of Man when the sun is shining, I’d wager it’s as far as the horizon. The green looks more like a happy chartreuse. Sometimes I reach out trying to touch it. Other times, I feel as though I could skip across Kitterland,” Gilly said pointing to the islet just off shore, “like in a game of hopscotch. Silly I know,” she added studying the island. “But when the sky sinks down, feeling heavy with dew like it’s starting to now, the island saddens me somehow. The green darkens to match the sky. It’s rather affecting don’t you think? I take on the mood of the sky or the sea and with it something stirs inside—sometimes memories, sometimes forecasts of the future. I like it best when the skies make me feel like dancing. Unless I’m already in a foul mood and want to wallow in it for full effect; then I come here. There are times this place fights back and I walk away spirited once again.”

  “I think anyone coming here would be at its mercy,” Christian said, his eyes traveling the wide-open landscape. “And you’re right, the mood is changing quickly up there. I’m not sure how long we’ll last out here.” A silence hung in the air between them with a faint whistling beginning to pick up in the streams of wind. “Shall we take a stroll before we’re forced away,” he asked, feeling restless.

  “Yes, I’d like that… but…”

  “It’s no problem if you wouldn’t mind…” he said reaching up to her, deliberately not finishing his sentence. Still nothing, not a word, he thought. She held his arm, supporting him as he stood. “Thank you.” Their eyes met for a long moment as his arm remained cradled in hers. He wanted nothing more than to run his fingers through her wavy tresses. The breeze robbed him of that pleasure. Her arm remained coiled in his as they walked, which surprised him. He couldn’t yet decide if Gilly was uncomfortable with any of this. She’d always had a magical way of making others feel at ease, but truth was he didn’t quite know how he felt. In many ways it had been the perfect day with the perfect woman, yet he had to slice through thoughts of doubt. It wasn’t pragmatic. Nothing about this was. She was still living a different life here. He couldn’t pretend as though the last fourteen years hadn’t happened for her. They had, and he hadn’t been part of them.

  As Christian teetered along the grassy edge overlooking the bluff, he wondered how Gilly had managed to stay the positive, spirited person he met all those years ago given the plight on this side of the Atlantic.

  “Tell me what it was like before you moved to the Isle of Man, just after the war was declared. That is,” he hesitated, a lump forming in his throat, “if you don’t mind talking about it.”

  “Mind?” Gillian said, her brow springing up, “I’ve done nothing but talk about myself. I haven’t asked you anything about Tobermory or…” She hesitated before saying his name, “Griffin or even the elephant ears at Dominion Day.” She stopped with her feet planted firmly in the grass then took hold of his hand.

  “I want to know about those things. I really do, but not yet, not now.” She could see in Christian’s droopy eyes that he wondered why. But she couldn’t explain… not even to herself. Gillian could feel the wind nip at her through the cardigan she’d knitted from clews of rustic yarn from a flock of Manx Loaghtan just down the way. It was a dreary cardigan she always felt, brown and dull and ill fitting at the best of times. But it did the job most days, and it was all she could afford.

  “So, after the war was declared?” she repeated his question.

  “Yeah. I’d really like to know. We were sheltered in ways back home. It seemed from Canada we were fighting a war indirectly though it quickly became real for anyone joining up and then a blow for those who didn’t want to but had no choice. Not sure if anyone over here even knew we had stepped up to the plate.”

  “You must be joking. How do you think the phrase floating around our parts ‘The good ol’ Canadians’ came about? Every time I heard it, I’d think of you,” she s
aid, her eyes peering up into that dubious expression of his. “Great Britain was in the war only seven days longer than Canada. You think I don’t know this? I read every word coming from the Allies, every word printed about your efforts. I’m quite sure you felt the sting of it back in God’s country.”Gillian could feel her heart begin to race and wasn’t ready for where the conversation was headed. She broke loose, stretching her woolen sleeves over her palms, her fingers fastening them to keep warm. One might think she’d be well accustomed to the sudden drop in temperature the moment a chain of cloud hovered above. But no, at least not on this day, a day that had begun by fooling outsiders with a mask of sunlight to warm the skin.

  Gillian picked up her pace; she felt a sudden need for distance between them, just enough to calm her angst.

  “The worst part was the constant fear the moment the skies began to rumble with engines. Beaty loathed that I lived between two great targets, London and Southampton. It was bad enough in London, she said, but being somewhere in the middle was like having your arms bound to two horses running in opposite directions. ‘A gruesome dismemberment’ she’d say. I’m not sure if she quite understood how that image lingered every night I found myself curled up in my wellies and stuffed inside that tin can they called a shelter. Ours was an Anderson. The thing never stopped leaking. But thank God for it. At least the air raid shelters were a semblance of protection, dug well into the ground in the garden. I shared with the family from whom I hired a room. They were kindly enough, but I never felt so alone as I did watching them nuzzle up to each other with terror sinking into the children’s faces, then buried into their mommy’s chest as German planes flew overhead. We always knew which were their planes even in the dark, for they made a terrible throbbing noise. Ours had a steady hum, though far from soothing. The dogfights above us made the children crumple into tiny balls. There were two, a little boy and girl. Reminded me of two very special children who’ve turned me into a gooey meringue over the years.” Christian smiled as she continued.