The Flight of Gemma Hardy (20 page)

chapter twenty-one

A
ll day the silence persisted. Only Seamus's Land Rover and the greengrocer's van used the track. Even the sheep and cows seemed subdued, and the swallows, nesting under the eaves, twittered faintly as they came and went. At last, when I could no longer stand it, I went to the kitchen on the pretext of making Nell a bedtime treat of hot chocolate. Vicky was at the table, sorting eggs. Now that the ferry strike had ended we were again sending them to the mainland twice a week. As I set a saucepan of milk on the stove, I said that Nell had been asking after her uncle's whereabouts.

“I've not an inkling,” said Vicky. “He drove off this morning without a word.”

“Did he take his things?” I had turned from the stove to watch her, as if her face might tell me what her words wouldn't.

“No. With the girls' suitcases there wasn't an inch of space.”

“So he'll be back,” I said. “I can tell Nell she'll see him again.”

“Maybe.” Vicky held up two eggs, one brown, one white, and put both in the carton to her right. “Last August he left almost everything. I packed his case and sent it to London.”

“He'd leave without saying goodbye to his only relative?”

“I couldn't rightly—the milk.”

Before I could seize the pan, milk gushed over the sides; the kitchen filled with a burning smell. “Oh, I'm sorry,” I said.

“Not to worry,” said Vicky. “There's plenty more in the larder. Mr. Sinclair's business is Mr. Sinclair's business. He pays you and me to be companions to Nell so he won't have to think about her.”

She was warning me, I knew, from further questions, but as I poured fresh milk, I could not help asking, “Is it true he might go bankrupt?”

A little cracking sound meant one less egg to market. “Heavens,” said Vicky, setting the broken egg aside. “I hope not. I do know that the farm doesn't make a penny, even though the cattle bring a good price. But it didn't under old Mr. Sinclair either, and he knew the land like his own garden. Tell Nell she'll hear from her uncle soon. She can always talk to him on the phone.”

“Of course,” I said. “She'll like that.”

Later, long after Nell and Vicky were both in bed, I walked down the track to the gate. In the west the sky was still light and the bats were out, uttering their high-pitched cries. From the fields came the lonely, fluting call of the curlews. The beauty of the evening only made me lonelier. And what was I lonely for? I asked as I climbed on the gate and gazed down the road along which any car must come. I was used to being alone and I had more friends here than I had had at any time since my uncle died. But I remembered how Mr. Sinclair had talked to me when the bee stung my hand, and how later he had asked my views about God, as if my answer mattered. In those moments I had felt seen by him, and I wanted, I thought as a bat swooped by, to go on being seen.

T
he next morning, when I stepped out of my room, the familiar fragrance of bacon greeted me. Not daring to think what it might portend, I hurried down the stairs. There, in the kitchen, was Mr. Sinclair at the stove, wearing one of Vicky's flowery aprons.

“You're just in time,” he declared. “What will it be? The full British breakfast? The more ladylike Orcadian?”

“What's the full British?”

“Bacon, eggs, mushrooms, toast. Oh, and fried tomatoes.”

“Yes, please. Shall I make the toast? And one for Nell too.”

“Two full British coming up.” He waved the spatula for emphasis. “How would you feel about cancelling lessons today?”

“I'd want a good reason,” I said, sawing at the loaf. “We already missed a day going to Skara Brae.”

“What a Tartar you are. As your employer”—he began to crack eggs, one-handed, into the frying pan—“I am proposing that Vicky take Nell to Kirkwall to buy some clothes.”

I said, truthfully, that I'd been meaning to ask about Nell's wardrobe. She'd grown in the last few months and almost everything she owned was too small. Then I remembered Coco's claim. If he was on the edge of financial ruin he shouldn't be squandering money on clothes, but it was not my place to say so. Instead I said that sometimes Nell and Vicky quarrelled. Maybe I should go along to arbitrate.

“No.” He sliced a tomato and put the two halves facedown in the pan. “I have other plans for you. We'll explain to Nell.”

At the sound of her name Nell appeared and was delighted at the unexpected treats of a cooked breakfast and her uncle's company. Watching her skipping around as she set the table, I scarcely recognised the cross, pinch-faced girl who, only a few months ago, had thrown the jigsaw puzzle to the floor. Her cheeks held some colour; her hair was neatly brushed. Even her eyes seemed larger and brighter. I buttered the toast and we sat down to eat. According to Mr. Sinclair, the eggs were a little overcooked, but Nell said they were perfect and I thought, but didn't say, that it was the best breakfast I'd eaten since the day of Miriam's death. We were mopping our plates when Vicky appeared, wearing one of her Sunday skirts. “Heavens,” she said. “Look at my kitchen.”

Mr. Sinclair told her to leave things be. “I don't promise to do the washing-up,” he said, “but everything will be assembled in an orderly fashion.” He handed her a sheaf of bank-notes and instructed her to buy Nell whatever clothes she needed and have a nice lunch. I detected no signs of anxiety as he put his wallet away.

“And what about Gemma?” said Nell, tugging playfully at the ravelled edge of my pullover. “She needs clothes too.”

It was true—our expeditions and games had taken their toll—but I blushed to hear her draw attention to my shabby wardrobe. Happily Mr. Sinclair seemed not to notice; he and I, he explained, were going to plan her studies for the autumn. This seemed to satisfy Nell, but I could not help suspecting that something less pleasant was afoot. As I went to feed the hens and calves, a flock of speculations assailed me: Did he need to sell the house? Had he decided to send Nell to school? Was he going to hire a new au pair? The three-months trial had come and gone, unacknowledged, with no talk about the subsequent terms of my employment.

Back at the house I retreated to the schoolroom. Disconsolately I laid out books and began to make a list. Until I heard otherwise I would go through the motions. We needed a new copying book, and a geography book, and surely there must be a collection of poems and stories for a girl Nell's age, though what did any of it matter if I was being sent away? I was listlessly turning the pages of the arithmetic book—if Janet has two apples and Richard has three—when there was a knock at the door.

“Very diligent.” He hadn't visited the schoolroom since the day I was stung. Now he glanced around the room, taking in Nell's drawings. “She has a good eye,” he remarked, studying her picture of Petula and Herman. “I need you to advise me about lunch.”

“Lunch for whom?” I said, closing the book.

“You and me. We're going on an outing.”

I did not give him the satisfaction of asking where.

In the kitchen, while he made ham and cheese sandwiches, I gathered apples and chocolate biscuits and a bottle of lemonade. Twenty minutes later we were in his car, driving along the track. As we drew up to the gate I readied myself to climb out, but Mr. Sinclair was already walking towards it. What time had he returned last night? I wondered. If I had kept my vigil a little longer would we have met?

“I can close it,” I said when he returned.

“Indeed you can,” he said, driving through the gate, and nimbly climbing out again.

When we were once more bumping along, I said I wanted to ask about piano lessons for Nell. “She keeps trying to play. I'm sure she'd study hard.”

“Maybe I should sell that piano. Look, there's Seamus's bull.”

Black and massive, the bull was standing beside the gate of a field. As we slowed down, he raised his head and gave a sonorous bellow.

“He's calling to his concubines,” said Mr. Sinclair. “What I don't understand is why he doesn't just charge the gate and hunt them down. You only have to look at him to know he easily could.”

“He's domesticated,” I said. “He's been taught not to charge gates.”

“Is that what
domesticated
means? Knowing what you should and shouldn't do?”

“Not just knowing. Doing it. See, even the goldfinch isn't afraid of him.” I pointed to the bird perched on the wall not far from the gate.

The bull let loose another bellow. Something about the mixture of desire and helplessness made me uneasy, and I was glad when Mr. Sinclair put the car in gear and drove on. As the bellowing faded he asked how I knew so much about birds.

“My uncle. He loved Roman remains and bird-watching.”

“Digging and flying. And whereabouts did he do these things?”

Question by question he whittled away my determination not to talk about the past. I told him about my parents and Iceland, my uncle's untimely death, my aunt and Claypoole. He asked if I remembered my parents, and I said no but that I thought about my uncle almost every day.

“So,” he declared, “you're an orphan twice over. Like Nell.”

“Yes,” I said. “What happened to her mother?”

“I'm still not sure I know.” His knuckles whitened against the steering wheel; suddenly the fields were flying by. “At eighteen my sister seemed destined to lead a charmed life. She was clever, pretty, a wonderful horsewoman, and she had a lovely singing voice. But all she really cared about was riding, and the accident took that away.”

His voice faltered as he described how determined his sister had been after her fall. “She learned to walk, to drive, to climb stairs. My father kept saying she had the Sinclair backbone. What we didn't realise was that all her efforts were aimed at riding again. She insisted they keep her horse. Seamus rode him for her, and she'd have him trot by the house so that she could watch. Then, when I was visiting at Easter, she asked me to saddle Mercury. We had a furious row.”

He braked and I glimpsed the white flick of a rabbit's tail as it dashed across the road.

“The next day I happened to look out of the window, and there she was on Mercury. Seamus was holding the reins. Even from a distance I could see they were arguing. Suddenly Alison broke free and started cantering across the field. I dashed downstairs. By the time I got there Seamus was carrying her back to the house. A month later she moved to Glasgow.”

He fell silent. When it seemed that he was not going to speak again, I reported what Vicky had said: Alison's heart had failed.

Mr. Sinclair let out a soft sigh. “My father had some old friends in Glasgow. The coroner was kind. She became addicted to painkillers, then to other things as well. A pretty girl with money, she could get whatever she wanted.” He waved, as if the walls that lined the road were stocked with mysterious substances. “My disapproval just made her secretive. Nell was alone with her when she died. We don't really know what happened.”

“What about Nell's father?”

“The birth certificate says father unknown. I suspect that was true, even for Alison.”

“So you're Nell's only relative?”

“Yes, we're the last of the Sinclairs, though if you go back far enough Vicky and Seamus are distant cousins. Now perhaps you can understand why I'm not keen on piano lessons. I didn't care for Alison's musician friends, drinking too much and hoping to get lucky.”

We passed a sign for the village of Birsay. Nearby stood a red sandstone ruin, several storeys high. “Not every pianist drinks,” I said, though my only evidence was the music teacher at Claypoole, who had played even “For She's a Jolly Good Fellow” in a restrained fashion. “With winter coming,” I persisted, “Nell needs indoor hobbies.” He wasn't, I noted gladly, suggesting that either she or I leave Blackbird Hall.

“She can collect stamps. Make papier-mâché animals. Learn to cook. Practise cartwheels. Here we are. The Brough of Birsay.”

He pulled onto the verge and pointed to an island a few hundred yards offshore. From this angle, with its sheer cliffs and smooth, grassy top, it resembled a lopsided cake with a single candle, a lighthouse just visible in the centre. At the side nearest Birsay the cliffs sloped down to the sea in a tumble of rocks and seaweed. A causeway, wide enough for a small cart, ran between the island and the mainland.

“We're going to see the puffins,” Mr. Sinclair announced. “At least I hope so. Sometimes they're shy.”

He slung the knapsack over his shoulder and led the way down the rocks and onto the causeway. I followed, trying to avoid trampling on the limpets and barnacles. Halfway across something caught my attention. A seal, drifting in the bay, was studying me with large dark eyes.

“Hello,” I said, waving. “I hope you catch a hundred delicious fish.”

“I don't think you need worry about that,” said Mr. Sinclair. “I've never seen a thin seal.”

As we continued walking, the seal dove and reappeared a few steps later. In this fashion it accompanied us across the causeway, finally disappearing only when we reached the shore. We climbed up the rocky beach and found ourselves standing amid low ruined walls. The island had been the site of a church and a monastery, Mr. Sinclair explained, and perhaps a farm.

“The Vikings had a settlement here,” he said, “and then the Picts. Or was it the other way round? Sometimes I think about how calmly we speak about different colonizers when I hear people talking about the war. Maybe it wouldn't have been the worst thing for civilisation if the Germans had won in 1918. Hitler would never have come to power. Europe wouldn't have been torn to shreds. We'd all be listening to Wagner and reading Thomas Mann.”

“Are you a pacifist?” We were walking around a ragged stone rectangle, the outline of a building. Inside the grass was thick with daisies.