The Flight of Gemma Hardy (23 page)

The ride back was mostly uphill, and by the time we reached the house we were plucking at our shirts and flailing our arms to keep the midges at bay. As I put the bikes away, I was struck by the stillness. Save for the insects nothing moved.

“The weather's about to break,” said Vicky, and the lowering sky did look as if it might rupture at any moment.

Indoors Nell could not settle to reading, or drawing, or draughts. Finally I suggested she play the piano in the hall. I had shown her the few scales Miriam had taught me and she enjoyed practising them and trying to figure out her favourite songs. She was working on “Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter,” and I was urging her to play more slowly when the first fat raindrops fell. Within minutes the wind rushed in like a pack of wild animals. We both jumped up to stand by the window. I stared into the swirling rain and said silently, I will forget Mr. Sinclair. I will forget Mr. Sinclair. A man who would lie about his finances to test a woman was not worth a moment's thought or affection.

“I love storms,” sighed Nell. “When I grow up I'd like to be a weatherman.”

“Weatherwoman,” I was saying when a loud crack made us both jump.

“What was that?” said Nell. “What happened?”

But all we could see was rain and more rain.

In half an hour the storm had passed, sweeping on to the Brough of Birsay, and out to sea. On my way to feed the calves, I made a detour through the garden. The gnats were gone, and everything smelled sweetly of damp earth. Beneath the beech trees lay a dark mass: the branch from which the swing had hung. The white ropes were tangled among the copper leaves, and as I approached it looked, in the gathering dusk, as if the branch were being kept prisoner. Raising my eyes to the grey trunk, I discovered a gleaming scar.

The calves were once again barely able to pick their way through the mud, and when I tried to feed Herman the nipple kept slipping from his mouth. Petula refused even to take the bottle. Remembering Jill's advice, I fetched a rope from the granary and led them one by one to an empty stall in the barn. Still they refused to eat. I tucked them into the warm straw and promised extra milk in the morning. Back at the house Vicky and Nell were playing racing demon. They begged me to join their game and, in the flurry of slapping down cards, and then chivvying Nell to bed, I forgot to mention either the calves, or the tree.

T
he next morning Vicky told me that Seamus had gone to the barley straight from church and cut as much as he could with his scythe, but even that was probably ruined. “He's beside himself,” she said, raising a hand to hide a yawn. I wondered if Seamus had kept her up late, venting his rage.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I don't think anyone could work harder than Seamus.” It was the one good thing I could say about him.

“Just stay out of his way. Do you want some porridge?”

I had every intention of following her advice, but when I went to feed the calves, the stall was once again empty. Seamus had returned them to the field. Herman stood near the gate, his head hanging low, shuddering every few seconds. Petula had lain down in the mud. Both, I saw, were suffering from the scouring Jill had warned me of, their hindquarters caked in excrement. I ran to fetch Vicky and we dragged them back to the stall. While she tried to coax them to eat, I spread straw and filled the water bucket. They sank down, trembling, refusing the bottle.

“We need to get the vet,” I said.

“Gemma, Seamus is the one who calls the vet.”

I asked if she knew where he was, and she said he was stacking the hay. “But wait until lunch,” she added. “I told you he's in a foul mood.”

“Look at them.” Petula's eyes were watering and Herman was making a low sound. “This can't wait.”

Vicky tried once more to remonstrate but the calves were ill and my old fears were back. Everyone, everything, I touched was doomed. If only Mr. Sinclair were here, but he had spent the night at the Laidlaws'. As I hurried past the byre towards the hay barn I could already hear Seamus barking commands: “Over there.” “Higher, lad.” When I stepped inside he was standing next to the trailer, supervising Angus and another boy as they unloaded and stacked the bales. I knew that he knew I was there—I was always on his radar—but he didn't, for a second, glance in my direction.

“Seamus,” I said, “I'm sorry to interrupt but the calves are ill. We need to call the vet. If you give me the number I can telephone.”

“Leave a wee space,” he called to the boys. “We'll stack them tight when they're dry.”

I went and stood a few yards in front of him. The air was thick with dust from the bales and the only light came from behind him, through the open doors. “Please,” I said, “they're very poorly. Can you tell me the vet's phone number?”

At last his pale eyes were glinting down at me. “What the hell do you think you're doing? If those calves are poorly it's because you haven't weaned them soon enough. Giving them names, treating them like pets, it's no wonder they're ruined. Don't you know vets cost money?” The last question landed at my feet in a glob of spittle.

“They're ill because you put them out in the storm,” I said. “Jill's a vet and she told me that in bad weather calves need their mother for shelter. Please give me the phone number.” The air felt as it had the previous evening before the rain, but now it was Seamus who was making everything hot and still.

“Are you telling me how to do my job? Get out of here before I make you.”

I glared back at him, wishing, like David, I had five smooth stones. “What kind of farmer are you that you want to kill your cows? I've been saving my wages. I'll pay for the vet. Just give me the phone number.”

Seamus took a step towards me and I took a step towards him. I had not fought anyone since my first year at Claypoole, but I knew now that the best way to hurt a man was to aim below his belt; my height made that easy. I clenched my fists in readiness.

“Gemma, go back to the house. I'll deal with this.”

I turned, and there, standing on top of the bales of hay, twenty feet above the floor of the barn, was Mr. Sinclair.

Seamus stopped moving. Like the sky the day before, his eyes seemed suddenly veiled. All expression left his face. Even in my fury, I felt a flash of sympathy. I knew, only too well, what it was like to have one's life controlled by other people. He worked seven days a week taking care of the land and the livestock and yet, like me, he remained at the mercy of Mr. Sinclair's whims.

An hour later Nell was tracing a map of Scotland, struggling with the jagged west coast, when we heard a car pull up. From the schoolroom window I saw a man climb out of a Land Rover and Mr. Sinclair stepping around the house to meet him. When I went to fetch lunch for Nell and me—I couldn't sit at the same table as Seamus—Vicky handed me a note:

Calves will recover. Vet says feed twice a day this week & keep warm & dry. Next week start to wean.

I had never before seen his handwriting, and I studied the brief sentences as if there might be words hiding beneath the words, a volume of feeling coiled in the casual ampersands. I would never have let Nell get away with the poorly formed
r
s, the hastily looped
y
s.

T
hat night as I lay in bed, trying to read myself to sleep, I heard a knock at my door. “Come in,” I called, moving over to make room for Nell.

The door opened a crack. “Gemma, get up. Put on your dressing-gown and slippers.”

In the hall Mr. Sinclair waited, fully dressed. He motioned to me to follow. We went down the corridor and through the door to his part of the house. He closed it behind us and, I could not help noticing, turned the key. We stepped through another doorway. Later, when I saw the room by daylight, I realised that the furnishings were, by the standards of the house, quite ordinary, but on that first evening the Indian rugs, the books, the armchairs, and the sofa glowed with a golden light. Mr. Sinclair stood before me, holding out his hands; his finger, the one he had sprained changing the tyre, was still a little crooked. Then I understood that he was waiting for me to place my hands in his. I did.

“How old are you?” he said.

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen.” He shook his head. “People will call me a cradle snatcher.”

“Is that worse than being a gold digger?”

“Yes, because I should be old enough to know better. I would not want anyone, especially you, to say that I had taken advantage of you.”

I felt as if I were back on the Brough of Birsay, standing on the edge of the cliff, the wind at my back, the birds, silver and black, soaring, and, just for a moment, everything in my life, even the losses, made sense because everything had been bringing me to this room.

“People will say things whatever we do,” I said. “As long as we don't.”

“Little sphinx. Don't you wonder if what the fortune-teller told Coco is true?”

I said that I did. “Claypoole seemed fine and then, from one day to the next, it was bankrupt. Now Blackbird Hall is my home, so if you're going to sell the house I need to know.”

“And what will you do then?”

He was looking at me searchingly. Suddenly I understood that he had not brought me here to tell me that he had heard my secret messages, that he wanted nothing more than to spend his days at Blackbird Hall with me, going on expeditions. How stupid I was to have granted that notion a moment's purchase. No, he was trying to break the news that the house, and its occupants, were about to disappear.

“I'll have to find another job,” I said, “one where I get board and lodging. Vicky will give me a good reference. But nowhere will be as nice as here.” I spoke these last words so softly that I was not sure he heard them.

“And won't you be angry with me, Gemma, if I evict you from your home, like a cuckoo?”

“Cuckoos can't help it and I suppose you can't either. What will happen to Nell? I hate to think of her lost in some school, being bullied and scolded. She needs someone to be patient with her.”

“As you have valiantly been. You've done wonders with her, and I will make sure that no one undoes your good work.”

Years ago Dr. White had described my walking to the hospital as valiant, and that too had ended in disaster. Why did I always need to be valiant? Why couldn't I have a home, like other people? If only my uncle hadn't gone skating on that February day. If only Miriam hadn't forgotten to breathe. If only Miss Bryant hadn't run out of money before I could take my exams. And now, added to all those other losses, was the loss of Mr. Sinclair. I had cherished the hope that, despite our many inequalities, he had understood me: the stealthy cyclist. Quite gently, he had taken that away. Save for his hands holding mine I would have run back to my room.

“And what about me?” he said. “What should I do if I lose my home and my job?”

“You? What do you have to worry about with all your posh friends? Even if you can't be a banker, you can bale hay and give advice. You'll have to have fewer parties, and Nell won't have as many new clothes, but you won't starve.”

He laughed, a little unsteadily. “That's what I love about you, Gemma. You're so dauntless, you go directly from A to B. Whereas all my life I've gone from A to B by way of G.” He kissed me and pulled me down beside him into an armchair. “Why have you been ignoring me? Ever since I came back you've behaved like I was a leper. What did I do to deserve such treatment? I haven't dared speak to you.”

“You went away.” It was true but it sounded like something Nell would say. I made another attempt. “You're older than me, you have a fancy job, a wardrobe full of suits, but that day we went to the Brough of Birsay you spoke to me as if we were equals—not employer and employee. Then the moment we got back you became all-important and busy. You couldn't take five minutes to tell me you were leaving, like any friend.” I felt him shift in the seat beside me, about to speak, but there was no stopping now. “And then you just show up again, with no warning, and you expect me to be thrilled. I have a life too. It doesn't begin and end with your comings and goings. How would you feel waiting day after day for someone who seems to have forgotten you exist? I may be your employee but I have opinions, thoughts, feelings.”

Before I could say more his arms were around me. I could feel him shaking with what, after a few seconds, I recognised as laughter. “So you waited for me,” he said, “day after day. And day after day I was working as hard as I could, struggling to get back to you.”

The house was not in any danger, he told me. He'd let everything go before he sold the estate, but it wouldn't come to that. “I didn't mean to tease you, but I didn't know if you cared for me, if you would care for me even if I weren't your employer. To you it probably seems like the natural order of things that I own Blackbird Hall, but this house, everything, was always going to be Roy's. At school he won the same prizes our father had; in the war he won the medals. Then he drove his car off the road and my parents were left with me, the second-rate son. No prizes, no medals, not even a good degree. I only got a two: two.”

He laughed again, giddily, as if he were opening presents very fast. “Nobody gives a damn about these things—two: one, two: two—but my father behaved as if the heavens had fallen. Being an orphan, Gemma, you don't know what it's like to have someone looking over your shoulder, judging everything you do. And when they're not there, you do the job for them: tell yourself, over and over, that you're not good enough. I left university determined to prove myself, and I did, but in a world my parents didn't understand, or give a ha'penny for. Once I sailed into Stromness on a friend's yacht. The first thing my father said to me was that the Sinclairs weren't show-offs. For a decade I only came here for funerals. By the time I realised what was happening to Alison it was much too late.”